2025 Recap + 2026 New Year Goals

Hello, 2026! My annual new year post looks back on the previous year and ahead at what’s to come. I hope you are starting this year with enthusiasm.

2025 Highlights

Let’s start with a highlight reel. This is a list that shows the quantitative summary and notable events of my year.

• Dined at 140 different Austin restaurants, bakeries, food trucks, bars, etc (Favorite Eats of the Year here)
• Traveled to Guatemala, Houston, Dallas, Round Top, and San Antonio
• Hiked a 13,000+ ft peak in Guatemala – Acatenango – possibly the hardest physical challenge I’ve ever endured
• Read 56 books
• Went fishing off the Texas coast and caught my first fish
• Went to great food events, including a pie potluck, Field Guide Fest, and 3 holiday cookie exchanges
• Hosted 11 mahjong meet-ups
• Completed a Stress and Rescue Scuba course to earn a SSI Master Diver rating
• Took 140 OrangeTheory classes where I ran 295+ miles on the treadmill
• Completed my first OrangeTheory DriTri
• Volunteered 12 times
• Worked on home projects like painting an accent wall, hanging art for a gallery wall, and finding a new dining table
• Partnered with 9 brands
• Featured 84 desserts on ATX Dessert Club
• Saw a few shows, including Cirque du Soleil’s Ovo, Maroon 5, and local favorite Midnight Rubies
• Took a few creative classes like stained glass, silversmithing, and candle making. See everything I made in this post
• Published 44 posts on Fearless Captivations

Favorite Shows: 

• The Pitt
• Slow Horses
• The Summer I Turned Pretty
• DOC
• Your Friends and Neighbors

Favorite Songs:

• If The World Burns Down – Kacey Musgraves
• cliche – mgk
• Sorry I’m Here for Someone Else – Benson Boone
• The Fate of Ophelia – Taylor Swift
• Golden – Huntrix

Things I Ate in 2025

This post shares some of my favorite eats of the year.

My Favorite and Most Popular Posts

9 Best Things to Do in Guatemala

How to Throw a Pie Potluck Party + Pie Recipe Ideas

Why Craft Omakase’s Sushi Tasting Became the Best in Austin

Take a Candle Making Class at 7th Street Candle Co in Austin, TX

How Field Guide Festival Inspires Austin’s Foodies

Guatemala Travel Guide + 1-Week Itinerary

Making Jewelry at Sisu Studio – Austin Silversmith Class

Where You Should Dine for Austin Restaurant Weeks

Which Pastries to Get at Rockman Coffee + Bakeshop

Guide to the Acatenango Volcano Hike in Guatemala

Where to Get Mochi Donuts in Austin

Holiday Cookie Party: Recap of 3 Parties and 43 Cookies

2025 Reflections

I’m proud of accomplishing a few of my goals from 2024:

• Volunteer more – the goal was monthly, and while I didn’t do that, I still volunteered 12 times
• Read 55 books – I read 56 books
• Host mahjong meet-up monthly – we only missed January!
• Reorganize my clothes closet – it’s not perfect, but there was progress
• Make my home cozier – things like painting and hanging art helped

Just like the previous year, 2025 was solid! It was a year of staying consistent with habits like exercising, eating healthier, finding community, saving money, making time for creativity, and giving back through volunteering. This is the life I wanted, and it is achieved through actions that may seem hard or mundane. I don’t always want to go to the gym or to go to an event and be social, but I know I rarely regret it, even if it doesn’t meet my expectations.

In reviewing my past recaps, 2022 and 2023 were years of destruction. (I like viewing life through the cycle of years lens.) Through the personal experiences of grief and death, those years challenged me to look at what matters in life. While grief is always teaching, 2024 and 2025 were years of growth, moving into year of mastery. I said it in the previous paragraph – “this is the life I wanted.” And I can feel the year of destruction coming around, asking what’s next. I know the next step in personal growth is going to therapy (I’ve probably talked about it for a decade!), and I know it will be a hard journey.

Thank you, 2025, for giving me the opportunities and ambition to make my life full and meaningful!

2026 Goals

You’ve seen some of my monthly goals that are boring by now: work out 12x, volunteer 1x, and host a mahjong meetup. My reading goal this year is 55 books. Some other goals on my list:

• Go birding
• Go to pilates regularly
• Keep working on home improvements

For travel, I’m looking forward to two big trips in 2026! I’ll be going to the Philippines and on a European cruise to Germany, Austria, and Hungary.

There will be a change on the blog. My monthly Captivations post will now be every other month, with the first post coming in February.

Here’s to the great things in this new year!

P.S. If you want to see recaps from past years: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014