Our 2025 Words of the Year
And why this year will be different from all the rest, plus the podcast PJ can't stop listening to, and an Okay McKay redesign!
Hi friends,
How was your weekend? I really hate to start a letter off on a negative note like this, but ours was…not great. I was sick in bed all weekend, not waking up until 1p on Saturday, which might be the latest I have slept since I was a teenager. We stayed at the farm for four nights in a row last week since it’s lambing season and PJ needs to be there to make sure every birth goes smoothly (which, thank goodness he was there because there were some that most definitely did not go smoothly).
While I was sick, PJ not only took care of the lambs, but the household as well. He made sure everyone was fed, clothes were washed, kitchen was cleaned, and that I had coffee every morning, along with regular temperature checks and medicine administered. He was a savior, truly. My hero. I think this is what they mean when they say, “In sickness and in health.”
And when I woke up on Monday morning, I felt about 70% better! I still have chills and so much congestion, but my fever is gone and I didn’t feel as lethargic as I did this weekend. The only bad part? PJ has it now. He’s been on the couch since yesterday and is taking DayQuil in an attempt to get his sickness under control. This is the usual pattern in our house: One of us will get sick and the other takes care of all the household/work duties just in time for that person to get sick so that we can trade off responsibilities.
I always say, thank goodness there are two of us because otherwise I don’t know how we would manage. Even after all these years, I still don’t know how my mom raised three of us by herself while working multiple jobs. I could never!
I’m hoping that by the end of the week, we’re all back to normal and life will resume. We always have a million things going on all at once, and it almost feels like we’re not allowed to get sick, otherwise that just means something else isn’t getting done. I hate that I feel that way, because we need to allow ourselves time to rest, which that thought has actually inspired another letter I want to send out, maybe next week. Maybe you’ll relate to it, too.
In other news, we gave Okay McKay a little makeover!
PJ has started to take a bigger interest in this newsletter and we wanted the look of it to reflect the both of us. We also wanted it to reflect the growth we’ve had over the last year and a half and give it a more sophisticated, grown-up look, with new fonts and colors and a new logo. Gone is the blue and green and, in its place, a rich, burnt red that feels cozier. The background has also gone from a stark white to a creamy, off-white that feels studious and moodier. All of these changes besides the logo will only be noticeable if you’re viewing the newsletter on mobile or desktop (not in the app or email), which also happens to be my favorite way to read Substacks.
We also redesigned the homepage to make the sections stand out more. Everything goes by the same name is still in the same place, but now it’ll hopefully just be prettier to look at.
Feel free to take a look around the newsletter and let us know what you think of the new look!
This week’s letter is all about our Words of the Year. In lieu of New Year’s Resolutions, we like to choose a few words to live by every year. We’ve done this for the past seven or eight years, and it’s one of our favorite activities to start the year off with.
And while we usually choose a few words for the year (previous ones have been simplify, minimize, fun, family, and learn), we decided to only choose one word this year. Only picking one felt like the pressure was on for it to be really good, but I think that was just me overthinking it. We each chose one word that we wanted the majority of our year to be defined by. A word that would be aspirational; one that we would actually want to achieve and work towards. The goal isn’t to reach the meaning of this word and then call it quits, but to do our best to live it each and every day, knowing there will be times when we slip up and have to work a little bit harder at it.
Without further ado, here are our words of the year: