3 grounding routines I'm bringing forward into 2025

and (at least) one new thing I want to add this year

Sunday evening, Owen headed back to school to start the second semester of his freshman year. While his older brothers had headed back to their adult lives more than a week before, Owen’s departure signaled the true end of winter break…a break that, between you and me, started to feel a little long toward the end.

So. Much. Pajama. Energy.

I used to be able to ride much longer with this kind of energy. About ten years ago, a series of blizzards led to nearly two full weeks of snow days right after winter break ended. My kids basically didn’t get out of their pajamas for a month, and I loved it: I barely noticed the mess or constant background hum above the cozy togetherness.

It hits different, though, when most of the kids (and their balled-up socks) now live elsewhere most of the time. With that many people crowding back into my tidy and quiet space for a condensed and intense period of frivolity…well, I noticed. Frustration mounted as my hopes for a return to normalcy clashed with my younger kids’ desire to drain every disheveled drop of slovenly joy out of their school breaks.

So yesterday, friends, was a Very Good Day. I read, wrote, made bread, simmered beans, went for a long walk, took a long bath…basically a whole day full of satisfying “life reset” stuff. And while I kneaded, stirred, strolled, and soaked, I reflected on the power of routines to improve my outlook and help me feel more grounded and calm.

I’ve got plenty more to say about the emotional labor of midlife motherhood (spoiler: at some point, it’s pretty much all emotional labor) but today I want to focus on the calming, centering routines that I plan to carry forward into 2025, as well as some newer ones I’d like to start (or solidify.)

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1) Beans for days

“Beans” was my tongue-in-cheek resolution/Word of The Year for 2024, and overall, it was a big success. Besides the immediate digestive benefits to upping my fiber intake, it felt good to expand my legume repertoire. My gut operates much more, ahem, freely these days, and I’ve saved a lot of money at the supermarket to boot.

My 2024 word of the year is...Beans.

In addition to bean-forward stews and soups, I now regularly make large portions of white beans with rosemary, spinach and lemon; lentils with carrot, celery, and onion; and black beans with cumin, paprika, chili powder, cilantro and lime. These are versatile dishes that can be eaten on their own or as a side dish, but we often toss them on a bed of greens for a hearty salad, or use as a base for a protein. I am now totally comfortable soaking/simmering dried beans, as I describe in this bonus audio (it’s easier than you may think, and they turn out wayyyy tastier than canned).

5 simple kitchen routines that help my life work

But while putting a bowl of beans out to soak in the evening and then taking time to simmer them the next morning is easy, it does require a little bit of planning and thinking ahead. And what makes it much, much easier to incorporate that planning and thinking into one’s life is…you guessed it…a routine.

Routines have helped me establish so many kitchen practices, from feeding my sourdough starter to beefing up my morning oats. And I’m definitely planning to make those bulk bean soak-n-simmer sessions a big part of my kitchen routine this year.

2) I just stopped in to see what condition my skincare is in

Here’s why I love the seven-step skincare rituals we mock influencers for promoting: to me, it’s way more about the power and pleasure in the ritual than the “performance” of the products themselves. I do use some very nice cleansers, serums, and moisturizers, but I also make my own sugar scrub and also happily use products I’ve gotten from the drugstore or TJ Maxx.

My skincare products, rituals, & philosophy

What I’ve noticed for myself: when my bedtime skincare routine starts to slip, it’s usually a sign that my life has gotten “busy” enough that I’m too tired or distracted to bother. Fine for a little while, but not the headspace I want to occupy most of the time.

When my face started looking a little…gray…recently, I realized it was actually just really dry, a sign that I could stand to switch up my products to account for the cold and dry weather we’re having now and get back to a regular skincare routine.

Why my skincare routine "works"

A couple of evening sessions with my fave cleansing oil and night cream (affiliate links) later, and my skin is looking and feeling better - plus, it felt great just to pay my face some special attention.

3) A new venue for my daily walks

About a year ago, upon learning that my steps-per-day had precipitously dropped off since the previous spring, I vowed to get those numbers back up - and I did, averaging well over 10,000 steps per day even during the cold-weather months. It all went along swimmingly until I badly sprained my ankle late last summer.

Counting my steps

While my gait is more or less back to normal, I admit, I’m pretty spooked by ice, snow, and the possibility of another injury; and so as the temperatures have been fluctuating over the past two months, my steps-per-day have trended down.

Over the break, we got a mailer from the local high school with a reminder that the indoor track is open to the public for three-hour blocks, three days each week. Normally, this is the sort of thing I would completely ignore. I don’t love walking on tracks, especially indoor tracks; I self-identify as an outdoorsy person; I like hikes.

Also, something about utilizing an indoor track for winter walking reads as “old-coded” to me; it smacks of mall walking and fitness programs with names like Silver Sneakers.

How to keep walking (outdoors), all winter long

But who am I kidding? I’ve entered the exact demographic for an offer like this: a middle-aged lady who is more interested in staying in motion than having anything to prove, and who is also very interested in benefitting from my tax dollars at work!

So yesterday I popped a podcast in my ears, sneakered up, and walked the high school track. And…it was fine. A little utilitarian, perhaps, and the surroundings aren’t terribly inspired, but it beat paying $60/mo to walk on a gym treadmill any day. I’m eager to get back to walking outdoors, but until I’m feeling a bit more confident on my feet, I’m grateful and glad to make use of this resource.

And speaking of resources…

Using the high-school track has gotten me looking eagerly around, wondering what other free and low-cost community resources I can tap into. And one that I know I’m way underutilizing is the local library system. I regularly travel to three different libraries to check out books, but I admit, I rarely think about what else they may have to offer.

I’m reading The Library Book by Susan Orlean and it got me thinking: what might be available in my local system that I’m not taking advantage of?

Doing a bit of research, I found that the answer is “quite a lot.” I haven’t quite worked out yet how to fully tap into the different offerings, but as with most new practices, I suspect the best way to start is simply by showing up. So, adding a once-a-week library visit to my routine is on my radar, starting this week! I’ll report back about what I discover.

That’s all for today, friends, but I’d love to hear from you. What established routines are you bringing forward into 2025? What new routines would you like to introduce? Subscribers, head over to discuss in our chat area!