2025! What a crazy year, amirite?!? There were ups, there were downs, there were side-steps, and there were dodges. Things got crazy, things calmed down, and still other things settled into whole new places.
January
There were a few things of note that happened in the first month of 2025 – 3D printed some yarn winders, built some heavy padding for Daniel’s room, wrote and submitted some stories – but the most important thing was that Craig and I became grandparents! Names are withheld to protect the innocent, but suffice to say that we are still beyond chuffed. There is much knitting and cooing and cheering and snuggling, and much more as the years go on.
There is nothing else in January that counts as much as this, so moving on…
February
The second month of 2025 was full of little things that lead to big things. Our (grown adult) nephew Tristan of Rock n’ Roll Cannibals fame moved back to Denton from Las Vegas, opening the doors for a lot more gigging and recording. Ash went to a big quilt convention in Phoenix that laid the groundwork for her to eventually start working with the Ruby Star Society. (It’s kind of a big deal.)
The hardest part, though, was finding out one of my dearest friends from high school passed away suddenly just before his 52nd birthday. We were satellites on social media, keeping track quietly of each other while our proximity to each other ebbed and flowed, but just when we were scheduled to start drifting back towards each other… he was just gone. It’s going to be a long time before I fully process this.
March
This was the month that went sideways but in ways that worked out for the best. I decided to install a test garden in the front yard – the south side of the house without dogs trampling everything – and hired some guys to till up the plot that I outlined. Except, right as they finished that, we had a fairly mild wind storm and audibly heard the big elm tree in the front yard creak. Muy no bueno.
So, I paid the same guys to chop the tree down, except they kinda completely sucked at it. Yes, it came down, and they didn’t (significantly) damage the house in the process, but when I told them I didn’t want the tree hauled off, they just kinda left. So, I spent the next not-insignificant amount of time with my chain saw chopping this massive freakin’ tree into smaller, more manageable pieces and hauling it all to the backyard. (I did have a little help here and there.)
Oh, and I finally got a good model set for my tarot tiles.
April
This was the month that my glorious husband Craig turned 50, and he elected to have the absolute best birthday party ever at a skating rink. It was the best, even though I personally can’t skate because of a life-long vestibular calibration issue. I used a little cheat walker-stand-thingy and it was still fantastically fun.
Interestingly enough, that tree that we lost in March had previously been so massive that it literally blocked our entire house from satellite view – and, thus, from the sun. Some guys from a solar panel company swung by, saw our newly naked roof, and set us up for a consultation to get some panels installed. Sweet!
On the down-but-still-upside, at the beginning of April, I was in a car accident that totaled poor Hijinx, the 2006 Toyota Matrix that Craig had longer than he’d known me. I was found Not At Fault since it was the Volvo in front of me that decided to slam on the brakes at a frikkin’ yellow light in the rain, but the damage to Hijinx was more than the value of the car, so we did what Craig wanted to do for his 50th birthday anyway and got a new car. Sweet Tooth is a 2024 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid and a reasonable compensation for losing Hijinx.
Oh, and I was completely unscathed, thanks for asking. In fact, it might’ve actually fixed a spinal issue I’ve had since my last car accident a few decades ago.
May
The most significant thing about this month was how the loss of my friend in February reopened communication with another of our high school friends that led to an offer of contract employment in May, ending literal years of application and study and networking for jobs, none of which accomplished anything. But, the studying and degree did lead to the particular type of contract work I got, so things really do eventually work out, right?
This was also when the solar panels got installed, when the tree bits were finally put to their final (for now) resting place, and the front yard garden was finally cleared away and ready for our first test planting.
June
This was both the busiest and the least remarkable month of the year, more or less, and only by comparison. I had an EEG to see if there was anything wonky about the migraines, but nothing showed up. I converted the upstairs bathroom into my art studio. We saw “Ballerina” at the Coyote Drive-In for Father’s Day. We planted two of the Three Sisters in the front yard, started some containers, and prepared to wait. It was a lot of future investment with little immediate fruition, and that’s fine.
