For those who have ever read my year recaps/list of to-dos; here’s the recap of those from 2024 before my 2025 list comes out in a few days.
1. 2023 and 2024; become a fan of hot tea. I’m giving this one up. It will never happen.
2. Take a pottery class. Negative, but I did reach out to a lady who teaches classes and I did buy Hads a pottery wheel for her birthday.
3. Go to the river. Done and done and done a lot!
4. Spend even more time at Red Rock Canyon Adventure Park in 2024 than I did in 2023; I’ve decided I’ll never find the Mickey Mouse carving as an adult and have come to be okay with this. Donesy, but I think we realized the Mickey Mouse carving is either covered by brush or simply wasn’t as deep as we thought and it washed away after 25 years.
5. Continue actually printing photos. Way better these days. Took family photos and printed them AND hung them in my entry way right away.
6. Convince my taste buds I like oatmeal. After 5 years, I’m giving up on this one.
7. Finish Homeland. Finally! Best ending to a series I’ve ever experienced.
8. This one is a secret. Secret’s out. The secret of #8 was that I would finish writing my book and make it available to other humans.
9. Give my Kokojan-gifted-fig every opportunity to grow taller than Kyle’s drum kit. I have given it every opportunity and it is getting quite close to growing taller than his drum kit.
10. Finally run a full marathon so I can go back to running halves for the rest of forever. FINALLY FINISHED! Praise the Lord this one is behind me. That was one of the most painful and most rewarding experiences of my life.
11. Find the cave at Robber’s Cave. (Pretty sure what we thought was the cave last time was not the cave.) Realized what we thought was the cave was actually the cave.
12. Run away with Kyle for an extended weekend getaway to soak up nature while hiking through wooded areas and/or mountains. Definitely didn’t run away for an extended weekend, but we did leave for a couple non-extended weekends soak up the Oklahoma outside.
13. Put the trim on in my little secret passage Fuller Mindset office. Check!
14. Successfully create a sourdough starter. This lasted a solid 5 days.
15. Read as many books with Everly as it takes to show Everly there is beauty in reading. She does like reading more than last year thanks to Kyle.
16. After falling in love with pottery and becoming semi-decent; buy a pottery wheel so the kids and I can tinker in clay whenever we want. Kind of bought the pottery wheel before any of us becoming proficient.
17. Continue fighting the ongoing war on excess in my home. I continue being a purger every chance I get.
18. Learn how to swim with a proper face in the water/breathe to the side type of technique. Completed a sprint triathlon. Decided my bank account can’t afford an Ironman 70.3 at this time in my life and I no longer need to have this goal. I should probably let Mike Bosch know. Mike Bosch, I love everything you and Ashley do; however, this is getting postponed until money becomes funny again.
19. Either find my old pair of favorite boots that someone’s hiding from me or buy a new pair. Kyle is everything good in the world and found them!
20. Finish the binding on the flipping huge king size quilt I made for our bed whose pattern and color I ended up strongly disliking by the time I finished (almost) it. Finished binding it, decided I hated it, took my seam ripper to it and de-assembled the entire thing.
21. Spend what feels like at least 1000 hours outside. We love outside, but for some reason I cannot connect with my backyard. I blame it on the fact that my grass refuses to grow. BUT. I purchased a new water hose and sprinkler so come spring, grass is growing and backyard time is coming.
22. Drink my full huge water bottle once a day. Did quite well until November. Now I’m back to oops, I had two sips today.
23. Try one new recipe a week. (Started this today; I might need to add; don’t gain 30 pounds). Lol, pretty sure I tried one new recipe this entire year.
24. On that note; don’t get pregnant. Winning!
25. Remove all the flowers/plants from the backyard; let’s be for real; I decided I would never be able to keep up with the secret garden at this point in life and started the moving/rehoming process this summer. DONE! Monkey grass transplanted to front yard and grass planted in back yard (see #21 – we’re getting there).
26. Plant and grow grass in my recently destroyed patches yard. See #21 and #25. Planted this fall. We’ll see what happens when spring rolls around.
27. Break down the walls of thought that keep me from pursuing dreams/desires I once had. What philosophical crappola was I talking about? Probably the lies that kept me from publishing that darn book for years.
28. Hang on to all the pieces from Malachi’s marble track and J’s train track. Surprisingly it’s still all here!
29. Support my kids well as they discover their passions. Let’s just say I spend an appropriate amount of money each month on these and I bought them all cutesy little customized ornaments to remind us of what they loved in 2024.
30. Go on dates with Kyle once a month. Let’s just say, having kids who are ages four through twelve make dating much easier than 0 through 8.
31. Put a birdhouse in our front yard. Sure didn’t.
32. Take up flossing at least once a week; actually; no. Not ready for this absurdity in my life. Floss more often than I did in 2023. Twice. Once before each dentist appointment.
33. Throw my phone in the river and get a landline. Still desiring this, but Marco Polo does make cell phone life much better for me.
34. Move to the Alaskan Tundra and live off the land. Bags are packed and I’m ready to go.
35. Do something really hard. TBD or see 34. Hardest thing I did this year was probably running 26.2 miles one morning.
36. Make hygge a priority. What is hygge? I know about hygge because of Kassie Hair. Hygge is a quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality (eating and sharing of meals) that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being. It is taking time away from the daily rush to be together with people you care about – or even by yourself – to relax and enjoy life’s quieter pleasures. I’m doing quite well enjoying life’s quieter pleasures. However, I kind of suck at being together with people I care about outside of the 5 others living in this home, but JoJo comes by sometimes and makes life joyous.
2025 list coming soon.