2025 Recap

My writing friend, Amy Weinland Daughters, posted this hilarious spoof on the goals we set and the ones we actually achieve. I acknowledge my recap post will be somewhat like this. It won't really interest my readers (no offense if you skip it). I'm primarily writing it for personal reflection on my year's goals. 

Hoping to be intentional in 2025, I started a progress file where I tracked various things daily. I kept stats on my exercise, purging, letter-writing, fasting, and (towards the end) writing for publication. Although this was very helpful in many ways, I still failed to be as productive as I would have liked. You can set the goal. You can track the progress. But, you still have to put in the work to have something to write down. Ha! Sadly, I'm not the most disciplined person.

Exercise: I do believe tracking helps me stay committed to exercise. I'm not a huge walker. Many people put in 10,000 steps a day. I'm far too sendentary, but don't see that changing any time soon. Still, I try to get my treadmill time (or outdoor walks) in every morning. I exercised on 90% of the days (327/365) this year. My mileage declined when I got a new and more narrow treadmill. It declined further after I fell on that treadmill. Still, I walked over 400 miles and averaged 1.25 miles. As I threw out my 2024-2025 planner, I noted that in 2024 I consistently walked 295 out of 366 days (81% of days) for 472-1/3 miles (ave. 1.6 miles). Of course, that was when I was trying to lose weight for my son's wedding.

Purging: I'm a hoarder. I've always admitted this freely. However, I really had hoped to be more successful in my purging efforts. There are so many negative emotions associated with purging. While I enjoyed going through the minutia of past letters and school files, the actual process of getting rid of many items was draining. My year-end total was 102-2/3 hours. I only worked on purging for 51% [186/365] days. On those days, I averaged 33 minutes/day. It is better than nothing, but still feels like diddly-squat. Now that my husband has reduced the estimated time we have left living in this home, I'm wishing I had been far more diligent. May was a total wash, as was December. February was my most productive month (24 hours of purging in 25/28 days).

Fasting: My goal was to fast every Monday in 2025. I only missed the Monday of the spring break trip and the Monday of our 35th anniversary, but I made up for those dates by fasting on another day in those weeks. At the beginning, I started slowly with partial days (fasting until 2 p.m., then 4 p.m., then 6 p.m., then 8 p.m.). But in February, I aimed for mostly full days. By the end of the year, I had fasted 54 days (21 partial days and 33 full days). 

I am not well-suited for fasting. It was difficult in the usual ways, but was also difficult emotionally. It seemed like the full day fasts left me overwhelmed with despair rather than trust. As I poured out my groanings over difficult situations in our family/friends' lives, the focus on the darkness of our tunnel drowned out the consolation of the light God offers. I think, in my clinical depression, I struggle with staying positive and observing the light more than the darkness. I'm a glass half-empty kinda gal. 

Struggles with our prodigal, family tensions, the loss of my mother and subsequent new love my father is fixated on, health questions, the state of our world... it gets to be too much. I think I would have done far better if I had spent my fasting time in singing scriptural promises rather than outlining the various weights and burdens we carry. If I had it to do over again (and I'm not planning on this rigorous fasting in 2026), I would have taken more of the approach I used with my 2023 prayer project. I would incorporate scripture, pray for requests but also praise for answers, and spend more time focused on God's enduring attributes than on the encompassing obstacles before us.  

Writing: I'm not sure I kept accurate records for correspondence. I mostly charted letters sent by snail mail or from my personal email. By not recording letters sent from my author email, I know these stats are incomplete. In all, I mailed 21 letters or packages (sometimes with my book), and sent 51 personal emails.

