A Look Back At 2025 – What I Accomplished, Set Aside, or Changed

As per usual, I am genuinely surprised that the year is over. They all go by so quickly now. It's a bit sad that as we get older, time speeds by. I wish I could slow things down. Alas, I cannot.

Let's look back at this year…

January started off with snow and “Damp January,” meaning the husband and I took some time off from alcohol until my birthday on the 18th. Pretty much the same as the year before. We went to see Aida for my birthday, and there was lots of snow.

February was Jamaica! Oh, I love Jamaica so much, and it's even better in the middle of February when it's cold and miserable here.

In March, I was traveling again. I went back to New Orleans for the last Future of Publishing Mastermind conference. We had a great time and I really do like that city a lot. Once I was back at home, my husband and I went to NYC for a wine tasting event. That was a lot of fun too!

April saw us go back to the beach house. We spent most of the spring break week there, resting and relaxing, plus walking on the beach in the cold. My oldest child also turned 18 and we had a bowling party for her and her friends. Flowers started blooming and the town started looking green again.

May was mostly just life. Mother's Day was spent playing cards with my youngest. There was a trip to Carnegie Hall to hear my oldest sing there. Flowers bloomed. Our lawn got “flocked” by pink flamingoes for charity. We got a new camera!

June was prom and graduation. My oldest daughter had her last high school prom and graduated. We held a big graduation party and my parents were there. Unfortunately, that was the last time I saw my dad before he passed away.

July started off by dropping my youngest at the airport for a trip to Europe. She traveled to Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. Lucky kid! (She loves Europe, a lot.) My oldest got her two wisdom teeth removed (she was funny as hell after the surgery due to the anesthetic) and we convalesced at the beach house for 10 days until it was time to return home and get the youngest.

August was mostly spent back at the beach house. We worked from there and spent a lot of lazy days in the pool or going to the beach. We drank wine at the vineyard and my youngest checked the mail every day hoping for postcards from her boyfriend. It was a lovely way to end the summer.

September was back to school! First, we had to move my oldest into college. Thankfully, she is going to a fairly local college, but she's living there, so we had to move her in. It was weird not having her around the house. The youngest had a lot of field hockey! I went to all the home games. My husband and I celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary.

October was rough. My father passed away on October 14th. He had been in poor health the previous year due to Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and a hernia. He had a hernia repair at the end of September but never recovered. I miss him dearly. I went to my usual Rhinebeck weekend with my friends that weekend and then flew to South Carolina to be with my mom for a week. I returned home in time to spend Halloween with the family.

November was crazy! I went to Las Vegas at the beginning of the month to attend the Author Nation conference and this year I was just not feeling it. I hated everything about Las Vegas — the dry air, the prices, the crowds, the tackiness. I was sad and grieving my father, and I just could not stand to be there. I ended up leaving an entire day early. I have promised myself I will never go back there. Then the week after, I went into NYC with my business partners for the day for a meeting with one of the big five publishers to talk about AI. I took my business partners out for lunch and to MOMA afterward.

I can't believe December is over! I had a lovely afternoon out with my cousin playing pinball and eating dinner with our husbands. We went into NYC to see Mamma Mia which was so fun! My mom and my brother and his family all came into town for Christmas and we hosted the day at our house. It was so great to have them here! I'm finishing up writing this post from our beach house. We came down here for a few days, and I'm ending the year with a cold. Boo.

Favorite Part of This Year

Spending the summer at the beach house. It was so nice to be there and be away from it all.

Least Favorite Part of This Year

My father's death. I'm still very sad.

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Let’s look back at my goals from the year…

2025: The Year I Become An AI-Assisted One-Woman Studio

This was definitely a bomb of a year when it came to my goals. This theme was allll wrong for me, despite being really excited by it. I really did not gel with it at all. Boo. Well, it's okay. I'm bound to make a lot of mistakes along the way!

Storytelling, Writing, Creating, and Publishing Goals

I will focus on publishing to my YouTube channel. Nope. I made bad decisions about my YouTube channel and didn't grow it at all. I'm probably going to completely revamp it this year because it was an utter failure.

To that end, I will release at least 3 titles this year. I did not release three titles. I did release two. The Blender's Bargain and Rosa's New Game. So I didn't bomb this one too badly.

I will release other books as part of the Future Fiction Press. I did release a lot of books as part of FFP. I think a total of 5 books? I'm not sure. Lol.

I will learn all about these awesome AI tools I want to use. Yes! I have been learning about a lot of the tools and having fun with them!

Added Goal

I started publishing all of my books on my website for free.

Business Goals

I will build up my Patreon! Nope. I shuttered my Patreon. Lol. It's almost comical how bad I am at goals!

I will keep up with everything we have planned for the Future Fiction Academy and Future Fiction Press. Well, the business is going great! No complaints there. We are happy and thriving.

I will keep at the Brave New Bookshelf podcast. Yes! I kept up with this and I hired an editor to help with all the episodes to make it easier on me.

I will keep up with my social media and Amazon ads. Let's face it. I hate social media and do it begrudgingly. I'm on there to keep up appearances. My Amazon ads are just running and I don't do anything with them.

I will figure out how to automate more tasks with AI. I started out the year using N8N for all of my automations, and I slowly got away from it and started programming my own tools for automation instead.

I will apply to be a presenter at AuthorNation. I did not do this.

Added Goals

I started a Substack this year to help authors using AI. I stopped posting around the death of my dad, but I'd like to start up again in 2026.

I decided to build my newsletter this year. It's really grown and I'm happy with it.

Personal Goals

I will continue to stay gluten free and possibly more. I've stayed gluten free and I gave up a lot of alcohol.

I will continue to knit and watch TV in my down time. I haven't done as much of this as I would like. But I did do some!

I will continue learning Japanese, Italian, and French. Still chugging along at this goal! Using Duolingo every day.

Fitness Goals

I will bike and walk 1000 miles combined. I didn't hit this at all. This year was tough for working out. I was working a lot and not finding time to get in proper exercise. I only walked about 460 miles this year and biked even less.

I will try to add more upper body strength. I couldn't even get this done. Too busy.

And That’s It For The Year!

All in all, I'm disappointed with my goals for the year and I'm happy this year is over. I'm ready for 2026. I’ll be back with my goals post for 2026 on January 1st! I hope you all have a safe, healthy, and happy new year!