Year in Review

The year began ringing in 2025 and raising a glass to my next decade. The next day I up to north Georgia and had birthday cake in the mountains where I was born. On the way back to Canada I lit a candle by my ancestors graves. Then I left for Arizona with a friend to pick up some of my grandmother’s belongings and said goodbye to the cabin and mountain that holds my best childhood memories.

Summer heat hit hard early. In May the trees were just budding out while the air temperatures reached 30 degrees celcius with little percipitation. Wildfires spread across Manitoba and other parts of Canada. I was one of many folks evacuated. While the experience was stressful, I was fortunate no to have my little cabin burned down. The fire was contained 1.5 miles away and I was able to move back home after a long weekend. One week later I became a Canadian Citizen.

Shortly after this I learned to sail in Lake Winnipeg. I started the Go-Girl podcast in the hopes of documenting this adventure era of my life. I dropped the ball on this later, but it was fun while it lasted. I intend to pick it back up in the new year.

My relationship to the ecosystem around me is deepening as is my relationship to food. I have upped my game when it comes to forraging and learning what plants I can eat and how to prepare them.

My relationships with men, on the other hand, remains tenuous. I am still not able to settle very much. I broke up with four men this year, but I think the good thing is that I am a little better at recognizing when something is not working.

One of the biggest things that happened was becoming a nanny to my nephews. Childcare was harder than I could possibly imagine and also very rewarding. I will return next summer older and wiser, and eager to keep trying to show up–even if that means sometimes I am a boring aunt.

Art-wise I picked up my camera again, and recieved a grant to take a pit-fire workshop in Wales. It was an incredible weekend of rekindling my love of clay with the intention of using pit-fire as my personal practice for ceramics.

Other projects included fixing my motorcycle, making a coffee table, finishing my interior trim, and the exterior cladding for the north side of the cabin. There were other little projects.

For example, I also fixed up a boat…

HRH Queen Guinevere Cinnamon Cupcake has turned out to be an ideal travel cat. I cannot say how amazed and proud I am that she made it across the ocean and back again.

My aerial practice has definitely suffered, but it is still there. It will take some time to work back into anywhere close to a flowing routine, but I am up for the challenge of this in 2026.

There was a whirlwind three weeks where I got locked out of my bank account in Paris, came home to Manitoba to figure out if I was a victim of fraud, found and purchased a car, drove across country to visit my dad, met my sister, drove back to Manitoba, and enjoyed getting to show her my life in the woods. I was a little out ofbreath by the time December hit. But so so thankful.

In short it was a big year. And that’s not even the whole thing. There was a trip to Sicily for a baptism, Canadian s’mores over a Guy Fawkes fire, Canada Goose ink, Winnipeg Folk Fest, and all the in between things that makes life fun–like ballet pink nail polish on blistered boat hands with Spidy Man bandaids.