I woke up this morning to a “like” on a blog post I’d written in 2018. I couldn’t even remember what I had written so I clicked on the link and went to my post. I read it, something about homemade, take with you Tasting Chocolate (look, I just linked it for you!), and then I clicked on another, and another. I think I lay there reading my old blog posts circa 2012-2018 for over an hour. It felt like I was reading someone else’s blog…I barely had memories of this former me who enjoyed cooking and quality ingredients, had a garden and propagated succulents.

What I did get from it was that this was a good writer. A funny writer, with interesting (to me) content.

Hey, wait a second, that’s me!

What has happened to that writing/creative enthusiast since then? Well…evolving motherhood ( I became a mom in 2013, so I still had the gumption to blog as I reared). Covid. And a rapid increase in the COST OF EVERYTHING. Oh, and a greatly diminished amount of time to devote to personal interests.

Exactly when did I decide that cooking was no fun anymore? Oh…when a head of cauliflower started costing $5-6 dollars.

I literally feel guilty buying food. Yeah. Food.

Out with all the organics and the green veg and the “clean” foods. That concept is just an unreachable ideal when a trip to the local grocery store ends in a bill that looks like you just went on a shopping spree at Costco…and a Costco bill equates to one round trip ticket to Canada.

So it’s my husband who does all the shopping. He buys whatever he finds on sale that week in the meat department, buys a few veg if I ask, and picks up large stock piles of random food items if they are at a ridiculous discount. We’re currently drowning in a mountain of shelf stable granola bars. And I am grateful for it, and for him, because I don’t want to do the shopping. It’s too depressing.

Meals now are what can I scrape together from the items he has brought into the house. I am not a purist anymore and I am certainly not even a clean-eatingist. I am a get it done-ist and good-enough-ist.

Not saying that one day I won’t return to the culinary/nutrition ideals of my pre-Covid self, but right now it’s about just making it so that bills are paid, that we are all fed and that’s about it, plain and simple. I am grateful that we can feed ourselves and that the only difference is that it’s not organic and our shelves get rather empty before the next shop (no more socking away extra, just cuz). First world problems, right?

Did I mention that in the pandemic I became a pet owner? Correction: owner of pets…plural. First a parakeet ( at the coaxing of my husband…there’s a whole story there, but let’s just say it was the “gateway” pet), then chickens…then a dog. A dog with stomach issues, requiring me to cook food for him. Yeah. I’m beat. Cooking is not fun right now. This is about survival, not creativity.

What creative energies I have, I have been channeling into my photography business, while the rest wallows on the wait list. My knitting, painting, drawing, sewing, writing, singing and uke playing sit idly, in the real as well as metaphorical “shed”, while room is made for my rapidly growing girls (10 and 8 respectively), as they graduate into separate rooms and I accordingly must shrink my own footprint.

So happening upon my wallowing blog was kind of nice. Like a walk down “faint memories” lane. And it has ignited another spark. The spark that loves to write. Can I find just a little time, now and then to write? I think maybe I can. No promises though, mind.

And rest assured, this blog is not going to be written by any sort of AI help. Call me a luddite, but here is where I take a stand. Here is where the hope of staying somewhat hip and in the know (I am already laughing at the thought that “hip” was ever assigned to me…it was not) ends. I may as well get those cushy, square, pleather old lady shoes, dye my hair a slight shade of blue/purple and get that walker. I am NOT going to let a program, as sophisticated and full of possibilities as it may be, replace my racing, thought-filled, word-filled brain. I will be the one typing out every word and typo, reconsidering, rewriting and then at some point saying “F-it, good enough!” and hitting publish. Take it or leave it.