“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” - Gandalf, The Lord of the Rings

That remains one of my favorite quotes. I’ve used it before, and decided instead of as the ending quote, it would be my opener. Anyhow… on to my year in review!

Another year in the books! As has become my yearly routine, I’m taking time to reflect on the major changes and areas of focus across different parts of my life, rather than walking through a purely chronological recap. 2025 brought some meaningful shifts - some intentional, some just… life happening? - and it’s worth documenting (if only as an exercise for myself).

Life

This year kicked off with a major first: I traveled internationally for the first time, visiting Brazil for a week to see some friends. The whole experience was incredible: first international flight, first time experiencing a completely different country and culture in person, and first time using a translation app for a lot of my interactions. 😂 The highlights included exploring the sights, diving into actual Brazilian food (not the Americanized versions I’d had before), hitting the beach (yes, I know, hard to believe… but I legitimately enjoyed it!), and catching a local concert.

I also made it out to visit family in both South Carolina and Ohio this year, which also meant my first multi-city flight (Peoria - Charlotte - Fort Wayne - Chicago - Peoria) in the Spring. The rest of my personal travel was all by car, as usual, and I was able to find time to be around family for nearly a month combined this year (with some remote work thrown in… not all vacation).

There’s not much to report on my church life. I’m still attending the same Lutheran church, still actively involved in my congregation, and that’s been a consistent anchor. I’ve reduced the amount of theological research/reading that had become my normal over the past few years, though I want to increase that in 2026.

On the personal projects side, family history got more serious attention this year. A family member who had done genealogy work passed away, and her husband shared with me what she’d compiled, though that wasn’t the only catalyst. I also received some new information from other distant family members that opened up some breakthroughs, including finding (more) distant relatives still alive that I didn’t know about, and managing to push further back up the family tree. (Or would that be down? Hmm…) I didn’t find anything overly surprising, but it felt like important/useful work. I even set up and maintain a Gramp Web-based website for my family to access, which has become a nice way to share my research, and interact with family members.

Family photos continued to be a real focus this year too. I’ve been systematically scanning in old family photos and editing them (cleaning them up), which has been both tedious and rewarding. There’s something about handling physical photos, seeing the quality and texture of older prints, that I think has shifted some of how I think about photography.

In parallel, I’ve been taking more photos at family events with my GH5, and I think perhaps the scanning work actually intensified my appreciation for the aesthetic of photos taken with a real camera. Seeing how differently film-era photos express themselves compared to digital phone snapshots… it’s like the scanning project gave me a new lens for understanding why I prefer shooting with actual gear. 😉 I’ve also been listening to a few camera-focused podcast episodes this year from Waveform/MKBHD and the guys from Accidental Tech Podcast, which have definitely helped feed the interest.

My media consumption shifted somewhat noticeably: I’ve watched way more YouTube than traditional movies or TV this year. My gaming also stayed light - mostly RuneScape and Northgard - and that’s tied to a bigger tech decision I’m currently debating: I’m seriously considering removing/mothballing my Windows computer. More on that later.

Health/Fitness

Unfortunately, my workouts took a hit this year: life got busy, and I didn’t prioritize it the way I should have. I’m calling this out mostly for my own reflection and accountability (this means you, future Justin): it’s something I want to improve in 2026.

On the diet front, I’m about 75% convinced the changes I’ve made are good. I spent roughly seven years eating low-carb/keto, and this year I expanded my dietary options to basically a standard diet, though still biased slightly low-carb. My energy levels remained high, and overall I feel decent, but it’s still something new and different. That’s partly why I’m still on the fence… the change seems to be working, but there’s an adjustment period to something that was a habit, and effectively part of my identity for so long.

Work

My work responsibilities shifted/increased again this year, though there’s not much else to report on the surface. I did travel twice for work out to Fargo (see previous blog posts), which means I flew noticeably more than I have in previous years. Nothing particularly standout came from those trips beyond what I’ve already written about elsewhere, but I’m becoming increasingly comfortable with what all air travel entails. Oh! And I got TSA pre-check, which made work and personal travel a lot more seamless.

