And I'm done!

With trading in futures and options for good !!!

Have been dilly-dallying in the last couple of months.. made major losses within the first couple of months (have been at it since Nov), and then was just hanging in there hoping to make atleast some of it back before exiting - atleast that's the mantra I've been chanting to convince myself it's not just madness. But everytime I reduce my losses, I once again seem to lose nearly that exact same amount if not a little more and go back to the same total humongous amount.

Told myself that at the end of this month I find my losses to be still close to or more than what it was, I would stop. So here I am, reiterating that as of tomorrow when I will square off my last remaining open position, mostly at a loss too - THIS IS IT. I will get back to dealing only in stocks, also after doing enough research and not taking anyone's recommendation blindly.

And by the way this is not completely of my own doing, but because of using an Active Trader Service which specializes in a call-and-trade option, which I had thought meant I would get recommendations which I could decide on and call the broker, but it basically means a broker from their end will call you 20 times a day with seemingly do-or-die calls, and you will repeatedly keep getting pulled into it unless you have the will power to say no.

Do they have a Traders Anonymous I wonder ?!

Throw a tantrum or get taken for granted..

Or of course choose a middle path I suppose.. but that was definitely not an option for me today.
Went to pick up some of D's uniform stuff which is bulk-made for their school by Adidas.. should have expected a distributor type of outlet instead of a posh retail one.. but I guess that was just the first stumbling block..

Got the shoes, socks without much ado.. last on the list was a white t-shirt.. now clothes - especially the children's are something I am very particular about - if I'm paying for something new, it should look new.. I pride myself on being able to spot any marks or issues with what I'm buying.. This guy brought out a t-shirt from his godown - without any packing material on it - checked my daughter's size and gave it to us. I of course had to give it the once-over - it was a white t-shirt after all - and found some dust marks on it. When this happens in a standard shop, I ask for a different piece in the same style and take it if it's there or leave it behind. In this case I didn't have an option of not taking anything, so the guy was trying his best to palm off the piece on us, excusing the dust marks as having come from his hands which were dusty!! According to him, he had just 2 pieces in that size - one was taken that morning and this was his last remaining.

I totally lost my cool - told him if he was supplying the whole school how could he make an excuse of not having stock of pieces. When a couple of hundred children of the 1st standard would ask for that size, he would have just 2 of them handy - nice try, but no way it was true. Also they started issuing the stuff on 9th April, so not that we had gone at the end of the time (end of May) when this excuse might have actually made sense.

As if to prove his point, he took my hubby to the godown which was a bit counter to his case, as they apparently found a piece of that size. There was also a further sarcastic exchange when he cautioned me about taking the t-shirt out of the packing to check the size, as he wouldn't be responsible for it being dirty, and I responded that I had faith in the cleanliness of my hands unlike his!!

Phew.. at the end of it all the thing that most surprized me was hubby's rejoinder that we can't "afford" to behave like that and that there would have been a more polite way of getting things done.. also about how the guy was obviously uncomfortable being at the receiving end by a woman... Now I'm usually on the other end of the bargain - pacifying hubby against getting irritated - believe me - I am usually polite, but this situation just seemed to push all my buttons (maybe in trying to be more patient with my children I don't have much left over for anyone else) - because the guy at the outlet was totally taking us for granted and I ended up getting all the more irritated with hubby for not being "supportive" ! Also has to do with having been naive and non-confrontational and taken for granted in such transactions for much of my life, and having come out of that mould with great difficulty.

Did feel a little bad later though as I know people who deal with customers all day have a tough time of it, but why should I be at the receiving end of their frustration? I hope that I was just standing up for myself, and not being petty :(.

Wow that felt good to get off my chest.. !!

P90 - week 1

My long awaited (by me ;)) exercise chronicle begins at last. I'd been hearing a lot about this exercise routine called P90X from a friend of mine on Facebook, until finally I decided I really must find out more about it and see if I could attempt it. From the description of it, I found that it might be a bit extreme for someone totally out of touch with exercising for quite a long time, so on looking around for options, found the much toned down version P90 - it's basically a 90 day routine, by which you should be able to see some results if it's working for you.

