It’s the time of year when the “yearly recap lists” will start coming out. I’ll be out of town for a good chunk of this final stretch of the year, so I thought I’d preemptively summarize some of my 2025 wins, even though I know there are still a couple weeks left of 2025! I’ll go out on a limb and say I probably won’t be completing any other major accomplishments between now and 12/31/25. 😅

I am not going to exactly do a detailed review of my 2025 goals list, at least not the list I made last January. Why? Because when I look at it, I apparently did terribly. So. bad! According to that particular list, I barely checked anything off.

However, I don’t feel that’s truly a fair representation of my year. And that’s okay! I don’t think I set “bad” goals, and I’m not a “bad” person for not accomplishing them all. In reality, I think it was just a combination of too many goals and the wrong kind of goals for me and the goals not necessarily representing my true priorities.

I know this about myself- I get Very Excited when trying to set goals and I go overboard, every time. ha. I swear it all sounds realistic in the moment!

And it’s not even that the goals I set weren’t realistic, really. I think at the end of the day, I just didn’t actually care that much about some of them, I didn’t actually make the effort to implement others….and I was often busy doing other things!

But, I think I did have some really great wins in 2025. A lot of wins, actually. So let’s talk about those!

---

The biggest ones:

My storage room

This was just such a big weight off. I spent hours upon hours this summer cleaning out our basement storage room. I still want to pinch myself when I walk in there, it looks so neat and organized and amazing.

I said it then and I’ll say it again, “If this is the only thing I accomplished in 2025, I’d be satisfied!!” (*But it wasn’t, so let’s keep going! 😁)

Before:

After:

Our finance system

A more recent win from this fall- finally getting our long-overdue finance spreadsheets fully caught up to date AND getting fully set up and functional in Monarch.

This is another huge weight off. It had spiraled very out of control (just due to laziness/ neglect) and then became VERY UNWIELDLY and HARD to re-organize and catch up!

(*We are fortunate to keep a large buffer in accounts and have strong, steady income, so this was not an actual problem, per se, but it was just persistently looming and felt chaotic and was really stressing me the heck out.)

We signed up for Monarch and I’m really loving it. It is so refreshing to have everything accurate, up to date, organized and as it should be! Phew.

A (more) sustainable workout plan

Another more recent one, but I am feeling really content with my revamped workout schedule. (3 full body gym workouts + 3 at home cardio workouts + 1 yoga workout per week).

It’s not that I didn’t exercise all year- I did, sort of- but I just felt all over the place with my schedule.

“Schedule” was actually a very loose term. Throughout much of the year I think I spent more time feeling annoyed with myself or guilty or harried trying to make my workouts happen (and failing much of the time) than I did actually working out.

Until recently, I just didn’t feel in the zone. It took switching from a 5 day/ week –> 3 day/week gym schedule to feel quite a lot better about it all.

I’d like to really double down on this in 2026 and make sure this remains a priority- and maybe even dial it in/optimize it a little more (specifically re: timing of workouts).

My life (and mental health) are really, truly better when I exercise consistently – and reasonably. I may need to tattoo this on my hand, though, because it can be easy to forget!! 😉

Great family travel!

I’m so thrilled with the family trips we took this year. We’re running a very narrow margin right now between having our oldest fly the coop (!!), so I’m very grateful for the experiences we had in 2025.

London for spring break, a semi-impromptu trip to Copenhagen in June (not exactly, but it was not planned nearly as far in advance as we typically do and it sort of just fell into place – and was AMAZING (*incredible weather never hurts!) and was one of the most special, memorable family times we’ve ever had! 🤩), and a relaxing beach trip to beautiful Panama City Beach, Florida.

Ivan and I also had a lovely couples trip to Mexico in November for a wedding.

Friends

I am not someone who really has a lot of close, in-person friends anymore, sad as that sounds. So I was thrilled to have some incredible friend connections in 2025!

The highlight of the year was definitely my fall girls trip to Nova Scotia with SHU and Elisabeth. It set the bar for girls trips REALLY REALLY high and will basically be impossible to ever beat. Ha! Memories for a lifetime, that is for sure. I can’t even think about this trip without breaking into a smile.

