As we are approaching the end of the year, I have been thinking a lot about my intentions for the one to come. Not resolutions; never resolutions. There is something deeply unsatisfactory to me about the concept of a resolution. It denotes finality – a made-up, closed mind – and that is not the energy I want to bring forward with me. An intention leaves room for the world to surprise me and to teach me, and for me to surprise myself and to grow. It’s a direction – and, make no mistake, a very clear and definite direction – but it’s not a destination.

For a few years now (since reading Rick Rubin’s The Creative Life) my motto has been “living in discovery”. This, in turn, breaks down to two guiding principles: curiosity and humility. To these, last year I added a couple of other mantras to use as my life compass.

The small joys of everyday moments, and

Beauty in overlooked places

I wrote these things down in my journal, because there is something very satisfying about physically writing out the words. [I’ve heard there may even be some science behind this, but who knows how much you can trust the internet about stuff like that.] Then I added three more items, under the heading of ‘goals’ which, in retrospect, was a misnomer but let’s go with it. Here’s what they were:

1. Figure out my writing conundrum
2. Create memories with my family
3. Walk 14,000 steps a day

Care to guess which one of these three goals didn’t come to fruition? Yes, that’s right: the one that most reads like a typical ‘resolution’. But I’ll come back to that in a moment.

To be perfectly honest, I don’t even remember now what, precisely, I had in mind when I wrote ‘writing conundrum’. I think it had to do with feeling creatively stuck after deciding, earlier in 2024, to permanently shelve the memoir I’d written. I know that, for a time, that decision felt like I was surrendering my passion and my purpose; it left me quite bereft, especially as I struggled for months to figure out how to move on … and what to move on to. Yeah, I guess you’d call that a conundrum. But instead of trying to come up with a solution on the spot – to satisfy the arbitrariness of January 1 as a deadline – I just wrote down my intention. The time hadn’t yet come for the answer to reveal itself to me, and I’m glad I didn’t try to rush it. An un-timely answer is often a wrong answer …

Well, we all know what happened next. Randomly, in the middle of January, I felt this overwhelming urge to start writing – and I knew exactly what I wanted to write. Fiction. Mystery + romance, inspired by Agatha Christie and Georgette Heyer. And the words just flowed and flowed. It felt like kismet.

What came after that didn’t feel nearly as smooth, lol! As the year progressed, I made a bunch of new writing goals for myself … and un-made them … and re-made them … and, well, you get the picture. My writing journey this year has been the definition of living in discovery. And if curiosity and humility were not my twin pillars, I would have crashed and burned SO MANY times. No, let me rephrase that: I would have crashed and burned and never got up, dusted myself off, and kept going. I am ending the year in a place that doesn’t quite look like any of the versions/destinations I dreamt up along the way, but which makes me feel content with my progress. I’ve written five (whole!) books that I love – and learned a tremendous amount in the process – and am getting ready to publish one of them. As a bonus, I feel reconnected to my writing across all platforms, and with my audience too. If that’s not figuring out my writing conundrum, I don’t know what it.

So, for 2026, my intention is simply this: to grow as a writer and find new and exciting horizons.

My second 2025 intention is fairly self-explanatory, I think, and it worked well for me as a reminder to find and savour the small joys. For my family, creating memories is not about big events or milestone celebrations, but about laughing together and enjoying each other’s company every day. I am loving this stage of my kids’ adolescence – they are truly so much fun to get to know as people. Together, and with my husband, we are creating small, everyday rituals of companionship and connection. Things like, Saturday lunch at our fave restaurant; watching 20-year old sitcoms together; summer day trips out of town; weekend library dates; etc. etc. I’ve learned that it’s these small moments that my kids often come back to, years later, talking about them as fond memories. They are the glue that hold us together as a family – seemingly insignificant but foundational.

More of this for 2026 too: create small rituals and memories with my family every day.

