My mother died in March. That feels like basically the only thing that happened this year, but of course it's not. Theoretically you stay in full mourning for a parent for a whole year (which hasn't ended yet); I haven't quite managed that, as done properly it's really quite intense, no social gatherings or live music for example, but it has definitely been the major theme in my life. And helping Dad to figure out what his life will be like as a widow.
I continued to be a student rabbi, making it through to the halfway point of my studies. I took on more and more complex rabbinic work, and got to know the incoming first year students. (We're the grownups now, there is actually only one finalist ahead of my cohort.) My much awaited and also somewhat dreaded trip to Israel got cancelled, due to the decision point coinciding with the particularly scary time when Israel was actively at war with Iran. I did some other short travel, even making it to Germany and Sweden.
Significant events:
Mum went from being officially terminally ill but mostly coping at the beginning of the year, to the drugs not working and being in a lot of pain in January-February, to actively dying. March-April was all the immediate aftermath of her death.
I had a few days with jack in Skegness, which I remember basically nothing about because it was in the middle of the final weeks of Mum's life. I think we stayed in a cute tiny house and did a bit of walking in the countryside. I have more memories of our trip to Norfolk in May.
doseybat and verazea got married on a lightship on the Thames, and my partners had a Jewish blessing of their 20-year-old marriage, both on the same weekend.
I did a completely absurd amount of travelling for the High Holy Days, first day Rosh HaShanah in Southampton, second day in the Isle of Wight accompanied by the intrepid cjwatson, Shabbat Shuva in Stoke, Yom Kippur in Cornwall where I had to respond to the first fatal antisemitic attack in this country in my lifetime, Succot back home in Cambridge, a very flying visit to Sweden for the Shabbat during Succot with ghoti_mhic_uait, and back for Simchat Torah and returning to college.
* I supported one of my best friends who was in an abusive relationship, which got extremely scary before the end.
* I finished and posted the first fanfic I've written since the Epic Psychiatric Misadventures 16 years ago which reduced my brain to scorched earth, and I think it's one of the two best things I've ever written:
* I started playing Dark Souls, and I beat Ornstein and Smough.
* I did some RL stuff which I can't talk about here without doxxing myself, but which was my tiny contribution to trying to make the UK suck less.
* I discovered I could go for a "run" (very slow run-walk intervals) ending up by a spot in a brook where I could quickly change and dunk myself, and this enabled the dunking to be viable much later into the year than you might think (context: my brain's idiosyncrasies means that a few minutes of cold water immersion is FREE DOPAMINE, so this is the bribe for the "run").
Other than that, the year's been a shitshow of injury, endless IC flare-ups and consequent pain and sleep deprivation, endless exhaustion, endless terror and worry about my friend, and the inevitable slide into depression by the end of the year as a result of all the aforementioned stressors. Hopefully it will be transient, and my meds cocktail and many many years of practice will suffice to haul me out.
Fandom: Heated Rivalry Characters/Pairings: Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Scott Hunter/Kip Grady, Rose Landry, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander Rating: Teen Length: 6 gif sets Content Notes: some flashing lights. Creator Links:ilyarozanovs on tumblr Themes: canon LGBTQ+ characters, enemies to lovers, mutual pining, slow burn (romantically)
Summary: None given. Six gifsets, each containing 12 frames.
Reccer's Notes: These are especially good gifsets, one for each episode. They include split-screen gifs across frames, which I always find very impressive. A set of gorgeous montages for the episodes of season one.
This is crossposted from Curiousity.ca, my personal maker blog. If you want to link to this post, please use the original link since the formatting there is usually better.
I realized that my original plan to run a stash-focused social media event wasn’t something I wanted to do any more, so I swapped that one to be the more vague but intensely more fun “write more.”
August: Used up some leftover gradients for a sock (goals: self-striping, top to toes). Started a cable sweater (goals: complicated cables, knit a sweater)
September/October: Fall Finish or Frog Along! This is my favourite social media event where we finish languishing projects or reclaim the parts and let them go.
I wanted to focus on finishing things that would allow me to start packing parts of my craft supplies (goal: lesser used crafts, Whittle down the WIPs), so I finished a last couple of spins on my big wooden spinning wheel then packed it up:
A handspun skein of yarn in mixed purples is being held in front of a hydrangea bush that is trending towards hot pink and brown flowers but still has some purple left.
And I finished the sampler scarf I’d had on my loom and failed to finish last year, then packed up the loom:
A sampler scarf showing different textures and weaving techniques, done in blue and grey yarns.