Blog & Website

I stuck with my goal of posting weekly throughout 2025, even if a few were slightly late. That consistency feels good, though I’ve noticed it’s meant fewer standalone blog posts. That’s something I want to improve in 2026.

I also remained committed to GitHub & AWS for hosting and deployment, which continues to work well for my needs. I switched to my current workflow during Thanksgiving 2024, and while I sometimes debate if I want to continue to rely on big tech for my website, the publishing process is about as seamless as it can be while still using a static site generator. Most writing and posting still occurs from my computer, but occasionally I’ve authored and posted updates from my phone and/or iPad.

Home & Tech

My self-hosting setup got a significant upgrade when I switched from running Ubuntu as a bare-metal server to standing up TrueNAS on my Dell R710. It’s been a solid move, though it took some getting used to, and there were definitely some false starts. I also ditched traditional VPN services like PIA, which I’d been using on my phone when not on my home network, and instead have been using Tailscale to tunnel directly into my home network when out and about, with one of my computers operating as an endpoint.

As already noted in my post on what I read in 2025, my reading dropped noticeably this year compared to normal. I think it was for a few reasons, chiefly that I changed one of my habits (negatively) from reading from physical books in the morning to reading off my iPad. That’s something I’m planning to revisit in 2026.

On the task management/GTD front, I took another swing at OmniFocus (my third documented attempt for those counting), but ultimately migrated back to Todoist (again). The OmniFocus apps just had too much friction: too many clicks, a busy interface, occasional syncing slowness, and the overhead of managing task notes, descriptions, and attachments felt like unnecessary lift. Todoist’s simplicity wins (which, you know… I should have known. I kind of wrote about that before.)

And on a completely separate topic that I never thought I’d be writing about (because visual apps have never clicked for me before)… I’ve been thoroughly enjoying another app from the OmniGroup, OmniGraffle, for diagramming and visual thinking. It’s become a genuine tool in my arsenal, not just an experiment, and I’ve found myself using it in meetings (for drawing out product concepts), on my own to understand/diagram concepts, and even to make a pattern for my sister for sewing (a stretch, but it worked!).

Switching gears: my photo library got a bit of an overhaul this year. Ever since I’d moved back to iPhone, I’d been using Apple Photos to some extent, but had been using Immich as my primary library. By the middle of 2025, I made the decision to use Apple Photos wholesale as my primary library, with Immich and Google Photos specifically as backup layers. I wrote a bit about my photo backup strategy and workflow earlier this year, if you want the details on how that works.

In less groundbreaking news, I upgraded my video conferencing setup with a Stream Deck Mini (for easy control) and Elgato Key Lights, which has made remote calls feel a bit more polished. Does anyone else notice? Not really. But having a well-lit video feed makes me happy.

I also referenced this in my notes on gaming earlier, but I’m increasingly debating if 2026 is the year that my Windows gaming computer retires. At this point, I use my Mac about 90% of the time, and my Linux machine the other 10% or so, except for gaming, and taxes once a year. However, Steam Proton has continued to improve the Linux gaming situation, and for the style of games I have time for now, it works fine. I’m seriously wondering if in the coming year I will migrate to only two primary computers, a Windows VM for the few times I need it. 🤔

And with that, we’re to the end of my review! 2025 was an interesting year across a lot of different areas of my life. As is usual, some things improved, some things I let slide, and some things shifted direction. But, that gives me someplace to start and improve from in 2026! See y’all next year! (And because I’m me… I’ll leave you with another quote.)

“Look back and be grateful. Look ahead and be hopeful. Look around and be helpful.” - Paulo Coelho, Manual of the Warriors of the Light

Note: I did use an LLM for some brainstorming and proofreading of this blog post, though the writing is all mine. Do I need to disclose this? Probably not. But I like to know if what I’m reading from others is authentically theirs, and so it’s worthwhile to give others the same courtesy!