I am so excited to embrace whatever comes my way this year. 2024's focus on rhythms was so helpful for me in terms of breaking out of rigid patters and learning to go with the flow as much as is humanly possible for someone as entrenched in my habits as I am.
In the spirit of limited flexibility (lol), here is my 25 for 2025 list.
Year-long goals: (I have a lot of these because 25 backwards is 52, and I am drawn to the daily/weekly actions for this year)
1. Bake 25 new cookie recipes (this could be totally new cookies-- like these iced gingerbread oatmeal cookies I am DROOLING over-- or cookies I have made before with a new twist).
2. Read 125 books (I am counting audio, digital, and print toward this goal)
3. Read 25 books on my Kindle. I hate my Kindle. I thought I would develop a routine with it and with library holds, but, alas, I have not. 2025 will be the year! Or, at the end of a year of trying really hard to use the damn thing, I will just admit that a Kindle is not for me. EITHER WAY IS A WIN.
4. Curate a 2025 playlist. It is unclear if Minnie the tyrant will let me listen to this playlist ever, though.
5. Track my spending every single day of the year, even when I buy stuff I'd rather not admit to (like THIS eye cream. The sample was sooooooo gooooooood, but I have yet to pull the trigger).
6. Walk outside every single day. No bad weather; only bad clothes, right???
7. Wear a weighted vest when I walk either outside or on the elliptical.
8. Make a will. Now that we have an of-age child to burden for the rest of his life with the care of his 4 siblings, we should draw up those documents.
9. Play Wordle/Connections/Spelling Bee every day. I want 356-day streaks for Wordle and Connections and 365 days of being a genius on Spelling Bee.
10. Practice a wind-down nighttime routine that always involves checking in with my planner and never (rarely!) includes eating soft cheese in unsafe amounts.
11. Deal with the ridiculous amount of art supplies we have in our front closet and make them accessible for Minnie. She takes her projects Very Seriously, and I want her to be able to help herself to all of the things all of time. I love everything about her crafting (SHE PUT HER DANCE TROPHY ON HER DESK, YOU GUYS), and I want to her to be able to find the googly eyes when she needs them, for example.
12. Eat 5 servings of veggies every day. Right now, I get 5 of fruits AND veggies combined, but it would be great if I got 5 servings of veggies (and still eat fruit, obvi).
13. Donate 25 bags of stuff to St. Vinny's
14. See 2-5 live performances (considering I have seen ZERO since the panny, this goal looks hard!!)
15. Meet 2-5 blog friends IRL. 2 seems pretty easy; 5 is a reach goal.
Monthly Goals:
16. Read at least one new book every month. Like new that month, not just a 2025 book. I think I do this most of the time by the middle of the year, but I am going to be intentional with my 2025 early reads and start out strong.
17. Listen to a new album every month. As you can see from my Apple Music end-of-year results, I just play whatever Minnie wants to listen to. If Dorothy doesn't like it, I don't even know a new artist/band. I think Vampire Weekend's Contra was the last album I listened to the day it dropped. IN 2010. So, this year, I will listen to one new album every month in its entirety. (Not new to me-- actually new to the world).
Best wishes toward everything and especially the writing, Sarah!
ReplyDeletethanks!!
DeleteSo many great goals here, Sarah! I'm excited especially for your writing goals. I bet your book is fantastic.
ReplyDeleteI am a firm believer in the no bad weather, just bad clothes thing. I even walked outside in Calgary when the windchill was minus 40. It's possible to do it! You just need so many layers, so very many layers. So I'll be over here cheering you on.
I have had an evergreen goal of baking every cake in my friend Julie's cookbook, and I have not yet achieved that goal. I got the cookbook in 2022. So I have some work to do!
Minnie and I walked outside every single day of her first year of her life (that's how she liked to nap as an infant). In her first winter, I wore her under my coat, and we were both so warm and snuggly. I put chains on my Uggs, and we tramped through the snow-- it was magical.
DeleteBoth my parents had wills and I am so, so grateful for that! While I don't have any kids to think about, I do think about making things as easy as possible for my siblings should I cross the rainbow bridge (cause I'm going where the animals are!) before they do. I've also communicated with them what I'd like after death - cremation, no big funeral, etc. Both my parents also had pre-planned all the after-death things and it was less stressful because we didn't have to guess at what they'd want.
ReplyDeleteMy dad had NOTHING and it was very stressful, even though my om was still alive. I wanted to know what he wanted to do with his end of life, and we all wanted to know how to take over stuff he had always done. I don't want to leave a mess for my kids. (I also want to go with the dogs)
DeleteThe playlist that Minnie insists on is cracking me up. I'm now grateful that back when I drove to Irish dancing about 5 nights a week, we only had the radio as an option - it was my music. Phew, bullet dodged. Soft cheese in unsafe amounts - bah ha ha. This is a great list. Really well thought out. You're inspiring me to make a list, if for no other reason to get this house in shape and have it stay in shape, and also to use my down time wisely/set boundaries so my people know when I'm available and when I'm not.