A box with a disassembled loom in it.
Honestly, I’m not sure I’ll be pulling the loom out and re-assembling it anytime soon after I get moved, given how I felt about that last project.
I also made up a little “Chillow Collar” knitted jewellery kit that had been in my stash a while (goal: kits in stash). I totally failed to do some quilting or finish the sand seal my kid had started before he got bored of the sewing. I did get a bunch of work in on my fall sweater before abandoning it for October MKALs, though!
November: Working on xmas presents. They did use some stash yarn I had earmarked for projects, so they fit a few old goals! (goals: gradients, kits in stash)
December: One of my old goals was “toys” so I’m counting the gnome for that! plus I am still working on a sweater which was also an old goal.
Overall, this was a fun goal to recognize 10 years, but it didn’t turn out to be as fun as I hoped. Still a success but I think I’d have been better off choosing a specific goal or two to revisit rather than wading through the whole pile of them every month to find something to do.
Try Something New
I was feeling a bit burned out on coming up with ideas for this goal so I mentally de-prioritized it, but without trying to plan for it I wound up doing some fun new things anyhow:
August: I tried a little bit of bookbinding and then some soap-shaping with my kid. We didn’t work with lye or anything, he just melted soap blocks into fun shapes, and now we have a bunch of tiny soaps with polished rocks in them that he likes to dig out once they’re close to done.
September: This month was “fall finish or frog along” so I didn’t start anything particularly new.
October: Watercolour painting exercises from random books at the library. Some of them turned out really nice!
A watercolour painting of three mixed drinks with ice and garnishes.
I also did some hand lettering exercises, but didn’t get as far with that.
November: More watercolours. Also I had to learn an entire web development framework in a “language not on my resume” for a tech interview, which was fun but tiring.
A botanical watercolour painting featuring wild roses and berries. there is a paintbrush and a box with a palette holding the painting on the corners.
December: I’m also counting the gnome for this because it’s my first time knitting one in DK weight yarn, so I need to adjust the tools I use. And Imagined Landscapes often throws in a new technique or two to play with so who knows maybe i’ll learn something.
So even though I’d been planning to mostly drop this goal, I did some fun new things and didn’t stress about it and it was great. Absolutely finished this one out perfectly.
Write more
Kept chugging on fanfics, including writing for another event. I spent a lot of time in “writing sprints” where we kind of turn writing into something that’s a cross between a pomodoro timer and parallel play. I’ve had writing be a bit social back when I used to write for the Geek Feminism blog, but this is differently social and I love it. I’m starting to understand why every novel I read lately thanks their writing group.
For the blog, I’ve been keeping up with the monthly stationary posts. I’d hoped to spend some more time writing tech stuff in conjunction with my slow job hunt so my blog would look more nerdy again, but I haven’t gotten around to that as much. Turns out planning an international move eats up a lot of time, plus we had more than one medical emergency, and then I spent 3 weeks solo parenting while J flew to Canada to prep our new house. Oh, and I hit my head badly after the dog took off after a squirrel, and healing head injuries is rough and made worse by the fact that most of the signs you’re supposed to watch for are things that I experience regularly: headaches, dizziness, nausea.
The fanfic experience this year has been fantastic and the writing sprints have improved my life and honestly probably my mental health. If you combine the blog and fanfic I’ve published over 100k words this year and have written more that’s still in drafts or got edited out. So this goal has been a huge success!
Game Design
I got really into making silly games in Scratch with my kid and for my fandom friends in the fall, so this was a huge winner.
I still want to work in some less kid-oriented frameworks, but I’ve actually been really pleased with the amount of stuff they packed into Scratch. It’s been fun to look at the stupid mobile games and stuff my kid sees streamers play and think “Hey, we could make that in Scratch” so I think we’ll have some more fun prototyping silly ideas about how to make games better.
Also, I love that kiddo and I have been having real conversations about game design and fun and difficulty curves and art assets and stuff. I may need to see about joining some game design oriented communities the way I’ve been enjoying fandom communities if I want to turn this from a casual sometimes thing to a regular activity in my life, but for now kid and I are having a good time together. So I declare this goal a success!
Conclusions
Honestly, I think these weren’t the best goals: obviously the stash thing didn’t work out, and I think maybe revisiting old goals and doing “something new” were both a bit too open-ended and looking through that big list of previous years goals wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be. That’s probably because this was a year of burnout so I could have used more direction from my past self (but I was already very burned out last year when I was putting these goals together, so it is what it is). I got a lot out of the 2025 goals in the end, but it was a bit more of a struggle than fiber goals have been for me in previous years. Of course, everything has been a bit of a struggle this year so maybe the goals aren’t to blame.
