2025 Reading and Writing in Review

I always enjoy taking time to reflect back on the previous year and think about the books that I read and the writing projects that I worked on. Not only do I love looking back at what I read during the various events of the year, but when I look back at my writing life, I often see that I accomplished quite a bit throughout the year. 

(When life is overwhelming and I'm tempted to think that "I'll never get this project done or have time to write again," I remind myself that when I do my annual writing review, I'll be able to see that somehow, the writing happens.)

Without further ado, let's dive in! 

2024 Reading & Writing Recap

Once again, it's that wonderful time of the year when people share their yearly reading lists. So, before we get too far in 2025, I want to take a moment to share some reading highlights from 2024. As usual, I don't pick the "best" or "favorite" book each month, but I want to highlight a notable one (and sometimes it is my favorite book from that month). Looking at my reading recap of books read in 2023, I'm struck by how much less fiction I am highlighting this time around. I guess I tend to read more fiction in some years than others? 

Anyways, moving on. I read 92 books in 2024, and they were a fun mix of fiction and non-fiction, books geared towards children and books aimed at adults. From werewolves to economics to mathematics to Amelia Peabody's adventures in Egypt (such good comfort reads!), I dove into a variety of fascinating topics. It was a really fun reading year. Here's one book highlight from each month, followed by a short writing recap :) 

2023: Reading & Writing in Review

It's that magical time when countless people share their reading highlights from the previous year, and I'm excited to jump in! 2023 was a great year for reading. I didn't get around to reading poetry as I had planned, but I focused on reading whatever was working for me and not feeling bad about putting books down that I couldn't get into.

In 2023, I dove into a mix of novels for adults, graphic novels (the kids and I read all of the post-show Avatar: The Last Airbender graphic novels!), nonfiction books and children's novels. In my official total, I reached 95 books (which does not include some cookbooks and the multitude of picture books I read to my kids). A lot of the books I read were awesome! Here's a small sampling of what I read over the past year:

Monetized

I bounced out of the bedroom, exuberant. A pad of paper was covered in scrawls, noting wisdom that I had gleaned in the past hour and a half. I had just participated in a free online webinar with an editor at a renowned Catholic publishing house.

Information and advice had piled into my lap, and I was encouraged by all the other people I saw participating in the webinar—some of whom I already knew of through various online Catholic publications. I was also excited about this opportunity: to receive wisdom from a woman who was freely offering her thoughts and expertise to us.

In a culture where countless offerings from creatives are monetized, this shocked me.

It’s important to compensate people for their work. Resources require time and money, and someone, somewhere, has to pay for them. Paying for books, art, classes, and conferences helps to offset the cost of producing these things. It also creates a general recognition that these resources are valuable—they are so worthwhile that we pay money for them. 

However, we’ve reached a point where we stick price tags on everything. Articles, talks, newsletters, courses, conferences, meetups—just to name a few—often have some kind of fee attached. Everything has a price, and if you don’t have the money to pay up, then you don’t receive the mentorship, training, or advice that is touted as “indispensable.”

“My time is valuable” is a refrain that I’ve seen bounce around frequently. People who create courses and other online content spend a lot of time doing this work, and it’s important that they are compensated in some way. However, our attempts to stick price tags on our time can get obsessive.

Writing through Burnout: Pursuing creative work when life feels overwhelming

I sit on the kitchen floor and place the baby nearby with toys. The toddler is napping in bed, and the two other children play quietly in the living room. I open a new document on my computer, proudly typing out the words: DRAFT 2. This is it--I am finally beginning a full rewrite of my book.  

My already-scattered thoughts started to drift away as my baby bangs on a tambourine and waves her arms. She gazes at me in anguish. It's okay, I can still do this, I think to myself. I pull her into my lap and wrap my arms around her, my fingers reaching for the keyboard. Slowly, the sentences start to form on the page, but progress is slow. The baby begins to grow even crankier, and I rush her to the bedroom, hopeful that she'll nap. I return to my spot in the kitchen and sigh, relieved that I finally have a chance to write in peace and quiet. 

