The Stub Ends of 2019

How did it get to be December 31 already?

In my late November post, I noted that the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving had been hard, making that unexpected Thanksgiving so much the more special. The pace and the issues did not slack off after that holiday, but steamed ahead into December.

The last two months of this year have been brutal, including grandson Orlando being hospitalized in PICU for RSV. But there are slivers of hope and light: Orlando got home and is healthy again. Dad will be coming home from the skilled nursing facility this Friday after a long stay. Another person in my life who has been homeless and recently gave birth to incredibly premature babies and lives with significant mental health issues (can we say "Enough" yet?) may be (we hope; I hope) approved for an apartment with the help of community agencies and others stepping forward to get and keep her housed. (I'm awaiting the approval call from the leasing office.)

Little bits of hope, of forward progress.

December is always a whirl for the musician in our household. Warren's last gig, a Christmas cantata at a Columbus-area church, was on December 22.  It is such a relief when the last one is done, beautiful though some of them are. I attended most (all?) of the performances, which included a stunning choral concert one weekend and our Symphony's holiday concerts (possibly the best ever) two weekends later. There were times when I closed my eyes and let the music wash over me.

Little notes hanging in the air.

Hanukkah just concluded. Warren kept me close company while I lit my menorahs. The second night, in large part because of the chaos and hardships going on, I sank to the carpet in front of them and lit them from that position, my voice cracking from stress and tears coming into my eyes. (I put my menorahs on a small outdoors table positioned by our front windows; the menorahs are at eye level if I sit on the floor, as I discovered that night; it turned out to be so gratifying that I lit the menorahs from that position the remaining nights.) Lighting the candles, saying the prayers, and reflecting on my beliefs (spiritual, personal) carved out some much needed space and silence. On the eighth and final night, I looked up at Warren (in a chair next to me) and asked "would you like to light one of the menorahs?" The thought had never occurred to me to ask him and it caught us both by surprise. Yes, he did, and yes, it meant so much to me.

Little bits of light.

So here I am, on the last day of the year, thinking of what the year held (including our new grandson) and what the year ahead may hold. I am looking to focus even more on the essentials and cut away the excess and the unnecessary, whatever that may mean. I am looking to try to truly hold each day in my heart.

Little bits of light, little bits of hope.

November Money Review

I started my October Money Review with the observation that if (if) we spent $175.00 in both the month of November and the month of December, we would finish the year with an average monthly outlay for groceries and household items of a little over $180.00 a month. We would have to spend $140.00 or less those last two months to bring the monthly average to $175.00, my target. I then sagely noted, "I'm not sure we will hit that mark."

We did not hit that lower mark ($140.00) or even the higher mark ($175.00) for November. We came in at $236.13, all but $2.14 (two boxes of tissues) in food. Our monthly average year-to-date? $186.98.

I made some quirky marginal notes about our November shopping patterns  that I will share here. On the first day of November, we spent $9.75 on "candy." The candy in question was delicious gourmet dark chocolate peanut (or almond) bark from The Milk Shake Factory, a stunning fixture in Pittsburgh for over a century. There were two turkeys, one thawed for our unexpected Thanksgiving, the other still deep in our freezer. Those came to a little over $10.00 because Meijer was selling their brand frozen turkeys for 33⍧ a pound. There was almost $36.00 worth of butter purchased at $1.99 a pound because butter has been sky high and we have room in our freezer. There was a little over $10.00 worth of food costs related to two events I hosted or co-hosted. There was also $9.00 worth of Krusteaz boxed cookie mix because Krusteaz mixes are delicious and when baking for something that comes up quickly, they do the trick.

And then there was the Thanksgiving Eve dash to the store to replace a can of canned pumpkin. For the first time ever in my life, when I went to open an ordinary can, the contents first hissed and then oozed up through the first opening I had made with the can opener. (I thought the lid had looked a little flexed, but I wasn't sure.) I'm casual about food safety but not stupid. What was stupid was opening the can of coconut milk (I use a pumpkin pie recipe that calls for coconut milk) with the same can opener and realizing too late that there was pumpkin ooze now contaminating the coconut milk. Both went down the sink and the resulting run to the store cost $3.59.

Note: The pie was delicious. 

Further Note: The Thanksgiving turkey carcass was made into delicious dark stock that Very. Same. Day.

So if you add up those little marginalia notes and then subtract them, our food costs would have come in below $160.00.

There was a grocery triumph or two, nonetheless, the greatest being the almost $40.00 worth of groceries purchased for $4.92, thanks to a combination of coupons and a quarterly rebate I get by using my Kroger Mastercard (a card I pay off in full every two weeks: no balance carried forward here).

Our eating out costs were all related to conferences: no coffee dates, no "let's just grab a bite to eat." Eating out costs came to an eye-watering $155.29, with $79.48 of that being assigned to Indianapolis (our annual trip to Percussion Universe) and the rest to our two days at my conference in Pittsburgh.

Yeah, November was expensive.

I'm not sure what December will bring. One of our November purchases was raw peanuts for Warren's holiday peanut brittle (about $17.00 worth), so that is out of the way. On the other hand, I will be making biscotti as always; while I certainly have enough butter for the cookies, I have yet to purchase the almonds. I'm not sure what the holiday meals will bring (who is going where for what); Dad is still in skilled nursing. So our costs may come in (she writes optimistically) around $170.00.

Or $150.00.

Or $250.00.

Stay tuned.