For my personal goals tracking, I switched to re-writing the goals in my monthly journal spreads, then recording one or two things I planned to do to fill them, or added things after when I wrapped up the month. It made writing these wrap-up posts a lot easier! I think it helped me to have them where I was checking off completed projects so I saw them when I was deciding what to work on next, too. One of the things I enjoy about using a blank journal rather than one with preset pages is that I can slowly tweak these things as I find different things I need to record or keep in the front of my mind.
I still love the idea of fiber goals, but I think it’s fair to say that I’m stretching out from fiber right now and that’s unlikely to change in 2026. So I’m going to keep the idea of “have goals for things that bring you joy” going, but switch to calling them “Creative goals” for next year. Stay tuned tomorrow for what those goals will be!
gamechangerhr is a Game Changers Book series/Heated Rivalry TV series dreamwidth community. We also accept Rachel Reid's other Hockey Romance books! :) Fanworks, discussions, meta, recs, etc are welcomed here! Rules are on the profile!
Sitting in the most beautiful Apple Store (really! I'm staring at all sorts of historical facade detail work right now) with some downtime; popping in to say hello. :)
Interlude: the reason I'm at the Apple Store right now is because my phone reinstall went rogue. Le sigh. At least things are progressing well, but on a four-year-old phone with some newly-discovered physical damage, I know it's probably new phone time sooner rather than later.
- And then we knew the storm was coming, so we finished our drive down to LA the next day. Of course there was traffic two days before Christmas, but at least we were coming down the coast and from barely 100 miles away. Leonard and Sara took the valley road, which is faster, but they were driving the whole distance from the Bay in one day, and had to go over the Grapevine, and there were literal tumbleweeds causing crashes. But everyone made it safely; Jane and Uhmuhni's flights came in without too much delay, and we celebrated with curry plates at CoCo Ichibanya.
Still feeling like I want to send out New Year's cards, re-establish contact with those I've lost touch with. Still need to see whether my reach exceeds my grasp here. Still have LA and San Diego to write up. Still aspiring to be in better touch with people, as always, and trying to navigate how to best do that in 2026 with the shifting sands of everything. Miss you all, and here's to getting to hug you in the new year.
Current Mood:busy
Current Music:and there's a hand my trusty fiere // and gie's a hand o' thine
Lorne: "Angel, please do not do this thing. We'll find some other way."
Lilah: "There is no other way."
Lorne: "You know, not speaking would be a really good look for you."
Angel: "How's that?"
Lilah: "Looks about right."
Angel: "What's next?"
Lorne: "What's next is we reconsider this. Angel, you're messing with primordial powers of darkness here!"
Angel to Lilah: "Next?"
The paragraph from one of the pain books about Soup continues excellent for dramatic readings. I appear to have not quoted it here? I shall have to remedy that in the morning.
My Shit Beard Hairs (I think I'm up to... 10ish of them, fairly reliably?) are increasingly white, which makes them increasingly hard to remove in targeted fashion (which I care about solely because the sensory experience of Isolated Hairs is Bad, Actually). I am amused by all of this.
I am nearly up to halfway through December in my DW catch-up. Will I manage to be actually up to date by the end of the calendar year? PROBABLY NOT, because I am about to hit Year In Review season, when for some reason you all get very talkative!
Absolutely have not set up my notebook for next year yet, and indeed am several days behind on physio log (augh). Executive Function Is Hard, Actually. This is the other factor that is likely to derail getting caught up on DW tomorrow...
Successfully offloaded some leftovers at a Boardgames And (Fake) Leftovers gathering (with air purifier, and carrageenan nose spray). Tragically, left behind the tea strainer that we'd been using to fix the problem of Cork In The Port...
Anyone else get the massive urge to make jam and can tomato sauce and do the rest of the sort of food put up in the liminal space between Christmas and New Year's?
People really watch Benoit Blanc movies without having ever encountered any detective fiction other than Sherlock Holmes and feel fully qualified to comment on the connections that they think they've made.
Remember the terrible articles in the late 90s that repetitively and confidently asserted that Rowling had invented YA fantasy, or low fantasy, because they didn't bother to check a single library or bookstore?
Fandom: Heated Rivalry Characters/Pairings: Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Yuna Hollander/David Hollander Rating: Teen Length: 1443 Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply Creator Links:toomuchplor on AO3 Themes: canon LGBTQ+ characters, Family, Established relationship, Missing scene
Summary: If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. ~ Thoreau Or; What happened when Yuna and Shane were talking.
