Home sweet home!

Today's is Maharashtra's New Year, aka Gudhi Padwa. Here's wishing all readers a very happy New Year! It is a time of new beginnings, new hopes and new aspirations. Time to bid goodbye to the old and heartily embrace the new.

It is one of the three and a half muhurtas (auspicious days) in the year when people buy major item such as gold. It is also a good day to move into a new home, job or business. We moved into our home a few years ago on this very day. I was reminded of our relentless search for the place of our dreams. A place that we can call our own, which will become our permanent address in this town and which I would decorate with my own hands. We've come a long way toward that dream. Our home is an oasis of peace and harmony in the melee of life. Today, when the economy is still struggling and the property prices are rising at an alarming rate, buying a house has become a pipe dream for many.

Flash back to a few years, when we searched high and low for our dream home. It had to be close to our workplaces, it had to be close to at least one set of parents, yet within easy distance of good schools and where the property will keep appreciating over the years. All this within our budget too. It was infact on the higher side for us, but boy was that a sound investment! When we bought it, many derided us that it is too remote, almost out of town. Now, we are well connected not only to the city but also to the expressway going to Bengaluru and Mumbai. Also, the property has appreciated quite a bit since we moved in. The initial hiccups during the move, having to get the furniture, painting and decoration done while both of us were juggling with our work assignments, and no one at home to oversee these, was a challenge. But all the sweat and pain seems worth it when we relax at our palace on laid-back days such as today! Its our nest that we have put together twig by twig over the years and is still a work in progress.

Could not help but pat our backs today, when I recall a difficult, and life-changing decision, that we took on this day some years ago:)