2025.

The "holiday season" is always pretty rough. Not enough energy for myself, and yet simultaneously obliged to use that energy interacting with people I intentionally do not see much of the rest of the year.

Trying to set myself up for a decent year to come by focusing what energy I do have on personally-beneficial tasks and activities. That's why I haven't been posting - I've been trying to spend what I have to spare on building relationships and improving my own personal sphere of existence. Unlike with cohost, I can't just click "reblog" on something I find and provide proof of my continued existence. There's a bit more effort involved in constructing things worth sharing, and at the moment I don't have the buffer to put that effort in.

I'm not a big person on resolutions, but I've set myself two exceedingly-low-bar "challenges" for 2025.

1.) Do something every week that I'd consider worth telling someone else about. 2024 tended to meld together into a blur of mediocrity because I just did the same thing over and over and over again. I'm going to attempt to break up the repetition of it all via new recipes, new activities (hopefully with friends - new or old), and general efforts to pursue things of greater interest. Even if it just means reframing experiences in a way that makes me consider them more appreciatively as "something neat," that's still of value.

2.) Make something. Literally... something. A sculpture, a completed piece of writing, a craft... something. It's a low bar, so I can conceivably clear it, but I feel as if focusing on the things I can do in 2025 (making things, either for myself or others) will help in some way. And if I get one done, maybe I can do another. But it's not an obligation. One thing in 365 days is definitively manageable.

Normal posting will resume once the returning daylight eases some of the worst of the energy issues. In the meantime, know I wish you well and I hope your year goes better than expected.