2025 was a relentless bully, a barrage of bad news and new anxieties.
We started the year with half of our house gutted, thanks to flooding by Hurricane Helene. It was impossible to find contractors to repair the walls, and flood insurance didn’t cover the work. The stress of walking downstairs and seeing holes where there should be walls was constantly weighing on us, and we couldn’t feel settled at all. Luckily, we finally got all the downstairs work done and now I have the library room I’ve dreamed of.
Hurricane Milton came through a week after Helene and ruined our tile roof. That took more months than it should have, but insurance finally covered a replacement roof in September, almost a year after the storm. Insurance won’t cover the water damage inside but we finally started those repairs. We still need to paint the ceilings.
The landscaping died from the saltwater, and we haven’t even thought about that project yet. The 2024 hurricane damage will be following us into 2026.
The hardest part of this year (and of my life) was when I had the devastating honor of caring for my stepmom at the end of her life. She’s been a part of my life for thirty years, and it was completely unexpected. We had a mere 54 days from diagnosis to death. I haven’t processed the loss fully yet, so I’m not ready to write about it. On a positive note, I trauma-bonded with my stepsister and her daughter (who I guess is technically my step-niece but she’s almost 30 so that seems weird to say) as we took care of her, and now we’re closer than we’ve ever been.
Like most sensible people, the dumpster fire of our administration and state of our country was a constant stress in an already terrible year. Remember when you could go months without thinking about the President? Yeah, I want that back.
I have to remind myself that 2025 wasn’t all bad. Our biggest accomplishment was finishing the 50 states! It wasn’t a goal at the beginning of the year, but when we finished the states east of the Mississippi when we finally went to Alabama in March, we figured why not? We did the remaining sixteen states in two months and I have lots of blog posts to catch up on.
I saw a ton of new birds! I’m up to 354 lifers, thanks to our trip to the PNW, Alaska, NM, and AZ. Hopefully 2026 is the year I finally see my top goal bird, the blue-footed booby.
We went on our first (and probably last) Disney cruise AND my niece and nephew stayed with us for two weeks during the summer, so 2026 will be a quiet year as we avoid children the best we can.
I finally finished the first draft of my novel and am almost done with the major rewrite. It took months of brainstorming to figure out what was missing, but now Maisie has an older sister and the story makes more sense. I was accepted in Writers in Paradise (with the esteemed Ann Hood!) for the third time and I can’t wait for the feedback on this draft.
I disassociated from the above by reading and I completed 122 books this year. My goal was no more than 52, but life exploded and here we are. Check my Instagram post for my top books.
Like the viral meme, I’m definitely not calling 2026 my year. I want to approach it with caution, slide quietly into it, and leave as much sadness as I can in 2025. But I do have some goals, including finishing my novel, being more consistent with blog posts, and finding joy in even the smallest moments.
This post was supposed to go live last week, but I started out the year with a hurt back. Being high on Canadian OTC muscle relaxers was not the time to do anything productive, even if I wanted to. Confined to a zero-gravity beach chair The Husband dragged into the living room, I spent my days playing Mahjong and catching up on TV.
But now I’m back at my desk and committed to writing more. The next few weeks of blog posts will be about seeing states 37 through 50. Visiting up to state 35 happened organically. Last March, we realized Alabama was the only state east of the Mississippi that we hadn’t been to, so we planned a road trip that included stops in Alabama, state 36.
Finishing the states started with a short week-long trip to Oregon that turned into a multi-state trip that included planes, trains, automobiles, and a cruise ship. In two and half months, we saw Oregon, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Alaska, Arizona, New Mexico, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, and finally, Oklahoma. We had some bumps along the way—COVID, weather, National Park closures, a funeral—but we finished in November!
I’ll do deep dive into state superlatives at some point but here are a few answers to questions we get a lot:
Favorite state: New York
Most Surprising: Oregon
Most Beautiful: Hawaii, California, Alaska, Wyoming
Best Pizza: Obviously New York
Least Favorite: They all had something enjoyable but Oklahoma was last for a reason. Albuquerque unseated Jacksonville as my least favorite city in the country.