Author: Vijaya Yalamanchili

I was very happy to convey to my kids that same day last year I did summit EBC. First thing Ani said was, its been a year since you did something good. Love this guy, he always brings me to ground level. His question posed me to think -What am I doing all this year,? where did the time go?

Overall, hiking to EBC can have a lasting impact on both your physical and emotional well-being, left with memories and experiences that will stay with me for a lifetime.
Hiking to EBC requires a significant amount of physical exertion, which can leave the body feeling fatigued and sore.

Altitude sickness is a real thing. As we ascend to higher altitudes, my body struggled to adjust to the reduced levels of oxygen in the air. This lead to altitude sickness, persisting headache still on for me even after an year.

Hiking to EBC can be a challenging and an emotional experience. There are times when I felt overwhelmed or discouraged by the difficult terrain and high altitude, but there are also moments of incredible awe and wonder as you take in the stunning views and reach new personal achievements. Still have those memories fresh in my mind.

Completing a challenging hike like the EBC trek gave a great sense of accomplishment and pride in myself. This translated into increased confidence and motivation in other areas of my life.

Now realizing this happened an year ago – realizing how soon time is flying – I need to speed up things, don’t have much time left for my next adventure. Stay tuned!!!

As a mother, you have a lot on your plate. You’re responsible for the well-being of your family, managing the household, and often times, working outside of the home. But when it comes to your high school-aged children’s education, the stakes can feel particularly high. You want them to succeed, to reach their full potential, but you might not always know how to help them get there. If you’re struggling with your high schoolers’ education, you’re not alone. Here are some tips to help you navigate this challenging time.

Communicate with your kids It’s important to have an open and honest dialogue with your children about their education. Ask them how they’re feeling about school, what they’re struggling with, and where they might need extra support. Make sure they know that you’re there to help them in any way you can.

Find resources There are many resources available to help you and your children with their education. Talk to their teachers, guidance counselors, and other parents in your community. Look for tutoring services or academic support programs that can help your kids succeed.

Create a routine Having a consistent routine can be helpful for your kids’ academic success. Make sure they have a dedicated study space, and establish set times for homework and studying. Encourage them to take breaks and engage in physical activity to help them stay focused.

Be patient Remember that academic success is not always immediate. It’s important to be patient and supportive of your children, even when they’re struggling. Encourage them to keep trying and to ask for help when they need it.

Take care of yourself Finally, it’s important to prioritize your own well-being as well. Don’t be afraid to ask for help or support when you need it. Take breaks and engage in self-care activities to help you manage stress and maintain your own emotional well-being.

In conclusion, being a mom of high schoolers can be challenging, especially when it comes to their education. But with open communication, resources, routines, patience, and self-care, you can help your kids succeed academically while also maintaining your own well-being. Remember that you’re not alone and that there are many resources available to help you and your family.

Fun days! Writing this after a long break from blogging. What happened past few years- Covid, WFH, Teen kids.. Everything hit me up like crazy. So many adopted very easily, but for me it took a long time to adjust. Happy to be back and writing my experiences again!

Ani is Sophomore and Rishi raising freshman in high school, they are no more babies. I treat them as teens and they seem to have a mental age of adults. Giving me all sorts of advises from finances to personal.

Last 1 month is a complete different experience with SV being out of country, single mom dealing with teen kids and work. I am tired plus covid like symptoms. My stars are against me and everything comes at one time. Ohh well, I know I can handle this. Just handling this is enough- nah, I can do better. What are my better things to do? Getting my priority list ready. Stay Tuned!

