It ended with a whimper

December is done, and so is 2025. I feel like the year ended on a bit of whimper, rather than a bang. But overall, I’ve had a pretty good year.

Read on for my monthly recap, where I take a look at the areas of my life that are important to me, that I’m working on or trying to improve.

Reading

Only three finishes this month, giving me a yearly total of 44. I always kind of hope to get 52, a book a week, but that’s a lot of reading to keep up with. I think anything over 40 is respectable for me.

Finished

• Katabasis by RF Kuang. I was a little bit disappointed in this one. Not hugely, I was just expecting more, and that’s probably my fault for building it up to be something truly life changing. I think maybe this was a bit rushed for publication and some of the unevenness I felt could have been worked out with more time and edits. The way the narrative arc comes out, via a lot of backstory, felt that the character development was kind of clunky.
• No Logo by Naomi Klein. I enjoyed reading this, but it was very, very dated. I would love to read something that explores the same issues, but with today’s media landscape.
• Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. I really enjoyed this one as well. I was a little hesitant, being as it’s about Lincoln and I couldn’t really care less about him. But it’s a really good read regardless.

In progress

• Winter’s Heart by Robert Jordan. Still no progress .
• Do Hard Things by Steve Magness. Back on the hold list again.
• This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel J Levitin. Hold came up and another chapter read. I love this book, it’s so full of mind blowing information.
• Wizard and Glass by Stephen King. Another chapter read, meaning I also got to listen to the next podcast episode. I love these books so much.
• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain. Really trying to push myself to listen to more of this, but it’s just so infuriating. About a third of the way through.
• David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Got halfway and had to return it. Waiting on hold now.
• ‘48 by James Herbert. About halfway through and enjoying it. A little surprised by what I do and don't remember.
• The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin. Just started and so far so good. I’m a little worried that this is one that I’ve built up too much as well.
• 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. Another one with big expectations. About 8 hours in and loving it so far. Except how Murakami writes women and attitudes towards women. It’s hard to read sometimes.

Health

Really all just bare minimum maintenance here.

Haven’t gone too crazy with food over the break so far.

Exercise has been meh, but I’ve been to parkrun.

The break has been good for my mental health, but also just highlights how horrible having to drag yourself to work 5 days a week 50 weeks a year is.

Writing

Couple of short story rejections came through, which is fine and welcome. Was going to work on writing over the break, but have done absolutely nothing. I need to find a way to fit writing in regularly, that isn’t smashing out my monthly prompt the weekend before it’s due. Is writing something I really want to do, or just something I want to want to do?

December’s writing prompt was due quite early in the month and was only 300 words, so I’ve not had any writing due for most of the month, and won’t get a new prompt until January.

Haven’t done anything more towards my stitching blog.

Book of Stitches

The new project is going okay… not 100% sure it’s going to turn out how I want, but I have to just keep going for now, see how it starts coming together and then decide whether I’ll continue or submit it.

I think I’m going to apply for a study grant for the School of Stitched Textiles certificate 3. I’ve got until May to apply, so I’ll sit with that decision for a while and see if it feels right before I go ahead and do that.

Etsy has been pretty far from my mind this month, so just let it do its thing.

This month’s (and last months’s) stats are:

Views: 167 (123)

Visits: 88 (69)

Sales: 2 (4)

Finances

Still haven’t sorted the Japan pension refund, that was on my holidays to-do list and I haven’t. Otherwise, finances are going ok. Ready to step into proper savings mode now that all debts are paid and we’re settled in the new place. Will probably drop this from the monthly recap now as well.

Goals

I had set myself a few things I wanted to do in the Xmas/New Year’s break and have not really done any of them at all. I’m going to say that having some unfocused downtime was more important, but I feel like now I’m just pushing things onto my future self who will have less time to do them.

New Year's Resolution is to be less indecisive. Whenever I’m about to say “I don’t mind”, I will instead make a choice. If other people don’t like that choice then it’s on them to say so.

Get this pension refund sorted and figure out some kind of writing practice, if I want to take writing seriously.

Thanks for following along for another year. Let's do it all again in 2026.