2025 Scores & 2026 Goals

 Hello, loyal blog readers, and welcome to the annual dust-off of this old place for me to share about my new years goals! This is a tradition that goes back to 2010 for me (the year I graduated high school). I made goals in 2009, decided to share about them online, and the rest, as they say, is history (15 years of history, goodness gracious!)

Here are the 2025 goals reviewed - TL;DR total score 4.5/8

1. Memorize 4 of the short Psalms (specifically 117, 123, 133 and 134)

I forgot about this one. Scripture memory is a discipline I really miss from my youth, but have struggled to carry into adulthood. 

2. Finish my current knitting project by Christmas (bonus if finished by July 4th)

Done! At long last I have finally finished a knitted gift for my sister Stephanie.

3. Complete “Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons” with Max by end of year

Attempted, so half credit. But we haven't finished all 100 lessons yet. 

He’s good at sounding things out, but the book stresses not moving on until the sounds are really solid, and when we hit “ch”, “sh” and “th” we stalled. Still working through it every night though!

4. Finish 5 more letters to Max (the rest of the book from this year)

Done! And I got a book for Ada as a baby gift that I look forward to filling in 2026.

5. Finish at least one 5 mile race in ~1 hour (bonus points for longer distance)

Attempted, so half credit. But I didn't make my time goal. And then I was pregnant, so my plans to attempt again fell by the wayside. I can run a mile at Marine qualifying time (Strava shows I’ve done it at least 3 times this year), but not sustained for five miles (yet…)

6. 52 weeks deck of cards “junk journal” art project (copying from Instagram)

I forgot I’d resolved this one…I think it’s time to admit I’m not that kind of artist. 

By “that kind of artist” I mean the kind that has paint and craft supplies and a craft space. I love coloring books and doodling, and I write short poems every so often. I make digital photo books all the time. But the kind of artist who cuts, pastes, paints and scraps - I am not.

7. Read 12 non-fiction books (loosely aiming for 4 church/Bible related books, 4 work related, and leaving myself space for 4 “fun non-fictions” like memoirs)

Attempted, so half credit. But I didn't make it to 12 total 

What I did read (or started reading and need to finish) is listed below:

• Good for a Girl by Lauren Fleshman

• The Bookshop: A history of the American Bookstore by Evan Friss

• Gospel Shaped Womanhood by Sarah Rice

• The Art of Gathering by Priyah Parker

• The 5 Levels of Leadership by John C. Maxwell

• In Progress: Becoming the Pastor’s Wife by Beth Allison Barr

• In Progress: Out of your Mind by Jorge Cham and Dwayne Godwin

• In Progress: How to Keep House while drowning by KC Davis

8. Use our passports again

Done! We took my lifelong bucket list trip to Prince Edward Island to experience Anne Shirley’s world. I would not recommend Green Gables in late May - it was FREEZING cold and the PEI natives thought we were absolutely nuts for coming up from Baltimore where it was warm to be cold, but Green Gables Heritage Site was opened, and I had an absolutely amazing time there.

And now, my 2026 Goals, sorted by the family member for whom I made them!

For Ada

1. Write Ada at least 6 of the prompts from the “letters to my daughter” book (Max got 12 “letters to my baby” in his first year and now has 12 “letters to my son” written over the course of two years from 2024/2025 goals, but I’m going easy on myself and saying for second kid, let’s aim for half as many in her first year)

2. Make Ada a christmas stocking (Everyone in our family has a christmas stocking. Before Ada was born, I ambitiously bought and started a huge cross stitch stocking kit - but I do mean HUGE, and so I might not finish that before she’s in high school. So my other option is to knit her one with the yarn Ryan brought me back from Norway this year. The goal is for her to have her own that goes with the other unique family stockings - Ryan’s is from his college, mine is patchwork pieced - I made it in the class where I learned to use a sewing machine at the maker space at my job! - and Max’s is a LEGO brand one.)

3. Complete the Violet’s Bakeshop Quilt for Ada’s birthday (When I first started exploring quilting, I signed up for a quilt challenge with my friend Christina. We sort of imagined we’d make these quilts for our first born children - except that mine was a boy. So I finished the quilt top (sloppy, with several mistakes, but finished) and put it away. She eventually finished hers for her daughter, much more neatly because she took more time to complete it, and hers is actually fully quilted. Mine is just a top. BUT I have discovered there is a local quilt shop in my area that offers to complete tops for you - so I’m going to resolve to get this thing finished, and I’m allowing myself to pay for help, but it will still require some effort on my part to go to the shop and talk to the owner and get it done!)

