A Year in Pictures: 2025
Unsurprisingly (at least to those familiar with my daily life), I missed my annual year in review post for 2024. I had my daughter in the fall of 2023, then scraped together my last remaining brain cells to balance teaching and finishing my dissertation in 2024. Fall 2024 was also when we lost Argos, my soul dog whom I’d had since childhood; he survived osteosarcoma against every odd but died unexpectedly in his sleep from a heart condition. In the midst of parenting, dissertating, and grief, a year in review post on my now seldom-used blog was not at the top of my priorities list.
But I’ve been thinking a lot about community in 2025. Both in light of recent state-sanctioned violence in Minnesota, where part of my community lives, and after moving to Philadelphia and losing the community I’d built through my PhD program and my friends from childhood. Though truth be told, after having a baby, many of my dynamics of friendship changed: it was and is lonely. Most of the people I know either don’t have kids and our get-togethers are limited by my partner’s being off-work to provide childcare, or they do have kids and they’re too busy managing work and kids and food and sleep schedules to hang out. Moving has magnified this isolation, and I’m so thankful to the friendships that have persisted across state lines in texts and memes and video calls. Because it increasingly seems to me that it is part of the current capitalist, fascist, racist regime’s goal to isolate us. To divide. To turn us inwards, to foster insularity. Because community breeds compassion, empathy, mutuality, and reciprocity.
So anyway, here’s me giving an update to those who are or were part of my community. Who still want to be. Because I think it’s important that we know and care about what is going on in each other’s lives.
January
In late October of 2024, we adopted Otis, a Great Pyrenees mix (we think). He was part of a litter of puppies born in the shelter, and when we rescued him, he’d never even touched grass before. I will say that I hadn’t had a puppy that young (about 10 weeks old) in a decade, and it almost drove me insane, especially since we already had a human baby who didn’t sleep. But by this point, he’d settled in, and here you can see his ears flapping in some January snow.
One of the reasons we adopted Otis was because Winnie was absolutely devastated by Argos’s death. She really loved Otis in the beginning, wasn’t so thrilled when he got to be about her size, and now she’s come around to him again.
Otis the cuddle bug! Winnie isn’t a big cuddler, but Otis is glued to us 24/7.
One of my best friends Kayla came for a visit and brought her dog Hazel. Flora was enamored with her—she’s a dog-lover, through and through!
February
Most of my camera roll at this point is pictures of Otis looking cute/dumb and Flora being adorable/hilarious. I was deep in the trenches of finishing my dissertation by my March deadline and applying to jobs night and day.
& 3. By this point, Flora and Otis had developed a really sweet bond, which they still have! We like to say that Flora is his goat. She gets to climb all over him with impunity.
March
I finally got the pixie cut I’d been contemplating for a decade (and had never gotten because I’d been told by a certain family member that I’d look like a boy with short hair). We also visited the Louisville Zoo.
I was invited on a campus visit (job interview) to a school in Indiana. Not only did I get COVID for the very first time on this trip, but these were also just really difficult days of decision-making and agonizing over our future. I ended up being offered this job, and I had a very hard time choosing between immediate stability and a job/location I couldn’t foresee myself being happy in for long vs. taking a risk to turn down the job in hopes that something better would come along by the end of the spring. I’d already applied to over 70 jobs at that point and had no luck. The academic job market was and is very volatile, and I faced the very real possibility of having no fulltime job after graduation. I ended up taking the risk and miraculously, it paid off.
A very chaotic dog walk at the Kentucky Arboretum with my best friends (and Kari and Kayla).
A camping trip to Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
April
I traveled to Miami, FL, for a micro-getaway with my sister (and Ryan and Flora).
The primary thing on the agenda was to help Isabelle see a beloved Thai duo who were performing in the US for the first time.
A little springtime Shaker Village visit to see the farm babies.
Quick stop by Mankato to see my best friend Kari graduate from the MFA program, where I got to have a very brief reunion with some of my previous professors.
May
1., 2., 3., & 4. Kari received a grant to travel to England for research, and Kayla, Ryan, Flora, and I tagged along—in part to celebrate my graduation from my PhD program. We had a lovely time visiting historic estates, showing Kari and Ryan our old haunts in Oxford (Kayla and I studied abroad there a decade ago!), and trying our hands at our first international trip with a toddler. (It went really well, and it gave us the confidence to go to Ireland this January!)
June
I was invited on a campus visit to a university in St. Paul, which meant a trip to Como Conservatory to sniff the flowers.
And of course, getting to spend some time with Kari!
Later that month, we traveled to Pentwater, Michigan, to a cottage that I’ve been going to since I was a kid; it was very surreal to show Flora this special place for the first time!
Flora tried her hand at kayaking on Lake Michigan.
July
Kayla and I presented at the ASLE conference at the University of Maryland.
We then did some sightseeing around DC with some of my family.
And traveled up to NYC, where Flora discovered her undying love for the Bryant Park Carousel’s cat.
And my sisters, stepmom, and I saw ATEEZ in concert!
August
Celebrating our last few weeks in Kentucky with a trip to Luna’s Butterfly Cafe for a little flower-sniffing.
After 80 job applications, 11 interviews, two campus visits, and three job offers (one turned down due to location/teaching load and one because it paid so little that it wouldn’t even have covered childcare) over the course of the fall and spring, I accepted a job as a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Haverford College outside of Philadelphia. The best decision I could have made, and I feel so incredibly lucky to be here!
Us getting acquainted with one of the best children’s museums I’ve ever visited with a young toddler: the Please Touch Museum in Philly.
September
I flew to Minnesota to attend a friend’s wedding and got to reunite a good portion of the MFA crew in the process.
I also got to celebrate Kari’s birthday with a trip to Lake Superior in Duluth while we were up there!
Then Kari shortly thereafter flew down to PA to help me adjust to the new schedule of solo parenting for a week at a time while Ryan is back in Kentucky for work. (Yes, she is the best!)
I turned 30 with a hike!
October
Flora turned 2 years old! We kicked off birthday celebrations with a visit from her aunt and a trip to the natural history museum.
On her actual birthday, we took her to a farm sanctuary, where she was able to pet animals and feed them snacks to her heart’s content. She comes by her animal-loving personality honestly.
I took the train up to NYC to hang out with Kayla for the weekend after she finished up a conference in Boston. Gotta make it work to see each other when you live too far apart!
We flew back to Kentucky for fall break, where we stayed in a cabin and hiked in Red River Gorge, as well as visited the Kentucky Horse Park, where Flora rode a pony for the first time!
November
A beautiful fall hike at the Haverford Reserve (followed by a less lovely time of removing hundreds of ticks from Winnie and Otis).
A camping trip to Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware. Beautiful camping right by the ocean, and it was deserted (but cold and windy). Flora had a great time searching for shells, and Otis and Winnie got to see the ocean for the first time!
The flamingo Christmas tree at the Philadelphia Zoo, and a visit from my sister-in-law!
We shopped at the Christmas markets in Philly, and of course, Flora’s favorite part was the carousel!
December
One of our friends from Kentucky came to visit, and we did a little tourist day in Philly, including our favorite sites from National Treasure (incidentally the Liberty Bell, which I’m told is allegedly famous for other reasons than the Nicolas Cage masterpiece).
First big snow in Philly! Winnie and Otis were ecstatic.
& 4. My best friends came from out of state to spend Christmas with us! It was a very full household of dogs and people, our days spent cookie decorating and thrifting and watching (for me at least) Muppets Christmas Carol for the first time (an instant classic). I can’t think of a better way to end the year.