2025 Look Back + 2026 Aspirations

I ultimately hoped 2025 would have some mercy for me, and in comparison to 2024, it definitely had a bit of mercy for me with a few upsides! I thought it would be the year of new beginnings, but alas. If 2024 was the year of survival, 2025 was probably the year of transition (part 1? We’ll see). There’s a lot that happened this past year, and I guess in retrospect the events of 2024 led up to what happens in 2025, so logically it’ll lead up to whatever the universe has in store for me in 2026. (If that makes me feel better.)

So how was 2025? Let’s see.

Blogging Musings

The joke’s on both Clo and I, because we never got around to our collaboration post aside from within our dreams and DMs. But in our defense, we’ve both had quite a bit going on anyway this year, so even if we did get around to a collaboration it wouldn’t have gone live this year.

That aside, I didn’t do much blogging post wise. I did more posts in 2025 than in 2024, but not by much. Of course, part of that is due to my hiatus in September and October for the rebrand, which was the biggest thing that happened in 2025 for me in blogging.

It was a lot of work and overthinking, but I’m happier for it, and I think it was definitely time for a major refresh to fit my current chapter in life and blogging. That being said, my goal was to do a post every two weeks, and if I do the math, I did more. All things considered, I did well. Maybe not exactly every two weeks, though (not counting hiatus), but I consider that a rough guideline and not something I necessarily need to set myself to. It’s okay if I do 1 post for a month and have the energy to do 3 the next month or skip a month and do a weekly post another month, especially since I don’t make a living blogging.

Reading Musings

For 2025, I was hoping to focus less on graphic novels and mangas, but that didn’t happen as most of the year primarily consisted of graphic novels and mangas. Oopsies. That being said, I did average about 3 novels a month which honestly isn’t bad considering my energy for reading (and reviewing, if I want to be honest*) for the past few years has not been well and I’ve been mostly mentally and emotionally drained these days.

*But why not review graphic novels and mangas more? Reviewing has been feeling draining sometimes, so I’m trying to have a better balance with myself and only reading for the purpose of enjoyment. That being said, I might think about doing them every once in awhile but as a mini review.

I hoped to finish 1-2 old ARCs and I’m happy to say I read 2 of them! Both of them I found the final copies at my local library, so I opted to read that rather than the ARCs. 1 of them is currently sitting in the review drafts for my next set of mini reviews (the other was Monsters Born and Made, which I just opted for a GR review rather than the blog), whenever that may be. I didn’t request much for 2025 but I did stay on top of all but 3 of them (which were all invites rather than ones I requested).

Personal Musings

2025 did not have much in my aspirations: therapy was my primary goal, and I’ve been going for nearly a year, which is kind of wild. I’ve got my work cut out for me, though, and of course, the process is going to be so much slower when I’m actively in the environment with the exact cause of my going to therapy. I try to remind myself of this when I have a moment of existential crisis where I’m wondering if therapy even is working (and there were multiple times).

But man, do I whine about my mom (and family, because I get trauma dumped regularly) a lot. 💀 It’s been nice to have the professional support, though, and I continue to have supportive friends I can lean on.

My secondary aspiration was to be promoted to full-time at the library, and I’m happy to say that happened earlier this year! I genuinely thought it was a joke at first like surely you don’t mean me? That probably says something about my confidence and how I view myself, I guess. Not my finest moment. 😂 You could say I’m living my best life doing artsy library-related things when the kids aren’t screaming or something else library-related (non-artsy) isn’t happening. There’ve been a few displays I’ve had a lot of fun putting together, though if we want to be honest, I’m probably doing it for younger me.

(It’s quite strange to have insurance that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg and then some, though. You mean I can afford to see a dentist now??? We won’t talk about how long it’s been.)

I also wanted to be more intentional in 2025, at least to the best of my ability (I wish I could turn off the trauma dumping and subsequent energy drain, but alas) with my energy and decisions. That meant cutting off some people in my life, including the friend that reached out from last year, which honestly hurts because friendship breakups suck, but some people just waste your energy and I’d rather invest the little energy I do have in those who don’t waste it. It also included some family breakups, which I’m a little less hurt about since it was something that probably was a long time coming, but I’m feeling it was the right decision (for me) considering the reactions (unfortunately for me, I still get trauma dumped).