I begin to type frantically. 

My other children appear. 

"Go back to rest time!" I insist. 

After several minutes of guiding them away (only for them to quickly return), I finally declare: "Okay, give me ten minutes of silence, and then you can be done with rest time." 

My children prance away to play, and I type as fast as I can, trying hard to fling words onto the page as I seize the rapidly disappearing minutes. Feelings of frustration begin to bubble within me, but alongside this, a strong conviction rises up: 

This is work that I can do--that I need to do!--in spite of any difficulties. It may not happen on my timeline or come together as quickly as I want, but it is still worthwhile--and I can do it.

Within the past few years, I've had a number of conversations about the creative life. The people I've spoken with have differed from each other: single, married, male, female, those with kids and those with no kids. Yet, despite the differences, there's a question that unifies us: 

How do I pursue my own creative projects when there's a lot going on?

We've all endured phases when life feels like a lot to handle. We may routinely feel frazzled or exhausted after a long day at the office. We may feel overwhelmed and overstimulated from being with other people all day long. The tragedies of the world might weigh on us in an emotionally heavy way. Any number of other factors can pour into our lives, and together, our creative work remains a dream for "someday."

Someday, when I'm in a new life phase...

Someday, when my kids are older...

Someday, when I have more time...

Someday, when I have a different job...

With so many demands in our lives, we may set our creative desires aside for months, or years. But, perhaps we don't want to do this. Maybe we want to engage in creative work now, in spite of less-than-ideal circumstances. We may even have the time, space, and materials for our creative pursuits. However, the exhaustion of our daily lives can begin to smother our aspirations. Feelings of burnout and mental fatigue grow. Our initial enthusiasm begins to dissipate. Maybe someday, I can try again...

What can we do when burnout knocks on the door? 

I look for an easy answer, but memories fly through my mind instead. 

Teething: a haiku

I have some thoughts and reflections on life and the world that are simmering. 

However, my toddler currently loves hitting the laptop's keys when I'm trying to write, and because all the kids now know how to unlock my bedroom door, there is no place I can hide to blog during the day...except the tornado shelter (which does not have an outlet for my laptop. Otherwise, I may consider it). 

This fact, combined with my total lack of energy thanks to lots of behavioral and physical developments my kids are going through has caused my writing life to be a bit lackluster lately. 

So, instead of a long post about Catholicism, literature, parenting, or whatever else I'd like to rant about, please enjoy this brief poem that was inspired by the lovely springtime and the not-as-lovely bout of teething that my baby is currently enduring ;) 

Is my work worthwhile?

I step into the yard and breathe deeply. All around me, the world slumbers. It is late; yet, I walk. I meander barefoot in the grass, twirling occasionally under the cloud-covered moon. I pause under the towering pecan tree and gaze north, where silent flashes of light illuminate the darkness.  

A jagged line of lightning splits the sky. I continue to watch the flashes of light as a small contraction roll through my body. I turn and continue to walk as my thoughts begin to churn, seeking clarity in the still night air. 

I ponder the challenges in these recent months and weeks of pregnancy: The anxiety, the fleeting depression, and the nocturnal panic attacks that stealthily slither through the dark bedroom to rip me from sleep. Why, God, why? I pray. Why am I having such a hard time with all of this? 

The night offers no response, save the buzz of air conditioning units and the hum of crickets and cicadas. 

I continue to walk and pray as I move back and forth across the yard. My mind grasps for a reason. Surely, God is trying to tell me something, teach me a particular lesson through all of these difficulties. 

A Rule of Life: Following our dreams

I once wrote about the importance of prioritizing our priorities; of making the time and space for the different things that are important in our lives--even when those look different from the priorities and values of other people. In that post, I mentioned that my husband and I practically accomplish this through our Rule of Life (a basic framework for how we want to live). I thought it would be fun to write a small series of posts that dive into a few different elements of our Rule of Life. As is typical, life happened and somehow over an entire year has passed since I first decided to do this! But, better late than never, right? ;) 

Today, I'd like to take a moment to share one element of our family's Rule of Life: Follow your dreams.

