2025 was a difficult year, though which year isn’t? I had been through many fights and won many battles, but a significant portion of those victories were Pyrrhic, so by the end of the year, I was not sure whether I had achieved anything. Still, I wanted to write a short summary of what I consider the wins of 2025 (and what’s not), and how I am going to build on them. I plan to have it in three separate parts.
Money
It starts with money, because if you do not have enough of it, nothing else can happen. Everyone who knows me believes my money management is perfect; however, the only reason it appears that way is that I plan with large margins. Last year, I realized that although I was not overspending (not spending more than I make), my budget became rather mythical, and that I lost a clear distinction between what was “necessary” and what was “extra.” I haven’t changed anything in this classification since I first set it up 20+ years ago, and I was wondering why my wealth manager and I couldn’t find common ground. A year ago, I completely redesigned my budget (the totals didn’t change, but everything else did :)), and at the end of the year, it ended up being very close to reality. I didn’t make any major changes, only some minor adjustments, and I consider this result to be one of my best achievements of 2025.
Professional
Many years ago, when I first told Boris what I wanted to do when I retired, he told me it was not a retirement but a change of profession. Although I still have at least a couple of years until retirement, I feel like my profession has partially changed, or rather, I have added something new to it. Speaking strictly about my technical expertise, I am extremely happy that in 2025, I learned new techniques and technologies and became better at what I have already been doing very well. I have been presented with several major technical challenges, and I have resolved them in a new way, not relying solely on my previous experience. I consider it a very important achievement, because that’s what keeps me at the top of my profession, but at the same time, I know I could do more. There are several areas that I have never touched before because “it was not my thing,” but I believe that the time has come to broaden my expertise and not to be solely focused on the areas I am already good at. I have a list of techniques and tools I want to learn in 2026, and I hope it comes true.
For the first time since I started at my current job, I was able to create new open-source projects. My current job does not leave me much time to pursue professional projects outside the job itself, but this year I added one new project and almost added another. Formally speaking, I added it yesterday, but the work was done in Q4 of 2025.
Prairie Postgres
This is part of my volunteer work, but it is so massive that it warrants a separate section. Obviously, that’s the first time in my life of running a not-for-profit, and I still think I had more fails than successes. The level of responsibilities was no less than in my “normal” job, and I was not fully prepared for that. For much of the year, I felt like a complete failure because I didn’t have time to do everything this “other job” demanded of me. My accomplishment is that I was not a complete failure after all; we survived, and we are slowly growing.
The rest of the volunteering
I am not completely happy about it. Firstly, I now strongly believe I took on too many responsibilities, and I am glad I had the sense to drop the Howard-Evanston community board, not without hesitation. But I still have too much, and all my volunteer positions were because I wanted them, not because someone forced me to take them. That was the first year I had more than one professional volunteer responsibility, and they have all been very time-consuming from the start. I know that I do not fulfill my volunteer obligations at least for two organizations, and I need to figure out how to change it.
It’s still a mixed bag with the Night Ministry. I know that I am doing at least something good, and I know that at least some people are thankful, but it has been a very challenging environment during the last year. Several times I thought that I was doing so little there that it would be better to stop coming altogether, but each time, I feel that I would create a void in my heart.
I am happier with Clinic escort volunteering, because of the early morning shifts – I finally figured out how to be useful regularly!
To be continued
Hettie's Reflections 