My washi collection grew a little out of hand, and I may have relied a little too much on retail therapy (we’re going to do better for 2026 and divert that energy to other things, though – we’ll get into that later!), so I picked up physical journaling again! I’ve used digital journaling for so long and there’s a lot of perks to it, like not having to worry about the storage limit, getting to attach photos and videos with entries, doing multiple entries a day, and most importantly, not having to carry around a notebook due to potentially prying eyes. Oh, and it works best for my [very likely] hyperhidrosis since I don’t need to worry about smudging paper. And I’d definitely do some smudging considering I’ve babbled for 3k words before.

But getting back into a physical journal (even though my intention was to use up my washi collection) has made me miss all the aspects that digital ones don’t have, like decorating the pages with stickers and washi tape and playing around with lettering.

I also started a Five Year Diary! I did end up starting over later in the year because the size didn’t work for me, and I’m still concerned the soft cover of this larger size isn’t going to fully make it through half a decade, but I’m excited for the (hopefully) fun part after I finish a full year of entries. I generally don’t look back on my journal entries since oftentimes my digital journal is just a place for me to fully vent safely.

2026 Aspirations

Unfortunately for me, I’m still dead tired, mentally exhausted and emotionally drained as we begin another trip around the sun, and also unfortunately for me, that’s probably not going to change for at least the first half of the year. I’m hoping the second half will be less so, but we’ll see!

2026 begins my Saturn Return (for all you astrology fans), so here’s to hoping for a period of growth and flourish and less trauma dumping on the horizon (my Saturn’s in my seventh house, which deals with relationships).

Blogging Aspirations

Rebranding has opened up a whole oyster of blogging possibilities; I feel like I can breathe more and I have all of these very shiny ideas that I know full well will likely sit in the draft dungeon. I have one draft that goes into the behind the scenes about the blog name but it was one created while I was under the old name; I’m hoping to eventually rewrite it so it better fits the new one.

I think I’ve found the sweet spot for posting in the past few years in my current chapter of life and blogging, so like in 2025, I’m hoping to post about every two weeks (not something I’ll strictly adhere to) depending on the energy I have. That’s about roughly 26 posts for the year, and if I do more, yay! So far I seem to be doing pretty well (weekly), but I think that’s just the start of the year as I usually have more posts around this time.

I want to continue talking about journaling and stationery as they’re an important part of my life. I’m not sure if I’ll make a 2026 version of my favorite stationery items or stationery shop discoveries, but I think that’s something I’ll decide later in the year. The latter isn’t too likely since I’ve decided to go on a low buy for the year, but perhaps I may come up with something else because I enjoy promoting small businesses and artists where I can, especially in a world that is increasingly putting AI over artists. I’m thinking I’ll do another post about the Five Year Diary later in the year when I complete a year of entries. I thought about doing it at the six month mark, but I’ve yet to decide if I want to go through with it or not.

I also want to talk about gaming again. I did a review of Volcano Princess last year after playing it while I had my XBox Game Pass trial, but prior to that the last gaming-related post was way back in 2019, and the last gaming post that I specifically wrote was back in 2018. Somehow, that one still makes the rounds, and I think with the game being released on consoles recently, it’ll be making the rounds again. It’s probably the only remnant of when I wrote Wizard101-related posts other than my post about why Wizard101 holds a small piece of my heart (it still does considering I still log in annually) and the occasional mention in my wrap-ups; the rest I decided to delete.

But anyway, one of my goals for low buy is to spend less money on games than last year so I can focus on playing the games I currently have in my library, and I think it’ll be fun to talk about some of them on the blog, especially since I did originally start out as a gaming blogger (but for a specific game). I don’t plan on putting pressure on myself to do so, though; like with book reviews, I’ll write a post if I feel like writing a post for it.

Reading Aspirations

I’m estimating that I read about 2-3 novels a month in 2025. I think I can realistically increase it from 30 novels to 40 for 2026, though my reading goal remains to be 30 books. I also think my reading will continue to primarily consist of graphic novels and manga, so I don’t think I’m going to focus on wanting to read more novels — I think it’s a good balance between books so I don’t burnout from reading, and it’s been working.

