My friend Wendy uses this as a template for end-of-year blogging, and I am attempting to do the same as I look back on 2025.
1. What makes this year unforgettable?
- Our 10-day epic road trip to Badlands, Yellowstone, and Grand Teton National Parks, Mount Rushmore, Custer State Park, and many museums along the way!
- BK learned to ski and mow our yard and started middle school. I feel like this is the year that the years started speeding up for us as parents.
- LM became an emerging reader!
- Doing the closings for my homeplace (going to a notary to sign each deed & then sending it via FedEx overnight delivery to the closing agent) consumed my January and February and marked the legal end to a long era.
2. What did I enjoy doing this year?
- Praying weekly during the school year with other moms in our Moms in Prayer group.
- Blogging more
- Reading more
- Preparing a testimony for our church women's retreat.
- Sending Christmas cards for the first time in forever!
- New York Times puzzles :)
- Practicing Japanese on Duolingo
- Connecting with two moms (one lives several states away & we see each other every 2-4 years; the other I refer to as my texting friend)
- Making headway on decluttering
3. What/who is one thing/person I'm grateful for? [I can't limit it to one!]
- Jim for keeping me sane and being a rock and pointing me to the eternal and the true.
- People who pray for me/us.
- My rheumatologist.
- My Moms in Prayer moms.
- Our pastor.
4. What did I read/watch/listen to that made the most impact this year?
- A constant diet of missionary biographies kept my heart for missions ignited and also kept reminding me that God can do things that seem impossible.
5. What did I worry about most and how did it turn out?
- LM getting the academic help she needs in 3rd grade. The school was VERY responsive - changed her reading curriculum (to a strong phonics program) and changed her Special Ed teacher (from a first-year teacher to a veteran teacher), did due diligence in testing her, and the veteran SpEd teacher started over at the beginning with the short /a/ sound. She's an excellent emerging reader!
- our 2026 health insurance ~ to be determined!
6. What is my biggest regret?
- Not connecting with people more
- Not making more progress on decluttering and on implementing systems
- Not setting goals (& working towards them) in memorizing Scripture
7. What's something that has changed about me?
- The biggest physical change is that my disease stopped spreading, and as a result I have much more freedom of mobility.
- I'm doing much better about resting from 1-2.15 PM on weekdays before afternoon pickup from school.
8. What surprised me most this year?
- Learning that at least 4 of the school staff on BK's IEP team are believers in Jesus!
9. What Bible truths impacted me this year?
- "This world is not my home; I'm just a passin' through."
10. What meta-themes have I thought about this year? (in no particular order)
- how fleeting the teenage years will be
- how faithful the Lord will be to our children after we are gone
- I want to be content & a life-long learner like my mom & Jim's dad!
Highlights:
My disease has stopped spreading! I can move my joints so much more freely!
Our vacation out west!
Reading significantly more books in 2025 than I have in any year in the past decade.
Lowlights:
My mom's health. (She spent Christmas 2024 in the hospital, followed by a stay in the rehab hospital. And then spent about three months in the rehab hospital again in the summer, following a hospital stay & operation, and then had to have another operation when that had complications in healing.)
Concluding thoughts:
We really do not know what direction a particular year will go in terms of the physical realm, but for believers in Christ our anchor is FIRM. 2025 was a good year (in many ways) and truly another step forward out of the fog of parenting littles / pandemic / disease. Life is still very stressful, to be sure, but there's a tad more margin (if not emotionally...).
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