Jumpstarted by Two Youths

This is not a post about Millennials or Generation Z. When I wrote "Youths" in the title,  I was referring to individuals under the age of 15, and I'm only hedging on that because I can't remember how old Liam is, although he is still in middle school, so I know I am more than safe with that age range. The other young person is Ramona, who is not yet eight and a half years old.

So, jumpstarted by youths. I could say "inspired," but "jumpstarted" is more accurate. I just had my car battery replaced, and Warren had to jumpstart me on two different occasions just before that, so that sound of turning the ignition key and hearing the power surge on is spot on. 

Ramona first. Ramona my oldest grandchild, Ramona the amazing. After months of irregular video chats,  complicated by busy schedules, online schooling, activities, family matters, and time zone differences, to name a few factors, she and I now chat online on Wednesday afternoons (my time) as Wednesday is the weekday her online school classes are the shortest. As has always been the case with Ramona, she hits the conversational ground running and we never know where that talk will lead. It is a blast.

During our most recent talk, we started off talking books. Ramona reads a lot of fantasy, especially if it features dragons. She is enthralled with the Wings of Fire series and sometimes we explore tangential threads to that series, including dragonflies of the genus Pantala, also known as rainpool gliders, which Ramona immediately connected to the Rainwings in the series and drew comparisons between the characteristics of the dragonfly (I read them aloud) and the dragons.

She then segued to a "chapter book" she is writing. She wanted to read some of it to me, but it is packed away in preparation for her family moving (today, in fact). However, she recited (or pulled up on her iPad) a list of the characters and ran through them quickly. I then shared with her that I was writing a novel, but I had not worked on it in months (well, years).

Ramona bounced straight up. "What? You're writing one? What is it about?" I  told her it was a novel about her completing a quest with the help of Aunties Jenna and her little brother. She beamed when I said it was about her. "Read some of it to me," she demanded. 

Well, what could I do with a command request like that? I got my manuscript (which is always, always setting out) and told her I would read her the prologue, after asking her if she knew what a prologue was. Polite eye roll. Yes, she was very familiar with prologues (and correctly explained it to me) as well as epilogues (the same), adding, patiently, "I know all the logues."

So I read it to her. 

There was a split second of silence, then an outburst. "That's good! Read more."

I read a little more, with Ramona asking questions, then told her I haven't finished it and haven't been working on it. 

Ramona cut me no slack.

"You need to finish it."

After we finished talking, I told Warren about reading some of the novel (which he has not read) to Ramona and her response. Then I added, "I want to go back to it and see it through. I thought it was just a discarded idea, but now I feel ready to tackle it again." 

Ramona jumpstarted me. 

The second jumpstart was with Liam, the middle-school aged son of my friend Cecelia. I have known Liam since before he went to kindergarten. Recently, Liam got both a Facebook page and a new camera, and has been posting photos on his page. 

Liam has a good eye. Several of the adults in his Facebook world have said that to him, including me. It's one of those intangible "I know it when I see it" qualities; Liam has it.

I have written before about my love of photography. When I was Liam's age, I started thinking about whether I could be a photographer; National Geographic was my goal. I set that career path aside long ago, but I still love photography and cameras and seeing what others are doing in the field. I have a great camera; I mean to use it more, but, like the writing (all writing, not just the novel), it gets set aside too easily.

Yesterday Liam posted some of his latest work. It was really, really good. I had my same reaction: Liam has a good eye. (And you bet I told him that on Facebook.) I had a second reaction, which I did not post but came naturally: I miss photography.

Which is why when I saw the morning sun lighting up the kitchen, particularly the pot of beans on the stove, I took this photo, then posted it on Facebook with the comment, "Liam, you are totally responsible for this shot."

Just because

Because he was. Like Ramona, his enthusiasm for photography jumpstarted my too often dormant love of it. Because of that surge of energy, I saw the plain pot and the sun and the day entirely different.

Jumpstarted by the young ones. What a gift.

Food Spending in December

Well, was that a year or what?

And I'm just talking about groceries.

Way back in the old, pre-pandemic days, I set a goal of our spending $180.00 a month in 2020 on groceries, including household items such as detergent and toilet paper.

That seemed reasonable. More than reasonable. That was a little higher than the $175.00/month we'd been overshooting, and not that far off of what we averaged in 2019.

Easy peasy. 

Well, okay, we overshot that amount the second month in, but I was pretty sure we could rein our spending in and go through the year hovering around $180.00.

Excuse me while I roll on the floor laughing.

I just finished tallying our December grocery purchases. Food? $278.39. Household? $7.99. Grand total? $286.38.

I can explain some of the December spike. Meijer (a Midwest grocery chain) had a great pre-holiday sale on smoked, spiral-sliced hams. We bought two, making one for Christmas and freezing one for later. That was about $20.00 right there. Towards the end of the month, Kroger had fresh salmon on sale. That was another $40.00. (Yes, we have a lot of meat right now in our freezer!) I bake a lot of almond biscotti in December, and this year baked other cookies as well for the musicians performing in the remote  holiday concert. Baking supplies on one outing ran over $26.00. And that doesn't count the almost $14.00 spent (again at Kroger) after the holidays when we discovered that Kroger had discounted much of the extra supplies it brought it for holiday baking: coconut, semi-sweet chocolate chips, semi-sweet Baker's chocolate. 

So, yeah, it added up. And, to be fair, we have a lot of items that will carry us through January.  (Heck, on the meat front, since we only eat meat a few times a week, we can probably go until June or later.)

Monthly average for 2020 when all was said and done? $237.12, or about $58.00 a month over what I had originally thought was reasonable. But that original figure did not take into account the pandemic. Food costs did rise around here. Meat rose, at times sharply. I'm glad we don't eat a lot of it. At different times of the year, eggs, milk, and some produce all rose. So maybe our final result was par for the course compared with other friends.

I will note there was one (one!) eating out expense in December, 2020. I had infusion later in the day than normal in December. My infusion day, not counting travel, runs about five and a half hours from the moment I check in; travel adds another hour plus to the day. So coming home late in the afternoon, tired, worn out, and hungry. (I don't eat at infusion; since the Covid restrictions went into effect, it is more challenging for me to deal with eating and drinking.) There is a KFC right at the highway interchange just as we turn onto the last stretch of highway to Delaware. I'd already told Warren: turn in there. It was a superb way to spend $11.35.

I'm still mulling over what approach to take in 2021. Set a new goal? Just go with the flow? Something else?  I think it is very important coming into this year to watch the grocery figure as I will explain in a post I hope to have by next week. 

But this is enough for now. The 2020 spending on food is in the books. Let's see what 2021 brings.