Rather than hoping to finish 1-2 old ARCs as I usually do, I’m hoping to finish at least 5 old ARCs with a focus on finishing the 3 from 2025 that I didn’t get around to. I don’t plan on requesting any ARCs this year* aside from maybe 1-2 highly anticipated ones. Assuming I get approved for those I’d like to stay on top of those and the ones I accept for review. I’m hoping to do better with reviewing and focusing more on mini reviews in 2026 rather than full-fledged reviews. That doesn’t mean I’ll stop reviewing entirely and just do mini reviews, though. It’s just that in the past when I feel like writing a review for a book, I don’t end up doing it if I don’t do a full one.

*I’ve not been requesting much in the past few years, honestly.

As a personal goal, I’m hoping to clear out my library checkouts of books rather than hoarding them and keeping them to a much more manageable number. Currently I have 9 items, though about half are movies I’m making my way through and another half are graphic novels. It shouldn’t be too hard, right? When December started it was about 25 items including movies, so progress is being made there. I also have about 8-10 holds currently, so I’ll probably review them and see if I actually still want them or if they’re now available on Libby for me to borrow. (At least I’m not forking out money for all of that, heh.)

I also want to try and read more webtoons this year and make more use of my Manta Comics subscription. I tend to go through periods of time where I’ll binge comics for a month or two and then skip off into the sunset for another 6 months before repeating the cycle. While my Manta subscription gives gems that don’t expire, I’m still wasting it by not reading from their Unlimited library since I’m also paying for that (I suppose another way of looking at it is it still saves me money from just buying gems as I go).

Other nice reading goals that I would love to get around to but aren’t making a focus:

• Reading more translated works: I’ve seen some shorter-lengthed novels (and read a couple like The Cat Who Saved Books and Women, Seated) at work that have caught my interest.
  • Plus it never hurts to have more books on my list of translated books for future display purposes, hehe.
• Reading more from Pasifika and South/Southeast Asian authors (and then convincing my work to acquire them if they don’t have them already): I know I say I have a soft spot for Asian representation and try to incorporate this in my content (could do better, though), but I do have a tendency to gravitate toward East Asian authors.
  • I also spend a lot of time ignoring my Vietnamese roots (I did grow up around my Chinese roots, though), and I should really do better on trying to read books from Vietnamese authors.
  • I did a display for this in 2025 focusing solely on Pasifika and South/Southeast Asian authors and it was quite a challenge for the former, so you could say this is to add to my list for future display purposes, too.
• Just reading more diversely in general, not just Asian authors: Admittedly, I could do a lot better with this in general, though I might be too hard on myself since I don’t have exact numbers.

Personal Aspirations

Out of all the sections, I think this one will change later this year depending on how things go, but I’m going to write this section as though nothing will change since that’s kind of how things are going currently. (But ideally I hope I don’t get trauma dumped daily, ha.)

For 2026, I’m hoping to journal daily in my Sterling Ink Daily Planner. It’s something I started in July 2025 but in a regular dot journal, and I’ve found it helps keep track of my day-to-day. Plus, I think it helps a lot in therapy, which I’m going to continue in 2026, since I currently go every two weeks so there’s a lot that happens between sessions. Digital journaling does help, but I quickly found that I had to do some searching between entries or through my messages with friends to pull out any reference materials. I also just enjoy decorating the pages a lot, which is something that isn’t possible with my current journaling app.

That being said, I have the tendency to abandon things, and that’s pretty much what happened with digital journaling. While daily in a physical journal is great, it’s also limiting in its own ways but I think what appeals the most to me is how minimalistic it is. I treat my journaling app like a stream of consciousness just yapping into the void: no formats, not worrying much about grammar – it’s literally just typing away. I’m hoping to sit down and type out at least an entry a month to help clear out my mind so I’m not fully abandoning my journaling app.

I’m also hoping to do better and not succumb to retail therapy as much as I have in 2026, so I’m deciding to do a low buy, though my priorities are on stationery since that was not a good time for me in 2025. I know realistically a full on no buy isn’t going to go too well for me (I’ve tried and failed, but very especially so in September), so I’m adjusting my expectations to make it more achievable for me. Maybe for 2027 I may try a full no buy, depending on how 2026 goes. I may also decide to adjust it so the second half of 2026 will be a no buy and the first half will be a low buy.

Let’s talk!

Hope your 2025 went well (or as well as can be)! What are your plans for 2026? Tell me about your favorite things and discoveries from 2025!