As I have been reflecting recently on my experience of purpose this year, I realized that, in addition to writing, there is something else that also feels very meaningful and purpose-filled to me. Mentorship. I value personal growth and it’s something I want everyone to experience. Fostering connection and making space for others to pursue personal growth is deeply satisfying. For now, I am still sitting with the question of ‘how can I put this purpose into practice?’ There are many possibilities – consider, for example, how “personal coaching” has become a cottage industry – and I feel that most of them are probably not aligned with my purpose. So careful, considered reflection is required. No rushing.

For 2026, my intention is: look for opportunities to foster curiosity, connection, and growth.

Right now, I have no idea what this means or how it might pan out … and that’s really, really exciting!

Ok, last word on last’s year’s last goal. Here’s what happened: I walked 14,000 a day for about 2 months, after which, my knees suddenly gave out. I had been walking about 10K-11K per day for months before that, so the whole thing took me by surprise. Why would my body react like that? Wasn’t more exercise always better? This is what I learned: setting arbitrary goals simply to beat a record isn’t helpful. I was doing fine walking 10K steps a day, and walking more didn’t improve my physical conditioning in any measurable way – actually, it made it worse. The important thing was the intention to keep my body moving and take care of it as I age. Eating well, getting enough sleep, moving my body, keeping my brain active – these are all important, but they don’t need to be tied to specific quantitative goals. Part of it is listening to my body and adjusting what I do to meet its needs. So, yeah, I didn’t manage to walk 14K steps a day for a year … but I did walk 10K steps, 6 days per week, which turned out to be just fine.

So, for 2026, my intention is: listen to, take care of, and enjoy living in my body.

And I have decided that my theme/guiding principle for 2026 is “accelerating momentum”. It encapsulates the feeling that I’m taking into the new year: I am ready to build on everything that has come before and discover new horizons.

What are your intentions, goals, or resolutions for 2026?

I am officially on vacation! Considering how 2025 behaved itself, its only possible redemption was ending on a chill note. I plan to spend its final two weeks relaxing at home with the fam. Becoming one with my couch. Or my bed. Reading and watching movies. Trying not to obsess over the fact that my book is coming out in three weeks. Trying, in fact, not to think about writing at all. A tall order, that.

I got a bit of a jump start on my holiday watching this week by bingeing through a season of Columbo. It felt like stepping into a literal time machine and whizzing back to my teen years. Made me miss my mom a lot; we used to watch tons of murder mystery shows together when I was growing up. I also watched Wake Up Dead Man, the third installment in the Knives Out franchise. I loved it! It’s the most thematically layered story of the three, exploring the meaning of faith and the various ways religion operates in modern society. I’m not religious, but I appreciated the way Rian Johnson handled these themes, particularly through the characters of Father Jud and Benoit Blanc. Josh O’Connor’s performance as the former was the standout for me – along with Blanc’s fabulously stylish outfits. I will say that it was very confusing to see Andrew Scott in a movie where someone else was playing the Hot Priest 😉

As a Golden Era mystery fan, the Knives Out movies always hit the spot for me. In this one, Johnson gave a bigger nod than usual to the tradition: one of the clues was a list of classic mysteries, including The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie, which Blanc deduced provided the inspiration for the (very complicated) murder plot. Having read 4 out of the 5 books on the list, I had so much fun trying to figure out the components of the murder plot based on similarities to the books. Especially since Johnson also used the same books to sprinkle red herrings and misdirection into the movie. Anyway, if you haven’t seen it yet, def check out Wake Up Dead Man. I think I’m going to add a Knives Out marathon to my holiday watching list now.

This week, I also read Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro and it destroyed me. Well, OK, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but it did make me super emotional by the end. It’s as if Ishiguro took Never Let Me Go (one of my fave books) and mashed it up with Remains of the Day (also brilliant) to write this book. It’s beautiful and poignant and devastating. As someone who has very strong (negative) opinions on AI, I have some mixed feelings about the fact that the book got me choked up over the fate of a robot … but that being said, I think its actual theme is what it means to be human and how we define that as we move into a post-humanist future. This ended up being one of my fave reads of the year.

