That feeling when you come home at 9:30pm and there is a reminder on your phone “Ashtami is tomorrow”, and the first thing you do after you drop your bags, is to look for kale chane, sooji, and ghee in the pantry!! And then you realize that there is not enough ghee to make the halwa tomorrow :(((((((((((

I suck at all things desi, and one of the few things I do is make halwa chole puri on Ashtami, and I cannot even do that tomorrow morning because I don’t have ghee!!

So we will have to postpone the Ashtami bhog to the evening, when I will have zero energy to come home and make these things! I know I should stop complaining. But I don’t understand why Instacart cannot do overnight delivery! Is it really too much to expect ghee at my doorstep at 6:00am the next day?

I can always make halwa with whatever ghee I have and make another batch in the evening 😦 I think that’s what we are going to do. Sigh!

I love Instacart because it is a huge time saver. And even though I am mad at the product right now, I am so glad that I won’t have to drive to a store to pick up ghee on my way back. It will just be at the doorstep in the evening.

On a serious note, we haven’t had a,” oh my there is no milk in the house” moment in so long, thanks to Instacart. For two working parents, this service is a life saver. I prefer to pick my produce, but the sundry grocery items don’t need the nit picking. And as long as I trust the brand I am comfortable with an Instacart shopper helping me out 😀

One of the many reasons why Instacart saves me time is because I get pretty carried away in WF. In fact this weekend Tara called me out after a few rounds of the aisles, “Mommy I think we have enough.” My little helper. She knows how I can spend hours in those aisles 🙂

Also for an impulsive cook like me, I need my ingredients now, and no I don’t want to always plan ahead. That’s a slippery slope since Instacart has a minimum order amount for free delivery (despite the annual membership). Those are the times when I add an extra Chipotle spice that will only be used once in a blue moon, and a Boiron arnica pain relief medicine that I don’t intend to ever use, to the cart, just to the get order up to the min amount.

Regardless, I like the flexibility of not having to go to a store to buy the same list of weekly must haves. And it also comes in handy when Tara wants to bake cupcakes, and I have run out of vanilla essence. Or days like today when I need ghee and I don’t want to go to a store on a week day, after work.

On another note, Mommy turns 70 today! It’s a big milestone. More reason to make halwa 🙂

Today was a pretty packed day. Started with an 8:30am meeting, with a very late lunch which led to a hangry me, and then two interviews. I get it I am an extrovert, but there are days when talking to strangers exhausts me. Today was one of them. Then we had Sam’s farewell drinks at Bldg50. Gosh I will sorely miss working with him. And after chugging down my sazerac, I drove in peak traffic to Stanford Continuing Ed campus for a class with Tracy Wilk and JeanAnne Nicols. This is my first in-class course at Stanford Continuing Ed. I really enjoyed the live group discussions. So much better than the community group discussions in SAPM.

My walk back to the car from the Lathrop Library was chilly but reflective. I don’t know what makes me seek out these classes so much. There is a part of me that always wants to go back to school, to enjoy it without any burden of loans, and visa issues. May be some day I will. May be tonight was a start. Who knows where this leads me. But who cares. I had fun.

Happy Durga Puja, Dussehra and Ashtami, and Navmi – whatever you celebrate, or don’t, just keep calm and eat the halwa