OH faithful readers of this blog… if any of you are still out there and still reading, I’m sorry about how I left you hanging the final months of 2024! It turns out training for an ultramarathon takes a LOT of time and brain space and I didn’t even realize how behind I’d gotten until the year was almost over. By then, I didn’t even have it in me to do a year end wrap up so… suffice ti too ay, I love my kids, I spent a lot less time thinking and writing about kaleidoscopes last year than I thought but I am still obsessed with them, I ran a TON of kilometers in 2024, and I did indeed keep moving forward on race day. As for knowledge, that’s being repackaged as an L for this new year…

Yes, for the year of L let’s start with LEARNING. One thing I learned last year was that if I’m going to keep running at this rate (both literally on my own two feet and also running my family members around to all the social events and extra curricular activities that are now so prevalent in this new phase of life), then I probably need to go back to my schedule of posting monthly instead of weekly. I’ll still have a once a month post over on Phoenix Moms as well, and you now have YEARS worth of old posts to go back through if you are a newer reader so I don’t feel like I’m leaving you hanging, but if you’re hungry for more you can always check out my instagram which is were a lot of my shorter writing and thoughts go these days… So this intro post will get you through January, and then my annual book recap/recommendation post is coming next month to really kick off this first L theme…

As for the other L focuses of 2025,

L is for Look: I want to pay attention to what I’m paying attention to. I want to look really look at people and things in a way that makes me feel like a saint and poet (aka I’m back in my Our Town mindset…). I want to look up and notice the stars and moon and sunsets and mountain summits. I want to look back at how far I’ve come and I want to look forward to things I have planned. There’s something intentional to me about looking and noticing and hopefully all that looking will translate into something to write and share with you.

L is for Less. Less as in it doesn’t have to be an extreme grand resolution or gesture because little by little adds up. Less as in I want to do less but it do it with more investment and intention and that might require some painful endings, but I know that will make space for some good things to have more room to grow. Less as in literal physical stuff. Something that really got away from me during ultra training was keeping on top of all the STUFF coming into our house and indeed even buying more stuff that I thought would fix one problem or another. I’m ready to have less clutter but in no way does that mean I’m heading toward minimalism. I just want less to clean and worry about and replace and lose and everything that’s left to be a beautiful mess of joy and usefulness.

L is for LOVE. What’s the point of writing things to share with you at all if I’m not writing about things I love? This kind of feels like a cheating category because I love so much so fiercely but… over a decade into this I get to make my own rules and enjoy them however I like, so LOVE LOVE LOVE.

And as a bonus L … L is for Lore… I really love the current trend of “it’s part of your lore” especially as a fantasy nerd that phrase just tickles me… and remember what I said about checking out my instagram? I’m thinking once a month instead of posting an additional blog post I’ll post something about my own personal lore on my instagram grid. 12 little tidbits about me that some people may no but the general audience of that page may not.

So there you go, I’m back in action and ready to write again… I think… I promise to do my best not to fall off the face of the earth again!

What I was working on instead of writing for this blog… crossing this dang finish line! Plus some other fun stuff I’ll share as the year goes on…