NYE + 2025 Goals Series Overview

New Year’s Eve:

We’re officially into the new year now. The kids are still off today, but return to school Monday. Then the holiday season will officially be over.

Our New Year’s Eve was nice. Nothing extravagant, but nice. We both worked (though Ivan got done by 3). I worked a bit later, but then sat and put together that monster Year-in-Review post I published on New Year’s Eve for a while.

*For anyone wondering how on earth I remembered all those details…. I didn’t. Ha. I referenced my Time Logs, specifically my daily journal summary at the bottom where I bullet point things I:

• Accomplished that day
• was Happy about that day
• was Grateful for that day
• any Bummers that day

Any major events or happenings typically make it into these categories. (I have a master Yearly sheet where each week I copy these all onto one big page, so I can essentially skim my entire year at once! It’s pretty cool.)

Later in the evening, we had Ivan’s brother (+ his girlfriend and her son) over, plus our nephew + his gf + a friend, plus Ivan’s sister + her 2 kids all over. It was low key though- we just hung out at the bar and talked, and eventually exchanged Christmas gifts, since we didn’t see them on Christmas. Asher was gone skiing all night with a friend’s family.

I put out some leftover snackies and cookies and we ordered Chinese food for the main meal. Very casual!

As always, we kept the NYC New Year’s Eve TV coverage on in the background. I like to watch the ball drop in Times Square. Also as usual, we stayed up until after midnight. I do not believe I have ever gone to bed before midnight on New Year’s Eve! We did a little countdown and everyone hugged each other. 🙂

---

2025 Goals Overview!

I spent some time last weekend sketching out ideas for goals for 2025. I always say I’m not going to set many goals, and I always do anyway. Haha.

I think I’ll do a little “Goals Series” and split them up into separate posts by domain. This will allow me more space to blab on about my thought process. 😅

The domains I landed on are:

• Personal
• Fitness/Health
• Kids/Family
• Household
• Other (basically a Misc. category- may be any of the above)

I was aiming for ~25 goals, but currently have 22 total. Which is fine, because maybe I’ll think of a few more, and then I’ll have the space!

Background:

Some of my goals are more of the “improve your life” variety than others this year, and some are more “fun”.

Also new, I decided to make a separate 25 for 2025 list (so, this is not my actual Goals List) that is titled the very exciting name of: 25 for 2025 Tasks List.

LOL! I did this because I’ve noticed in past years that I often am tempted to add nagging/boring household tasks to my “goals” list. Not that there’s anything wrong with adding those things to my goals list, but I just felt kind of “meh” about having lots of stuff like that on my official Goals list. I mean, I do want to do these things! But they don’t really inspire or excite me, either. And, many of these tasks should be SHARED among other household members.

So, I decided to make a separate 2025 Tasks List to house these ideas, which currently has 17 items on it.

(Sorry- I was going to start by sharing my more interesting Personal domain goals today, but on second thought, this is already getting long- maybe I’ll keep you on pins and needles and save those for tomorrow, and I’ll just share my whole 25 for 25 Tasks list today.)

25 for 25 Tasks List (*Not actually my goals list!*):

1. Complete office clean out (all cabinets, drawers, etc.)
2. Clean out both file cabinets (upstairs + office)
3. Buy a new desk for the living room corner (old one is getting beat up!)
4. Get the kitchen cabinet glass installed! (*We already went to the glass store and I think have glass picked out! Thinking of knocking this one out on Monday. For heaven’s sake, we remodeled our kitchen in 2019….).
5. Buy a full length wider leg black pant?
6. Get a hot tub height end table. (This has been on my list for like, 3 years. I always want somewhere TALL to set my phone or a book. (Currently have to lean over to reach the chair, but then water always dribbles down my arm and hand….).
7. Get rid of kids’ old (literally falling apart…) swing set/ playhouse.
8. Plant tree in place of old swing set.
9. Make a master travel Packing List.
10. Call concrete coating company about repairing crack in garage floor (lifetime warranty).
11. Paint the cabinet doors in the garage.
12. Get rid of some bulky items from smaller storage room. (Old headboard, toddler bed frame, etc.)
13. Hang up the ladder in the garage.
14. Complete kitchen declutter/ clean out (already started this summer, but have some remaining cabinets/ drawers).
15. Replace sunroom glider with a new glider or nicer chair/ recliner.
16. Clean out the little drawers in sunroom that hold all the dog stuff.
17. Throw away all our plastic “kiddie” glasses and get some better new ones. (Random, but our little guests often use these and the clear plastic ones we have are just looking all gross and cloudy and I’d like a nice new set.)

That’s it for now! #18-25 TBD. Haha.

The main idea here is to just chip away. I’m sure I (ahem, we) won’t necessarily get to everything, but most things feel pretty do-able. I feel like if I schedule it on my calendar to do a couple of these per month, there’s no reason they can’t get done.

I’ve also added these in a separate “25 for 25 Tasks List” in my Google Tasks lists, which I look at basically daily, so they’ll always be front of mind. I’m looking forward to checking some off!

---

Tomorrow I’ll cover Goals #1-5 from my Personal Domain.

I feel really excited about most of them! And, as usual, I’m riding the New Year’s Energy high right now. It always happens that once all the chaos from Christmas dies down and I can breathe again, I will feel like, WOW, I am ON FIRE! I am unstoppable! I can DO THIS! I am CRUSHING IT!

(Minor detail- early January is typically like, the deadest time of the year in terms of big “have-to-dos”, sooooo, it’s a little easier than usual to hit things like workouts and daily habits… ha.)

But really, I always do feel sort of enlightened when I really re-commit to things like healthy habits and my planning/ time management techniques, etc. I do feel like I (we/ all of us!) can accomplish so much (and enjoy it! and also have lots of fun/free time!) if we’re thoughtful and intentional about our time use.

Unfortunately, even though I know better, I do still sometimes totally fall off the wagon (and then will complain that I feel out of sorts and off my game….🤪). I won’t be delusional here and claim that this year will magically be different. But I feel like I have some better systems in place this time around re: tracking my goals and habits. In the past, I know I’ve set goals and then not really had a crystal clear plan of how to implement them, track them, check in with them, etc. I think I’ve improved this this year! (More later.)

I also think that I’ve taken care to make sure my goals are generally realistic. (Probably too many/ overambitious, but individually, they’re realistic. Haha.)

Finally, here’s a little inspiration I saved, if anyone needs the reminder to just START on something already:

The time will pass either way!!

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful for some help from a coworker today; she showed me how to do something that will be a real game changer I think! Very grateful!