What’s New: Spring 2026

Can you believe it’s already 2026?

This year, my blog will be 14 years old. And I can tell you, I’m feeling my age! Maybe that’s why I decided to refresh my blog this spring—if I’m getting older, it just means I’m more experienced, with some new skills in my pocket (like web design, why not?).

I started Robo🖤beat as a 25-year-old who wanted to work in the video game industry. I realized that dream, then left it behind to pursue other passions. Now, I’m working as a fiction author, happily married and mom to a three-year-old son.

So, my days look a lot different than they did back in 2012.

But even though my life has changed… I haven’t. Not that much, anyway.

I mean, my roles have changed, now that I’m a mom and author. And I’ve grown. I certainly have new hobbies, and life experiences have left me with a different point of view on many things.

But I’m still me underneath it all. There is a core part of myself that hasn’t really changed at all, not even since I was a little girl telling stories into a tape recorder around my house.

Because I still tell stories—I’m an author now. And stories are what got me into gaming in the first place.

So, I’ve decided to resurface here on Robo🖤beat. I miss this blog. It was always my safe space to chat about all the things I love. It’s a place where I can just be myself, expressing my thoughts and opinions, feeling joy.

I’m trying to find that through gaming again. That’s why I started playing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 this year. I’m about 15 hours in and loving it. I’m playing on the easiest difficulty, so most battles are just a fun puzzle. The world is weird, the premise is completely unique, and the story is beautiful so far. But what I love most are the characters. They are so fully realized, like they are really living and breathing through the screen. The dialogue is sharp and heartfelt; characters talk over each other when they argue, and nothing feels forced or too cheesy. I can’t wait to see what happens to them on this fateful expedition.

That said, my main hobby right now is reading. With a baby who’s now a toddler, I’ve taken to reading in the in-between spaces of my life. First, it was picking up a paperback while I fed my infant son in the middle of the night; at that time, I re-read an old favorite, Grimspace by Ann Aguirre, as a comfort read. Then it was audiobooks on stroller walks with my son. (I still do that when I can get him in the stroller!) Now, it’s often a few pages on my Kindle before rolling out of bed in the morning, or an audiobook in one ear while I take my son to the park.

I’ve also gotten really into bullet journaling.

Last summer, my son (who was then 2 1/2 years old) started part-time preschool, and it was a tough transition. It’s natural for kids to want to be with their parents, but dropping off a crying toddler is heartbreaking. We worked through it. He loves school now; his teachers are amazing. But that transition left me in tears many days, and my anxiety sky-rocketed.

At the same time, my screentime was sky-rocketing too. Which was weird. So I looked into the apps that were stealing most of my time—and I was surprised that it wasn’t any of the usual culprits like social media.

Nope, I was spending hours a day on Reddit.com and ChatGPT.

I was researching parenting questions. Worrying over my daily anxieties, then obsessing over them through online searches and Reddit threads and conversations with AI about next steps to take. It was not healthy. It was me, with anxiety, spiraling.

With that realization came a new commitment to get off my phone.

So, in August last year, I made a goal of limiting my screentime to less than one hour a day. That meant replacing my phone with something healthier: a pocket notebook. I got into bullet journaling as a way to jot down thoughts, questions, and worries as they arose. I told myself I could only research things for 30 minutes a day, at an allotted time in the evenings.

What often happened was, the day went by, I jotted down my concerns, I journaled them out, and then, when “research” time came in the evenings, I didn’t even feel the need to go online after all. Whatever had been worrying me had passed, and all was well.

That practice alone was so healing for me. Just putting my worries on pause, and letting them fade away.

Since getting into bullet journaling, my husband has taken up the hobby with me. We now have brand new Hobonichis and an old diaper caddy we converted into an organizer for all of our stickers and washi tape. It’s really fun to sit down together on a Sunday afternoon, writing our to-do lists and decorating our spreads for the week ahead.

I always pick a word of the year, and this year’s word is PLAY. I want to make time for fun again. It’s good for my mental health to have time to unwind, to shut down, to relax and be creative and experience little, mindless, pointless joys.

So yes, I will be doing a lot more gaming this year. I’ll also continue reading and doing art and exercise and being creative in ways big and small. And I’m still writing my books, as always. I never run out of new stories to tell!

What are your plans for this year? What are your favorite hobbies? Let me know what you’ve been up to in the comments!

— Ashley