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