The Best Day of My Life

By Ani Simhadri

August 2019

    I was about the age of 13, maybe a couple of months before that, when I started to develop a keen interest in technology. All of the different types of devices fascinated me, especially laptops. I noticed how there was so much engineering and thinking involved in the design of this type of machine that I use just about everyday. For the first time in my life, I started to become more aware and just how complex a laptop truly is. So, just like any five-year-old that finds out about dinosaurs for the first time, I too, became obsessed with this technology. After a little bit of time, I became more fascinated by how much power I had at my fingertips in such a small, rectangular package compared to gargantuan PCs! I guess that’s why they say, “Big things come in small packages.” In addition to finding out about the power of laptops, the first thing that came to my mind was Apple. The reason for this is because Apple, although they have expensive products, they come with a great value and reliability, which is fantastic when buying anything from this powerful company. So there I was, hopping onto Apple’s website and looking at the MacBook section. As I was looking at the specs and other qualities, I was thinking to myself, “What? How can a laptop be this good and also still be able to embrace the slim and light weight that it is being able to hold?” Then I started to look at the compromises that I had to make, which was to buy one of these laptops. I had to completely empty my bank account because the lowest price for a MacBook Pro was $1299, and that is with an 8th generation i5 processor, was well as an 8GB of LPDDR3 RAM. Plus, the machine only came with a measly 128GB of storage, which for most light users is good because of iCloud Storage options. However, for anything other than that, you had to at least upgrade your Mac to a minimum of 256GB of storage, which increases the price by $200. Now a buyer would be sitting at $1500. Then there is the more expensive model that starts at $1800, and it comes with a 5% increase in performance, 2 extra thunderbolt ports, 256gb at minimum, and also a little bit faster SSD read and write speeds. During that time, I was also taking coding classes at Bayer just after they bought Monsanto. I needed an upgrade from my brother, Rishi’s, 3 year old laptop that had an i3 and 6gb of RAM. Don’t get me wrong. You can still code on that machine, but by the time everyone else was on the designated coding apps that they were supposed to be on, my brother’s laptop was basically just turning on, and so because of this delay, I lost a lot of valuable recap time and even some code at times. Also, my brother and I had been fighting over who can use the computer, and so we both made a deal that basically says, “I won’t use his laptop if he won’t use my computer.” (I had my own computer that he tends to use a lot) I also wanted a place other than the same place that I sit to do my work, and I wanted to work at my desk so that I could have more space and so that I won’t be cramped up just trying to lay the composition notebook down and use it without getting wrinkles in it. At this moment in time, I was deciding on a good computer to buy that had at least an Intel Core i5 Processor, 8gb of RAM, and and 128gb of storage if I was thinking about a MacBook and 256gb if I was going to get a Windows machine. If I fast forward a couple of days, we get to the part where my brother gets his own new phone. He was complaining because his last phone only had 8gb storage on it, and that basically means that he can only download one small app, and then no matter how small the next app was, you couldn’t download another one. Anyways, when my brother got his phone, I was feeling happy for him and all, but I also got really sad that he gets a phone when he is not even a teenager, but at the age of 10, I didn’t think that he should have a phone. At that moment, my mom comes to me and tells me to come into a separate room, and she tells me something that got me really excited and really pumped. While my brother was getting a new phone, I was going to get a new laptop. This laptop was not just any laptop, it was the MacBook Pro, the laptop that I liked the best. Well, the laptop that I liked the best except for the price tag on it. The laptop was so expensive that the minimum price for a laptop that was actually worth it costed about $1,799 US. That is really expensive, where as if you look at something like HP’s Envy 13, it has better specs, better design, and it costs about $400-$500 dollars less. Anyways, I was thinking about getting a Microsoft machine because it was a little bit cheaper alternative than a MacBook, so I looked at some reviews, and I shied away from it for one and only one reason. The trackpad. Yes, the trackpad had Microsoft precision tracking on it, and yes the trackpad is glass, but it just didn’t feel like the quality trackpad I would get on a laptop that I am using about $1000 to $1500 to purchase. I do understand that apple makes the best trackpads, and I was not expecting that kind of quality on a trackpad, but I was hoping that I could get a little bigger trackpad, and also a trackpad that wasn’t as mushy. Then, I found the HP Envy 13. It had a good trackpad that I was satisfied with, the keyboard was good, and the specs and OS met my expectations too. At that moment, I was thinking, wow! This might be the laptop to purchase. Then, I started doing more research on this laptop, and along the way, no other laptops caught my attention. All except one. The Lenovo Yoga c930. The Lenovo Yoga c930 has exceptional speakers, almost as good as a macbook’s, the keyboard is one of the more preferred keyboards out of the Lenovo brand which makes it one of the best keyboards, and also the trackpad is as good quality as I wanted it to be. Everything about it was just great, including the hinge that lets the laptop become a 2 in 1. The bezels were exceptionally thin all round except for the bottom, which is a little bit annoying. Now my father wanted to get the best laptop for me as long as it had a maximum price point of $1,500, and that was without tax. The laptop he had in mind was the MacBook Pro. He wanted this because MacBooks are the most durable laptops. That is a given. It also has all of the things that I look for in a laptop. The keyboard makes for a good typing experience, and the trackpad eliminates the need for a mouse. The sleek design would also help with traveling, although while minimal, it still is a factor. Last of all, MacOS Sierra. The operating system is just one of the best out on the market, and I truly wanted to have a go at it instead of using the windows operating system, which after a while got kind of boring. But anyways, that was the reason that my father wanted the MacBook. He was thinking, if we were going to buy something that was about $1,400, it at least had to have some top-notch build quality so that it wouldn’t break if I set it down on a workstation right away. 

