What Works and What Didn't in 2025

Credit for this blog post goes to all the other bloggers who already posted under this title. Here’s mine:

What Worked in 2025

1. 1. Grocery Delivery

   I know, I am probably late to the party on this one, since most of you have been doing this since COVID times, but over the past year I created a solid routine of meal plan, order ingredients, have groceries delivered. I should probably write an Ode to Grocery Delivery one of these days because it is just that good. Personally, I am not a big fan of shopping. I do not like looking at all the shiny things lined up along the walls vying for my attention. I do not like walking the same aisle five times because I cannot find something. I do not like blocking the people behind me who are in a hurry because I am standing there trying to read ingredients. (Note: Exception made for shopping with friends. That’s a social outing, not a chore. I’ll happily share a cart with you while we walk the aisles together.) With grocery delivery, someone else wandered the aisles looking for obscure items from my list. Someone else did not randomly throw extra junk food in the cart. Someone else actually stuck to the list. Someone else loaded up their car and dropped off all my goodies on my doorstop. I’m telling you, it is magical to open your front door and have everything you need right there, ready to be put away.

2. 2. Kid Cook Days

   I couldn’t think of a catchy way to phrase this one, but basically each kid (they are 10, 12, 15) cooks one-ish meal(s) a week. We’re not on a hardcore schedule, but more of a rotation. If there is an obligation-free night coming up, I’ll assign that night’s dinner to a child. The next open night will go to the next child, etc. My ten-year-old has decided he will do slow-cooker only meals (totally fine with me; a meal is a meal), and the other two tend to stick with stovetop or oven or air fryer. I told the kids they should be able to make at least five solid meals by the time they move out, and this routine helps them figure out what they like and what they do not like. I have plenty of cookbooks they can browse, as well as some ideas I saved from the internet, or they can choose to make something I have made in the past.

3. 3. Voice Messages

   I spend a lot of time in the car as a personal chauffeur to my children. With this comes time that I fill with giving and receiving voice messages to and from friends and family. I have people I communicate with who are on different schedules and in different time zones, so we leave each other messages to listen to at our own convenience. It is a great way to stay connected to people without worrying about catching them at a bad time, or cutting them off if I am on a time restraint. I will admit, it was a little awkward leaving monologues at first, but now I’m a pro.

4. 4. Traveling

   This was a year of travel, and it was amazing! The children are at such a good age to go explore, and explore we did. We went coast to coast and even overseas for the very first time. We did short trips and one-on-one trips and individual trips and long trips. Collectively, we went to Disneyland and Disneyworld and Epic Universe and Disneyland Paris (we like amusement parks in case you couldn’t tell) and baseball games and book signings and friend meet-ups and birthday parties and historical sites, to name a few. Did people get sick or injured or annoyed along the way? Of course. Traveling brings up many different challenges, especially traveling as a family of five, but that’s okay, and we just roll with it and figure it out, all the while planning our next adventure. I’m hoping to instill a love of travel into the children and inspire them to be adventurous and learn how to pivot when plans change unexpectedly.

What Didn’t Work in 2024

1. 1. Exercise

   I was once a gym rat (okay, fine, I hear my good friends cracking up over that), but I was someone who went to the gym quite regularly. I loved taking (easy) group classes and going with friends and making fitness a priority. However, we moved a few years ago and switched gyms, but life got busy and I just ended up going less and less until I wasn’t going at all. It was more prudent to ditch the gym membership than pay for something I wasn’t using. However, my plan to YouTube workouts from the comfort of my own home turned into scrolling social media instead. This year I found some workout buddies and am planning to get back into a good exercise routine.

2. 2. Time Management

   There was once a time when I did all the things. I have no idea how. In high school I went to school and did the work and then did the extracurricular and had a job. Same with college. Then marriage and career, where I threw a baby into the mix. Post-career I had a couple more kids and began homeschooling and wrote essays and went back to school and earned another degree. After that I thought I would have some more free time to knock out some life goals (spoiler- I did not. Knock out the life goals, that is. The time was there.). Somehow that free time disappeared and I did not get back into writing like I hoped, nor did I meet my reading goals this year.

3. 3. Gardening

   I love growing things. I like planting the seeds or the seedlings and watching actual fruit or flowers emerge so that I can use them or eat them. There’s just something so primal about eating what you grow, and you get such an appreciation for God’s creation. However, this year we did an abundance of traveling (see above, number 4) that I was not able to be home and take care of a garden like I could have. Instead, I currently have an overgrown mass of weeds and fire ants that I am hoping will magically disappear one day and leave some vegetables in its place. One can hope, right? Maybe this year I’ll be able to clear out my garden beds and get some plants that won’t be destroyed by terrible Texas bugs or weather. Maybe.

Thanks for reading my first post of the year! What worked for you in 2025? What didn’t work? Are you making any changes for 2026? I would love to read your comments!