2025 in Review: Annotated Classics, Journals, & More

I'm a big believer in New Year's resolutions, even if I rarely keep them all. It's a bit like that quote about reaching for the moon...Even if you fall short, you'll land among the stars. Painfully cheesy, but true nonetheless.

To effectively review 2025, let's start with my stated goals for the year.

My biggest goal was to expand my annotated classics series, and I've largely succeeded, even if I did stray a tad off course in the book choices.

The Plan:

• Treasure Island

• Romeo and Juliet

• Macbeth

• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

• The Castle of Otranto

• Great Expectations

• The Federalist Papers

Completed:

• Treasure Island

• Romeo and Juliet

• Macbeth

• Ivanhoe

• Dracula

• The Castle of Otranto (done, but not yet published)

In Progress:

• The Odyssey

• Great Expectations (I despair of ever finishing; I really don't think it's the best book...)

Though I changed up the book choices, I undoubtedly succeeded in expanding my annotated classics series. Mission accomplished. 💪

Not Planned, But Happy I Did It

I'm what I like to call a productive procrastinator. When I wasn't annotating classic novels, I spent the year:

• Launching a line of branded products

  • Journals

  • Phone cases (I've had this one for the past year, and it's held up perfectly, and is so much better than something generic off of Amazon!)

  • Misc. accessories

• Creating a line of cute 3-ring binder covers

• The biggest one: changing Vocabbett into Renaissance Revival!

  • I also trademarked the name Renaissance Revival (I'm having a teensy bit of buyer's remorse, but I need to ignore it. The name doesn't really matter as much as what you create).

Wild to think that I started Vocabbett in 2019...Time flies, but I'm very proud of everything I've accomplished with it!

Next up: 2026 goals!