July
This was the last time that Joseph and Daniel would spend summer holiday with their biologically correct paternal progenitor as Daniel turned 18 this year (more on that later). We took this opportunity to make some big things happen, like getting a DreamBox for the art studio – an ideal solution for a lot of art supplies needing to live in a very small space.
And then… dinosaurs.
Craig and Cy and I went to Dinosaur Valley State Park for a little weekend camp trip in Texas, in July, and it went about as well as could be expected. Our reconnaissance was incomplete and we ended up having to haul our gear sans wagon up the hill – and that’s just for starters. There were many chapters to that adventure, but the highlights were Craig losing about 20 pounds in three days to heat exhaustion bordering on heat stroke, my trusty steel-toed boots dying in the Paluxy River, and Cy discovering that he’s not quite as much of an indoor pet as he originally thought.
August
This month started with the announcement that we would not be presenting the Roanoke Writers Conference this year. This was a rough decision, but we felt that the timing and climate weren’t going to be right for it, and we were correct: by November, the new flu strain was ripping through communities and wreaking havoc, but that’s another story.
Craig and I celebrated our 12th anniversary with a lovely couple’s massage, pedicures, some gluten-free cookies, a lovely dinner, and then, because we’re grownups and can do what we want, we got matching tattoos.
The night before that, we’d gone to see the Matrix at COSM in the Colony, and while we were fiddling about with the check, Craig drew a little heart on my arm. It was just a silly little thing, a basic tiny gesture, but I completely and totally fell in love with it. Of course, it got washed off in the shower the next morning, but it was in my head, for better or worse, and it popped out when we were discussing what to do when we didn’t want to go home yet.
He drew mine, and I drew his, and Nic at Renaissance Tattoo made it happen exactly as we rendered them – small simple hearts on our forearms.
This was also the month that Great Kitten Invasion began with the arrival of the Meowbsters, four kittens that became three kittens whose queen was suffering from cancer and going a little wacky. Meep the Merciless opened the doors for her brothers and then peaced out.
September
Ronnington (Ron) Sasquatch Purrlman the Fourth-and-Three-Quarters (completely orange), Walker (completely white), and Jelly Belly Bean Roll (orange and white) pulled through the rough patches while they were still bottle-feeding, but then the Velvet Gremlin and Lulu (both of them tabbies) showed up bringing our total number of foster kittens to five. I also signed up to foster kittens through… an organization… because I was led to believe that doing so would help me find homes for the five I already had.
That was not the case, but more on that later.
We did a big rearrange in the Swaintly Manor, replaced the kitchen faucet, got Daniel started with all of his adult doctors, and started the guardianship process. The test garden provided the information we needed to determine that the soil in the front yard is crap (unsurprising) and that we have a major need to amend the soil over the winter to get anything out of it next year.
(As of this writing, that still hasn’t happened, but we’re working on it.)
October
Apparently, this whole animal rescue thing started spreading like a virus because we also ended up with a puppy, the Artful Dodger, whose mum had gotten pancaked in a busy road. I bought a crate, took him to the vet for a checkup, got him his first round of shots and dewormer, and then started looking for a home for him. (He ended up going with our neighbor down the street by the end of the month, a match made in heaven.)
From the… organization… I took on three neonate orphans at one day old. One was born with a congenital defect and passed away after a few days. Another developed some sort of systemic illness and passed away a few weeks later. The Lone Survivor, Annie With The Emo Hair, stuck it out and was returned to the… organization… for the rest of her journey in November.
And, of course, October is Spoopy Birfday Month, and this year’s theme was Playing Cards (because I turned 52). The header image is Joseph in his Jevil costume, shuffling cards for the passers-by. Joseph created the model for the mask, Craig printed it, and I finished it with the straps and the paint and so forth.
