Ins & Outs for 2025

The only list I'm making this new year....

Happy Happy New Year!

2025 has a very good ring to it, don’t you think? Something bold and reassuring about the quarter-of-a-century vibe. I mean it really needs to come out strong and fighting after a pretty crazy 2024 where my steadfast belief in ‘even years are always the best’ was shaken to its very foundations. A few too many WTF moments on a global, political, social and closer-to-home level for me. I mean of course there were wonderful moments, there always are, in this yin yang universe we live in. But I for one, am so ready for a fresh new year start…

I’ve since retired from my earlier life dedication to making New Years Resolutions. I don’t need the added pressure to unveil a New year, New Me, thank you very much. My thoughts on this here…

However, along with some journaling and dreaming for the new year, I made a little list of my 2025 Ins & Outs.

I do love an In/Out or Going Up/Going Down et al list for their light hearted and often thought provoking inclusions, brevity and conviction. Nicky Haslam’s annual tongue-in-cheek (we hope) tea towel list of 40 Things He Finds Common is a particular fave - which include the random and the ridiculous, and a few LOL’s. I couldn’t agree more with leather jackets on children and gender reveals. The rest is highly debatable… and absolutely disagree wholeheartedly with collecting baskets and rescue dogs!

Nicky Haslam’s 2024 Tea Towel

---

My Ins and Outs for 2025

Herewith, 40 things to love and leave for the year ahead…

Ins

1. Good coffee

2. Kindness

3. Fairy lights throughout the year

4. Yoga

5. Sourdough & salted butter

6. Live music concerts

7. Phone calls

8. Mushrooms of all kinds

9. Weights training (starting small)

10. Popcorn

11. Writing - Substack, letters, a novel?!

12. Chasing the sun/ summer holidays

13. Reading books (the ones you hold)

14. Playlists - making/sharing/playing

15. Full fat dairy

16. Laughter

17. Socks (the joy of nice matching ones/socks with skirts/with heels/socks vs tights)

18. Spontaneity

19. Avocados

20. Bunting

21. Family road trips

22. Boundaries

23. Napping

24. ‘Let Them’ (the Mel Robbin’s theory)

25. Journaling

26. Hot baths

27. Mountains, whatever the season

28. Gratitude

29. Colour

30. Filtered tap water

31. Dumb phones

32. TV Documentaries

33. Lemons

34. Dancing & Singing

35. Curiosity

36. Gold jewellery

37. Blankets - weighted / antique quilts / on sofas/ sheets & blankets vs duvets

38. Solo running (outside sans fear)

39. Chocolate - all types

40. Wild swimming & Saunas

Outs

1. Eye strain - it’s time

2. Pilates

3. Dark chocolate

4. Ghosting

5. ‘What school…’ chat

6. Alcohol

7. Tesla/Twitter/Elon Musk-anything

8. Neutrals

9. ‘Let’s circle back’

10. Voice notes (unless on different time zone)

11. Procrastination

12. Oat Milk

13. Rushing

14. ‘I should’ guilt-based decisions

15. Scrolling

16. Minimalism

17. ‘What I eat in a day’ / ‘double your protein for midlife’ type content

18. Adult skincare for tweens

19. Snobbery

20. Mindless sugar consumption

21. Skinny jeans on anyone/age

22. ‘You got this’

23. Teen anxiety

24. Flavoured water

25. 'Quiet Luxury’

26. Complaining

27. QR codes - menus especially

28. Vaping

29. Ozempic unless medically required

30. Rappers

31. Overconsumption

32. Biohacking

33. Inadequate Peri Menopause help & general overwhelm

34. People pleasing

35. Make up contouring. Also, overly smooth foreheads

36. Glorifying busy

37. Long Nails

38. Blaming / passing the bat to other generations - X, Millennial, Z, Alpha etc

39. Visible logos

40. Ice Baths

So… what have I missed? What would you add? What you would swap on the In/Out lists. Please let me know, I love these lists!

---

And finally…

peneloperoad

A post shared by @peneloperoad

I cannot get enough of this slower time of year and playing music at home not just in the car etc, and a welcome respite from Christmas carols and pop. A dream for this next year would be to see Penelope Road, live. A burgeoning grass roots 5-piece college band from Atalanta I discovered through good old Instagram via their cover of one of all my time favorites, Hall & Oate’s, Rich Girl and also a sublime version of The Beatles, Don’t Let Me Down. From their original songs, I am loving Mercy - a deeply soulful, bluesy 70’s-rock-esque easy listen. Here is a young group that effortlessly brings together the best of nostalgic melodic vocals and harmonies, guitar (the bass!) and percussion while their joy for creating and performing together is infectious. One to watch… and to listen to in person one day… on my American road trip of dreams perhaps!

With love for a new month, year and the excitement of the unknown it all brings…

Ex