donutsweeper

Captured at the beginning of the year:

The current reading challenges are 50 Best horror (5/50), 75 best Sci-Fi (11/75), 50 best SF (6/50), Hugo best novellas (12/58), Aussie SFF (3/10), 50 Best fantasy (4/50), Agatha Christie Complete works (5/89), Hugo best novels (10/73), Canada reads 2023 (1/15), one dozen decades (49/120), plus some itty bitty ones.

In the last week, I've been working through and archived some. Plus, added at least two more - one from pedanther for detective fiction, and one I set up myself on SF novels by women. Where they are now:

1. The Haycraft List of Detective Story Cornerstones - joined today, 1/75 read. Looking forward to adding some of these to the planned reading list.
2. 200 Significant Science Fiction Books by Women, 1984–2001, by David G. Hartwell, created by me in the last week, 9/200 read - I own lots I haven't read (at least in the years I've been tracking reading, and many will be good to revisit).
3. The 50 Best Horror Books of All Time (Esquire, 2022) - NEW VERSION - 5/50 read; no change. Not sure how many of these I can get my hands on, so I might decide to archive it at the end of the year.
4. The 75 Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time (Esquire, 2024) - 12/75; one more than last year. Quite a few are on my shelves, so should be possible to make progress. I also had the 50 book version, it makes no sense to have both, so archiving the shorter one. I thought about checking whether any fell off, and decided not to.
5. Esquire's 50 Best Fantasy Books of All Time (2022) - 4/50, no change. As with the horror, if I don't get through any of those this year then I should archive it.
6. Agatha Christie Complete Works - 5/89, no change. This is a lifetime achievement list (from whenever I started tracking) so even though I'm making no progress I don't intend to abandon it.
7. Hugo Best Novels - 10/74 - this is negative progress, because there is an additional book! I am, however going to use it as a jumping off point for reading more books I own in 2026.
8. One Dozen Decades: 120 Years in 120 Books - 61/120 - this is the big win, taking me from 49 prompts complete; not sure how many are short fiction, and choosing not to care. As with the Christie, this is a lifetime achievement goal, so leaving it to tick along slowly (also, some of the missing years are covered by hugo books I own...)
9. Hugo Award Winners for Best Novella - 13/58, one more.

Plus the ones that I've decided to archive in the time that I've been writing this:

1. 2025 Hugo Award Finalists - 13/24 read plus one of the bonus. I didn't look to see whether I actually intend to read any of the rest.
2. Hugo Awards 2024 Shortlist - 4/6 read, and I know I'm never going to read one of them.
3. CBC Canada Reads 2023 Longlist - 2/15, one more than last year. I haven't made an effort to hunt down any of these, and it will be an effort, because I tried looking in the local library for a couple and had no luck; as the 2026 overarching goal is 'read what I own' this can be abandoned.

I'm half-arsing this. I'm finishing the year sore, fatigued, and not nearly as grumpy as I could be (given that this was going to be a study day, and I've declared that nope, it is a annual leave day, and now I'm working through a set of tiny low priority tasks).

At the beginning of the year, I set some goals. With going back to study, I didn't make as many of them as I'd like, and I stopped tracking them mid year.

• work - I set one goal - find work. I'm calling what I'm doing 'work', success
• craft - I set seven goals. I completed two of the 'finish this'. I attempted to start Middlest's quilt. There are no incomplete projects on the green couch because we cleared the couch. I am not looking at the red couch. Eldest's quilt is not done. I started a deal with UFOs project, but abandoned. Excellent progress, considering.
• reading - I set four goals. I bailed on the Hugo reading, and my but that was the right choice. I have met my books but not my pages goals; mostly because I started tracking online short fiction. I wanted to progress the various reading challenges on Storygraph; I'm intending to do a separate post on that. Good progress.
• house - I set 6 goals. The ramp and pergola required me to contact people; this did not happen. I made progress on the towel rail for the kids bathroom. The library is more useable, as is the craft room. Acceptable progress.
• music - I set 7 goals. I kept playing with Fledge. The rest fell by the wayside. I've certainly played some of the grade 5 descant pieces, but I've really struggled with the energy to play anything for more than five minutes. Bad match between goals and reality
• learning - I set three goals; I attempted nothing. Oops.
• family - I set no goals. Youngest moved home. Middlest moved out. Middlest got married. Middlest's partners bought a house that they will all be moving in with. I made an effort to spend time with all the local family. maharetr and I now have a very low key text based weekly catchup that provides us both with executive function; I have made attempts at having coffee with people Just Because (most recently, ariaflame, chaosmanor, maharetr). Despite no goals, I'm happy with the achievement.
• social - I set a half arsed goal about catching up with friends. I have been attempting to say yes to social things, although often falling in a heap. I have, however, caught up with a number of people I don't see often enough, not all of that at funerals.
• physical exercise and health - I set four goals. I achieved none. Park runs were doing fine right up to the point that something went wrong and then I couldn't deal. My sleep worsened, got better, worsened, and now I'm back to trying to pull it back before midnight again. Oh! I kind of did the walks in Perth - I didn't do one of the book, but we did find a wheelchair accessible one to do a couple of months back, which wa chaosmanor, maharetr, artisanat, and I.
• organisation - I have five goals, but the first one is ???, so I suspect a typo. All four real ones have been progressed but are all a long way from done. This is a disappointment, but I forgot I'd set them.
• decluttering - I set four goals. I achieved (mostly) one, successfully rehoming a significant portion of the yarn and fabric I wanted to.
• writing - I set 6 goals. I have mostly kept up the offline journal/morning pages; I wrote fewer blog posts here and none at anna_reads_science and not as many as I wanted at Tumblr. My two coding projects languished. I am disappointed, but unsurprised.
• garden - I set five goals and one stretch. The bird netting came off the grapes, but I can't claim that one. Some of the extra pot plants found homes. The rest required energy, motivation, and remembering, and these did not happen.

Overall - I achieved some things, and having a list was useful, at least while I remembered it was there. I started writing a new list mid-year, and never quite got off the ground. I struggle to work out how to track these things. I continue to not put energy into skills I value, not least because they take energy and focus, and it has been a difficult year for that.

(I was going to write about what I'm hoping for 2026, but that will be later, as Out Of Oomph)