Our gimmick this year was brilliant, too: trick-or-treaters had to pick a card from the deck, and then they got to grab a handful of treats from the box that matched the suit of their card. We had fruity treats, chocolate treats, lollipops, and little stuffed animals – and everyone wanted to pull Spades so they could get the stuffed animals! Next year, we might skip the candy altogether.
As an aside, Craig and I did something I was not expecting and began a membership at a local gym. I have done gym many times periodically in the past, but Craig has not (in a formal way), so this has started a heck of an adventure for the both of us. Me, I need to work on strength, flexibility, and stamina so that I can keep up with Daniel as he gets older. For Craig, it’s been a big part of his recovery from the little quite-nearly-dying episode back in July. (And, yes, it was that bad.)
November
Daniel turned 18, and with that event, his entire routine has been upended: visitation with his biologically correct paternal progenitor has ceased as the boys no longer have a room to stay in over there, and weekend visits are spotty and only last an afternoon or so. But, that means that Daniel has fewer opportunities to get out of the house, which is stressful for him.
Thanksgiving (and most holidays) are held at our house now since it’s pretty much impossible to Daniel-proof anyone else’s house, and I’m a pretty good cookist. We had quite a lovely dinner of lamb, herb-crusted pork loin, vegan stuffed mushrooms, and so much food… it was delightful.
But, most importantly, the fosters started finding their homes! Ron Purrlman has moved into the comfort-and-joy role of healing a family torn by tragedy earlier in the year, and I know that his mostly smooth brain and loud purrs will be a huge boon to them.
This was also the month that I had quite enough of the clutter and disorganization, and so began the Great Art Supply Purge. (This is an ongoing event until we can each function and get our artistic work done without having to go through forty-seven extra steps every time just to get to our crap.)
December
Our young man Joseph turned 22, and we celebrated by taking him to see the 1974 version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory at COSM – and then the next day, we were able to have an actual birthday thing with the twins in attendance. It was pretty awesome.
The Velvet Gremlin went to his furever home with a family of autistic folks who desperately needed a feline sibling, and Jelly Roll finally got to his furever home with the same friends who took in Astrea (previously Polyshedron). Two more to go!
Craig and I finally got to check out the metal shows at the Haltom Theater, we saw the new version of Silent Night, Deadly Night at the drive-in (and then Predator: Badlands at Studio Movie Grill), and later compared the new SNDN with the original 1984 version. Honestly, I like the upgrade much better.
Xmas is just sort of a secular family gathering for us, and these past few months have been so busy with rearranging and kitten maintenance and so forth that we didn’t even decorate, and you know what? The world didn’t end. In fact, it was calm and chill and pleasant, we had excellent tamales and other food, the boys all made dishes to contribute to the feast, and the gift-giving was kept to a bare minimum: we all have enough stuff, it should really all be about the fellowship now, you know?
Great Googly Moogly…
And now, here we are on the precipice of 2026, and there is so much hope and fear and anxiety and determination whirling around us that I don’t even know how to express it all.
I’ll be writing more project-based work for the next few months, but I’m also looking at writing more fiction and maybe putting out some chapbooks with the short stories in them. Would you like that?
I want to play more video games, and I want to sell more stuff on Alchemias. I want to stick with the healthy stuff and go to the gym around three times a week, and I might start seeing a therapist again to help me through the weird brain shit that happens around menopause. I managed to stop taking sleep aids this year (big win!) and did a lot of new research, and I started some new art skills that might become something kind of big later on.
I have a lot of irons in various parts of the fire, and I desperately want them to pan out, but I am paying attention to the winds of change; what is valuable to the world is shifting, and art must shift with it. For the first time in many years, I feel in control of my seasonal depression, and I have given myself permission to acquire the things that I need to expand my skills and capacities. I have also given myself permission to be good at something without having to commodify it, and that’s a big deal.
All that being said, want a cat?
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