2021 Reading in review

Now that we are fully into 2022, I'd like to take a moment to review my reading and writing life last year. 

When 2021 began, I had a couple of goals for my reading. First, I wanted to intentionally slow down and read fewer books. Second, I wanted to re-read some of the many wonderful books that adorn my shelves. Well, I didn't do much in the way of achieving this second goal, but lo and behold, I did manage to read fewer books than normal! (a few years ago, I noticed that I was reading around 100 books a year.) 

However, in 2021, I read 74 books! This total includes a handful of comic book volumes, some Gothic novels, some modern horror and vampires, a selection of classics, memoirs, homeschooling, and a couple of YA novels. I definitely started out the year strong, and then my reading drifted off a bit once fall time hit and various commitments (and the holidays) came. I went through all of my book posts so I can highlight one book from each month that I read. These books aren't always the "best" book I read that month, but they were good in some way and help touch on the diverse stories that I read. 

To lie fallow in a frenetic culture

The moment hangs fresh with hope as I breathe in the scent of my piping hot cup of chai. The thrum, thrum, thrum of the washer beats steadily from the laundry room, the sole noise in the house where my children sleep in a miraculous, simultaneous nap. My fingers hover above the keyboard, I sip my tea, and I wait. Come, Holy Spirit, I pray, eager to see how the events of my life wind and twist together on the page. 

Nothing comes. 

Why is it that when I have a moment where I could potentially hammer out a thousand or so words on a manuscript, I sit and stare blankly? I punch on the keyboard, hesitantly typing out words, but they don't seem to fit. 

I long to grasp my thoughts on recent events, random musings, and experiences and type them up neatly, wrapped in a bow of clarity. Yet, as I ponder the wild wanderings of life, I find myself unable to do so as instantaneously as I would hope. I sit, frustrated, feeling like I've  wasted those precious, infrequent moments when "I could be productive." 

And then I read words of wisdom from educator Charlotte Mason, and though over a century has passed since she penned them, I feel as if she wrote specifically to me: 

"In this time of extraordinary pressure, educational and social, perhaps a mother's first duty to her children is to secure for them a quiet growing time, a full six years of passive receptive life, the waking part of it spent for the most part out in the fresh air." -Charlotte Mason, Home Education

Let's Prioritize our Priorities

People will talk about the elaborate foods that they are making for or with their kids. 

I'll see an article with lists of seasonally-appropriate crafts or activities for families to do. 

I'll hear about all of the elaborate homeschooling plans that various moms in my area are crafting...and the mental battle begins. 

Why am I not doing these things too? I'll bemoan my lack of put-together-ness, my disorganization, and my low threshold for becoming overwhelmed with life. But then, I remember:

My priorities are not the same as those of my friends, neighbors, or random bloggers online. 

We expend time, money and effort on the things that are important to us--or do we? I've come to realize that I may know we all have different priorities, but I fail to act like it. All of the times when I compare myself to others and plunge into guilt for not being "that mom" are moments when I forget that all these wonderful things are good, but they aren't my priorities.

It's easy to see something beautiful, exciting, and worthwhile that someone else is doing and believe that we need to be doing that thing too. When we operate under this belief, we can may find ourselves forcing our lives to look like another person's without first questioning if we really want this. 

Hope in a broken world: a newsletter project

I am not an adventurous person, and there are certain things I would rather not try anytime soon (entering a submarine, skiing downhill, and climbing a mountain are on that list), but even I must recognize that it is good to try new things. We don't have to love whatever new thing we try, and we don't have to do a good job. We probably won't do a good job. Still, utilizing a growth mindset and simply trying--and learning from failure--is good for us. It helps us stretch, grow, and develop. 

Well, it's important to "practice what you preach," so here we go...

A few years ago, I thought it would be fun to create a newsletter for this blog. No huge vision or ambitions, but it would be fun, right? So, I looked into it, and discovered that it wouldn't be feasible at that time. There were lots of elements involved and I didn't feel like shelling out money for a newsletter on a blog that makes no money. I shelved that idea, and didn't think of it again...until 2020. 