Start Date: 28th March 2011
Weight: 58.7 kgs
Fat % : 28.1%

The routine is very varied and one type of exercise usually only lasts a maximum of 2 minutes, so it definitely never gets boring. The suggested schedule is a sculpt routine, alternated with cardio and abs routine with one day of rest in a week. The trainer Tony Horton really connects well to the audience, and keeps your attention for the reasonably short 30 or 40 minute routines.

After 6 days of working out, I find my weight to be up to 59.1, but fat % reduced to 27.8 ! Maybe i'm building muscle and losing fat, atleast i hope so ;). Not following any major diet schedule, because my intention is not really weight loss as I have usually not had a problem with being within the appropriate weight range(except at one point when my daughter was 2 years old, and finishing all her leftover food started pushing my weight upwards!!). The main result I'm hoping for is a general toning and increase in stamina, and of course a significant reduction of tummy fat !

Routines

What is it with me and keeping to a routine about Anything? Here are the things that I want to be regular at but don't manage to get into a routine cos it got too monotonous after a while

1. Exercising - of course this is on everyone's list. For me this includes not just exercising for fitness but even for health like these exercises i'm supposed to be doing for spondylitis that i'm starting off with - did them for a couple of weeks but now I keep finding excuses for putting them off even at the risk of my neck beginning to feel quite stiff !
2. Keeping accounts - I would dearly like to keep a tab on where all the money goes, but never manage to stick to keeping notes for more than days at a time! Tried doing it on paper, on excel, even budgeting software when I suddenly got an enthusiasm for it. Maybe it is an underlying belief that I'm sure that I'm not spending on frivolous items but only on stuff for the house and children, but it still leads to unnerving moments when I have withdrawn 5K days before and find nothing in my wallet :(
3. Housekeeping - I see things lying around, I know they must be cleared up, but on some days my mind just refuses to order my arms and legs to go about it ! Drives my husband crazy when he comes home at the end of a tiring office day cos he's a bit of a cleanliness freak, but even at the cost of keeping the peace I just cannot get to it sometimes!
4. This one is not about routine but about giving up routine - Farmville ! I keep telling myself to give it up and do something more constructive, and manage to do exactly that for a few days but then slowly find myself drawn back.. crops might have withered and I might have a million requests to return.. but yet here I am again at the same faintly irritated but addicted stage I was a week ago !!

Of course by writing this down I hope to feel more accountable(guilty?!) and find more interesting means of getting things done!

Impatience..

I have always considered myself short-tempered. This was not very obvious in a work environment which was my primary realm for 7 years, since the type of interactions you have with colleagues is of a more light-hearted type, and your personality doesn't come so much into professional dealings.

But in the last 5 and a half years, when I have been a stay at home mom bringing up my daughter and now my son too, it really worries me sometimes if my lack of patience is affecting their temperament in life too. I can see now that my son (who's already in his terrible twos) mimics my loss of temper with reacting the same way when I raise my voice to him. I wonder if impatience or short temper is in the genes or if it is something we pick up by example through our subconscious when we are at an impressionable age.

About 6 months back, I was diagnosed as hypothyroid and though I didn't have any major symptoms that I could figure out other than hairloss maybe, I have since then realized that "something" has just worsened my impatience. On some evenings I feel like the children are completely out of control and it builds up to such an extent that things just boil over and spill out. Thanks to my husband pointing out that it sounded like I was the one out of control, and that I sounded very unlike my usual self, that I have become more aware of these times, and manage to step back and hold on to my temper by taking deep breaths or some such thing. But on days like yesterday when he was not around and I was managing both the children on my own and they were making me repeat everything 10-20 times before getting things done, I just lost it :(.

I am hoping to put down some of these things to remind myself to work towards bettering the way things are. Any behavioural problems on the part of children are only compounded by our impatience or short temper being shown on them. Although I believe a totally soft upbringing is not the right way, we have to find the balance between reprimanding children when necessary, versus their small mischiefs/misdemeanours becoming the brunt of our temperament on a certain day. Wow that was so easy to put down, soooo difficult to practice!!!!!