#78 – Can You Feel Optimism in 2025?

This is a bit of a follow-up to my discussion of cultural boredom from earlier this year, a little update to my creative slump, and exciting developments for my hunt to replace my reliable crafting supplies. The world still feels like it is on fire, but I think I am learning how to thrive again. It takes me a long time to process things, so maybe that’s why?

Spaghetti and Gnarly

Le Sserafim released a song that captures the wonderfully nonsensical world of a good K-pop song. Spaghetti is catchy, silly, and makes me crave spaghetti, so that’s what I am cooking tonight. It is what I remember the music videos of K-pop to look like when I took the plunge in 2022. It was fun, and in the last few years, it has lost some of its luster with darker concepts, instead of cute, and a bit uninspired. Although I’m fully into K-pop, it has been repetitive and bland for most of 2025. Except for my favorites – Stray Kids and Nmixx. Enter Gnarly by Katseye. A song that is so jarring it’s bad but also amazing, it’s been a weird one for me, the thesis of this year, it has felt like. “Everything is gnarly.” A phrase that has carried me through bizarre headlines and life’s bumpy road this year. For me, Gnarly was going to be the song that typified what I remember feeling in 2025, until Bleep by Stray Kids dropped in August. But now, I hope I will remember moments that feel like the upbeat wonder of Spaghetti. What about Golden? I desperately need to compile notes for K-pop Demon Hunters because that has been such a gift.

Big Twist at Michaels

Big Twist is back at Michaels, for real, and it’s kind of silly to admit this, but it feels comforting. There’s a Joann Knit and Sew Shop section in the store, and like, maybe it was a bad dream? I mean, all the crafting drama definitely happened this year between private equity, tariffs, and Sci Show declaring the arrival of physicists to help the knitters. The familiarity was maybe all my neurodivergent mind needed to just relax a bit? Now the fabric is not good, but it could get better in time. I’m choosing to be hopeful, I mean, the recent US election showed a strong rejection of the Trump Administration, so as people have said all year, if it can get worse, it can get better. And for me, who hates change with a passion, I’ve learned that if it disappears, it can come back. I just need to work on my patience. I have found a second local yarn store in my own state, and a great local fabric shop. I’d say I’m pleased to the point that I am not missing Joann like I thought I would.

Stitches for Identity

I believe I am finally moving out of the depressed forest that is being laid off due to personal and global trauma. I’ve been listening to Kitchen and Jorn’s Losing Followers Podcast, where they have been talking through the post-Buzzfeed time of their careers. I was in a toxic job at Great Dane Trailers in the late 2010s, and it was freeing yet terrifying to lose that job. Listening to Jen and Kristin talk through the transition of leaving a job that demanded all of them, to be free from that monster, but also lose all connection to the project they built from the ground up, has been a balm to me. When I was laid off, I lost my app and my content calendar, my magazine contribution. I was wrecked, and I didn’t know how to process that for years. I felt like a loser. I dove into crafting, and for years, those stitches of thread and yarn gave me meaning.

The blog, though, and finally this year uploading my manuscript to this website this year connected me back to what makes me feel like me. I have always been drawn to writing, and not having that or a way to work towards something bigger than just sharing my creations on social media was gnarly. But this blog and your community have helped me find my way back. I mean, heck, Udal Cuain and my original blog, where I shared chapters, was the portfolio that landed me the corporate job. Although it’s gone, what I learned and experienced stayed with me and has made me grow into who I am now. This has been a full circle.

It’s been freeing to admit to myself and loved ones that I was depressed by that career loss. Starting over again has been confusing, but it’s not all figured out yet. There is still time to find a new place where I belong. I’m in the process of recalibrating, and that is a direction in itself. I feel freed from the weight of “monetizing my hobby” and the impossible summit of creating a small business as someone who truly is not cut out for the accounting or marketing parts.

