What Worked and What Didn't in 2025
Plus, 5 (random) favorite things from this year!
š PSA: My second Create Anyway Cohort kicks off January 5th! If āprioritize creativityā is on your list of 2026 hopes and dreams, Iād love to kick off the new year alongside you. This is your official nudge, if youāve been waiting for one. Let me be your personal hype girl! š
There are a million ways to ring in a new year, but before I reflect and reset1, choose a word for the year (or not), or set a single intention, I like to make a simple stream-of-consciousness list of what worked and what didnāt. No overthinking. No overanalyzing. Just shoot-from-the-hip, straight-from-the-gut, what worked and what didnāt. Cue Taylor ā¦ are you ready for it?
What Worked For Me in 2025:
*Female friendship. What a silly, obvious thing, but my friends truly got me through some ups and downs this year. Key highlights included a trip to Charleston to celebrate my best friendās birthday, monthly dinners with my Sacramento crew, our Exhale Nashville retreat, daily (hourly?) Voxer conversations with my mastermind group (aka, āFriends For Lifeā), and of course, my beloved Book Club that I continue growing more obsessed with every single year.
*Two out of three kids got themselves to school (!). Everett (8th grade) walks to the middle school behind our house and Carson (5th grade) rides his bike to the elementary school on the other side of our neighborhood. That means Presley (1st grade) was our only drop-off/pick-up in 2025. Starting in August, weāll have three kids in three different schools and that will NOT be the case. We have truly relished the ease and convenience of this yearās arrangement.
*Signing up to be a Girl Scout troop leader. If youāve been here a while, you know how I feel about extracurricularsāmostly that I hate them. In spite of this, I love my daughter. And in a house full of boys, Iām starting to realize just how important it is to intentionally carve out time with her. Presley tells me, on average, 3x a week that she wishes she had a sister. (Spoiler alert: we have definitely closed the door on that. š³) While I canāt give her a sister, I can give her a sisterhood. Related: if you need cookies in the spring, you know who to call!
*Treating my sleep like a full-time job. You may recall that sleep did NOT work for me in 2024, but I made a few changes this year that significantly helped, praise the Lord.
I got an Oura ring last year for Christmas and the sleep tracking is incredible. Right off the bat, I learned it doesnāt matter what I drink or how much I drink or when I drinkāalcohol disrupts my sleep, period. Iām not a big drinker in general (only socially), but knowing this has definitely made me re-think whether or not I order a cocktail when Iām out with my friends.
Before tracking my sleep, I had never even heard of a āchronotypeā but thanks to Oura, I now know that I sleep best when I fall asleep around 9:30/10 and wake up around 6/6:30. If I go to bed too late and miss my sleep window, I donāt sleep well at all. TL;DRāI have an actual bedtime now, and enforce it like I am a toddler.
Brett has always joked that if you turn on a dim light on the other side of the house, it would wake me up at 3am, and heās not wrong. I am obnoxiously sensitive to light and sounds (tbh I am like this during the day, too ā¦ living with me is a delight), so this year I finally added a sleep mask to my comically high maintenance sleep routine. I have friends who think itās insane to sleep with something on your face all night, but I swear this has made a HUGE difference for me. Especially in the morning and especially while traveling!
Brett and I swapped our regular mattress for a split mattress. I did not even know this was a thing until I started Googling āmotion transferā solutions at the end of 2024. Despite sharing a bed with no issues for almost two decades, in recent years, Brett has become a very fidgety sleeper and I have become a very sensitive sleeper. At the end of last year, our collective sleep was at an all-time lowāto the point where both of us starting feeling anxious every night when we crawled into bed. 50 Google searches + Reddit forums later, the good people on the Internet suggested we try a split mattress. I do not say this lightly: WE HAVE BEEN SLEEPING A MILLION TIMES BETTER EVER SINCE. We still go to bed together and sleep in the same bed, but now when he moves/tosses/turns/fidgets, I feel nothing.2 Amazing!
*Deleting Instagram for the entire summer. Nothing new to report here; this oneās a crowd favorite. 11/10 recommend.
*āJumpstarting my year.ā I kicked 2025 off with two personal challenges to complete in the 78 days between January 1 and March 20th (my birthday): 1) I committed to do 39 yoga classes before I turned 39, and 2) I committed to no shopping. While Iām not opposed to setting bigger goals or attempting year-long rhythms, I find that launching into a new year with specific measurable goals to complete during a shorter window of time is a fantastic way to re-build some of the discipline that inherently takes a hit during the holidays.3
Marriage counseling. We should have started this waaaaaaay sooner, but I believeālike many things in lifeāitās never too late ā¦ to work on your communication, to get your marriage back on track, to ask for help, to admit youāre not okay, etc. We had a pretty terrible counseling experience in 2024, but Iām happy to report we are seeing someone new who we really like. I also did some personal counseling (with a different counselor) at the end of this year and plan to continue seeing her in 2026.
Before we get to the bad stuff, Iād also add everything from this post under āwhat worked in 2025.ā
What Didnāt Work For Me in 2025:
Batch days fell off the rails. Iām not sure when this happened, but at some point in 2025, my weekly schedule felt random at best and like a total free-for-all at worst. Despite being a high capacity person (and an Enneagram 3!), I know I didnāt organize my time/days as well as I should have this year. Iād like to get back on track in 2026, and structure my work week into batch/theme days that set me up for more consistent deep work.