I’ve also felt like many of my other blog friendships solidified extra deeply this year into REAL friendships- not just ‘internet friends’. (You all know who you are! Extra-special shout out to Lisa.)

I officially joined a volleyball team at the gym (I subbed for years, but finally joined the actual roster this fall). This also gave me “one night for me” (credit to Laura Vanderkam’s “take one night for you” recommendation in her amazing book Tranquility by Tuesday) to momentarily NOT be a parent, NOT be a wife, NOT be a dog mom, NOT be a nurse…to just be a 40-something woman playing volleyball and being active and laughing with friends and usually getting a drink in the gym bar afterwards. 😉

The weekly connection time with these hilarious ladies has been great fun and has been a strong addition to my life in 2025! (Even though, yes, sometimes when Wednesday night rolls around and it’s dark and cold and we have a 7:40 p.m. game, part of me is like, Ugh, why did I sign up for this!! But once I’m there, I’m always glad I am.)

Blogging

On the one hand, I feel like this could go in the “demerits” category, because I believe I probably blogged less this year than any year since I started my blog in 2020. I also have probably been the least active commenting on other’s blogs, too, that I’ve ever been, in full disclosure.

However, I’m putting it in the Wins category, because… I’m still here! I’m still doing it regularly, as I can, 5 years in now. I’m still connecting with people, I’m still (over)sharing, and I AM still reading other bloggers’ work… just maybe not at the exact cadence I used to.

But I think this speaks to some personal growth, actually. I have been working on being comfortable prioritizing what needs to be prioritized and releasing other things at times, as needed. EVERYTHING can’t always be a priority.

I think part of “winning at life” is figuring out which balls it’s okay to set down and when. I’m still working on this- I am more naturally apt to just try to start juggling faster and more frantically, versus calmly choosing to set a few things down for a while- but I think I’ve made progress. 🙂

To quote my favorite Willy Nelson song, “You gotta know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em… know when to walk away… know when to run…” 🙂

Spirtuality

One of my 2025 goals was to go to church 15 times. I set that goal last January after realizing that I felt really sad to have almost completely fallen away from any sort of regular church attendance or spiritual practice (everything really went downhill in this arena (ok, off a cliff!) for me after the pandemic!).

After setting said goal, I then promptly continued NOT going to church for most of 2025. Hahaha.

However, I had some great, inspiring, and thought-provoking talks with Elisabeth (while hiking Cape Split in October) and I came home with a renewed sense of purpose and ambition towards this goal I had set! Without sharing too much of our personal conversation, I’ll just say that she helped me realize that my real goal was not even really just to “go to church 15 times”- what I really was seeking was a renewed and rekindled relationship with God.

I’m happy to report that I have been back to church at least 5 times this fall, and have even started very slowly working my way through the Bible Recap (recommended by Elisabeth, it’s a guided plan for reading the Bible in a year- though I will be nowhere near completing it in a year! I’m just chipping away at it, when I can, but it has been delightful on the mornings I do it) and spending some time in each week in thoughtful reflection time.

I feel content to have slowly started rekindling a spiritual relationship again and am motivated to continue strengthening this in 2026.

---

Other wins!

Kids + Sports

Between me and Ivan, we have volunteered quite a LOT (though it never seems to be enough…. 😩), I’ve attended a majority of the boys’ sporting events (soccer, tennis and swim meets) and feel good about our overall level of engagement with the boys’ activities! I love watching them play/swim and am suddenly very acutely aware of how fleeting this is….

Family Time (extended)

I feel good overall about our extended family relationships this year!

There’s rarely a day that goes by that I don’t either text or talk to one of my parents (or both!), though I know sometimes it still doesn’t feel like enough.

Considering how busy I am and honestly how busy THEY are (as retired folks they are strangely super busy too! or I guess maybe it’s just in our family blood to be a little too busy all the time, lol- the old apple doesn’t fall far from the tree….😅), I feel like we have a really solid level of connection, on the whole. This is extremely important to me- they both turned 75 this year!