Unmasking and Coping for the First Time

Truly, though, as I reflect on this year, getting serious about health – mental, physical, and emotional – for the first time has contributed to the feeling of optimism I have leaving 2025 that I did not have entering 2025. I have healthier boundaries in relationships, more honesty about how I’m doing, and whether I am feeling overstimulated. I recently got into rebounding, aka a fancy term for jumping on a miniature trampoline for cardio. Wow, I like this for my mind! It resets me, and it’s helping me get stronger. I used to feel ashamed of who I am. I didn’t understand why I felt so different, nor did I know how to communicate burnout without pushing friends and loved ones away. Being unmasked was tumultuous for the first couple of months, but now I never want to put that neurotypical mask back on.

How has 2025 changed you? I think it has made me unapologetically empathetic. Bolder to say I disagree with wrong because the stakes have been higher than ever in my lifetime. I hope to carry that forward into 2026, because I think the opposite of late-stage capitalism is community, so let’s burn it down with empathy. Thank you, dear reader, for spending time with me today. I wish you love and kindness.

November 6, 2025 0

It’s Okay to Admit You Don’t Like It

A place I didn’t expect to reach this year, was the mental head space of dislike for a dream I’ve had for most of my life. Now could it be burnout and I just need a break? Probably. But I also think it might a healthy thing to acknowledge something you thought you would love, may not actually bring you joy as you wished.

What am I talking about? Sewing. I don’t like sewing as much as I want to. It is tedious, extremely complicated, and requires a level of patience I lack. I’ve been a sewist for 5 years now. I devoted a large amount of my time over the past five years to the study of garment construction, and I realized that it is not my medium, yarn is, and its not a failure to admit I don’t like sewing as much as knitting and crochet.

I think I have known this for about a year, yet refused to verbalize my feeling because it felt like I failed the one thing I always wanted to do. But why is that a failure?

Just because it’s not my passion, doesn’t mean I am going to stop sewing. I think having this space to put less pressure on it to be “my thing” could make me enjoy it more!

Because then I am free to create, to fail, to be a slow learner, to take breaks from sewing when I am ready to cry. I don’t have to feel pressured to get my skills up to par for selling my work. I don’t have to feel pressure to design my own patterns or build a business on sewing. I can go back to basics of what has always been at my core – art. I am an artist, I don’t set out to be, but I know its there inside me too afraid to commit to the bit.

I love what sewing brings me. It’s a fantastic skill to have. I can design my own clothing made to measure and that is luxurious even if my sewing skills are mid.

I can experiement with my style through upcycling. I love how I can recycle and repurpose fabric instead of donating. That is a important part of comsumption. We buy and buy but don’t think about the life cycle of the garment, but with needle and thread you can leave the buy and declutter cycle.

Sewing has taught me to be a wiser comsumer as well. I buy garments that I can’t sew. Complex garments. I also price compare fabric against pieces in store to figure out what is more cost effective to sew. Such as buying a 6.99/yard, one yard cut of cotton jersey to make one long sleeve basic tee. You can buy these from retailers for 35 USD compared to sewing one for 7 USD.

It’s not always cheaper, but sometimes it is and that is a huge win!

Finally, by allowing myself to feel these feelings, my hope is that I will be free to explore and create unencombered by goals of monetizing my hobby, instead that I enjoy the creative process again.

Have you ever tried sewing? Did you find it challenging?

November 4, 2025 0

Planning Changes in Our Garden

Writing about the garden in fall with winter on the way has been more difficult than I anticipated. I’ve been busy with painting my office, work, planning some woodworking projects, and trying to relax some. My plan is to write posts during the gardening “offseason” that require research, like the one last week about the accuracy of first and last frost dates. But this week, time got away from me a bit, and I didn’t start on anything. Instead, I decided that I’ll go over some of the changes that we’re planning for next year’s garden.

