The Small Things That Improved the Year

A few purchases that made us happy.

Our family has always erred on the cautious side with Covid. We hunkered down until vaccines became available, having groceries, staples, and carry-out food delivered. My husband and I used to enjoy lunch dates in the Beforetimes so this became “order lunch for delivery” during the pandemic.

Eventually, we began to order from separate restaurants and simply ate at the same time. Why not each enjoy our food of choice? I’m a sucker for breakfast food, so I would often order fancy pancakes, a skillet, or my favorite — eggs benedict (a vegetarian variety).

Eventually, we got our vaccines and re-integrated ourselves with society. Expensive carry-out food became less frequent.

I really missed my eggs benedict. So much so that in November of 2021, I bought a pan that would cook me perfectly poached eggs and found packets of seasoning to make hollandaise sauce at the grocery store. I’m a happy camper once again.

I saw something on Twitter recently asking people to share the small purchases (under $100) that made them happy in 2021. For me, it was this egg poacher pan that cost $16.95 and that I use multiple times per week.

As I reflected on my quick answer to the “best purchase of 2021” question, I began to think about how each of my family members would likely respond — or what I perceived to be their best purchase.

1. A subscription to a meditation app

You would think that this would be an adult purchase, but actually, I renewed my subscription to Headspace primarily for my 9-year-old son.

He is still working on how he responds when he is angry. Usually, he blows up (not uncommon for his age). He’ll yell, bang his fists on a table, or slam a door. All of which is normal for his age, but often he’ll fester on his anger long after his initial reaction.

I subscribed to Headspace in 2020 for myself but found that I didn’t use it as much as I would have thought. However, in 2021 I began to use it with my son. Headspace has kid meditations, including “cool down.” If he stormed off in a rage, I would give him a few minutes and then go into his room and ask him to do a meditation with me. We would go through the process of breathing deeply and most of the time it was enough to get him back to even keel.

I’ll be continuing the subscription for years just to use it with my kids. I’ve even started using it with my 4-year-old when she’s having a meltdown.

2. A Kindle Fire tablet case

Both of my older kids have Kindle Fires, gifts from Santa years ago. They don’t use them much, preferring the Nintendo Switch.

This year, we were given a Kindle Fire free with a washer and dryer purchase from Best Buy. It sat in the box for a very long time. My older kids obviously didn’t need it, my husband wasn’t interested in it, and I already have a Kindle Paperwhite.

Finally, I decided that maybe the 4-year-old would like it. I changed all of the settings so she could only access books. I bought a Kindle Fire tablet case — complete with cat ears.

She loved it. She often appears at my side around 5:30 a.m., long before anyone else is awake. She reads “cat books” while I work on writing. And at 4 years old, she is more than proficient at navigating the Kindle Fire and choosing books on her own. I have her Amazon profile set up so that only age-appropriate books are displayed.

3. An air fryer

I know people who have been singing the praises of air fryers for a long time. It wasn’t until I made some frozen egg rolls from Trader Joe’s a few months ago that I began to ponder one for our own house. I just knew that the egg rolls could have been crispier than our oven produced.

My husband has an Instant Pot that he loves and uses daily. He uses it for a lot of meat and I’m a vegetarian so I barely know how to turn it on. When I brought up the idea of “air fryer” he told me that he thought we could get a new Instant Pot with an air fryer attachment.

At first, he tried to convince me that we needed two Instant Pots. That was a hard pass from me — we have no space to store the extra Instant Pot for the two times per year when a second would be needed. I told him that he could get the new Instant Pot if he found a home for our existing kitchen appliance. We ended up giving it to some friends and he gave them a full run-down of all of Ida’s capabilities (yes, our old Instant Pot was named Ida).

We ended up going with a Ninja instead of an Instant Pot. We made the purchase right around Thanksgiving when it was on sale which was nice for our wallet. The air fryer attachment has been appreciated.

4. A giant stuffed sloth

I usually plan Christmas gifts well in advance and am done purchasing around Thanksgiving. With all of the warnings this year around “supply chain issues!” I made extra certain that my shopping was done.

Then in December, I found myself in World Market looking for a lamp for my office. I hadn’t been in World Market since before the pandemic (even got lost on the way to the store because apparently, my brain couldn’t remember where it was located).

As I walked back toward the lighting section I passed a giant stuffed sloth. I mean massive — it had to be at least four feet tall. I thought that my oldest son would love to receive this for Christmas. I took a photo of it and texted it to my husband, asking if he thought I should get it. He replied back, “No.”

So I left World Market but couldn’t stop thinking about the sloth. Since our son is in that pre-teen stage, I know that there are only a few years left that he would appreciate a silly gift like a 4-foot stuffed sloth. I returned to World Market the next day and got it for him.

It was his favorite Christmas gift.

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