January simultaneously felt long and like it sped by. Waking up to new horrors from the government was exhausting. I could look away but why should I? I don’t want to stick my head in the sand. Anyway, on to January.

* We finished two puzzles things month and started another.

* NM finally got some winter weather. It has been way too warm this winter here but one day we got a little bit of snow. It was such a relief not to have to see a blue sky.

* We made a lemon pig on New Year’s Day.

* I read five books this month: Meet Me Under the Mistletoe by Jenny Bayliss, We’ll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida, Down A Dark Hall by Lois Duncan, Bunny by Mona Awad and Tilt by Emma Pattee. I started two books that I am still reading. They are Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino and Game Changer by Rachel Reid.

I also started a new book journal.

* I pulled out an old WIP to work in an effort to get back to doing the things that make me feel like me.

* I’ve had a lot of stress dreams this month. Dreams about finding a large rattlesnake shed in the house, a sinkhole in the bedroom, being stuck in an airport and trying to get home without any ID.

* I ended up with hives on my neck. Allergies, stress or both?

* Good things I watched this month: Heated Rivalary, My Mom Jayne, Casablanca (how had I never seen this before?) and my comfort movie, Jaws.

It’s hard to believe it’s 2026. As a kid I don’t even think I considered years past the year 2000 and now here we are, 26 years later. I don’t have a word for the year. I didn’t make any resolutions. I am not doing 26 in 26. Like any other year there are things I have to do and things I want to do but I didn’t feel like making a list just to cross things off. I didn’t even make any reading goals. I have two goals for the year. I want to learn how to identify trees and I need to learn how to get up and down off of the floor easily again.

That last one makes it sound like I am 80 years old. Maybe the first one does too. I don’t see that I ever wrote about this here but in May of 2024 I tripped and fell as I was walking into Wal-Mart. It was a rainy day and they had those carpets out at the entrance. I tripped on one of those and fell hard on my right knee. I should have just picked myself up and gone to the ER but I was humiliated. I just wanted to get my groceries and GTFO. None of the employees cared. I should have asked to file a report. I hobbled around on my injured knee while my shoe was squishy with blood from my toe that was bleeding from tearing off part of my toenail. I did end up going to the doctor a week later but not much was done. It took forever for my knee to heal and still hurts on occasion. Recently I realized that I had been avoiding sitting on the floor or kneeling on the floor to clean things since I fell. I don’t want to do that anymore. I want to be ablet to get up and down off the floor with relative ease.

Like seemingly everyone else, I want to do more analog things this year. Although I’ve always done a lot of analog things when everyone else wasn’t. I did last year too. Playing hand solitaire and sitting under a blanket on the couch with my eyes closed while a YouTube video of the weather channel (from 1993) plays count, right? I didn’t cross stich much last year. The desire just wasn’t there. I’d like to change that though. I miss it. I got a Nintendo Switch at the end of 2024 and bought Animal Crossing. This is probably why I didn’t cross stitch as much as I have in the past. I think I played almost every day this year. I find it incredibly soothing. I love my little island.

I feel like I just want to let the year unfold how it wants. It always does. Holding on to everything so tightly and trying to control everything makes me extremely anxious and unhappy. I don’t ever stop the bad things from happening, so why try?

I’d really like to try to write here more. I miss the “old” internet.

Happy new year!

Supposedly the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Which is how I feel about making these lists every year. Every year I think I will finish the list. I never do. I’m not sure that I even get more done than the prior year. (Five completed in 2022, three things completed in 2023, 11 in 2024. I guess 2024 was better than the prior two.) I changed up what I put on the list this year. No more “have to” do things. Putting them on lists in prior years made me not do them. In fact, it made me actively avoid them. Which isn’t great for things I actually need to do. I tried to put more fun things on and a few things that aren’t “have tos” but are things I just want to get done.

1. Find a brown ink that works in all of my fountain pens
2. Buy a belated birthday gift for turning 50, preferably a ring or a charm
3. Frame Harvest Time
4. Bake cinnamon rolls from scratch
5. Buy two festive mugs Rec’d as a gift
6. Dye my hair a fun color
7. Finish my book of crossword puzzles
8. Make a felt ornament
9. Crochet another pillowcase
10. Fill all of my Currently workbook
11. Start and complete a temperature cross stitch
12. Buy or make a charm for my purse
13. Catch up on Dr. Who.
14. Pick a word for the year
15. Make a scrapbook for post 2005 stuff
16. Make a vision board
17. Finish diamond painting
18. Start latch hook kit
19. Plant some flowers
20. Fill up sketchbook started in 2023
21. Get rid of books I am not going to read from my TBR
22. Blog more (I know this is vague, but I don’t want to put a number on it.)
23. Paint my nails at least once a month
24. Make something with the red chile puree in the freezer
25. TBD

*I realize that it’s only November, but it’s been a year. The “ber” months are my favorite time of the year but these have been hard. The weather has been uncooperative until this week. Summer temperatures just kept hanging on and hanging on. The end of daylight savings time felt like a blessing. My brain feels infinitely better with dark evenings and light mornings. I used to be a night owl when I was a teenager but that changed as I got older. I love that it’s starting to get dark before 5pm. My brain needs that long wind down before bed. To have an early dinner, light candles and sit under a cozy blanket with a cat.

*Work, for a variety of reasons, has been hard. House stuff has been trying. Health things have been irritating. Election season infected my brain in a way I didn’t like. Everything has just been a lot. I feel unequipped for everything.

*I turned 50 in September. It is hard to wrap my brain around this.

*I started this post in November and it’s now almost Christmas. Time passes too quickly. It’s finally cold now, or at least chilly. I usually love Christmas but everything this year feels a bit SSDD. There are some many things that need to be done or that I would like to do but I do not have the energy/spoons to do them. It is frustrating.

*Over Thanksgiving my SIL gave us an advent calendar that is 24 small puzzles that make one large puzzle.

I did not know how much I needed this silly puzzle. I look forward to piecing it together with Eric every day. I will be sad to be done with it. I probably need to buy a couple more puzzles.

*I’ve been thinking a lot about the upcoming year. I can’t decide if I want to do 25 in 25. I’m not sure how my 24 in 24 list shook out. I know I did a few more things on it. Maybe a recap will appear here in a week two. And possibly a new list.