This smart Bumblebee is jumping from flower to flower getting her sweet nectar. Jumping can be tricky. No one wants to fall or miss the target. Fortunately, these flowers are close together making jumping easy for the bee. The bee jumps to food that is appealing. The bright flowers are alluring to the bee.

What do we jump to? Do we eye an interesting job for better position and money? Are we craving for a certain food like this bee is craving for nectar? Are we dreaming of moving to a bigger and more affordable home? Do we desire a different lifestyle that would be more fun?

Whatever it is we want to jump to, how can we accomplish the jump without falling and going “splat” in failure? Maybe one plan of strategy is following the example of this bumblebee. Take small jumps first. Create steps to reduce risk to get to your jumping goal.

It is desirable to want to go for it and take a giant leap to jump. Taking a giant leap means you have what it takes to make the jump. My wife worked in a chemistry lab environment. She wanted to jump to do computer programming. She took short jumps by taking a couple of courses in programming. Then she changed jobs to do scripting. Her next jump was to get into a programming job in her company where they trained her in the software application programming. She did not qualify initially for the jump. But she trained to become qualified.

If I had the ambition to run a marathon – (NOT) – I would need to run to build endurance. Due to my physical limitations, I know a leap to a marathon is not a wise jump for me. Our jumps need to be a realistic understanding of our limitations.

Consider what small jumps are possible to get to the desired “Giant” leap.

This pandemic has taught us that life is unpredictable. We need to redeem our time to make changes to improve life.

What will be your next jump?

Photos Teach us how to Jump!

This Bumblebee was searching for some nice Spanish Lavender nectar from its flowers. They are relentless in their search for nectar. I shot these 3 photographs within about 3 seconds. It is amazing how fast the bee is able to whip his wings around as he is flying towards the flowers. Initially his wings are behind and within a second the wings are curving forward. I never imagined the curvature of the wing going forward until I started photographing the bees in action. The bottom of his legs resemble a pitchfork with the missing center teeth. It is pretty astonishing how fast bees fly.

Once upon a time, we zipped around town to eat at restaurants. We ate at restaurants to celebrate special occasions or just to take a break from cooking. For a whole year, we’ve been cooking and actually enjoying our meals. We’ve learned how to make healthy waffles out of oatmeal. We love our thick wild ahi tuna fish sandwiches. I asked my wife where she wants to go and eat after we all are vaccinated, and things feel safer. She was not sure where she wants to go. We realize restaurants need our business, and therefore prices will need to be higher. Our food bill is already high even though we try our best to save our pennies. But if we ate our wild tuna fish sandwich at a restaurant, it would be a lot more than what we paid for the entire piece of fish. We have gotten too accustomed to home cooking now.

It will be another adjustment for us to go back to eating at restaurants, since we are enjoying our own cooking. Zipping around the Bay Area will be a change, since we enjoy our current traffic free driving. We mostly just go to grocery stores. All our other shopping has been online. My wife has not cared much about buying clothing, since we do not go out. We do not miss all our former zipping travels. Zipping around our area will be different in our post pandemic future.

Observing the bee zip and whip around my garden reminds me one day hopefully later this year, we will be zipping and whipping around in freedom. Maybe we will go to In-N-Out for a hamburger, fries and milkshake which we have missed for a long time.

Photos remind what zipping around was once upon a time!