I thought I was not doing great job at keeping up with my blogs this year – but then I looked back at 2024 and I had completely forgotten that I let my blog lapse for months last year so as usual I have to stop being so hard on myself! When I think back on the past 12 months it feels like this year was split into two halves – the first half when we still having a kid in elementary school, and the second half when we had two middle schoolers. It was a year of transition and of realizing that we will have a high schooler come this fall and that an invisible clock has started to hang over everything we do. The second half of the year especially was full of feeling nostalgic and not quite yet comfortable in our changing family dynamics or my own slip into my mid-40s.
I keep vacillating between whether I think this year went quickly or slowly. On one hand I feel like I barely put my Xmas decorations away when it was time to drag them all back out again. On the other hand the things I was really looking forward to (GOB’s fifth grade graduation, getting my newest tattoos, spending two weeks on a boat crossing the Atlantic – which still feels like a dream that I have to pinch myself to remember was real!) all seem really far in the past. In true middle schooler fashion my boys have now started to protest that I take too many pictures but I like to believe they’ll (silently) thank me one day for recording our history that is flying by far faster than I’d like to admit.
I started out 2025 with six DIY projects that I was hoping to tackle this year and made it through four. I just can’t seem to get the same energy up to tackle the larger projects but I’m really hopeful that next year when I have more time in the Spring I’ll find my rhythm to finish at least one. With that being said the four projects that I did complete finished off DIYs that had been in “almost done” limbo for quite some time and that can feel just as good as a massive room makeover.
In true fashion I also did take on one unplanned project – a full makeover of my youngest son’s room. I was hoping to get the majority of this space done before the New Year but an ill-timed back injury right before Xmas halted the progress I was making. But if all goes well I’ll be able to tackle the rest to kick off 2026 and share it with you.
I also did squeeze in two non-Hilltown House makeovers earlier this year – first I helped turned a seldom used front room into a home office with lots of custom built-ins, and then I helped re-build and re-design a fireplace mantel that was in need of repair.
Another year and another 52 small but mighty tasks crossed off the To-Do list. This is a great time of year to start your own list for 2026 so be sure to read more about the Hilltown House challenge – if you want to join in.
This year I finally got a Kindle and in addition to my beloved audio-books, I was able to find time to actually sit down and read more than I have been able to in years. Between the two I doubled the number of books I read from last year and am super proud of myself. I added a few trilogies to my list this year and tried to concentrate on books that had been on my TBR for quite some time. My goal going forward is to never fall back into the reading dessert that was my 30’s and to read more/scroll less before I go to bed.
