life

Reviewing 2025

mmcollins107Leave a comment

It is time to review my year.  2025 was a good year, and a vast improvement over 2024.  While it wasn’t without its issues, I am still very grateful for all of the good things that happened.

Finished objects- Knitting:

  • Coffee sweaters- 6
  • Hats- 16
  • Sock pairs- 2
  • Scarves/ shawls- 2
  • Tops- 1
  • Sweaters- 2

Finished objects- Sewing

  • Bookmark cuffs- 3
  • Apron- 1
  • Hose sleeves- 7

It doesn’t seem like very much when you compare it to previous years, but I am proud of my accomplishments.  I lost my knitting mojo for several months, and sewing has always been a struggle for me.  I feel like I was able to overcome the funk that I was in regarding making in general.  I am keeping my goals for next year fairly simple so that I don’t feel like I am letting myself down for not accomplishing/ creating great things. At the beginning of the year I set a goal on Ravelry of 20 finished objects.  I technically did achieve this, but since I grouped some of the hats and coffee sweaters, it doesn’t look like I did.   I will say that overall, I enjoyed the things that I made this year.  The Dr. Who- Tom Baker scarf, reknit socks for Feebs, and the hose sleeves were long ago promised projects that were completed this year.  They are scratched off of the list and I don’t have to think of them again.  I have made the Husband everything he has asked for.  Feebs has requested a hat/ scarf/ fingerless glove set, so I will start that in the new year, but that is a very new request.  Everything else that she has asked for is completed.  The Father didn’t ask for anything this year, so I will wait for a request before I start anything for him. I did complete a couple of little projects, like dying the denim jumper and some mending.  They were such small things that I didn’t document them, but I am always excited when I mend something and make it work again.

The rest of life in 2025 was good too.  The year started out rough, health-wise.  I was very scared that the issues that I dealt with in 2024 would continue forever.  When things started to correct in March, the feeling of relief felt by my whole family was immense.  By June, my mental fog was starting to lift and I felt like I may not die young-ish after all.  Fingers crossed that continues.  We got the Mother through her surgery and subsequent health issues.  Fingers are also crossed that 2026 brings her a full recovery.  Something that completely fell off was my exercise routine.  I have given myself some leeway on this, since my brain and body went offline for a year.  In the new year, however, that nonsense has to stop. It’s time to saddle up and get moving again.

I feel like I am in a better place at work and have begun the process of accepting the things that I have no control over.  Don’t get me wrong, I still spend an unhealthy amount of my day dreaming of winning the lottery and calling in rich and retired, but I am finding my groove again.  Once upon a time, I loved my job and I need to get back to that place.

We spent time with friends and family and strengthened some connections.  I made it a point to communicate with my loved ones better about my needs and what I was going through.  I still felt like a constant kill joy and struggled with how to answer “so, how are you doing?”.  I got so tired of bringing down the entire vibe of a conversation with my constant negative news, but I did end up finding some balance, overall.

I have goals for next year that will put us in a better position, financially.  But I did pretty well in that category this year.  I met my savings goal, and we are on track to buy the new truck for the Husband next summer.  I have identified the areas that I need to work on saving for in 2026 and will embrace better financial organization.  I intend to keep us on the same budget plan as last year, in regards to dining out and not spending so much unnecessary money.  The dining out savings that we had from 2024 to 2025 was almost $10,000.  That was very eye opening.  I intend to not let it get that out of control again.  We did the majority of our big house project this year and that was much chaos and very much expense.  I am grateful that it is done and our house is secure and good to go for another 30+ years.  We still have projects to finish in order to call it completely done.  I need to recover from spending that much money though, first.