Last weekend, I ended up going to the mall – something I’d been putting off for a few weeks – and it went about as expected. Which is to say, I hated it. These days, I hate malls at the best of times, and the holiday season is not the best of times. It was incredibly crowded, which was no surprise, but what still surprises me is how tiring it now is for me to spend any amount of time in that kind of environment. I think I was there for less than two hours, and afterwards I felt like I’d gone on a three-day bender. It took me the rest of the day to recover.

Anywhoo. I did some damage at Uniqlo – some of it planned, some not. I’m not here to hype it up (it’s fast fashion, at the end of the day), but I will say that Uniqlo has become my go-to for basic staples that I can’t find at the thrifts. The quality is decent for the price point. This time, I went to pick up those cashmere blend Heattech turtlenecks that I mentioned in a recent post. I got three colours – brown, navy blue, and burgundy – and so far, so good. I really like the material; it’s very soft, lightweight enough to layer but still fairly warm, and has nice stretch. It remains to be seen how they hold up to wear, but I’m cautiously optimistic. I also ended up with an impulse purchase, buying a pair of barrel jeans. It’s the same cut as the navy pants I bought a few months ago, which I’ve been loving. I’m hoping these jeans will prove equally versatile, and give me another denim option besides the Wranglers I’ve been wearing non-stop lately.

Have a great weekend!

It’s the time of year for retrospectives, so let’s continue the tradition with a look-back at my favourite outfits of 2025. I am going to say this upfront: the amount of brainspace I devoted to fashion this year is a fraction of what it’s been in previous years. I don’t think I need to tell you why, but just in case you’re new here: 2025 was my Year of Writing. I wrote and wrote and wrote, to the exclusion of pretty much everything else except my family and work. There’s a deep streak of ‘obsessive loner’ in my DNA, and writing is one of those things that can absorb an endless amount of obsessive energy given the opportunity. It’s, like, a match made in heaven … but it did leave me with little to give to my other hobbies.

The good thing is that, by now, me and my personal style are old friends. We know each other inside and out, and we’re there for each other even when we (that is, I) don’t have a lot of time to spend together. Years and years of experimenting, learning, reflecting, and refining have paid off. I know how I want to show up in the world and I know how to translate that into what I wear. As I write this, I start to wonder if it’s not a coincidence that 2025 was the year I turned all of my creative focus to a different channel (my original passion) that allows me to experiment and learn all over again.

While I don’t think (or write) about style as much anymore, I still get joy from dressing up and I still ‘put together outfits’ almost every day. Including the days I don’t leave the house. Dressing is still something I do for myself, as a form of creative expression – even if it’s not my primary modality anymore.

I don’t think anyone who’s been following along this year will be surprised to hear me say that no new fashion boundaries were explored in 2025. It was more of the things I’ve loved for a while, remixed again and again. If anything, my style has been stripped back to its core elements. Less patterns, but more texture. Layering. Subtler colour palettes. Strategic accessorizing. 90s revival. And Ralph Lauren, obvi.

Let’s dive in!

Clearly, my obsession with Ralph Lauren everything is still going strong. As is my love of midi skirts and the colour brown. Putting these photos together really shows my favourite silhouettes, proportions, and outfit formulas. You can see how it’s all about remixing and layering rather than reinventing the wheel.

Seriously, I love brown so much. I was a black-loving girlie for yeeeears, and while nothing beats its crispness, I think brown suits me better – and I’m not even talking about seasonal colour analysis here.

Don’t get me wrong, I still wear quite a bit of black as well. I love pairing it with white (and adding lots of texture) or leaning into my inner goth princess. Yes, she’s still alive and kicking it alongside the Ralph-loving bougie 40-something.

Colour did not disappear from my closet entirely though!

Summer is all about boho, prairie, and western vibes. Again, you can see I have certain silhouettes and styles that I gravitate towards … though I did experiment a little bit with mini skirts this year. I love pairing them with boots, both of the cowboy variety and my Docs. I have short legs and short skirts don’t usually do them any favours, but the proportions work when there’s a tall boot involved.

One last, random collage – though, even here, you can see I’m a creature of habit. Midi skirts for the win!

And that’s a wrap on another year of outfits. Bring on 2026 … and more of the same 😉