Highlight: We started the year in Tasmania—a state I am quickly becoming convinced is my spiritual home. It was a high-impact trip that included ropes courses, ziplines, mountain biking, trout fishing, and river sledding (not recommended for the visually impaired and nearing-50 crowd, by the way). To welcome in 2025, Mike and Alex tackled the Ben Lomond descent on mountain bikes while Dominic and I went “mountain segwaying”. What is that? Imagine off-roading on the offspring of an ATV and an urban segway. It was enormously fun, even worth the world-record bruise I collected on my ass when I fell off going around a sharp corner and landed on a rock.
Lowlight: On January 20, 2025, the Trump administration issued Executive Order 14169, freezing U.S. foreign aid for a 90-day review, halting new funds and pausing existing programs to assess alignment with American interests. This foreign aid freeze and the subsequent dissolution of USAID sent devastating ripple effects through the humanitarian and development sector, leading to many job losses in the field, exacerbating humanitarian crises around the world, and more than halving my own income within weeks.
Highlight: When my paid work hours took a huge hit because of the foreign aid freeze, I suddenly had more time on my hands than I’d had in years. I refocused on the book I’m trying to write (yes, still the same book I started posting about in late 2019—I am making progress, I promise), applied to join Chicago-based Story Studio’s Essay In A Year Cohort led by Megan Stielstra, and have found a lot of joy and energy in being able to focus more on writing again.
Highlight: Speaking of writing, an article I wrote for ADDitude Magazine was just listed as one of their top-10 most-read articles in 2025: A Parent’s Guide to Navigating Pathological Demand Avoidance.
Highlight: And while my work was greatly impacted by the foreign aid freeze, I did not (as so many did) lose my job entirely. I continued to serve part-time as the KonTerra Group’s Senior Training Advisor during a year when the company has worked so hard to serve a sector in crisis as well as our other clients with teams in high-stress roles.
Lowlight: One of the most depressing and annoying things about living with a progressive auto-immune disorder is that it… well… can progress. I spend a frustrating amount of time and money doing things to help limit damage and manage the impact of primary lymphedema. I’ve been wearing compression daily on my right leg for 15 years now, I needed to add in a specialty toepiece in 2021, and this year I needed to start wearing compression on my left leg as well. Summer months get more difficult to tolerate every year, which is probably why moving to Tasmania is looking increasingly attractive.
Highlight: We got new carpet in the house! I’ve never lived in a house long enough to have to think about something like new carpet before, and by the time I finally summoned up the willpower and energy to deal with the whole situation our house looked like it had been inhabited by a dozen rugby-playing Uni students and a pack of Bernese Mountain Dogs for the past twenty years. The carpet was pristine when we moved in here. Hard to believe the damage two boys and one little dog can do over time.
Before New Years, I plan to do a whole other post about my favorite books, tv, recipes and podcasts this year, but that’s enough about me for now. Here’s what’s been happening with my favorites…
Alex had a banner sixth grade year. Captain of primary school, the lead in the end-of-year performance, and an academic excellence medal. He’s also played tennis and dabbled in water polo this year. His current stated ambition is to become an actor and attend NIDA (the National Institute for Dramatic Arts). Alex enters high school (grade 7 over here) next year.
Dominic has completed eighth grade. This is no small achievement and we are very proud of him. He has attended a local climbing gym for youth squad weekly, and continues to go fishing almost every chance he gets. He’s growing like a weed, and may well be taller than me by next Christmas. Next year he’ll do food tech (cooking) and wood tech (woodwork) for his grade 9 electives.
In July, Mike stepped into a full-time role for the first time in a while—CEO for the Mountain Blue Foundation. Mountain Blue supports charitable works in our local area and in communities around the world. It’s been a joy to see him step into a role that has so much potential to use his skills and experience for good.
A lot of the news has been deeply distressing this year, and we are ever-mindful that a number of our dear friends and so many others around the world have been walking the hardest year of their lives. I’m craving and praying for more peace, goodness, and joy in the year to come for them, our world, and you and your loved ones. Merry Christmas.
PS, here’s one of many photos we took this morning AFTER a huge sugar hit with cinnamon rolls and BEFORE opening presents. One of the boy’s favorite games at the moment is covertly flipping the bird in as many of our family photos as possible. This time, Alex wasn’t even being subtle about it, and I wasn’t quick enough to pull his salute out of the frame.