Grocery shopping. I donāt know if itās the fact that groceries cost a million dollars right now or the fact that we live in a very small house with zero storage (which makes it difficult to shop in bulk because we have nowhere to put the food), but I feel like I went to the grocery store every three days in 2025. And yet, every three days we were somehow out of something else. Bread. Eggs. Cereal. Coffee. I do not know how to fix this problem, but I need to, because the constant schlep-to-the-store, spend $274, come-home-and-realize-we-are-still-out-of-something-else was making me feel a lot of rage toward the end of the year.
Marital communication / date nights. Transparently, Brett and I have had a rough year. Our communication (or lack thereof) has obviously played a huge role in that, as well as a lack of date nights/intentional time together. Our only goal for 2026 is to get our marriage back to a place of thriving, not just surviving. ā¤ļø
Family dinner. I seem to recall us starting out strong with this in January/February, but like a lot of other things, family dinner fell by the wayside mid-year. With our oldest being 13 and starting high school next fall (!!!!!!), I want to make family dinner a priority in 2026 so we can establish a strong foundation of āhome baseā / security / belonging around our table.
Marketing my own work. (Cue sigh.) I donāt know whatās wrong with me, but I continue to feel so gross and weird āmarketingā my work. Co-hort4. Workshop. Book. Photography. Doesnāt matter what it is, I have a voice in my brain that screams THIS IS SLIMY AND AWKWARD every time I attempt to promote ā¦ anything. Generally speaking, Iām feeling really discouraged and exhausted from trying to talk about my work in a way that feels confident and genuine. Sometimes I wish I could just make cool things and then crawl into a hole, but thatās not how this works, and I know that. š« Thereās a mental block here for me that I really need to work through.
Getting a(nother) job. With all three kids finally in full-time school, I optimistically applied for a handful of part-time jobs this year. I did not get any of them. (I also applied for an artist cohort I was super excited aboutāand didnāt get into that, either.) Suffice it to say, my confidence took a pretty big hit in 2025, which may or may not have resulted in Some Big Sad Feelings and 3am spirals. My rĆ©sumĆ© is ready to go and Iām keeping an open eye, but overall I am still feeling like a total loser. Good times!
Letās end on a high note, shall we?
5 (Random) Favorite Things from 2025:
Callieās Fairytale Workshop. I took this course over the summer and cannot possibly rave about it enough. Mirror Mirror On The Wall is my favorite thing I wrote this year.
Disposable cameras. Consider this one small part of my ongoing rebellion against AI.
Squalane oil. This was my hero skincare product of 2025. Iāve had a few Instagram DMs asking exactly how/when I use this, and the short answer is: this is the first thing that touches my skin. I actually stopped washing my face in the morning, so this is the first thing I apply in the AM (sometimes as a precursor to gua sha or face cupping), followed by moisturizer + SPF. At night, this is the first thing I apply to a clean face, followed by moisturizer, followed by face tape or frownies (right now Iām rotating these every other night).5
The Motherhood Anthology. After listening to this podcast consistently for most of 2025, I finally took the plunge and joined their membership for the year. I am really trying to revamp my photography as a profitable side gig in 2026 and I love how these women talk about the business side of photography while keeping their heart/passion alive.
Thrifting. I have had a complete renaissance with thrifting this yearāfrom clothes to art to kid stuff to home goods. Iām planning to write more about this in early 2026 during my no buy challenge!
Thatās it for me. Katie and I will be talking more about what went right next week on the Coffee + Crumbs podcast. In the meantime, Iād love to know what worked (or what didnāt!) for you in 2025, if youāre willing to share. Hit reply to this email or leave a comment below ā¤ļø
Apparently there are Very Very Expensive singular mattresses that promise to do this same thing, but a) they were out of our price range, and b) I had my doubts.
I am planning to do the same to kick off 2026: 40 yoga classes before I turn 40, zero personal shopping Jan 1-March 20th, and Iām also deleting Instagram for the whole month of January. (I wasnāt able to do this last year because we were launching Making a Mother, but historically January is my favorite month to take off of social media!).
Friendly reminder that this starts next week and as of right now, only three people have signed up. HELP. š
I will add a small disclaimer that I picked up Rebel oil on a Black Friday sale and now this is the main oil Iām using at night. So far I love it, but I havenāt been using it very long! Kathryn Romine is my go-to for all-natural aging tips.
I love these lists! Thanks for sharing that it was a hard year for your marriage. Honestly, thatās true for a lot of people and being willing to say it out loud makes everyone feel less alone. ā¤ļø
Not a replacement for counselling, but have you come across "The Marriage You Want: Moving Beyond Stereotypes for a Relationship Built on Scripture, New Data, and Emotional Health" by Sheila Wray Gregoire & Dr Keith Gregoire (Baker Books, 2025)? It's really practical, and they clearly explain why they make the recommendations they do, based off research and Scripture. My husband is not a reader, but he has been slowly reading his way through this one, making notes.
I think there's a lot of value in honouring the sadness by allowing yourself to feel small and deflated post job rejections (and other rejections). Rather than bouncing straight onto the next thing. Like, you don't want to stew in the sadness forever (and it IS easy to get stuck there). But feeling it and acknowledging it gives your heart space to process. Because it IS sad and demoralising. That's you being real.
Gotta feel it to heal it.