So, yeah, 2025 ended up being quite... a thing. I'm not going to go into all of the details, I'll leave that to journalists and historians, but let's just say that it was a challenging year to be working in academia (especially in Texas). And of course it was a mess in lots of ways, but again, I'll leave that to others to chronicle. I just keep trying to do the small parts I can to help counteract the bad, like going to a protest or increasing my monthly donations, and hope that others in relatively privileged positions like me do the same and that it all adds up.
Checking on my goals for 2025 that I wrote about last year, I think I was a bit more optimistic than I should have been. I go through stretches of eating better, but then things get really busy at work and I end up falling back to relying on fast food for dinner - or eating a bunch of free food at work, which for some reason always causes me to eat more than I should. I really overdid it with the holiday treats this year too, so that wasn't great. I tend to be more of a "fatigue" eater than an "emotional" eater, but I think this year I was a bit of both!
But on the health front, I did manage to do a couple of important things - I got my other cataract removed and I finally went back to the dentist. (It had been six years since I had my teeth cleaned... I take good care of them and I have pretty decay-resistant teeth, but that will only get me so far.) And I successfully did Dry January again, but that's not all that hard for me.
I did get out and explore some of the walking trails near home last year, but once the weather got too hot, I didn't use the exercise machine in place of hiking. I also didn't get back out once the weather cooled back off at the end of the year... probably because the weather hasn't cooled off as much as it should. And when it has been in a cooler pattern, the cedar has been high and I've been miserable with allergies! I also didn't get around to using my state parks pass last year, so I won't renew it for now, but we'll see... maybe the urge to go out and explore more will come in the spring.
The yard is still a mess and so I still haven't been able to get any gardens started. I think it will be another year or so before I can save up enough to have someone come clear things out for us, but I do think that is how it's going to have to be done since I just don't have the time and energy to tackle it all.
I fell short on my Goodreads goal and only got to 20 of the 30 I had hoped to do. And looking back at last year's post, I see that it was because of the very thing I knew I had been doing - listening to more podcasts than audiobooks in the car. But I did pretty good on my movie challenge in 2025! I did watch a "new to me" movie every week and got started on my Directors Lists and the various AFI lists, etc.
As I mentioned last year, I have finally managed to get into a good position financially and I did fully pay off the remainder of my debt consolidation loan early in 2025 so, other than my car payment, I'm debt free!! I started an optional retirement account in 2025 and I'm putting more towards the monthly car payment, so that will be paid off by the end of 2026.
I didn't manage to post more on either this blog or my craft blog last year, but I also didn't use social media as much either, so I think the overall reduction in screen time wasn't a bad thing!
So, in the grand scheme of things, I feel short on quite a few of my goals, but given how hard a year it was, I'm giving myself some grace.
Goals for 2026
Okay, so, I think it's time to be more realistic about my health and fitness this year, especially since I am a woman of a certain age and it takes a lot more time and effort to recover from any bad things I do to my body. I bought a health journal from Kurzgesagt and I'm going to go through it and try to set and stick to the goals that I set for myself with it - and again, be realistic with them. The first one I'm working on is to try to slowly up my general core strength and endurance. I also finally got an Apple Watch in the latter part of 2025, so now I can actually put numbers to things, which is pretty motivational for me.
The 'eating better' thing is always a goal, but I'm not going to concentrate on that first since I know that, as usual, the first 2.5 months at work will be very busy and that is the hardest time to try to stick to a nutritious diet. (But I am going to be a little more careful with my sugar intake since that has been creeping towards a number I really don't want to cross.) And I'll do Dry January again, because that's a given now. (I do have a celebratory bottle of champagne that I grant myself a waiver to use for the specific reason I bought it, which I won't go into here, if that should happen in January.)
I want to get back to trail walking again, so I'm going to try to do that at least a couple of times a month. And depending on how my money situation shakes out this year, I think I'm going to finally get around to buying a bicycle, since that is a form of exercise that I really enjoy and haven't done enough of in a long, long time.
I have managed to save up quite a bit of money for both an emergency savings fund and a vacation fund, but since my car will be paid off this year, I know I can save even more to take a really nice vacation in 2027, so I'm going to postpone Ireland for one more year. (Which will also give me more time to do some more planning and family history research.) Although I would like to go somewhere for even a little break this year, so we'll see what opportunities arise.
I set my Goodreads goal at 30 again this year and will again try to get back to more audiobooks in the car and fewer podcasts. I am still trying to wean myself off of so many podcasts and YouTube channels and I'm making some strides at that, and I will continue that endeavor in 2026. There are so many great podcasts and channels out there that I know I will never be able to keep up with (or catch up on) all of them, and I just need to accept that!
I'm going to continue on my movie challenges and will still do the "new to me" movie each week and keep working on my AFI lists, director lists, and other watch lists. I had a lot of fun with that last year! I really want to do all of the Best Picture Academy Award Winners in order too, which could be interesting. (I'm pretty sure that is going to be a multi-year goal since I would have to watch about two of them a week to get through them this year and there is no way that's going to happen.)
The one other thing that I want to truly start to tackle in 2026 is getting some actual work done on this vague book that I've been researching and doing a little bit of writing on over the past couple of years. It's kind of a memoir of my life in Astronomy Outreach over the last 30+ years, but also a discussion of the difficulties of communicating science to the public in what has been a very strange period of time with the rise of the internet in general and, more specifically, social media. The biggest challenge of it so far has been reducing the scope since there is SO much to write about it that particular arena.
I think that's enough for now. I don't believe that I have laid out more than I can actually do in a year so I'm not being unreasonable with my goals for this year - I hope! 😁
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