Reccer's Notes: I wanted this scene when I watched episode 6, and toomuchplor wrote it! This is what happens between Ilya and David when Shane is outside talking with Yuna. It's also about David observing how in love Shane and Ilya are, and about David and Yuna gradually getting to grips with all the revelations. It's wonderfully written, and just exactly what I'd hoped someone would write. Also, toomuchplor is in the vortex!! *excited noises* (this is plor's 3rd HR fic).
Fandom: Night at the Museum Pairings/Characters: Jedediah/Octavius Rating: T Length: 15,551 Creator Links:flowerdeluce Theme: Amnesty, (Five) Things, Essential Starter Recs, Friends to Lovers, Heists & Capers, Just Plain Fun, Magic, Research, Slow Burn, Uncommon Settings, Working Together, Worldbuilding
Summary: After discovering how lucrative ‘publicity stunts’ are for the museum, McPhee organises a series of art exhibitions in the museum’s gallery. The installations are refreshed weekly, leaving Jed and Octavius only brief windows of time to explore each one.
Reccer's Notes: An absolutely gorgeous fic which integrates real-world museum exhibits; they all sounded so unique and fascinating it made me want to visit my own local museum, too!! The slow build up of the boys' relationship is also just delightful as they explore these new worlds and the many other ways the museum's magic animates each unique exhibit.
Fandom: The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System Pairings/Characters: Luo Binghe/Shen Qingqiu Rating: M Length: 33,372 Creator Links:ratjamtime1EndRacismintheOTW1 Theme: Amnesty, (Not Really) Unrequited Love, Casefic, Character Development, Clones & Doppelgangers, Favorite Fanworks, Fix-it, Identity Porn, Loyalty Kink, Secret Identity Reveal, Spells & Curses, Trauma & Recovery
Summary: Luo Binghe is setting the beginning foundations of his attempt to prove himself the righteous cultivator Shen Qingqiu could welcome back to his side (and possibly love but let's not get ahead of ourselves here) when he hears his master's life is in peril. He leaps at the chance to prove his goodness and worth to his master.
Luo Binghe learns his master is not the man he thought he was.
AKA
Shen 'Airplane wrote this for an orgy wife plot/love confession but I'll be damned before I do anything like THAT' Qingqiu vs Luo 'If it were not for Shizun, I'd kill everyone on this mountain and then myself' Binghe, FIGHT
Reccer's Notes: Out of all the 'Binghe fights the System and finds out Shen Qingqiu's true identity' fics out there (and there will never be enough to satiate my cravings), this one is my favourite. Please don't be turned off by the grammar: this is such a perfect dissection of the many different parts of Shen Qingqiu slash Shen Yuan, following Binghe through a series of important memories as he pieces together the truth and reaches the core of the rift between he and his Shizun. It just feels so perfectly... conclusive: when it ended all I could do is sit back and bask in the satisfaction because it felt like such a perfect ending for them both!!
Fandom: The West Wing Pairings/Characters: Sam Seaborn/Josh Lyman-focus; also includes Sam/OMC, Josh/Amy and Josh/Donna Rating: E Length: 347,597 overall Creator Links:jaegecko Theme: Amnesty, Ambiguous Relationships, Backstory, Character Development, Epic Works, Fandom Classics, Getting Back Together, Missing Scenes, Mutual Pining, Politics, Research, Series
Summary: The Turningverse is a series of stories that interweave with both canon "West Wing" episodes and each other. Each one is self-contained, so feel free to begin anywhere you feel moved to do so.
Reccer's Notes: THE big Sam/Josh fic, and it earns all of its accolades! The author is incredibly knowledgeable about the day-to-day realities of political campaigners and White House staffers, flawlessly interspersing their own original scenes with canon. And the central relationship is so perfectly, tragically flawed: two men who are intrinsically drawn to one another, struggling to overcome the lack of privacy inherent to their position, burgeoning resentment, and some of the most heart-breakingly realistic internalised homophobia I've read in a long time. And that's not to mention the fic's version of Lisa, Sam's initial fiance, who becomes a very important character just as flawed and with just as complicated a relationship with Sam and Josh as they have with another. I devoured these fics and never wanted to stop!
However, be aware that the final fic of the series (the intended second-last part) was never fully completed. As a result, the series never reached the point where the couple gets back together for good. I recommend ending with 'Interlude for two voices' if you can't bear that; I sure stayed there for a while until I could bring myself to go on! :')
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