This is the year — 2025 — when I told myself I would do my best to get better organized. It’s not a New Year’s resolution, just a plan in my mind. I hope I can bring it to fruition.

I believe I got a good start on Tuesday night. While the TV was blasting out college football bowls and later some of the New Year’s Eve events from New York City, I was sitting at my computer contemplating my 2025 plan. I decided I did not need to wait until the famous New Year’s ball dropped for me to get motivated.

One of the first things I did was a small start. I took down the 2024 calendar that featured pictures of 12 months worth of National Parks. I saw that calendar every day as I sat at my home computer.

Every month I would turn the page and look at another glorious sight. I would imagine what it would be like to walk under a waterfall or hike through the forest at one of those parks. Maybe 2025 will see that happen.

I put a new, rather bland calendar in the old one’s place. It has large spaces under each day so I can write down and keep track of various appointments. It seems the older we get, the more spaces we require on the calendar to remind us of all the important dates.

This larger calendar will mean I can rid the front of the refrigerator of the many scraps of paper and reminder cards stuck there with magnets. Haircut appointments, doctors’ visits and other notes will soon be in one place.

While this 2025 calendar serves its purpose rather nicely, I plan to hit the dollar store and grab something more inspiring to share wall space with it. Perhaps this time, it will be 12 months of colorful beach scenes or amusing puppies at play.

I still enjoy getting those little stick-on calendars that I have placed on the front of my computer. It’s amazing how handy those calendars proved to be when I was working in the newsroom and now from our home office. Over the years they have been made available from local funeral homes, a towing service and a lumber supply business. It’s a small gesture from those businesses that I and a few of my fellow workers appreciated over the years.

There is something bittersweet about tearing off that last page of the calendar year. It marks the end of 12 months of ups and downs, happy celebrations, first communions, many, many birthdays, anniversaries and other milestones. Every page tells a story of our lives.

What will 2025 bring? I’m not sure, but I plan to be ready. Or at least I hope to be, one day at a time.

Heather Ziegler can be reached at hziegler@theintelligencer.net.