ReplyDeleteGood luck. I'm cheering for your writing goals. I am excited to read what you write and I'm crossing my fingers that I might make that IRL blogger meet up list. ;)
YES PLEASE let's meet up!
DeleteI've been thinking about taking Reg to look at Bradley. I saw on WGN news a Muppets exhibit in Peoria. If I get my act together over break, maybe? I could take Reg and take the girls to check out the Muppet thing. Not even sure it's still there, but I wonder if Minnie would like that exhibit. ;)
DeleteYES!!! Bradley is SO GREAT!! Tell me when you are going-- I know an AVP you could say hi to :)
DeleteAs a child of parents who did absolutely NO preparation for the future I love #8. I had to deal with my father's estate alone at 24 and now we're dealing with my mother who has a degenerative disease who never once thought prudently about what her future would look like when she could no longer care for herself...
ReplyDeleteGET A WILL!! Please! The process is not as bad as you think it will be. I mean, it helps that Phil and I are as pragmatic as a couple can be, but the process itself was not bad. Our attorney sent us a form/list of questions, he drafted it for our review, we met for 30 minutes and that was it. We did that around when Paul was born and then edited it after Will was born to change the guardians and that involved an email and a 10 minute in-person meeting to sign/notarize. It gives us a lot of peace of mind to have a will and our health care directives taken care of.
ReplyDeleteI haven't done a 2X in 2X in years! But this year I think I am going to do it but it will mostly be fun/low stress things. I can't add anything else to my plate since work is so overwhelming to me these days and that does not appear to be changing anytime soon... But I could use some more fun in my life and I love a good list so this seems like the right year to take that on!
yes! a list of fun!
DeleteOmg Minnie's trophy on her desk - love!!
ReplyDeleteit slays me
DeleteI mean, the Mean Girls soundtrack totally slaps, so there's that.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the thinking behind trying to read a new book every month (if this means publishing date?) New books are so hard to get unless you're willing to spend a lot of money, which I am not (sort of).
I am bad at setting goals because i always feel like failing will make me feel even worse than not having them, but I should probably revisit that.
I have a Book of the MOnth subscription, so I get one new book a month there, and I do audible, so that's a credit a month. But the rest is ALL library! I LOVE researching book releases and getting to be first on the hold list.
DeleteOH, first on the library hold list, THAT I can get behind.
Deletejust have done this a couple years ago, i highly recommend a living trust vs. a will. but yes you will feel so much better when that's all done! love all your goals.
ReplyDeleteWe can definitely meet up! I'm going to send you an email about it RIGHT NOW.
ReplyDeleteI'm adding "make a will" to my list of to-dos for next year, too. I hate thinking about it, to be honest, but this is what adults must go, I GUESS. I'm trying to have goals with less bookkeeping this year, but I'm not sure if that's really going to happen...
These are great! I feel you on the veggies thing. I have been SO BAD about getting enough in lately. So bad.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I'm often drawn to making similar goals, of the "do this every day or X times per week or month" variety, and I usually end up finding them hard to implement! It can be hard to track all of that sort of thing, and I often sort of just fall off the wagon, especially on things that aren't DAILY. e.g. I made a goal once to have the boys help cook like "once a week" or something. It was too... undefined. We ended up just not really doing it. Maybe if we had some free night where I knew it would routinely fit in, it would have been better, like "The boys will help cook on Monday nights." But our life is too all over the place and maybe that's why these "number goals" aren't the best for me. I haven't really considered goals yet for this upcoming year yet, but I have had slightly more success with one off things (which I guess are more "tasky") or things that I just want to do X number of times in a year and it doesn't matter when, like, "try 2 new hiking trails" or something. For me it's having a lot of RECURRING, often irregular, things to track (that I realistically will never be able to hit all of) that cause me trouble...
I think for me, the recurring ones are habits I really want to make part of my routine-- and as an upholder I am VERY MUCH habit driven
DeleteThese are great, and I love how you incorporated "25" as much as possible. Last year I tried and failed to do a 24 in 24 list- but you're inspiring me to try again!
ReplyDeleteI didn't do it last year, either
DeleteI looooove this list so much! I really want to move my body every day in 2025, even if I just get outside for a quick walk. I live in Florida - there is no reason I can't get outside! Things get trickier in the summertime because it gets SO HOT but I can still make it happen.
ReplyDeleteI'm still thinking about my 2025 goals. I'm debating if I want to come up with 25 things or keep it short and simple this year. I have a few more days to decide!
Can't you make it "meet UP with other bloggers"? Then you could use me to check one off the list. :) Hope we get another chance to see each other in 2025.
ReplyDelete