2026 Bingo Card

Setting goals is a surefire way to wind up hating yourself, I've found.

Part of my problem might be that I hold myself to impossibly high standards and ideals (when I am in fact a bog-dwelling goblin), and so the goals I've set for myself are even more unattainable. So, I wind up being forever disappointed and miserable.

Yuck.

When I saw How to ADHD's bingo card video, it seemed like a tiny betrayal. How could setting 24 goals for one year be safe for the highly distractible and unhingedly underachieving mind?

Dunno. But in classic How to ADHD style, Jessica McCabe made it look fun and adorable. Cozy, even.

Then I saw that a fellow AuDHD friend crafted a bingo card of their own.

Fine. Maybe this is a nice and wholesome activity I could try.

Where to make it? I'd lose or destroy any loose piece of paper in a matter of days, and something hung from a wall would just serve as a daily reminder of my endless shortcomings.

Answer: the inside back cover of the witchy day planner I bought myself, believing this would be the planner to solve all of my wants and needs. A few weeks into the new year, it's faring better than its predecessors.

Three colors of Pilot G2 ink, smudged just a little by my hamfisted scrawling, lays out the pleasant things I'd like to see happen this year.

B Column

Finish a blanket. I don't know how many ghosts of unfinished blankets are currently languishing in forgotten bags in willfully ignored closets, but it would take at least one hand to count them. I'm not even sure of the last time I finished an adult-sized blanket. Could be close to 15 years ago.

Read 60 books. I read 66 last year, but don't want to be too ambitious. There are several 10+ and 20+ hour volumes in my queue, and I hate listening on more than 1x speed.

Become an illustrator. I have a professional skillset as a creative strategist. This skillset does not include illustration, digital or otherwise. Sometimes illustrations are needed. Sometimes people think I can do logos. I was an avid drawer before an adolescence spent among anime enthusiasts beat the practice out of me. I'd like to get it back, so much so that I've enrolled in a course.

Make a candle. Smells nice. Very simple to do in a slow cooker. An easy win if I need one.

Travel internationally. Turns out that seeing the world is delightful when you have the support of a savvy companion. Will United States citizens be allowed to leave the country in the coming months? Will any other countries even allow visits from them? We'll see.

I Column

Travel regionally. There are Appalachian foothills and mountains proper, the Rust Belt, and the near Midwest all within spittin' distance. Plenty to explore nearby. Gets you out of the house.

Have a friend over. I don't know how to entertain, hang out, or maintain close adult friendships outside of messaging apps. It's depressing. Should probably work on that.

Take a DSLR bug photo. Getting excited about insects was the best thing that happened last summer. Summer having become a sweaty, burning hellscape, looking at bugs and taking pictures of them are just about the only activities I'm looking forward to enjoying in six months. And I want to use the camera I hyperfocused myself into buying more often.

Crochet a piece of clothing. Meeting Loni of HavinSewMuchFun just by chance had the entourage/aura effect of wanting to do more fiber things, my personal practice having fallen by the wayside in bits and pieces. She inspired me to start a cardigan (goblincore regalia done in thrifted fibers), of all things. I got a few rows in whilst painfully following a pattern (bad at that). I do want to keep making it. Maybe socks would be quicker. Regardless, I wanna make clothes, too.

Fill out my genealogy. It probably wasn't advisable to give away my DNA in the wake of another company's data breach, but I'd been pondering my ancestry for a long time and thought it might be nice to have more things to daydream about once the fascists throw us all in the gulag. Turns out I've got 12% Welsh and 6% Swedish genes not previously accounted for in my high school genealogy project, and a whole bunch of leads to explore on Ancestry.com.

N Column

Learn Scottish Gaelic. It was also revealed that I'm 12% Scottish (less than expected) and the majority of that not covering modern Gaelic-speaking territory, but my learning journey started two summers ago with DuoLingo (now rightfully abandoned) and has since migrated to Mango Languages (they actually teach you applications and focus on more than people's names). It's a strange and fun language, and makes for an interesting Sapir-Whorf thought experiment. And heaven forbid I learn something with more immediate utility.

Start and finish a puzzle. I'm a puzzle person now. They take forever because I work slowly. My cat has taken to destroying my work. But I'm getting that square.

Free Space!

Publish 52 blog posts. Shooting for once weekly here, with room for double-post weeks those times when I'm feeling particularly inspired and blessed with uninterrupted writing time. So far so good.

Watercolor 10 cards. Makes me happy, creates unusual mail for other people, represents one or two more coping mechanisms for GETTING THROUGH IT.

G Column

Publish a website. I have a few projects in the hopper, some hypothetical, some purely portfolio, some actually owed. I'd like to make them all happen, if time, headspace, and energy didn't come at such a premium. So, one publicly available web dev project would be nice.

Plant an herb garden. We've talked about this. Cold stratification of the first batch begins next month.

Travel domestically. Family out west and opportunities for adventure everywhere. Seeing some more of the country would be neat, although it really is hard to work up to leaving home for a few hours, never mind days. Get too comfortable.

Hike somewhere new. Wanna touch strange moss and see different rocks!

Weave a wall hanging. I miss weaving. It's a very slow, very old, very soulful art form.

O Column

Rewatch The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies. An important step to healing is revisiting the things you loved before life became painful and overly complicated. My poster and wall calendar and daily calendar and Burger King goblets and gem show inscribed band and fan dictionary and other accoutrements demand justice. Also, I've never watched the extended versions.

Go birding. Another easy win, hopefully, but an important activity nonetheless. It mostly looks like cussing at trees in the woods and using the Merlin app for sound identification because I'm bad at finding birds with my eyes and don't believe in disturbing them too much just to say that I saw them.

Play a board game. Again, I struggle to hang out with people. And my sister who loves board games gave me Wingspan for Christmas.

Design a brand. Because I don't want to be a marketing generalist forever and just want to do world-building for cool people and companies without their bottom lines becoming my direct responsibility from a inbound execution standpoint.

Make a new friend. I don't people well, as stated ad nauseam, which is growing concerning as I continue to age. Even if I lived in a chicken-footed house in the woods at 300 years old, I would still need some network of support.

I don't think any of these are too much too ask! And are hopefully pleasant and low-pressure enough to keep me from going off the rails in pursuit of a bingo. I have settled on a treat if I get five in a row (macro lens for better bug pics), which is hopefully not so tempting that I just up and burn beaucoup dollars on it undeservedly, just to spite myself.

Here's to cozy activities, gentle adventures, and professional growth!