I published my New Year’s resolution BINGO card early in 2025, and now, as the year ends I return to see what boxes I was able to check off. I remember that not every BINGO card is a winner. Sometimes the row of checked boxes doesn’t appear before the game ends, and that was the case for 2025. But I did make some good progress; and, as I expected, I learned some lessons from the practical activities that I resolved to do. Sure, the resolutions lined up into a to-do list (as my wife told me), but they added up to more than that.
The list of “wins,” “almosts,” and “fails” appears below.
But first some observations. Now that it’s the very end of the year, I can see that I vastly overdid expectations, particularly in matters of writing. I’m a pokey writer, especially of poetry, and targeting a full sixteen sonnets for a year was indeed ambitious. The more accomplishable eight, with a few pieces worked up into potentially publishable form, was right on target. That sounds paltry, but in the context of my other writing, it fits.
Not to say that I hit the mark for other writing projects. I aimed to have my whole book drafted in 2025, and not only that. I resolved to circulate it to my “saintly” and very patient beta-readers. That didn’t happen. The book lay mostly fallow, with some work done on the last chapter and trimming and growing at the edges. I think I’ll have to resolve more carefully for the book and actually do the deeds.
Among the “almosts,” the perfect bread baking was probably the most instructive, while also being a truly delicious practice. I learned that baguettes require a certain magic that one discovers gradually and through much experimentation. I succeeded in finding two perfect (for me) breads, and as of this writing, one of those bread recipes is published (Perfect sweet potato pumpernickel bread). Another recipe for the perfect baguette–or, I should say, my version of the baguette—will appear sometime in January. The baguette taught me a lot about baking, and I learned the lesson that bread baking is more than getting the ingredients straight.
Learning a halting version of Norwegian? Well, that needs to be delayed. The language is a mix of Old English, German, and some sort of Martian dialect. I could only make sense of newspaper articles from about 50,000-foot altitude.
I’ll be playing Resolution BINGO in 2026, too!
WINS
B-1 Write more letters.
B-2 Find a vintage fountain pen. Buy it.
I-2 Clean the Garage Mahal. (Or try to, many times.)
I-4 Submit poetry somewhere.
N-3 FREE, just for creating the BINGO card.
N-4 Get new chicks in springtime.
N-5 Sell the old Jag.
G-5 Formulate plans for a photo/writing project for January 2026.
O-1 Write 8 sonnets or poems (see G-3).
O-2 Do a list weekly of whatever.
ALMOSTS (GOOD EFFORT)
B-4 Cook up a new course proposal.
I-3 Perfect three new bread recipes.
N-1 Learn better photo composition tactics. Regularly take more pictures.
O-4 Clean up Google Drive and Dropbox.
FAILS
B-3 Complete screenplay draft.
B-5 Do a presentation somewhere.
I-1 Circulate revised book to saintly beta-readers.
I-5 Learn Norwegian enough to read haltingly.
N-2 CELEBRATE THE FIRST BINGO!
G-1 Repair truck rust.
G-2 Paint the chicken coop and potting shed.
G-3 Write 16 sonnets or poems (see O-1).
G-4 Select at least two excerpts from book (see O-5).
O-3 Help with a book launch.
O-5 Submit revised excerpts for publication (see G-4).