Fast forward 2 months and we get to the part where my father says, “Hey Ani. Want to go and buy your new MacBook?”

I respond, “Sure!”

At the time that he asked me, I was wasting some valuable sparring time in taekwondo class. So we get there to the mall that has the apple store in it and we go towards the Mac systems. I was accompanied by my 21 year old cousin and my dad, along with my dad who drove us here. My brother broke away to look at the phone section of the shop. For a decently long time, he was asking my dad for an iPhone, and my dad said that he would buy my brother one, but for now, just look for a phone that won’t break the bank and I will choose if it is OK for you to get it or not. After Rishi says OK, the rest of us and myself go to look at the MacBooks after we signed up for an assistant. The assistant came and we started discussing about the differences in the MacBooks and which ones are the better ones for college, and how everything would work out. We also talked about the different models and how much of a difference the more expensive ones are compared to the less expensive ones. Then we started talking about all of the upgrades that we could do and how they would affect the performance, and how much storage we need even when there is iCloud available to store all of my documents that I will possibly use. After about another 15 minutes of deciding which laptop out of the 2 to choose, we decided to get the less expensive one because the performance boost to the next model was not that much. We also upgraded the storage to 256gb instead of 128 because since you can’t upgrade the storage in the future, he just thought that we could upgrade instead of having to face the consequences later on. So we got the laptop and everything, and I got it and came home. We got a free pair of beats and $100 off because we took the education pricing because our cousin was doing college at the time. Getting back to the point, we got the MacBook and used it for a week. On the 8th day, the MacBook started turning off automatically when it got to 50% battery, and so when we took it to the Apple store to return it, the apple attendant said that the problem did not always appear with customers that purchased the newer models. He said that it might have been because the system was gauging the battery differently, which meant that the laptop would show 50% battery, but then think it is at 0% battery, so it shuts off. They just said that they are going to give us a new model and see what is going on with the one we purchased before. At this point, on the date of August 25th, 2019, I have a MacBook Pro 13.3inch, that might have some problems with it, but other than that, it is my favorite laptop.

Notes to Self:

Typed on my first MacBook Pro that I got on August 15th, 2019

Much awaited trip to Zion & Bryce Canyon National Parks!

Since I heard about Angels Landing hike, I wanted to try this hike. Finally able to make a trip to Zion National park during Kids Spring Break. We flew to Las Vegas, Stayed there for night in Stratosphere.

Need to go back to Feb when we are planning for this trip, we got a reservation for stratosphere for the night before going to UTAH. Valentine’s day is around that time and SV asked me what I like for my valentine’s day, I told him that I don’t want any material gift but will have a memory to Jump off the stratosphere as a gift and he made sure that it is possible.

Yes, I did Jumped off of Stratosphere, 830 feet jump from top …frightened, but I did it when all my boys are watching me jumping from base 🙂 Awesome experience.

Kids enjoyed las vegas as well, never know that they will enjoy being in crowd and going around shopping.

Day 2 started with my adventure on stratosphere, we drove to UTAH, on the way we stopped at multiple places to enjoy the road trip. Sand Hallow beach is one of the stops, beautiful views, sand and water.. ..after spending some time we headed to our stay in LaVerkin, we rented a beautiful house, good choice and spent rest of our stay in that house. Gathered all the information needed for next couple of days to hike.

Day 3, woke up early, we cooked breakfast, packed lunch and headed to Zion national park, beautiful parks, both eyes are not enough to see this beauty, we all had a blast, Hiked Angels Landing, Couldn’t go to the peak top, but wow.. It’s a must see once in a life time. Proud of my boys that they are enjoying nature and into hiking. Pictures doesn’t do justice at all, you need to see this beauty to appreciate it.

Day 4, Again Zion 🙂 we did not have enough of it yesterday and visited Bryce Canyon, this is another beautiful place, we couldn’t do much here as many trails are closed with snow.  At the end of day we were very tired, but we are all glad we are tired and enjoyed the nature to core.

Day 5, We planned to start back and stopped at Sand hollow beach for ATV tour, this is a great experience, we had awesome fun, but ended up paying a lot as we broke one of the ATV 🙁

After all the adventures, headed back to vegas spent few hours on the strip with Bellajio fountain and shopping at Caesar’s forum mall. And it’s time to head back to reality and back to STL.

