Adventures of a Cat Lady

Every year I say the same things
Where has the year gone? But seriously, where has it gone?
I know I didn’t blog enough and I promise to do better next year.
Ok, the obligatory statements are out of the way….

Now let’s recap 2025.
Is it just me or is it crazy to think 2025 is done and we’re well on our way to 2026?!?! According to Back to the Future, shouldn’t we have flying cars?…

It’s been a relatively quiet year, whilst also a year of unexpected change.

The girls, on my girls! Callie is now 13, whilst Penny is  3. They continue to ensure that I worry about them more than I should and that I allow them to live their best possible lives and then some. This year they were treated to my hyper fixation of making arty boxes for them. Whilst I appreciate that it makes little difference to them if its a cardboard box from amazon or something Ive put literal hours into, that any box will do. I like to lie to myself and think they appreciate the art boxes. Neither of them have any clue as to what it is to just be a cat. I look forward to being reincarnated as one of them.

I did a road trip across a few states to celebrate 25 years of a friendship. It was a trip that made a lot of memories. It was also strange to see a country that had changed so much over the last 20 years. Or as with all things, some things change and others absolutely never will. There was so much crammed into the holiday, that it did feel as though as holiday was needed after the holiday.

I had the opportunity to relocate this year, to Germany. I turned it down, rather quickly. I jokingly said that there weren’t enough moving boxes available for all of shoes. It made me realise that I’ve created a life in the Netherlands and having to start from scratch is not something Im keen to do. When you realise you have quite a good network across all areas, it’s hard to give that up. Never say never and if an opportunity came up that I couldn’t say no to, I would have to say yes to it. For now, I have no regrets in turning Germany down.

I have been somewhat of a health journey over the last 18 months. It’s quite funny how people have approached the my change. I always laugh it off, as its not happened overnight and I don’t see the change as much as everyone else, apparently. I tend to look at people quizzically and say ‘I’ve always been hot, thank you though.’ I feel this is the better approach over getting into a debate on how society views people.
I took part in the Amsterdam City Walk, it didn’t quite go as planned but I did almost hit the 20kms that I had aimed for. It gives me something to work toward next year.

Ive been lucky enough to see a few live shows this year: Sarah Millican is an excellent comedienne and I will absolutely see her next time she’s in Amsterdam. Music, I know that I have what could be considered an eclectic taste in music. I enjoy the music of my youth, with a mix of other things. Whilst in the US, I visited the Grand Ole Opry and it was absolute confirmation that I will never be a fan of country music. Now that I am outside of the (southern) US, I can admit that I didn’t like the Grand Ole Opry, as a venue. Something about the angle of the chairs made me deeply uncomfortable. The more unique concert, although it feels like an overstatement was seeing The Beach Boys, although it felt more like The Beach Boy, as it’s only one original member. This was what I would call a unique experience. Mike Love, the last surviving Beach Boy, constantly checked his watch throughout the entire show. I found this quite comical and it made the show better for me. Robbie Williams came to Amsterdam. Whilst he is an entertainer, I don’t appreciate the karaoke aspect of his concerts. I pay to see the artist sing not the crowd screeching next to me at the artists command, needless to say karaoke is not my thing. NIN, this was absolutely the best show I saw this year. I cannot put into words how great the concert was. Epic.

I will always say that I’m incredibly anti-social, which is true to a degree. Having said that, I’m very good at setting up social initiatives and creating social groups. (I think after having lived in multiple countries and being forced to start from scratch each time, it’s something you learn to do out of necessity) Ultimately I’m very good at creating groups for things that I want to do, then I’m guaranteed to enjoy the activity. The most recent social initiative is a group for people who are over 40 and childfree. I was actually quite surprised by the amount of interest in the idea, we’ve got most of our meet ups for 2026 planned.
Funnily enough someone made the comment of, ‘I wanted to meet three new people this year and thanks to you, I think I’ve tripled that!’ This made me laugh and I’m glad I get other people to be social. Years ago someone said, ‘You’re a good person to know because you connect people.’ At the time I laughed it off, as I thought it was a rather peculiar thing to say but it turns out, theres some level of truth to the statement. But for all intents and purposes, I will continue to claim to be rather antisocial.

I’ve was lucky enough to be able to finish my year with a wee trip to Malta. Nothing is quite as nice as sun and warm(ish) weather in December! It was peculiar to see the sun, after the grey. It’s a super cute island(s), which I can only imagine is quite like hell in the summer. Every where you look, there is a hotel and they are building more. I understand why the tourists flock there for scuba diving and feel. However, the actual amount of sand beaches are close to nil and they are tiny, like 50 meters at width tiny. I was amused by the lack of sand beaches and their size when you did accidentally come upon one.

I hope that your 2025 has been a great year, that you have travelled far and wide, made memories from experiences and are looking forward whatever 2026 has in store.