Pop the confetti, cue the countdown, and grab your sparkly hat—it’s time to look back at 2025 and celebrate everything this wild, wonderful year brought us. In this episode, I am reflecting on the highs, the lessons, and the surprises that shaped the past twelve months, and looking ahead to what we’re ready to call in for the fresh new year. Whether you’re a resolutions person, a vision board enthusiast, or just here for the midnight champagne toast, join me as I wrap up the year with gratitude, laughter, and a little sparkle for the road into 2026. 🥂✨

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Conversations with Kate is like a conversation with your friend, hairstylist or therapist, where we will talk about music, life stories and everything in between with interviews and guests sprinkled in. As an LCC student, it's an honor and I love bringing a fresh perspective to the podcast menu on LCC Connect. I am your host, Kate.

Let's get into this episode.

Welcome back. First, I want to say I'm grateful that you are here with me for this special year end episode. How did we get here? This is the 14th episode.

So before you pop the confetti and step into a fresh new year, I want to take a moment and pause to breathe and to honor everything this year has brought you and me and us together. The joy, the strength, growth, the surprises, and the little bit of sparkle.

So we're gonna go back to January, March of this year. And that's kind of when I was waiting for a decision about bringing Conversations with Kate onto the LCC Connect team.

I had a couple of meetings, but it was just kind of like the quiet beginning. We weren't really there. And then I got the confirmation and the journey really started in the quiet moments of the year.

And all I was doing was working, going to school, planning, dreaming, secretly building this show in the back of my mind, building something that nobody yet knew about. Unique kind of magic in the waiting There is a unique kind of magic in the waiting.

I meant to say, when ideas are still cocooned, hidden away, transforming into what they're meant to be. What were you quietly nurturing in the beginning of the year? I want to hear. Yes, you listening right now.

March 17, the moment I finally got.

To say it out loud.

We're launching a show on LCC Connect. I was excited, I was nervous, I was proud. Most of all, I was ready. And then April brought the very first episode on April Fool's Day.

Y April was the month that we pressed publish and that first episode was just like a brief introduction of me and a coffee chat, a reminder that simple moments can be rich and meaningful. And then we talked about my wellness journey as well, about protecting your peace and caring for the spark inside of you.

Those early conversations were just the very first heartbeat of conversations with Kate and everything to come. And then in May, we got to talk to Ms. Rose Parker, our very first guest on the podcast.

She talked to us about what it was like to take the struggle and make it into the events that she made, which, oh, gosh, she is a phenomenal woman, a phenomenal human being. Look her up.

She has a great event that she now does just annually where she takes all of the earnings from that event and donates it to a specific thing that helps people in Brevard County. And then in June, what did we do in June over the summertime? What were you doing over the summertime?

And then we also talked about how healing doesn't always just look like grand rituals. It's just about that hitting of play on that television.

Sometimes it's just watching a new tv or like I said, for me it was that Eat Brain, that's a drum and bass record label, that Soup Brain television.

And then, of course, over the summertime in July, we sat down with my classmates from choir, which was super duper fun in our episode called beyond the Measures.

And I get to talk to them about how long they were in choir and what they loved and hated about choir, what their strengths and weaknesses they felt were and also just about them in life because, you know, choir has been a wonderful addition to my life.

And it was so wonderful to sit down with these three people and just chit chat and feel that camaraderie and celebrate choir and being beyond the measures. And of course, you know, during August, the episode from August was two of my favorites of the year so far.

No offense to anybody else that's been on the podcast this year was Class act with my daughter, Autumn Sanford, where we got to talk about her sir Tech program that she is in. It's a dual enrollment program through Wilson Talent center in Ingham county, where she's learning an Associate of Science degree.

And I loved being able to have her in here and have her speak on that because it's something young people just, you know, it's not a typical degree pathway. And she's super smart. And, you know, of course I have preferential feelings over my daughter.

So it was very, very cool to sit down and see how she showed us how teachers shape the world and how you can become a teacher at that young of an age and how the dual enrollment can work for you.

And then we also got to talk to Ms. Katie Smith with her company and through the episode of Capes with Compassion or Capes and Compassion I think it was called. And her company is super duper wonderful.