The biggest victory was resuming writing projects after a stroke of luck with my first goal in September of just putting in 20 minutes finding markets. I wrote and submitted 2 pieces in September (1 of those was published in a digital magazine). I spent 12 hours writing on 13/30 days in that month. In October, I worked on writing research for 100 minutes. I worked on 2 separate projects on 15/31 days for a total of 11.5 hours (8786 words). In November, I spent an hour on writing research. I participated in the Rabbit Room's Poem-a-Day challenge, completing 20 poems from the 30 prompts. Plus, I started a non-fiction book project, working on 22/30 days for a total of 23-1/3 hours (24,867 words). This was nowhere close to the 50 thousand-plus words of Novembers past, but still an accomplishment. Then, as soon as Thanksgiving hit, I petered out to 1 writing day and 1 day reviewing the non-fiction work to date.

I set out to fast and pray, and to purge hoarded belongings. I suppose I met those goals, but wish I had done far better. If only I had known, at the outset of the year, that my husband hopes to move by fall of 2026. Yikes!

For the coming year, I'm not setting hard and fast goals (quantitative goals). At the end of 2025, I read an outstanding essay on Substack by Suleika Jaouad, called "Against Resolutions." The author argues that rituals are more effective than resolutions. "Where resolutions chase outcomes, rituals attend to process." Resolutions lead to all-or-nothing thinking. Michael Bierut said it is like walking a tightrope, where peril increases with each step, until you become convinced you'll never make it across. 

The author ends with this observation, "That's what ritual gives me now. Not a guarantee, not an outcome, not a transformation on a deadline, but a means of staying in motion without hardening, to keep my balance without gripping so tightly... no grand reinvention here--only the patient work of showing up, again and again, nudging myself millimeter by millimeter toward the person I'm becoming."

While I think I've already been focused on ritual, this year I am leaning into 3 words (not an annual word, but a word progression):

WATCH 🠊 WITNESS 🠊 SPREAD

WATCH, as in the sense of expectant anticipation. I want to watch for the return of Christ. I want to watch for God's intervention in our lives (and especially in the life of my prodigal son).

"The end of all things is at hand; be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer." - 1 Peter 4:7

"Therefore let us not sleep, as others; but let us watch and be sober." - 1 Thessalonians 5:6

"Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving." - Colossians 4:2

"Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man." - Luke 21:36

WITNESS, as in what you see when you watch. I want to witness God's moving and transforming power.

"Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you today." - Exodus 14:13

WITNESS, as in give a testimony of the gospel's power transforming my life. I want to seize more opportunities (whatever He gives) to share my faith.

"Shew how great things God hath done unto thee." - Luke 8:39

"And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all." - Acts 4:33

"And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death." - Revelation 12:11

SPREAD, as in disseminate God's Word into the world. I started this year's devotions adding a book by Cheryl Ford, called Triumphs of the Heart: The Pursuit of Joyful Living. In one of the first sections, she considers the watchful heart of Anna in the Bible. From this chapter, I found my verse for 2026:

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him." - 2 Corinthians 2:14

June 2025 - God's Protection Amid Chaos

June has been another difficult month. While I cannot unload much of the stress or pains, I am grateful for God's provision and protection amid the many challenges we have faced. We had several minor health scares in June. After eating a bowl of chili (something soft, not hard), I detected a hole or chip in one of my back molars. I made a frantic call to the dentist office, but they could not get me in until the following Tuesday (4 days later). Catastrophizer that I am, I immediately went to worst-case scenarios. I'm a medical-intervention-wimp! The mere thought of what they might have to do sent me into a tizzy. What if it got infected? What if I needed a root canal? I had John try to take a photo of the tooth.

I took great care, brushing carefully and often. I swished salt water around my mouth for a minute three times each day. When I ate, I used the other side of my mouth and avoided both hot and cold foods ("Sorry, no you cannot take me to Dairy Queen! I have to baby my tooth.") When Tuesday finally dawned, I thanked the Lord profusely because it was a quick and painless fix. The dental assistant took a photo of the spot.

The dentist explained that the tooth had a filling and part of the filling simply broke off. After a quick bonding (I'm guessing that's what it was), I was on my way home, free to eat ice cream to my heart's content.

John had his own mouth issues to tackle. He had oral surgery to remove a fibroma. While it was painful the first few days, he is so grateful it is gone and he, too, can eat more freely.

