Back in January, I set out my seventh annual list of New Year’s resolutions for 2025, and in accord with my own tradition, here’s my assessment of how well I did keeping them.

  • Take a walk every day. I know that God woke me up every day this year, and that every day I got out of my bed and walked somewhere. That is not the spirit of this resolution–this one was much more about being active and exercising, not making it from my bedroom to the kitchen. Which is to say, dear Reader, that I did not, in fact, take a walk every day. But I took a lot of walks, and I kept my standing desk at work in its full, upright, standing position the entire year. (That, actually, was more of a commitment than I first suspected it would be.) I went to the gym, but instead of walking or jumping on the elliptical machine, I would lift weights, which was a wholly new experience for me. From New Year’s Day to New Year’s Eve, I lost a good amount of weight–40 pounds, give or take–although that didn’t have as much to do with my inconsistent record of taking a walk as it did with other changes in my life. Alas, I am no Kelly Hogan. My walking habits leave much to desire.
  • Make more time. Here’s something funny: I genuinely tried to cross out the myriad ways that I would waste time in my normal life this year. For one example, I put a screen time limit on Instagram, which ideally kept me from wasting time scrolling through its never-ending algorithmic projections. As mentioned above, I kept my standing desk in its standing position, hoping that by doing so, I’d reduce the time I spent scrolling on that screen. So, what happened? I filled the time. The kids absorbed the bulk of it; soccer practices, soccer games, soccer tournaments, marching band, Scouts, etc. Work took plenty of time. The rest, I guess, was assigned to any number of little projects or things here and there. We all have the same amount of time in a day. I feel better about how I spent mine this year, but I’m no good at just sitting around on my rear end with nothing to do.
  • Keep working on the 50×50 project. I sort of missed on this. Work took me to Minneapolis, a town that I’d only visited by way of connecting in its airport years ago*. Yes, that’s the kind of visit that some people won’t accept as official in the visit-all-50-states-bucket-list challenge, but remember that my definition of an official visit is sticking around long enough to use the bathroom, which I purposefully did at MSP. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because I went back and spent a few days in the Twin Cities (err… well, just one of them) and saw two baseball games and somewhat incredibly met R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills at a pub at dinner. To all the purists, I officially visited Minnesota. Check, re-check. I have eleven states remaining, and 2,059 days to at least go pee in each of them.
  • Hike Mt. LeConte. This was wonderfully fun. Thomas and I spent the Sunday before Thanksgiving making the trek up the Alum Cave trail to LeConte. It was a challenging hike, but we were both well-prepared. I’d worried that I might have missed the better windows to summit, given that we had a sharp, cold snap in the weather in November, but the weekend of our trip was milder, and we enjoyed sunny, clear skies, ice-free trails, and some of the best views around the Great Smokies. This resolution was a carryover from 2024, a year when I somehow couldn’t find the time to spend a day walking up and down a mountain, so I’m really glad to cross it off. The photo up top is from our trip.
  • Be a better coach. I’ll give myself a B on this one, maybe even a B-minus. I made plenty of mistakes in how I approached managing my team at work, and there were plenty of things I could have done better. I finished the year with a sense that I had grown, though. I found and utilized new resources to help me think through challenging situations. I rediscovered the joy of leaning into my strengths. I grew more comfortable in my role. I’m even more excited about the year ahead.
  • Feed the birds. This was a holdover from other lists of resolutions, and I like keeping it mostly because there is something wonderfully simple, even urbane, about keeping up with the bird feeder. I am not an educated birder. I do not stock my feeder with anything fancier than what I can pick up at the grocery store. But keeping the habit of checking the feeders, filling them from time to time, and then sitting back with a mug of coffee to watch whatever winged creatures show up is cathartic. There is order to it. It makes me feel responsible–not that I don’t have other things in my life that require me to be a dependable adult. I like it. There was a stretch of time when I let the feeders go empty because the neighbors sighted bear around Locust Creek, but I was happy to resume duties this winter.
  • Keep the Sabbath. I’ll give myself a C-minus. First: I struggle mightily with meeting my own aspirations for keeping Sabbath, most of which have to do with turning off the noise machines in my life, chiefly anything with a screen. I still dream of waking up on a Sunday without a single digital or electronic device disturbing me. I remember reading about how some apartment buildings in New York City feature a Sabbath mode; on Saturdays, they simply travel up and down, stopping at each floor automatically, because to the strictest Jews, even touching an elevator button violates the law of keeping the Lord’s day. At the time, I chuckled at the kind of person who took things so seriously. Now, I marvel at anyone who can accomplish it. If you’re reading closely, you’ll realize this is as much to do with the buried anguish I carry about our hopeless addiction to devices as it is becoming closer to God. Step one, I figure, is to put the iPhone down. I’ve recently been able to put the phone in the other room and walk away and forget about it for a couple hours at a time. Even then, my watch will tap my wrist when some notification sparks through the air. Aside from trying my best to clear my mind from God, perhaps my greatest joy (and there’s absolutely nothing Jewish in this practice) has come from cooking on Sunday afternoons. Many weekends, I’ll drum up a recipe and spend the entire afternoon pulling together supper. I’ll open a bottle of wine and turn on music, or maybe I’ll turn on a game to have something going in the background. And then we’ll come together around the table, the first dinner of the week, and I love it all. There’s that.

*Note: that layover was part of a trip that I’ll never forget. I was in Seattle for work, and Kelly came out to join me, and on the trip back we connected in Minneapolis en route to Charlotte. Our plane never touched down in North Carolina. Next time you see me, ask me for the story.