They do the, it's called a League of Enchantment and they go to local hospitals in Michigan and Chicago and they visit children who are ill and they just kind of brighten their day. And it was such a great episode episode to sit down with her.

She is announced her, her husband and her husband, they started the company together, nonprofit together really. And they are very transparent about it. They're just great humans doing a great thing for people.

And then brought September and I got to sit down with Vic Veda.

Such a really an eye opening conversation about the sound of spending and, and what it looks like behind the lens of like what music you listen to when you're shopping. Like how does it affect you? Do retailers use these things?

And it was neat to take a deep dive with someone especially in her professional opinion because she, she works for the Michigan Retailers association here in Lansing. Phenomenal human being. If you haven't listened to the episode, it's, it's really neat. Again, that was the sound of spending with Vic Veda.

It was just a reminder that financial wellness matters. And especially for those of us who are out shopping in the real world and not just doing the online shopping.

October brought the unseen impact episode.

And that episode is super duper important to me and to everybody, should be to everybody about that unseen impact that you don't know that you have on people.

Sometimes you can just be going about your life and you could smile or say something or interact with somebody in an innocuous way and it impacts them in a grand way. And I just, you know, I'm so glad I got to have that episode. If you haven't listened to that, please do.

Or if you do have something to add about an unseen impact that was brought to you that you had on someone or that someone had on you, please by all means get onto my social medias conversations with Kate on all social platforms. Me know I want to hear what you have to say about the unseen impact. And also in October we got to talk about brood here.

Bunch of different, my favorite topic actually. Hello, coffee can never go wrong with A conversation about coffee and all the different little local coffee shops that I have visited so far.

The top tier being really, I have to say Hurrah's Coffee in East Lansing and Taste Coffee. I think it's technically in Mason. Those two are my go to places. There's a lot of other noteworthy things on that episode.

If you want to go over and take a lookie loo back at that or if you just want to talk with me about coffee, shoot me a message again on all social platforms.

I want to hear what you have to say about your or if you know of a coffee shop that I didn't message because I love love, love, love, love love a good coffee shop atmosphere.

Whether it's for just being in there to have a good conversation with a friend, to work on some schoolwork, to write music to write, or just get other work done. So again, that episode was called Brood here. So glad I got to talk about that.

And November, we brought an episode to your ears that featured Jonathan Gewurtz. He is the faculty lead here in the LCC music department and we got to talk to him about all things music department.

We also got to touch on his home life, his music that he does outside of the program. And it was a really good episode. He's a great educ here. He does music theory and he also teaches studio class for the instrument students.

And then he also does a little bit of teaching at a couple of other campuses. But if you would like to look into that episode that was composing creativity in November.

And again, the ideal behind the episode comes from the fact that starting on Black Friday every year, I am Buddy the Elf incarnate. You can ask anyone that knows me. And we just had a few conversations about how to bring out your, your inner Buddy the Elf, how to celebrate it.

It was, it was a nice little, little fun episode about bringing joy and a reminder to not take life so seriously, to keep it whimsy, keep the laughter and keep your spark. The Buddy the Elf way. And trust me, it doesn't have to be with maple syrup on spaghetti noodles. And then we gotta talk about the themes of the year.

Man, I feel like it just kind of was a breakneck, like, hold on, whiplash. We're already here to the end of the year. I'm so thankful for everybody tun this show. But also at the same time, I'm like, holy Moses.

This is episode 14. This is episode 14. And I started from just sending an email. This is awesome.

And to celebrate the end of the year, usually not all of the times, usually. What do you do? Do you have, like a big party? Do you sit home by yourself? Do you stay up and watch the ball? Dr. Do you have some sparkling cider?

Do you have some champagne? Some years I have, I've gone out and done events in public and sometimes I've DJed things on new Year's Eve.

In years past, I've also attended local parties, like get together parties. What are you gonna do on New Year's Eve?

What's one intention that you can hold close to your heart? Maybe it's rest. Maybe it's joy. Maybe it's boldness. Maybe it's believing in yourself just a little bit more.

Whatever it is, take this moment to claim it. Thank you so much, truly, for being part of this first year of conversations with Kate.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Conversations with Kate. You can find more information on LCC Connect site as well as all social platforms, Facebook, Instagram, yes, TikTok as well.

Big love.