With Max

4. Finish Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons (This is a carry over from 2025)

5. Teach Max to ride a bike (with training wheels is OK, goal is pedaling with me on runs!)

6. Ditch the night-time pull-ups (he’s already dry at night, but we need to actually switch!)

For me

7. Return to running in 2026! Goal of 300 kilometers logged on Strava by year end (~187 miles or ~3.5 miles per week, feels achievable based on my prior running patterns)

8. Attempting a daily journal - will call it ‘success’ if I have at least 52 entries, which averages to once a week, but may end up being the first 52 days of 2026 while I’m on maternity leave and then abandoned, but that would still be a success (I plan to start Sheryl Sandberg style - three things I’m grateful for today, at a minimum. I used to journal a lot in my youth, and this year I pulled those journals out as part of reflections for my speech for the Navigators Next Generation 50th anniversary celebration, and I realized how much I enjoyed reading that slice of my past - so I want to TRY to capture this slice of my life for future me, when this is the past, with a journal, which is why capturing only maternity leave would still be a win. We’ll see how it goes!)

9. Memorize Psalm 98 (switching from last year’s 4 short psalms goal to one mid-length Psalm, picked this one based on the Advent study that I did with the women’s ministry at my church including this Psalm in the final week of study)

With Ryan

10. Weekly cooking “lesson”/cooking together from cookbooks - success equals at least 20 recipes tried from our cookbook collection! (Ryan’s been asking to learn to cook, but I don’t really use recipes, it’s a lot of vibes, so we’re going to try to both stretch into new territory with weekly cooking sessions, and to test out our large cookbook collection. I love to read cookbooks but rarely actually use them - aiming to change that this year!)

11. Use passports again (Celebrating a big birthday for Ryan this year, and want to mark it with a special trip. Details are still being worked out, but I am committing to leaving the US for at least a little bit!)

1. re-stock basement food stores (loyal readers may remember that some years ago we resolved to have at least 3 days worth of non-perishable food and water stored in our basement in case of emergency, because we’re not super preppers, but we’re a little bit doomsday preppers. We have a bigger family now, and also those cans get old, so we’re going to take inventory and re-stock this year. Maybe learning better cooking skills will make our prepper pantry more versatile? Right now it’s a lot of canned Campbell soups, it would be nice if it was more staple items and less prepared foods - but that’s not part of the goal officially).

Advent Reflections

 This Advent I've been completing a short weekly bible study book with the CPC Women's Ministry - Columbia Presbyterian Church led by Diane Hidey (the book is Joy to the World by Lifeway).

One of the prompts from week 2 was to write "a song of thanksgiving for the hope and joy found in Jesus", and week 3 focused on the second coming of Jesus, how we are in a second advent now. Looking at my newborn baby girl and reading Isaiah 35 (exploring the predictions from the old testament of Christ's coming), I wrote this little poem:

There is hope in looking at a baby's face
A marvel nothing else can replace.

In this form, you chose to come,
all our pain to save us from.

As we wait to celebrate that love,
you whisper new hope from above.

A promise that this present state is not what you intend,
that something else is around the bend.

That you prepare a place for us,
where the desert is wet and blooms with crocus.

In December 2020 I was 7 months pregnant and reflected mostly on Mary's journey before Jesus' birth. Now, in 2025, I have a one month old and am looking more closely at the passages after Jesus' birth - how Mary looked at her little baby, saw strangers to her (the shepherds, Simeon, Anna) rejoicing at his birth, and treasured up those things in her heart. May we all treasure these things in our hearts over the next nine days, and the 12 days of Christmas after, and the rest of the year!

Coffee with my Younger Self

This is a trend now, I guess? So I did one.

 I met my younger self for coffee.

She avoided talking about the guy. She didn't want to jinx it, had told herself for so long that she didn't need a man to hide the fear that she wasn't worthy of love.

So I held my tongue, even though I wanted to tell her about the brokenness of two sinners struggling through life, and about the joys of having made that life together.

She reflected back so much spirit and energy for her passions, finding ways to enthusiastically tell me about the ways she was shaping the world she lived in. She had regular columns she was managing in the student newspaper, and students she was TA-ing, ballroom dance classes she was planning.

I saw so much of myself in her. My title as a supervisor playing out in how she fostered the newspaper staff. Saw the way I want to clear the path for people I lead to be greater than me in her desire to tutor her students well.

She didn't ask about politics. Hadn't yet seen herself as part of a greater global story - she was too wrapped up in the slightly selfish nature of youth. So I didn't tell her how woefully inadequate I feel, how helpless, being so aware and yet so clueless.

She was so confident about her faith, so happy with her Bible study team and her church and her community. So I didn't tell her how hard I've found it to be consistently connected to a faith community outside of the structures of youth groups or campus ministries, how I often feel like I'm putting on a false face to blend in to what those communities expect me to be, how wrestling with my evangelical history and clinging to the core of the gospel consumes me at night, in the darkness. Didn't tell her how tricky I find it to raise my son knowing the redemptive love, rather than consuming guilt, yet still stubbornly holding to the cross.

She asked for discipleship because that's what coffee dates with older women had always meant to her.

I laughed and told her that age is just a number, and that those women who she thought of as mentors and teacher figures were just her friends now. But then I paused, because those beautiful friendships have been some of the few places I've felt truly honest. Perhaps I need more of those discipleship relationships again myself.