Welcome to the first Friday Five of 2025! If you like to set goals for the year or a word of the year, here are my best ideas for how to keep those top-of-mind so that you don't forget them. Yesterday I just added a free template for making a bookmark with your goals/word for 2025 if that would help you.
Thank you for voting last week on where to donate our most recent affiliate commissions. I contributed $459 yesterday to World Central Kitchen on our collective behalf, bringing the annual total of donations made possible by this community to over $4,000 in 2024. Let's keep the good work going in 2025 - thank you for clicking through my links, hiring me to help your team with workshops, and telling your friends to join this community.
Let's get to your Friday Five, shall we?
2025 Mark Your Calendar Cheat Sheet: I made a list of dates you might want to mark on your calendar for 2025. I learned the hard way that I needed to get some key dates on my calendar or risk making scheduling errors that were avoidable, so here's my attempt to help you avoid that. Take a few minutes right now and help out Future You. https://bit.ly/MarkThatCalendar
Send this to someone having a baby in 2025: I rounded up the items I wish I knew about much earlier in my parenting journey here - it's an easy blog to send to someone having a baby in 2025. If they're going to be a working parent, send them this blog post too.
Baked potatoes in the microwave: We recently tried making baked potatoes in the microwave to see if they'd come out well or not. Y'all, they were perfect in 3 minutes. Put a little oil on the potato, add some salt and pepper, wrap it in a wet paper towel, and microwave for 3 minutes. So easy. I see some baked potatoes in my lunch rotation for 2025 now. Did everyone else know this but me before now?
Could you send me your Girl Scout Cookie links? Last year, I made a public list of Girl Scout cookie-ordering links from the scouts in this Friday Five community. If a girl in your life is selling cookies right now, hit reply and send me the link and any little details you'd like me to include. Next week I'll send out the list and we can all order our cookies and support each other!
Holiday cards tip. It's okay if you enjoy holiday cards and immediately recycle them. It's also okay if you like to keep them! If you would like to hold onto them, my suggestions for how to do that can be found in this blog or this Instagram reel, using a $4 pack of book rings.
Bonus Friday Fave: My friend Atnre introduced us to Trustworthy (a "family operating system"), and we appreciate it and expect to use this tool for years to come. It helps you organize all the documents you wish you had in one place but probably don't yet (insurance policies, passport copies and renewal dates, birth certificates, etc.). They let you see how it works for 30 days free and don't even ask you for a credit card for that free trial, which I like. Check it out!
There may be affiliate links in this email which means I may receive a commission if you purchase something through a link. However, please be assured that I only recommend products I have personally used and love!