My word for 2025 was Home.  I ended 2024 wanting to embrace feeling at home, both physically and metaphorically.  I wanted to feel at home in my mind and body again and not be so scared of myself.  I wanted to feel at home at work and not like I was losing my role there.  I wanted to feel like I was at home in the relationships that I have with people.  I really drew inward in 2024 and let some relationships drift away.  I also wanted to physically be home more.  My family is only three people, but we are always incredibly busy and on the move.  I wanted to make the intention to stay home more often.  We did much better than previous years, but there is always room for improvement.  I think in 2026 I may actually block one weekend per month on our calendar to ensure that we are staying home.  I actually went looking for my past words of the year and found that I started doing this in 2020.  I simply had to find them all and reminisce on what happened during those years.  I hope I never stop identifying my word of the year.

  • 2020- Growth
  • 2021- Breathe
  • 2022- Boundaries
  • 2023- Connections
  • 2024- Acceptance
  • 2025- Home

Looking back at all of those years and what took place during them was an emotional roller coaster. The fact that in late 2019 I wanted growth, only to be completely stifled in 2020 was a hard memory to dig up. The irony of Acceptance in 2024, when my body and mind completely conspired against me and I thought I was going to die and had to accept all of the hell that came with it. I hope that my 2026 word will be good and bring about something positive. This year was good and I am looking forward to all of the good that is coming.

Loves,

M


My goals for 2025- Home

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Writing the next year’s goals is usually one of my favorite posts to write. I love thinking about the next year and figuring out what I want to focus on and what I want to accomplish. This year just hits different. To be very honest, 2024 knocked the air completely out of my sails and I am still trying to find my way through the storm.

What I came out knowing for sure is that the word that has selected me for 2025 is Home. I have given it some thought and Home means my physical house and all of the projects that we have scheduled for it this year. It means my body and the place I, Mrs. Collins, live my physical life. My mind, where I live my mental, spiritual, and wellness life. My family/ marriage/ friendships where my heart lives. These are all the places that I call home. I want to spend more time at Home this year. I want to spend more care and attention on Home this year. I want to tend to those places and the prized possessions they hold. I want to clean out closets and rid the corners of crap that I don’t need to haul around with me any more. I want comfort and organization and calm.

I want to revamp our budget and focus on cutting out a lot of the frivolous spending. I am not taking it down to bare bones, to the penny budgeting. I just want to cut back on dining out and Amazon purchases. I have goals of building up our savings, paying off my car, and having a nice down payment for the new truck as soon as the car payment is gone. We will also have a significant HELOC monthly payment due to the massive home project. It is much needed, but I am NOT looking forward to the cost. I feel like we make too much to feel so broke all of the time. It is time to reign it in.

I have no control of the health stuff, so I won’t mention any goals of treatment or getting better. I will say that I would like to crawl out of the slump that I am in about motivation and energy. I need to move. My body and my mind need to move. I feel myself beginning to rust. That is causing body aches, digestive problems, and overall depression. I also fear that I am starting to lose too much weight. I need to find ways to cheer myself on. I have no idea how I am supposed to fight my brain, but I am a pretty tough cookie when I need to be, so I have to figure it out.

I won’t set any real making goals, only that I continue to try to find things that feel right. Like making socks, if that is all I can work on. I need to keep making, so I will find options that work for me while I am feeling this way. If I don’t blaze trails or end up with 25 WIPs, oh well. At some point, I should get back to old me, and she loves a good old fashioned WIP pile to work through. We’ll get there eventually.

I am sure if I was less tired all of the time and had more pep in my metaphoric step, this would be more eloquent and have more goals. However, this is now and this is me now. I can’t force my brain to do anything that it can’t do lately. I can say that I am hopeful that things will get figured out, health-wise. I hope that all of my tests reveal something useful and that when they do, I can get onto treatment that will allow me to be a fully functioning human again. I don’t need to be Super-Collins again, but a nice rounded Competent-Collins would be nice. January will be the first step to new answers, so here is hoping they are helpful answers.

All in all, these are simple goals that I think/ hope I can achieve. I am not out to set the world on fire, just make changes in myself and my life. I can’t say that my family is thrilled about the budget cuts, but these are very first world problems and they will easily adjust. Plus the goals benefit them as much as anyone. Fingers crossed that 2025 is a calm and happy year. I could certainly use a big hug of calm.

Loves,

M