I can't even remember what caused me to think of a newsletter, but in Fall of 2020, I decided to look into it more. I researched marketing companies, obsessed over the pros and cons, and an unexpected vision for a newsletter began to form in my mind. 

Can Hobbies & Parenting Coexist?

The comforter was pulled up to my neck and I breathed deeply, sinking further into the mattress. With the rolling wave of each contraction, my body was preparing to push out a squirming baby boy. As I lay there, my eyes closed, I heard my toddler scamper into the bedroom.

Is mommy at the coffee shop? he asked my husband, not noticing my figure huddled under the blankets.

Even at just two years of age, my son had noticed my habit of regularly taking time to pursue my hobbies. My simple action, of waking up early a few mornings a week to slip into the frosty air and drive down the street to the local coffee shop, was observed by this small human being. Our actions speak volumes to our children, and over time, impart wisdom that we may never be able to convey through our words.

Countless people have been rather surprised when they hear that my husband plays video games. Not only that, but he even is involved (in varying levels of attendance) in the competitive gaming scene. Some people even appear to be in awe that I "let" my husband play video games.

Many women have expressed to me that I like to read books like you, but I haven't done that since becoming a mom. They're tired and worn out from caring for their kids and household duties, so doing any reading "for fun" is placed on a backburner-and rarely happens.

I realize that some people are in situations which do not allow them to get out by themselves. Military families, single parents, and families where one or both parents work multiple jobs may experience a lack of "free time" or be unable to leave the kids with someone (especially if no relatives live in the area). There are also, unfortunately, situations where one spouse is not supportive of the other and makes it difficult-or even impossible-for that person to ever get a break. 

Fighting for peace (Or: A view of my chaotic mind)

I sat in front of the brightly lit screen, the words in front of me colliding with various thoughts in my mind. Yet another millennial, another mother of young children ,had written a book. I was so excited to see a young woman-and a mother of little kids at that-pursuing her dreams and bringing her voice into the literary realm. However, even though I know that "comparison is the thief of joy," as they say, the old questions and doubts began firing away in my mind and heart. 

Why haven't I written as many freelance articles as I clearly could have by this point? 
Why haven't I written a book-or at the very least, written more than a page or two? (let's not count how many 1-2 page "books in progress" I have laying around...)
Why do I put most of my writing time towards my blog-which is "for fun," and a creative outlet-instead of working on "professional projects," earning money, and getting my name out there? 

But why can't I just let go of the urge to write professionally and be satisfied with scribbling on my blog while being a stay-at-home-mom? After all, kids grow quickly, and I will never get this time back with my little ones. 

I Really Like Sleep, Yet Here I Am

I really like sleep.

The words crossed my bleary mind as I pushed my eyelids open. The darkness of the bedroom was like a cozy comforter, wrapping around me with peace and quiet. I lay there for a minute or two, my eyelids slipping down again as memories began to resurface. 

Years ago, I did not really like sleep. Sleep was just something that took me away from the excitement of life. Those were the days (and nights) of staying up late with college friends before waking up at the crack of dawn for breakfast and morning classes. I graciously smiled (and mostly ignored) the wise upper classmen who would tell me, I used to live like that, but I've discovered that I have to sleep. Sure enough, I hit a wall at some point. I discovered that I could no longer live off of 5 or so hours of sleep a night, and that I needed to get at least a little more than that. I also discovered that I really, really like sleep. 

Confessions of a Former Blog-Stalker: The Journey of a Blog

I tend to have a love-hate relationship with technology, with an emphasis on the "hate" (or, to be nice, we'll say "intense dislike"). 

I also struggle at sticking with a project for a lengthy period of time. I have so many notebooks with partially begun stories and journals from over the years; fragments that float with the memories of my childhood. 

So, I am occasionally shocked that I have been blogging for five years. 