It was an awesome trip, but it ended up as an expensive trip so far with ATV band 🙂 

Money can’t buy Happiness, but it will certainly get you a better class of Memories – Ronald Reagan,

Memories are Forever, money is temporary – Vijaya Yalamanchili.

Writing this too late after the trip, but  like to capture the memories before it fades off from my brain.

Last time we went to Orlando is during 2011 Thanksgiving, Ani was 5 years and Rishi was 3 years at that time, we visited Animal Kingdom, Universal Studios and Magic Kingdom. Being very young they did not remember any bit out of that trip, So thought we will go again before they grow too old for Disney parks.

So here we go, finally made this trip in Jan 2019. It’s a short 3 day trip, but we made most out of it. Took a flight from STL to ORLANDO, Reserved a condo to stay during our stay- it’s a beautiful place to stay.

Day 1 – is flight to ORLANDO, pick up car, Orlando Mall with Crayola factory, Microsoft, VR tour etc… then at the end of day we headed to the stay where we cooked our breakfasts/dinner’s and relaxed after long days.

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Day -2 – Visited Epcot, beautiful park. Less crowded since we went after big Christmas break, not many lines, so it was a fun day with less crowds.

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Day -3 – Visited Kennedy Space Center, it’s a good educational tour for kids and us. We enjoyed it thoroughly knowing how advanced all the space related stuff is. Ani asked so many good questions to the guide helping us.

We stopped at beach on the way back and had lots of fun with sand and water. Perfect ending.

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Returned back to airport after returning rental car and headed back to St.louis.

This seems to be very simple, but lots of planning and execution involved in it, but hey- we had a life time memory that can cherish forever. Looking forward for more of these short trips around in 2019.

After a long break from blogging, here is an update from me.

I like to talk about stress in my life and importance of small things and big things in life.

When I was a kid, I had so much fun growing up with parents, grand parents and family around. Later when I started school in eluru, I came from a very low school and that added lot of stress. Kids are way polished, they have good grades and I struggled a lot to make good friends and to keep up with studies, but in few years.. I got up to a point where I became a leader to a group for whole school. Looking back, I still remember the stress I had when I started new school, So many good memories that I had after, but that stress surpassed all those good old memories.

I had super fun in my engineering days and so I don’t remember much of that. Bad is what keeps you following and good is what keeps you moving forward.

So many small conversations that goes inside my brain, for ex…

Me: I usually have a busy day from when I wake up till I go to bed every day. I always wanted to wake up early, so I can get some of my personal work done early in the morning

My Innerserself: my body alarm doesn’t cooperate with it- excuse 🙂

Me:I like to communicate more with friends and family

My Innerserself:I am not a phone person, wait but I spend lot of time on WhatsApp – another excuse.

Me: These Millets are buzzing everywhere, such a nonsense

My Innerserself:There may be some good about it, why will lot of people adapt to eating such tasteless food? I am still not eating 🙂

Afterall, I am a normal person, not a mahatma that I can say, I controlled all my emotions, I don’t have any desires etc..

The best thing that I learned is letting it go,

its ok to be late to an appointment,

its ok to miss a party,

its ok to skip work for a day,

its ok to extend your vacation for one more day even if it’s in last min,

its ok for kids to not finish their home works

But, it’s not ok to make it a habit of letting it go until things get out of control.

Me: This is so confusing, how do you balance ?

So many small things every day,  stress is what I cannot manage. How can I overcome it? Be more organized, better planning, being fair and keeping things straight, not postponing work, doing what I like and not caring what others are thinking. All these are easy to say, but how practical is it? Even after doing this if things are not coming into place, then I am believing there is something that is strongly forcing it to happen that way(Vedantham).

One thing I am learning these days is looking at adults and talking to them and analyzing their life style and patterns.

At least for me I classified important aspects of life into sections:

• Kids
• Work
• Family and Friends
• Financial

Let me tackle one after one:

Kids:

We stress a lot at this age about kids classes and their learning, but let’s compare how many kids that excelled in school, failed later in life and vice versa. It’s all in their destiny. Parenting is tricky. I don’t care about my kids getting good grades or not, but I care if they are being responsible, constant learners, enjoy life and willing to help others. That will pay them in long term.

Later once they go to colleges, we start worrying about their future, job.. Etc. Its ok, it’s all in their destiny where they land. Just give them a supporting hand and they will just do fine.

Work:

Being asian, already inherited hard working and quick learner in DNA 🙂 Who don’t like that? If your work is not being admired and praised, “it’s time for you to move”. You spend about 1/3 rds of your life at work. It needs to be a encouraging and challenging environment, which is open to ideas. Don’t combine WORK and HOME. Switching off work side after stepping into Mom’s hat is the key.

