Blogging: Weekly Summary (December 22-28, 2025)

There’s a certain rhythm to blogs this week. It’s quiet in spots. It’s thoughtful in others. Some posts feel like someone lowering the honest lamp to take a closer look. Others are practical fixes, the kind of short, exact notes you bookmark and forget until your site breaks. I would describe them as a mix of rest, looking back, tinkering, and small reckonings about what comes next. To me, it feels like peeking into a little town where everybody’s putting up their holiday lights and also sneaking in a last-minute repair to a porch light.

Notes on stepping back, the tech pressure, and Bento folding

Creativerly wrote about taking two weeks off over the holidays. The note lands soft. It’s not preachy. It says: I unplugged. It was needed. The post makes a small but sharp point about the exhaustion that hangs over tech design work right now, especially the push to bolt AI onto everything. I’d say the tone is tired and gentle at once. There’s also the bit about Bento, a link-in-bio tool, shutting down. That line about Bento lands like someone closing a favorite corner shop — familiar, annoying, and a tiny bit existential.

He also flagged a new macOS calendar app called Grila. That’s the kind of detail you remember if you’re the sort who swaps apps like recipes. The post wanders through creative topics, the changing shape of blogging, and throws in a plea for compassion in creative work. It’s not a manifesto. It’s more like a friend saying: slow down. Come back to the joy, not just the output.

Why this matters to the rest of the week: people keep circling the idea that tech is pushing faster than comfort allows. Some folks push back with a small, practical step — like taking time off — while others fix a thing in code. Both are responses to the same hum: pressure.

Favorite stories and gratitude: small rituals of blogging

Adam Singer shared ten favorite stories from 2025 and a note about 207 weeks of consistent blogging. Ten favorite stories — that’s the kind of list that makes you want to click each link slowly, sip tea, and nod. He sprinkles gratitude for readers and subscribers, and wishes everyone well for the holidays. It’s warm and direct. The piece doesn’t dig into deep theory. It reminds you why people read blogs: for continuity and the sense that someone’s still there writing, week after week.

The repetition of gratitude is a small ritual. I’d describe it as a hand on the shoulder. It’s that thing where you keep a tiny corner of the internet tidy because you like the tidy corner. To me it feels like finding old postcards in a shoebox. You don’t need them, but you like them, so you keep them.

Tiny, useful, annoying: the Shark Toast Button fix

Then there’s a very different post from ReedyBear. Short. Specific. It’s a how-to fix for a bug — the Shark Toast Button showing attribution twice on paid blogs. If you’ve wrestled with CSS and footers at midnight, you’ll get this immediately. The post gives updated CSS and tells you how to move attribution into the footer properly.

I notice these posts because they’re the bread-and-butter of blogging ecosystems. They don’t want to be poetic. They want to be useful. And they are. In a way, it’s like seeing a sign on the highway that says, ‘Hole in road at mile 47 — detour.’ You don’t read it for the prose. You read it because it saves you time and a headache.

Year-end accounting: traffic, money, health, and growth

Dann Berg published a big year-in-review. It’s the sort of long, earnest tally that reads like a friendly ledger. Traffic numbers. Revenue. YouTube crossovers. A review of Function Health that apparently drove a lot of traffic. He also writes honestly about getting healthier and trying to find balance as 40 approaches.

I’d say this post is the kind you sit with. There are charts implicit even if not shown. It’s both pride and inventory. You get the sense of someone who’s been building a small business that’s also a life. He keeps a steady job at Squarespace and is thinking about what to do next. The emphasis on health feels real. It’s not the varnished success story. It’s the bit where someone admits they had to change their life to keep the work they love.

What it shares with others this week is the theme of reflection. People aren’t only posting because the calendar says ‘post.’ They’re posting because it matters to measure what worked and what didn’t.

Searching for meaning and changing formats

Scott Willsey wrote a note that I’d describe as quietly restless. He’s thinking about changing the content of his blog in 2026. He wants to write about things that actually spark interest, especially technology topics, instead of sticking to a structured series he’s grown away from. That feeling — of the series or format becoming a cage — is familiar. A lot of creators hit it. This post reads like someone opening a closet and finding clothes that no longer fit.

To me, it feels like a crossroads. Scott’s not abandoning the readers. He’s trying to be honest about the dissonance he feels with his current audience. That tension — between what people want and what you want to write — shows up elsewhere this week in smaller ways. People are thinking about authenticity versus habit. It makes you wonder: how many newsletters or long-running series are quietly limping along out of obligation?

A search for an old voice and community memory

A short plea came from basement blog. The author is trying to find an old Bearblogger who used to write about shifts as an EMT. The post includes details: she wrote candidly about the emotional parts of shifts, and the blogger wants to reconnect. This is a small piece but it’s saturated with neighborhood feeling.

I’d describe this as the internet’s equivalent of calling around to see if someone on your street remembers the neighbor with the green bike. It’s a reminder that blogging is also an archive of lives. People drift away. Links rot. But memories and small communities keep nudging one another to find each other again.

The search itself connects to a larger theme this week: the desire to preserve small, human stories against churn and platform change. Bento shutting down, people changing formats, missing blog authors — it all ties together.

A life from the Arctic to Oslo: community, kids, and simplicity

Manu shared a longer personal piece about Lars-Christian Simonsen. It’s one of those life-story notes. He grew up in the Arctic, moved to Oslo, and wrote about his creative growth and the influence of his children. There’s a gentle pride in local community work and a love of simplicity in tech.