Five whopping, crazy, wild, humbling, enlightening years. Looking back on my years of blogging, I've discovered so much about myself. I've seen growth and change from a hyper, crazy teenage girl, to a blog stalker, to a woman who now sees herself as part of the Catholic blogging community. I've learned some humbling lessons, rejoiced freaked out with some surprises, and I've had loads of fun in the process. For those of you who are new to the world of blogging, perhaps you'll find something in my journey that you can relate to. For those of you who are experienced bloggers, perhaps you'll have some wisdom to share. And for those of you who randomly stumbled across this strange blog, perhaps you'll be amused or shake your head and go, "Wow, this chick is weird." It's okay-I think I'm weird, too :)

As Rocket Lay Dying (Reflections on the Triumph of the Cross)

Happy Monday, everyone! I am praying for all of you as you begin your work week, and I hope that you will be able to see God blessing your life today! I also want to give a huge shout-out to all of the awesome people out there who were praying for me prior to an interview this morning. Thanks!!!! Y'all are awesome! For those of you who may be going, Wha??? right now, let me explain really quickly: 

On Friday, I received an e-mail from the producer of Seize the Day, a show on The Catholic Channel (Sirius XM radio) with Gus Lloyd. The producer asked if they could interview me on the phone for their live show on Monday morning! Naturally, I spent the rest of the afternoon bouncing, screaming, skipping outside, and texting bajillions of people, asking for prayers. I was super excited for a radio interview with Gus, but I also really needed the prayers-because when I get super excited, I tend to talk fast, mix up my words, and sound a bit like a fool. And while I'm all about humility, I didn't think it would make me or the show look good if I wasn't speaking coherently. So, thanks for the prayers! I think it went well, and I had a lot of fun. I woke up, went to Mass with my husband, came home, and the producer called me up! It was great, and talking about the papal visit was really cool. Also, Gus had the marvelous idea that I could carry around a big sword with Mary on it, to fit with my whole "marian ninja" thing. I approve. I've decided that Gus Lloyd is pretty awesome, and his show seems really cool. 

So now that I've shared that bit of excitingness and thanksgiving, let's talk about today: it's the Triumph of the Cross! Super awesome! There are many ways I could discuss this beautiful Feast, and to begin, I want to talk about a raccoon. 

Woolly Teeth? A Half-Pomegranate Cheek? (Why I Love the Song of Songs)

Hey there! Happy feast of St. Gregory the Great, everyone!!! 

The other day, I was doing some hardcore thinking about one of my most favorite books in the Bible: The Song of Songs. 

Let's be real: This is why I need St. Josemaria in my life (In short, I blew it)

I blew it. 

A few weeks ago, I started off on the adventure of trying to break into the freelance writing world and evangelize online, all for the glory of God! I entrusted my work to God, tried to make Him the focus, and did not have lofty dreams of personal glory. God really blessed my work, and although I haven't made any money from my writing, I have the epic opportunity to volunteer for a couple of different websites occasionally. 

Well, within a few weeks, I began to notice a change in myself. I found myself checking the websites I volunteer with multiple times a day, every day, to see if my articles were accepted and published. When I met people at church, I started focusing in a bit too much on myself and my personal accomplishments. I continually asked God to help me become humble, but I kept noticing myself slip into pride. What's wrong with me? I would ask myself. Why can't I learn some humility?

Plunging into the Unknown with Joy and Freedom

Happy Feast of St. Maria Goretti! She's a big favorite of my husband and myself. I love how she, as a young teenager, so strongly wanted to live a life of holiness--and for her murderer to do the same. Today's feast takes me back a couple years, to the time when Jacob and I spent a semester in Europe. We were so blessed with the opportunity to go to the shrine of St. Maria Goretti in Nettuno, Italy.

I hope that you all are doing well, and enjoying your summer! A week ago, my husband and I moved into our new apartment, so this week has been a lot of unpacking, enjoying the final days of vacation time together, and celebrating July 4th (we went to a spectacular fireworks show in Edmond, OK). We've been enjoying unstructured days of games, movies, and conversations.

But today, life has changed.
At 5:45 a.m., bid my husband farewell as he left for his job orientation.
And then I faced it: The Unknown.