Financials:

I follow my financial guru – Robert kiyosaki. Just follow him, you don’t need to learn much here 🙂 Jokes a part, I think how much ever we have, it’s not sufficient. Someone said that if you have a roof to cover you and food on your plate you are rich than many people. But I think if you have strength and willingness to work and a brain in good condition, you can easily earn. My goal is to be independent and not to be dependent in later years of life. That is more important for me than how luxurious my life is now.

Family and Friends:

Quality is more important for me than quantity. I can say that my family and friends close to me are always there for me, what else do I need. You cannot please everyone all the time, its ok to ignore some things in life and move on..

When you think about all these big things– already have a plan built and nothing will stop happening if you stress out more… that’s why there is no point of overthinking on these small issues.

So much to write…but I will end with … nothing will stop even if you are not there, enjoy what you have while you are here. You can do ANYTHING, but not EVERYTHING.

When this little boy is introduced to our life’s we have no idea what we are looking forward for- That’s my baby Rishi. He is 10 year old now, he is super naughty, sweet heart, he loves to be around me, very passionate about basketball- day or night if he is on a schedule he works towards it, Knows his responsibilities, very friendly- sometimes it hard for me to keep track of his friends list and his sleep over schedules :-), stylish – not sure where he got this from (both me and his dad doesn’t have those styling skills), He is the one that reminds me every day to close all doors, shut down lights before sleeping. He is guide to his brother(Ani) in most cases. Very motivated, Dramatic, chatterbox, workout freak, short tempered, have money and financial sense…and the list goes on.

It’s very rare to see so many distinguished qualities in a 10 year old kid, of course this generation is superfast, but this guy is superfast for his generation.

Rishi’s goal is to become an NBA Player, or atleast coach NBA Players 🙂

It’s not easy to raise a kid that is multitalented, he tries to put his hands on everything and try’s to imitate whatever comes in his way- that scares me. Sometimes he argues with me like a adult, with a strong voice and with a conclusion of I am doing it this way. I wish he takes a minute and thinks before he talks or comes to conclusions.

I made Upma for breakfast otherday, he doesn’t like it in general. But still I made it 🙂 My theory is to make them familiar with Indian tastes. He said that Upma is close to him now a days, I was surprised to listen that and then he explained that Upma has “amma” in it and that’s his reason, he throws all these butter biscuits at me … love this Kiddo!

He is his Dad’s boy, he has talent to convince his dad for his needs. I am strict with him(Indian parenting – if one parent is not strict kids will be spoiled mentality)

I like to save a memory from last week here- Rishi loves his hair and he spends almost 30 minutes every day before going to school styling it with gels. Almost from over an year he doesn’t let me come for his haircuts, he knows I won’t let him do his undercuts etc…. He always take his Dad and get whatever kinda of hair he needs. This time I made clear, I am coming and getting a neat haircut. He thought he can convince me. I told the stylist to do a neat hair cut. All his long grown hair is gone, looking in mirror he was so upset and cried for almost an hour, that he doesn’t look good. He gave me so much crap, he is not going to school with this cut etc.. Etc..

But look today, don’t have his hands on his hair while playing, no more time waste before going to school on styling, can take head bath whenever needed 🙂 There is a reason for me being strict.. Right Rishamma 🙂

I am sure this guy will end up very successful, if he works on his focus and controls that short temper, not sure at this point where I can help on, that works for him.

Rishi, I am sure you will make me proud sometime soon being a responsible and successful young man, Love you TONS! I wish you all success in whatever path you step into!

Your perspective always changes with time. It’s fun to sit back and watch things that changes in time.

Ani was 6 year old when I started working at RGA. I worked in a very flexible work space until then and RGA is very high demanding and stressed work environment with no flexibility. After few days of start Ani said “Amma I don’t like your new job, I like your old job” you are not spending much time with me is his complaint then. Now after 6 years, started at Centene. I have little more time now, seems to get my life back. With about 2 weeks after new start, Ani who is 12 now and into his pre- teen said same dialogue, “Amma I don’t like your new job, I like your old job” same dialogue, but this time it’s because I have more time I am concentrating more on kids 🙂 Same dialogue but completely contrast in sense.

It makes sense from his perspective, I left him for a while on his own and now poking with his day to day activities every day, doesn’t seem to go well with him. May be I should step back and help him seamlessly if he needs.

Time is all it takes 🙂