2025 down, 2026 to go

I don’t think any of us went into 2025 thinking this would be an easy year, and boy wasn’t it. Rather than restate our collective challenges, I’m going to stick to my own little life and keep it short with bullet points and pictures. I’ll also list as many positives as I can, because even in the darkest of times, there are sources of joy and reasons to be grateful.

Real life, in no particular order

• (OK, there’s some order, let’s do the hard one first) My mom passed away in late October – our relationship was complicated, and so are my feelings, but I’m working through it all with a therapist
• (Bittersweet) I adopted Mom’s green cheek conure, Tutu (which we jokingly spell “Teauxtu,” thanks to my brother), who bonded to me quickly and thoroughly, but who is currently plucking all of his feathers anyway — we’re working on it with his vet, and I’m hopeful we’ll get him past this (though I’ll love him anyway, even if he’s a naked bird forever; I cannot overstate how sweet a little guy he is!)
• My brother got married to a really nice lady, and I’m so happy for them!
• In early October, we moved from Midcoast Maine to Western NY, where there is a larger and more active covid-conscious community – because the economy was so unstable, it took months to sell our house in Maine, but we did finally succeed, the day before Christmas 🎉
• We joined the mask bloc here for a D&D night and had a lot of fun – looking forward to getting involved in mask distribution and attending more events in 2026
• I finally read all of the Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells, spurred on by the release of the TV show – then I listened to the audiobooks, and it became my comfort listen for the whole latter part of the year
• I ran an accessible birding event here in Rochester, and I’m hoping to run more next year
• I took American Sign Language 101 and 102, which I’ve really enjoyed. I’ll be retaking 102 in early 2026 (it was a rough autumn/winter), and then I hope to move on to 103 and 104.
• I learned to darn (as in, mending damaged knitted items), and I’m working on expanding my mending skills repertoire – this is well-timed, since, besides his own feathers and our hair, Tutu loves to bite on shirts until they have holes in them
• We saw the most vivid aurora we’ve ever seen, including during our time in Alaska
• My aunt sent me her scone recipe, and I made so. many. scones. this year

Work, in no particular order

• I ran the first part of a major, potentially multi-year LibGuides accessibility remediation project (“potentially” because there’s a task force considering how important LibGuides are to us and our patrons, and maybe we will shift focus away from them or have a single accessibility remediator or … something I haven’t thought of, who knows?)
• I co-ran a task force focused on accessibility training for library staff
• We survived a university-wide “Cybersecurity Alignment” (or the first part of one?)
• I learned the developer side of Figma (kind of, I still find parts of it baffling)
• I learned a ridiculous amount about authentication to electronic resources (which would be really satisfying if I didn’t keep running into things I still don’t know)

Coming up in 2026, an incomplete list

• I’ll take more ASL classes
• I’ll mend some things
• I’ll ride my bike more, because there are more safe places to do so where I live!
• I’m hoping to work through more herbal studies and practice more of those skills – it may become vital in the near future
• There will be an IT “alignment” at work mid-year – it could mean anything from “nothing” to “now I report to Central IT (who doesn’t care about my MLIS and might actually consider it a negative) instead of the Library (who doesn’t require an MLIS for my position, but knows it’s a strength, and also my team is so good, I don’t want to lose them, OK, yes, I am very stressed about this possibility)”
• Our landlord will be selling our house, something I think (hope) he didn’t realize he’d be doing when we started renting here – we’ll get first right of refusal on buying it, and he’s willing to write us a lease for as long as we want one if we choose not to buy (NY law means the new owner will have to honor it), so while it’s a stressful situation, it’s not as bad as it could be
• A valued colleague (everyone in my department is valued, truly, but his institutional knowledge is unmatched) will be retiring, and because of budget constraints, that will probably mean some shuffling of responsibilities semi-permanently
• If we decide we aren’t moving (so, we decide to buy this house or to sign a longer lease), I’ll set up some garden beds and grow some things
• I want this to be a thing, but financially, it may not: I really very much want to build or buy a small (like, Class B, or C at the highest) camper so that I can travel again