I’d say this post reads like a warm mug of broth on a cold day. It’s about slow things: community projects, small acts that matter to kids. The idea that simplicity in tech matters is threaded through. It’s practical and a little sentimental.

Why does this matter here? Because it shows another kind of blogging: the memoirish, place-based piece that keeps the internet human-sized. These posts remind you why blogs were useful in the first place. They’re a collection of small, human truths, told slowly.

Fiction and delight: why we love Pluribus

daveverse wrote about Pluribus, a piece of fiction mixing sci-fi and romance. The write-up appreciates the emotional arc of the lead and praises a clever ending. The post closes with a simple wish: to engage more with the blogging community.

That wish hangs there. It’s like someone at a book club saying, ‘I loved this — tell me what you think.’ It’s small, earnest, and inviting. That tone is in several posts this week: a desire to connect, not just broadcast.

Themes that keep turning up

• Rest and recharge versus pressure to produce. Several posts circle this, either directly or indirectly. Creativerly speaks it plainly. Others show it by stepping back and tallying the year or by changing formats.

• Community memory and loss. Bento folding, the search for the EMT blogger, and posts that celebrate long-term readers all point to a shared worry: things disappear. Links die. Blogs go quiet. People want to keep the good stuff.

• Practical fixes and craftsmanship. The Shark Toast Button fix is a reminder that blogging isn’t only sentiment. It’s also CSS, footers, and small troubleshooting. That practical work holds the rest together.

• Rethinking format and voice. Scott’s note, Adam’s favorites, Dann’s review — these pieces pulse with questions about what to keep, and what to change. People want to be honest about how their interests evolve.

• Caring for self and craft. Health, time off, and doing work that matters are recurring points. Not flashy takes on burnout, but quiet moves toward balance.

Patterns of agreement and gentle friction

Mostly, the bloggers agree on a few basic things: blogging matters in small ways, community matters, and technical tools can be comforting or cruel (depending on whether they vanish). Where there’s disagreement, it’s mild and not heated. The tension is more internal than public. It’s about which direction an author takes. Do you keep a structure or abandon it? Do you chase algorithmic clicks or go back to topics that actually light you up? Those questions show up as private debates in each post.

It’s like watching a town decide whether to renovate the old cinema or turn it into a farmer’s market. People have reasonable, different attachments. Nobody is yelling in the street. They’re just making plans.

Small surprises and local color

• The mention of Grila — little app tips like that are always the candy at the bottom of a cereal box. You don’t expect it, but you’re glad it’s there.

• Bento closing felt like losing a familiar cafe. It sparks practical notes about what to do with link pages and profiles. It also nudges people to notice the fragility of tools they rely on.

• The EMT search felt unexpectedly human. It’s the kind of post that serves as a town notice: ‘Does anyone remember Marjorie with the green boots?’ It pulls at the thread of human connection.

• Dann’s accounting includes physical health as part of his blogging story. That’s a small, important detail that elevates the whole thing. People are more than screens.

Who might like what

• If you like practical, make-this-work posts, then ReedyBear is your stop. The CSS is the kind of thing you can paste in and forget, but it saves you a headache.

• If you want warm reflection and time-off notes, read Creativerly. It’s the sort of gentle nudge that might make you close a laptop for the afternoon.

• If you enjoy the year-end, number-heavy, honest ledger, then Dann Berg is the one to sit with. He’s not bragging. He’s taking stock.

• If you’re in the mood for stories and community, Manu and daveverse bring warmth and narrative. One is life history, the other a celebration of fiction.

• If you’re nostalgic for voices and tracking down names, basement blog will pull at that curiosity. It’s the archetypal ‘where did she go?’ post.

• If you want a quick recap and a list to click through, Adam Singer gives you a tidy route through the year’s highlights.

Small reads that suggest bigger moves

These posts together form a subtle map of where blogging is right now. People are patching. They’re re-evaluating. They’re fixing buttons, counting visitors, and, quietly, asking whether the topics they write about still suit them. The map isn’t dramatic. It’s a neighborhood map: where the bakery closed, where the scout troop meets now, and who still waters their lawn every Sunday.

There’s a kind of domesticity to the week. It’s not about headline debates. It’s about taking stock, about fixing things, and about human stories. That mix tells you more than a single manifesto would.

Little digressions that tie back in (yes, I go off on tangents)

Sometimes reading these posts felt like rummaging through a drawer of old tools. You find a screwdriver you forgot you had, and you realize the screwdriver still works. That’s the Shark Toast fix. Sometimes it’s like finding a holiday card from a neighbor you haven’t seen in years — that’s Adam’s favorite stories list. It’s also like watching someone put on a kettle and let it whistle because they want the house to smell like baking — that’s the posts about taking time off.

This is a small neighborhood, and I keep circling back to the same fact: bloggers are doing different kinds of maintenance. Some are gardening (tending community and readers), some are mending fences (fixing code and footers), and some are repainting the porch because they’re tired of the old color (rethinking format and voice). Same town. Different chores.

Final nudge to read further

If you click through, you’ll find the exact words that made these impressions. Each post carries more detail than I could squeeze into this note. There are links, code snippets, lists of favorite stories, and the quiet personal histories that fill the spaces between numbers. So if any of the small scenes here caught your eye — rest in the holidays, a CSS fix, a year-in-review, or a search for an old blog voice — go click the posts. They’re short, honest, and worth the few minutes.

And if you’re one of those people who keeps a corner of the internet tidy, you’ll probably find a sentence or two that asks you to tidy a little more, or to take the night off. Either way, there’s a lot of care in these pages. It shows up in different forms, but it’s there.