My parents traveled with us to both London and Panama City Beach, we spent every major holiday together, my mom came and stayed alone for a week or so, my parents came to visit usually at least 1x/month, if not more (I’d say we see them 1-2x/month, on average?) and we connected in other ways, too, like meeting up for a soccer game or swim meet in their area.

I got to see my sister and family here last Christmas 2024, and I’m so pleased that we were able to make it work to head to Ireland this year for Christmas 2025! (We leave Friday!)

My in-laws also came to stay for almost 3 weeks this fall, Ivan went on a solo trip to Mexico last February, and we had more Mexico family time at the wedding in November. (Yes, the extended in-law stay had its challenges. But thinking big picture- it was a good thing.)

Work growth

I don’t get too into work stuff on the blog, but I know I’ve referenced the major shake ups I’ve experienced in my career in the last few years.

I think I’ve grown SO MUCH at work, even though, yep, there have been some pretty huge growing pains, too. 😉 I’m really proud of myself, though. 🙂

Personal care

I think I’ve done a solid (enough) job of taking care of myself. More in an upcoming demerits post (lol) but I think my diet is definitely the biggest area of opportunity.

Overall, I’ll count as wins:

• regular journaling/ daily reflection time
• walking most days
• pretty regular movement and exercise (even if not always to the level I wanted to be at…)
• carving out frequent date nights with Ivan (maybe too many, lol)
• playing the piano on a regular basis
• treating myself to solo hot tub soaks on a regular basis to clear my head
• generally staying fairly organized + planning my days and life in a satisfactory manner, all things considered; I am REALLY happy overall with my “systems + tools” (Google Calendar, Google Tasks, Google Keep + a hand-written daily page) and am not sure I could function at this point without these tools. (There’s room for improvement, for sure, but overall, I love the specific conglomerate of what I use! )

Misc. (*some from the 2025 goals list/ others not!):

• we finally had glass inserts installed in our kitchen cabinet (the remodel was in 2019….omg it was TIME)

• I completed a massive clean out of our big file cabinet

• got rid of a ton of junk from our basement

• did a pretty solid job on closet curation- cleaned out many items and at least stored some other things out of sight so my closet currently feels more manageable and pleasant. I feel there’s more work to be done here, but we’ll call it a partial win.

• the boys’ old wooden playhouse/ swing set was finally dismantled and hauled away!

• I read the 1st three Harry Potter books and watched the movies! (paused on this currently but will have to pick back up in 2026). My 2025 book total will probably land around ~17 or 18 books, which I know is laughably low for most of you, but hey. 17 or 18 books is better than 0 books! And it’s still a decent stack, at least considering the level of priority that I currently assign to reading in this phase of my life.

• we have settled into a pretty good grocery shopping routine. This involves a weekly fridge clean out, meal planning for the week + one of us shopping on the weekend. I imagine this may sound weird to some of you- “Um, isn’t this standard? What exactly were you doing before, Kae?”… Well, what we were doing was a lot of flying by the seat of our pants and/or neglecting going to the grocery store until it was dire. We finally got tired of floundering about and needing groceries on a Tuesday night, hence the goal to do this WEEKLY. Like normal people. 🤣

• we successfully taught Asher to drive this year! 😬 Lots of hours behind the wheel, supporting him through the drivers ed process, etc. He got his license last week.

If you’re still with me after this BEAST of a post, I’ll stop there. 🙂

Going through this exercise made me realize, WOW, 2025 was a pretty big year over here!!! I mean, I did/ accomplished/ experienced/ A LOT! No wonder I’m very tired. 😅😅

In summary, it’s true that I didn’t achieve many of the 2025 goals I set out to accomplish. But maybe I accomplished even more- or at the very least, just different things. I can’t honestly see how much more could have fit into this year, anyway, lol.

That said, 2026 is a new year- a fresh slate. I do have a few things I’d like to maybe shift up the priority ladder a little bit this upcoming year, or a few areas I wasn’t as pleased with from 2025. More on all that another time. 🙂

I’d love to hear about your wins from 2025!

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful for all the things I accomplished in 2025, even if the end list doesn’t really match what I’d originally envisioned!