January 16, 2025
I am a perpetual schemer. I love to dream up plans and plots and nothing gets my gears a-turning like a good old fashioned game night. I fully stepped into my board game era in 2024 to a point where I had to make my own games to be satiated.
I wrote and GM’d a handful of Mork Borg games using only the base book before discovering the wealth of free content out there on the internet. I worked on an upgraded Oregon Trail card game for those that got gift-baited at Target almost a decade ago. And for my family reunion, I devised a gameshow constructed from the viscera of Family Feud, Clue*, and Lotería of all things.
** Looking back on it now, every game I worked on had death as a core element… huh.*
Thanks to the support of the restaurant where I’ve been working part time, I created a Paint and Sip event with three successful nights in 2024. With a tight budget and new management, I was lucky to have this opportunity with a decent amount of creative control over the whole experience. Aside from marketing and teaching art to total beginners, my biggest challenge was creating new paintings for each event that were both appealing and accessible for everyone.
By summertime, I had started to help my friend realize her dream of creating a community group here in Cincy. I started an official contract with her in the fall to facilitate in any way I could. My first major project is a zine that will be coming out in the near future. I have never made a zine myself so the process is yet another new challenge, but I’m excited to get more people interested in Crunchy Leaves Sustainability Collaborative in 2025! 🍂
Of course, scheming can only get you so far. I often found myself right on the edge of realizing my plans only to suddenly feel the weight of reality set in and get stuck. Over the past year, I pushed through that resistance more than ever, and I’m glad I did. A huge help in this area was a few weeks of career coaching through Healthy Gamer. My coach was encouraging but not pushy about what I should be doing. He was also great at considering my personal and emotional well-being as a factor in my professional development.
I am so thankful that Destin from Smarter Every Day posted his video about the solar eclipse encouraging people to catch it in totality. Cincinnati was about 10 miles away from the path of totality in 2024 and a few of my friends made the short trip with me. The moment of the total eclipse will be burned into my brain forever (which can literally happen if you’re not careful), along with the powerful sense of fear, wonder, and quiet contemplation in witnessing the universe at work. I went home from that day with a profound peace and acceptance. 😌
I said goodbye to my childhood dog this year. I sold the van I lived and traveled in for over 30,000 miles. I grieved over lost connections. I learned to let myself feel everything I was afraid to feel with the full depth of my empathic being. I learned so much and I don’t plan to stop.
If you didn’t think I’d have a scheme for this year you probably weren’t paying much attention. Here’s a short list of new ideas I have for 2025, let’s get to it.