2025 was a year of major change for me. In January I retired and in April DH and I moved to our retirement home in the country. The time since then has flown by and I am keenly aware that I need to focus on getting things done or else the weeks go by and I am falling behind. I have noticed that as I get older I do have to work harder to achieve what I want to, it just does not happen it needs constant work.
I am happy with the life that I have here. It is simple and it works for DH and I. The things I enjoy most are organising events (I like the organising more than the event most times), getting together with my family, being comfortable in my home. Simple meals, day trips, shopping trips, watching a good movie. I don't need fancy things to make me happy. We have fallen into a routine here which suits us but I do want to keep setting goals and make plans so that we don't fall into a rut. Most of these goals are the same as last year.....simple things
Here are some goals for 2026.
*Read 10 books. I am keen to include some "how to" books in my reading list.
*Continue meal prep.
*Try to not have so much food on hand. Be aware of use by dates. A good buy is not a bargain if we need to toss it because it is past its date.
*Do a few more crafts. I joined Knit and natter in 2025 and thoroughly enjoyed the companionship and the crafting.
*Revisit WOTY, Lessons learned and here at the beginning of each new season to refresh. My word this year is comfortable.
*Maintain every room in the new house. Make our home comfortable and work for us. It is OK to be rid of things that do not work for us. Use what I have in this house. I have nice things and it is OK to use them. Really think about what comes into the house, we do not have the room for clutter.
*Try to find a purpose and some joy in each day.
*We will do more baking days and maybe do some more batch cooking. Learn new skills such as canning, jam making etc.
Try to use every single item that we buy or make. A no waste way of life.
*Keep working on my 5 chores a week and meal planning, it works for me.
*Continue with the retirement budget, be aware of what we spend. Be careful.
*Explore our surroundings, put myself out there and find some new friends
*Celebrate my family, they are a small but loyal tribe.
*Finding the balance between keeping busy and getting some me time.
*Modify the HGP to work in this new home. September HGP worked well but it does need tweaking.
*Try to make natural cleaners to replace some of the chemicals we use. Saves space and money.
And as a reminder......lessons learned in 2025
Christmas was not what I expected, it was the most unconventional Christmas I think I have ever had. It was fine but I would rather not repeat it. DH and I had Christmas on the 20th as we were house sitting for DD who was on holidays. I do struggle when plans change, I find it hard to adapt. I also struggle with making the celebrations wonderful for my family who are now all adults. I miss the Christmas sparkle from years past. Christmas nowadays is not bad, just different and I have to try and remember that.
What worked
I am happy with the life that I have here. It is simple and it works for DH and I. The things I enjoy most are organising events (I like the organising more than the event most times), getting together with my family, being comfortable in my home. Simple meals, day trips, shopping trips, watching a good movie. I don't need fancy things to make me happy. We have fallen into a routine here which suits us but I do want to keep setting goals and make plans so that we don't fall into a rut. Most of these goals are the same as last year.....simple things
Here are some goals for 2026.
*Read 10 books. I am keen to include some "how to" books in my reading list.
*Continue meal prep.
*Try to not have so much food on hand. Be aware of use by dates. A good buy is not a bargain if we need to toss it because it is past its date.
*Do a few more crafts. I joined Knit and natter in 2025 and thoroughly enjoyed the companionship and the crafting.
*Revisit WOTY, Lessons learned and here at the beginning of each new season to refresh. My word this year is comfortable.
*Maintain every room in the new house. Make our home comfortable and work for us. It is OK to be rid of things that do not work for us. Use what I have in this house. I have nice things and it is OK to use them. Really think about what comes into the house, we do not have the room for clutter.
*Try to find a purpose and some joy in each day.
*We will do more baking days and maybe do some more batch cooking. Learn new skills such as canning, jam making etc.
Try to use every single item that we buy or make. A no waste way of life.
*Keep working on my 5 chores a week and meal planning, it works for me.
*Continue with the retirement budget, be aware of what we spend. Be careful.
*Explore our surroundings, put myself out there and find some new friends
*Celebrate my family, they are a small but loyal tribe.
*Finding the balance between keeping busy and getting some me time.
*Modify the HGP to work in this new home. September HGP worked well but it does need tweaking.
*Try to make natural cleaners to replace some of the chemicals we use. Saves space and money.
And as a reminder......lessons learned in 2025
Christmas was not what I expected, it was the most unconventional Christmas I think I have ever had. It was fine but I would rather not repeat it. DH and I had Christmas on the 20th as we were house sitting for DD who was on holidays. I do struggle when plans change, I find it hard to adapt. I also struggle with making the celebrations wonderful for my family who are now all adults. I miss the Christmas sparkle from years past. Christmas nowadays is not bad, just different and I have to try and remember that.
What worked
- Shopping for gifts through the whole year meant no last minute rush. Also helped with the budget.
- Paring down on stocking fillers and gifts made things a bit more enjoyable.
- Cards written and mailed by November 25th. This worked well. Making sure I have money in the budget to send cards.
- Did not decorate with the exception of the tree. I put up a very small tree. I do not want to do a lot of decorating if we are not here. For the near future our Christmas celebrations will be in Canberra. I am happy with that.
- Wrapping was done by mid November. A big job out of the way as I do not enjoy wrapping. It left us time to purchase more if needed.
- Having money on the supermarket rewards card if needed.
- Having an idea of what meals we were serving and shopping early took the strain of both time and budget.
- Being retired this year meant that there was plenty of time to plan and get things done.
- Cutting back on baking, still having what we liked but just not so much of it.
- Cutting back on Christmas dinner was a success. There was still a great variety but much less. It was delicious.
- Spending time in CIJ to double check plans etc.
- DH advent calendar was a hit, will do it again.
- I need to really give much more thought to what I am giving. I need to consider more useful items especially for DD and DSoniL.
- I need to give DH some ideas of what to buy for me. There was nothing under the tree for me with the exception of one thing and that made DH uncomfortable.
- Did not look at Christmas lights.
- Need to think of how to connect with DS more. I would like him to be more involved but not sure how to do this with him living so far away.
- Need to have enough in the budget to enable me to send DS's presents to him.
- Need to rethink Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas Day breakfast. This was a bust as we were house sitting for DD. I need to put more thought into this.
- Work just a little harder to make things a little better. I have the time
- Useful and thoughtful gifts.
- Try not to have too much extra food on hand. This was much better than last year but still too much.
- Try to tweak things a little, just go that extra mile.
- Put gift tags on everything, make a bit more of an effort with wrapping.
- Be prepared to be flexible. Not sure what the plans will be for Christmas Eve, breakfast and dinner for Christmas day etc. Plan as per usual but be ready for plans to change.
- Look at a combination of HGP and HHP. There are benefits in doing both.
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