Converting the Space by Our Porch Into a Container Garden

There is an area off our back porch that has dirt in it and is bordered by rocks and landscape timbers. I don’t think that the previous owner or the tenant who lived in the house ever attempted to grow vegetables or flowers in the bed because the soil is poor quality and shallow. Also, at some point, someone planted a chameleon plant there, and it has taken over the entire area. If you’re unfamiliar with the chameleon plant, it’s an invasive species that grows native in Southeast Asia. People used to plant it a lot because it can grow in virtually any condition and has pretty flowers. However, it also takes over everything because its rhizomes spread underground, making it difficult to kill.

Magz and I have disliked this plant since we bought our house and learned what the plant is. Last summer, I thought I could kill it with a string trimmer, but that only temporarily slowed its spread and released a smell that can only be described as disgusting. This year, we took a different tactic by using chemicals. Round Up and other common herbicides didn’t work. We learned that a combination of Dawn dishwashing liquid, salt, and concentrated white vinegar may work, but it didn’t. We eventually bought glyphosate, which was impactful. It actually kills the leaves and the root system, and we got it under control enough that we thought we could plant vegetables in it. Late in summer, we tried to plant some squash and pumpkins in there, but that didn’t prove to be successful, as the chameleon plant came back since we couldn’t continue to spray it with glyphosate. That leads us to where we’re currently at.

Originally, I thought that the best plan was to build up the retaining wall and rock border, kill the chameleon plant, lay down some landscaping plastic, and bring in fresh soil to plant in. Magz had a much better idea given how much soil that would take and still not knowing if the chameleon plant would eventually reappear. Her idea is to kill the chameleon plant and lay down landscaping plastic, but then, instead of bringing in soil, we buy gravel/small stone to pour on top of the plastic. With the plastic fully covered, we will then buy containers to grow potatoes in.

This will allow us to still use that space without needing to worry about the soil quality or if we’ll ever be able to grow in it. We also will get to grow potatoes again, which we struggled with this year and had none to harvest. We’ll also be able to use a space that was previously unusable and make it beautiful, similar to English gardens. The area gets plenty of sunlight, so nearly every type of vegetable can grow there. We also have some outdoor furniture that we’d like to have in this area where we could sit and read a book or simply relax.

Adding Another Garden Bed & Potentially Adjusting Our Existing Beds

We still have plans to expand our garden for next year. This year’s garden consisted of two large gardening areas with five beds. Next year, we want to expand the one area to add a fifth bed to it. Our yard is still a bit larger than we’d like it to be, and there are plenty of additional vegetables that we want to try growing as well as some that we want to grow more of. We also want to have our property be a certified wildlife habitat, which requires having a lot of natural plants that benefit pollinators, birds, and mammals. Additionally, we want to grow flax as part of the PA Flax Project with the goal of regrowing the textile industry in our state. With flax, we can harvest the fibers that get spun into linen, which is one of the best wearable fabrics.

Our original plans for this year’s garden consisted of having this extra garden bed, but we ran out of time. It’ll be a lot easier to create this new bed with the other ones already established. We’re going to get started on creating this bed as soon as this week once a shipment of glyphosate arrives. We attempted to buy it locally, but our town’s Tractor Supply was all out for some reason (even though they had plenty of Christmas decorations to buy). Once it arrives, we’ll spray the area for the new bed as well as the existing beds in order to finally kill all the grass that we battled this year. We want to finally have the grass knocked down so that we only see soil.

The other thing we discussed is converting one of our existing beds into a raised bed. The drainage in that bed is poor, and when we get a lot of rain, it gets swampy. With a raised bed, we can eliminate that problem. However, it does require railroad ties to establish the bed’s boundaries, so we’ll see if we want to spend that money next year or let it go another year.

So, those are our plans for changing how we grow things moving forward. We want to more effectively and efficiently grow vegetables, and we feel this will help accomplish that goal. Do you make a lot of changes to your garden on a yearly basis? Have you had any experience with the chameleon plant, or is there another intrusive plant that gives you fits?

November 3, 2025 0