I thought it fitting to end the year with a photo of a December sunset at Pleasant Grove, my home of the past five years. In the last month, I’ve moved on to a new city and new home with someone special.

Yep, it’s been another adventurous year in the life of Justin Tadlock.

I did a whole heck of a lot of stuff in 2025. I traveled to Portugal and met awesome people within the WordPress community. I attended my nephew’s wedding. And I started building a new life with Ashley. Of course, that’s barely scratching the surface.

It’d be impossible to recap the entire year—I’d be sitting here for a couple of weeks attempting to write this post. But I’ll attempt to at least cover some 2025 highlights and see how well I hit the goals that I set for myself.

Love or Something Like It

At the beginning of 2025, I created a new goal category for myself named “Love or Something Like It.” I wasn’t quite sure where this road was going to lead, but it’s been one heck of a trek into the unknown.

Ashley and I met via the online dating app Hinge on December 21, 2024, and I was fully in the swing of the online dating world at the time. I hadn’t quite found my other half at that point, but I was out there putting in the time and effort.

But it wasn’t until I met her for our first date a few weeks later on January 6 that I started to leave the online dating scene behind. After a few dates, we felt like we had something real that we could build upon. And it’s been a whirlwind ever since. We’ve had a big year together, taking multiple trolley/train rides, gardening, watching shows at the theater, trips, concerts, and much more.

We even bought a house, got engaged, and hosted our first Christmas together. Below includes some snapshots of some of our year. Stay tuned for the next chapter.

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Health and Fitness

I set out to accomplish several health and fitness goals for the year. Here’s how I fared:

• ❌ Weight Loss: I had a goal of cutting to 185 lbs. I’ve kept a maintenance weight between 200 and 205. Honestly, I didn’t focus heavily on this goal. Rather, I kept trying to live a healthy lifestyle.
• ✅ Vitals: My last blood pressure reading was 128/74 and my A1C was 5.2. My goal was to keep my numbers in check, and I’ve managed to accomplish this. All other health markers have been in range as well.
• 🤷 Daily Walks: For most of the year, I kept up pretty consistent walking, but I’ve also slacked off in the last few months as I’ve had other responsibilities.
• 🤷 Exercise Routine: I’ve made progress but haven’t 100% stuck with anything at this point. But I’ve mostly kept up with some form of exercise. I just haven’t nailed down a routine for myself.
• 🤷 Eat More Veggies: I don’t think I’ve increased these numbers on the whole (nor decreased them). But I could’ve made more of an effort.
• 🤷 Body Positivity: I’d still like to feel better about my physical shape. I have days when I do and days when I don’t.

I don’t feel like that tells the whole story. I’ve experimented a lot over the year. I’ve reintroduced foods back into my regular diet (like milk). I’ve focused even more heavily on whole foods. And Ashley has certainly changed aspects of my lifestyle for the better.

I spent a lot of time outdoors, moving my body in the garden. I played basketball regularly for a while. And I tried some different bodyweight routines.

On the whole, I feel like this was a successful year, even if it didn’t go 100% according to the plan that I wrote down on January 1.

Reading

I had a goal of reading 35 books for the year. I fell just shy of that number, reading a total of 33. Again, this is one of those goals that I can’t exactly say that I failed (besides, it’s tough to finish the year strong in the middle of a house-buying process).

It was a solid year, and I read a lot of awesome books. The most important thing is my pursuit of reading every single day, and I hit my seventh year straight earlier in December.

Creative Pursuits

Offline, I completely failed to really dive into any big creative pursuits. It was just another down year.

Online, I actually did build some pretty cool stuff. Here are some new WordPress plugins as well as those with major updates:

• Authors List Block (new)
• Breadcrumbs Block (update)
• Media Data Block (new)
• Progress Bar Block (update)

I really enjoyed just getting back into the groove of building cool stuff for the web, and I’m certainly looking forward to doing more of it in 2026.

Learning Spanish

To be honest, I grew a bored with my pursuit of learning Spanish. I kept up daily Duolingo lessons until about a month or so ago. Then, I just dropped off. Well…I continued Duolingo to keep my streak alive, but I switched over to chess lessons—it still counts if I switched subjects, right? Right?

Despite a solid year of lessons, I failed to read a book in Spanish. Let’s see if I get motivated again in the new year.

Personal Finance

I had several specific personal finance goals. Here’s how 2025 went:

• ✅ Max Out 401K and HSA: No problem here. Just solid contributing each month.
• ➖ Extra Mortgage Payments: I made additional principal payments until the end of August, which is when Ashley and I began seriously discussing our own home. I then switched to savings mode.
• ❌ Kitchen Remodel: Technically, I saved the cash for a kitchen remodel. However, that money was moved to our new house.
• ✅ Double Monthly Investments: My goal was to double my monthly investments into my personal brokerage account. I actually tripled that amount and only missed a single month.
• ❌ Extra 3 Months Emergency Fund: Throughout the year, I actually saved an additional 6 months worth of emergency fund, surpassing my initial goal. However, that money was reallocated.

I also had an unwritten goal of hitting $400K personal net worth with a written stretch goal of $500K. While I did manage the first, the second was too far out of reach since I bought a new home.

I pretty much hit all of my financial goals for 2025. Some of those goals simply changed by the end of the year. On the whole, it was a very successful year. Plus, I have a small chunk of equity in a new property. 2026 will certainly hold new challenges.

Garden and Food Forest

The garden was a huge success. I rekindled my love of annual veggie and fruit growing that I wasn’t quite as motivated to do in previous years. The latter part of the season was a two-month drought, so the late summer and early fall didn’t produce much. But I ate and preserved a bounty like I hadn’t in a long while.

The food forest continued on. I believe I planted around two dozen new trees and fruit-producing bushes in the late winter. And many of the existing trees produced well, at least those mature enough to do so.

But I’ll likely be saying goodbye to my young food forest as I begin a new adventure on a new property. I still own the previous place but plan to sell it in the coming year.

Honestly, it is the hardest thing to leave behind. I spent half a decade of my life building it. There’s a Greek proverb that I’m reminded of:

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.

I hope that a new owner will pick up the project and enjoy the fruits of the dozens of trees on the land. As for me, Ashley and I will start over. It’s an opportunity to approach growing a food forest anew while learning from my past mistakes. And with a partner, I’m certain we can get things up and running even faster than I did on my own at the last place. While I’m sad let the old project go, I’m excited for what the future holds.

Here are some photos to bookend the year and celebrate some of what I grew in 2025:

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