The Last Day of 2025

So, here we are at the last day of 2025.  Time to wrap things up by looking back.  So here goes...

This year, I sold just over 130 books for a whopping total of just under $200. I gave away over 4000 books to get those sales.  

I published one book this year - Thicker Than Water (which is free right now).  That puts me at 18 published novels now.  Additionally, I'm like 95% done writing another book - Duke Noble #3.  If all goes well, I could finish writing it today.  Right now, it's at 45880 words - which is the number of words I've written this year, by the way.  Not a great amount, but it's better than several of the previous years, so yay.  

I read 35 books, which is way short of my original goal of 70 and a little short of my revised goal of 40.  (It doesn't help that I've DNF'd two books this week.)  I acquired 74 new to me books this year - about half ebooks and half hard copy.

Overall, I gained 2 pounds since 1/1/25.  :shrug:  There was some down poundage, of course, but I wiped that out over the last month or so.  Thanks a lot, holidays.  =op

Early in the year, we got the opportunity to add onto our land.  Our neighbor offered us a lot and we jumped on it.  We now have an additional acre, which gives us some nice padding between our house and the house next door (and makes it so no one can build on that piece, so yay).  Unfortunately, not long after we acquired it, the weather warmed up and we couldn't actually play on it until recently.  To that end, we got Hubs a chainsaw for Christmas and he's been busy turning our dead trees into firewood.  I've been busy with the smaller stuff and working on making our new woods pretty.

Sawyer and Finn turned 3 at the end of December.  They're good boy... mostly.

I did a deck garden this year.  It was mostly tomatoes and little trees.  I probably got a couple dozen tomatoes to eat, so not a total waste, and it was a good learning experience for my garden in the coming year.  The trees are doing well, hibernating in the garage until I can replant them in the spring.  I also have several pepper plants that are still hanging around out there in the garage, and two I've brought inside so they're like houseplants until Spring.  This coming year, I plan on doing tomatoes and peppers again, but also potatoes and carrots.  And maybe a tree or two, if the mood strikes me and I find seedlings growing in my gardens again.

In September, I visited my mother for her 85th birthday.  It was a nice trip and it's always fun hanging out with Ma.  She's a hoot.  

All in all, not a bad year.  Hubs and I are still going strong, and we didn't lose any family members this year.  I call that a win.  This coming year, I hope to write and publish more.  We should see Duke Noble 3 (still without a title) hit the online shelves sometime in the first quarter.  I also hope to exercise more, lose weight and not put it back on again, and keep the old bones from falling apart any faster than they already are.  

How was your 2025?  Any hopes for the new year?