Now, we're facing another mouth issue, this time for Sean. I don't know if his wisdom teeth are just now growing in, but he is experiencing pain in a wisdom tooth and has a dentist appointment scheduled for early July. Hopefully, he will not have to have all four wisdom teeth removed (quite possible, and yet another expense).

Finally, I'm praising God for his protection in a close call. I walk on the treadmill every morning. Perhaps I was paying more attention to the audio book blaring in my headphones. Perhaps I was merely clumsy. For whatever reason, I stumbled on the treadmill. Thankfully, I was wearing the safety clip and as soon as I began to fall, it pulled out of the safety slot and the treadmill came to a stop. Otherwise, I might have experienced the friction Trevor had during his treadmill accident years ago. Another praise is that we had placed a recliner in the guest room, squeezed in between the treadmill and the book bar near the door to the garage. As I fell, the left side of my back landed hard on the soft arm of the chair and I slumped in a heap on the (now motionless, praise God) treadmill.

Now that I'm in my 60s, I need to learn to be more careful. Plus, I'll keep petitioning God for his protection and provision. When I think of what could have happened if the chair hadn't been there (my head, likely would have hit the book bar* and that would not have cushioned my fall at all), I'm so very grateful to still be in one piece. Now, to get myself to step back on the treadmill again. That might take some doing. Perhaps it is safer (though hotter) to walk outside. Hope your June was uneventful and good!

* My husband has always called that shelf area, just inside the garage door, a "book bar." I cannot find any such term or label on the internet, so I guess it is a term his family made up, ha!

Book Review: Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk

Appropriately enough, this is an ambling tale. Lillian takes a walk in New York City on New Year's Eve of 1984. We, as readers, come alongside her and listen in on her ruminations as she recalls her life over the years. It was also appropriate that I read this book between New Year's Eve and January 3rd. I'm a fan of walking and of authors who seek inspiration through walking (Dickens, among others). At one time, I walked city streets myself. I lived in Chicago during my teen years. During one college summer break, I lived in New Jersey and walked the streets of New York City. Indeed, one Saturday morning, unwilling to pay the subway fare, I walked across Harlem to get to the Edgar Allan Poe Cottage. Thus, I appreciated this tale of an elderly woman's walk on the edge of a new year. It was full of interesting tid-bits of historical facts.

Lillian Boxfish is an 85-year-old woman who will not let others spook her out of her favorite activity, walking the streets of New York City. Despite recent criminal accounts, Lillian is feisty and unafraid. The story develops in a stream-of-consciousness manner as Lillian walks or ambles through the city with several destinations in mind. She is heading for a small party but makes many stops along the way (walking 10.4 miles in total). For the reader, it feels as if you are walking with her and reliving her past through her witty banter and sharp eyes. She has spunk, verve, and stories galore. By the final pages, I felt quite sad for her, but pleased she triumphs in the end.

I rarely encounter unfamiliar words. Although I have seen some of these words before, my exposure didn't explain the words. So, I looked them up to learn how to use the words myself. Here were the nine I learned: inchoate, pulchritudinous, oleaginous, poniard, idee fixe, aldehydic, mulligan, Stendahl syndrome, and anhedonia. Of course, when I mentioned them to my husband, he rattled off the dictionary definitions.

I adored the author's note at the end of the book. Kathleen Rooney explained her research into the life of Margaret Fishback, the inspiration for Lillian's character. Fishback was a poet and advertising copywriter with great acclaim. Since I once worked in an archive, I was thrilled to read the author's notes about acquiring Fishback's papers and handling the facts of Fishback's life and works. Rooney clarifies that this is a work of historical fiction and not biography. Basically, she merged her own love of city-walking with Fishback's story and enhanced her character with an entertainingly acidic voice. Lillian is a character you will never forget. I loved Harold Fry's walking tale. It made me want to follow his steps through England. I could see myself trekking through New York following Lillian Boxfish's trail. Who knows, maybe they've already created just such a walking tour!