Just a 48-year-old mom of 2 in Northern California. My kids are Monkey Monkey(MM) and Drama Llama (DL). I am married to Monkey Hubby (MH). One more sleep until my Christmas dreams come true... 😁
On 12/31, disaster company got served with a lawsuit. 🙄 We knew it was coming and I expect they probably heard about the company sale and wanted to slip this through. It was just icing on the cake of a trying week. But we had a heads up (some months ago) and everyone seems pretty *Shrugs* about it. We will be financially responsible for anything of this nature pre-2026. It was a disgruntled employee. (& to be clear, doesn't matter when served. The complaint is a pre-2026 complaint.)
Today is also the last day before DL(22)'s girlfriend flies home. The trip was a success. I took them out to dinner last night. I was nervous if she would like it here and could see living here. Because if not, who knows where they end up. (She is unhappy in her current situation.) So I took them out to dinner in the 'this seems to open up a lot of conversation' vein. She looked horrified when DL(20) brought up she had a plan to move here this summer. But it answered my question and I told her that was not unexpected. I think she was horrified that DL told us any of this, because it was more the seed of an idea. But DL(20) was already hoping for this possibility (at some point). & a couple of his friends want to hook her up with housing and a job.
MM(22) is inside the rose float again this year, on parade day, for his college. I worry if he got any sleep last night, in the cold and the rain. They sleep in the float, they have to stay near for whatever reasons. I mean, most likely so the parade will go off without a hitch (no MIA float operators) but also probably in case of emergency and if they need to move floats for any reason. & I am worried about him because he was sick. He might be able to sleep most of today. He can't afford to miss any classes because it's a new quarter on Monday. Last year there was a much bigger gap between Jan 1 and classes starting. & he had to stay with the float for 4 days? Meaning, he can't go back to his college for a few more days. The schedule will have to be a little different this year, with the time crunch.
Oh yeah, and their float won the grand prize! It's the first time they have won, after 75 years of participating. So that is pretty exciting! It's been a rough year of infinite mechanical problems that he was involved with. I swear he told us 3 or 4 times (some months ago) that he would be over the hump. But they ended up having several engine problems. It just seemed to never end. But the engine worked well enough for judging and getting through the start of the parade. I suppose that's the most important part.
If I have one word for 2025, it's that it was EXHAUSTING. I am so exhausted.
The tenor of the year changed a bit. It was a little less constant dire news and a lot less '10 bad things happening all at once.' Because of the tone change, and some really good things that happened, I think 2025 is going to stand out as an overall good year (head and shoulders above the rest of my 40s). But... Man it was an exhausting year, and it started out pretty rough. Most of the rest of my 40s is a blur of, "I don't have time to deal with and process *any* of this." I'd say that 2025 was less overwhelming, overall. It was a weird no-cost Murphy year. It felt like the problems were non-stop but on the money front it was one of our lower years as far as unexpected expenses and emergency spending. It's crazy how many bigger things happened that were $0-$50 fixes. The perfect example is I thought my cat was dying (he was very sickly and lethargic) and it turns out he was just eating plastic. He loves plastic, but it seems to be getting worse with age. So what stressed me out very much was an easy fix. (I realized when he puked up some plastic before I took him to the vet.) I feel like this sums up 2025 pretty well. It captures the stress and drama of all the things that ended up being "nothing" or cheap fixes.
Some pretty amazing things happened in 2025.
**We hit some long-term/big financial goals and ended the year with a lot of good money news.
**MH got his movie made and out into the world.
**DL(20) figured out what he wants to do with his life. & he found his person. Both are major life wins.
**Our 25th Anniversary trip was pretty amazing.
I am feeling very hopeful about 2026.
On the work front, trying very hard re: everything we can actually control. So excited to lose a chunk of workload (eventually) if this company sale goes through. We also replaced a $20/hour employee with two $60K+ employees. *Fingers crossed*
I still know that we have some very trying years in our nearer future, re: aging parents. 2025 was a pretty good year on that front, and I am just overall feeling in a more hopeful space. So it's weighing less on my mind. But practically, we are well aware we have some very difficult years ahead of us, sooner rather than later.
2023 & 2024 were a lot more difficult, in contrast. You don't expect to have a significantly easier year when you have two parents going through mental declines. But 2025 was a weirdly peaceful/easy year on this front.
Looking ahead to 2026:
**MM(22) graduates college! That's pretty exciting and feels along the same lines of recent retirement savings accomplishments. Watching the work of the last 20+ years come to fruition.
**MH is making another movie. This has the potential to be very stressful. But it's the big thing that is in the works for 2026. More on this later.
MH got some good news on the movie front today. We found out that MM's float won a big award. & I am hoping that tomorrow is a really good news day re: selling that company. So I'd say that 2026 is off to a strong start.
January 2nd, 2026 at 07:08 pm 1767380881
Also congrats to Santa bringing you that Christmas lawsuit to that garbage company of yours. That’s pretty amusing.