Monday, April 29, 2013

30 before 30!

Boy, has my 28th year been a doozy! Tomorrow is my 29th birthday, which means the dreaded 30 is just around the corner. I am pretty ready to go out of my 20's with a bang by embarking on the ever so popular trend of completing a 30 before 30 list. So after careful consideration many middle of the night feedings with Griffin, I have prepared my list. Now it is your responsibility to hold me to it!

So here goes, in no particular order...

1. Lose 20lbs. I am already 6lbs less than what I was beginning my pregnancy with Griffin, so I am excited to keep this momentum going and really making this a goal.
2. Take a 5 year anniversary vacation. This one is mostly complete in theory, just have to actually book it and go, Mountain Song Inn, here we come!

3. Complete a 30 acts of kindness project with my boys. This may not happen until the actual day of my 30th. Although we are always looking for ways to share kindness with others, I would like to spend my birthday next year completing these acts all in one day.
4. Take the boys camping at Crabtree Falls. I would really like to make this an annual trip as this was one of my most favorite places as a child.
5. Run the monument 10k. With my weight loss goals, hopefully this will be an easy one to check off.
6. Decorate our bedroom walls..finally. Using my pinterest boards and of course the beautiful photographs taken by the lovely Carmen of Carmen Doherty Photography. (If you would like to take a peek at our album, you can view it here, password is rice2013.)
7. 
Learn to use my fancy camera. I know I will never be as good as a professional, but I would like to at least attempt to get some nice shots of those everyday moments that happen in a house with my amazing boys. I have some built in items on this list to help with this like #8, #14 and #18.
8. Complete a month photo-a-day challenge. One day, I will actually do a 365 day challenge... I think I may have planned to do it this year. Yeah, that was a little overzealous of me. This time we are going to attempt a month and go from there.
9. Start an edible garden. This one I will have to enlist my handy husband. Thankfully, Cooper is on my side, as he has asked Daddy to help him plant carrots and bananas!
10. Learn to knit. 
I have tried this about 100 times, this winter, I will actually do it and I can check "Knit a Scarf" off my bucket list, too!
11. Get a brother-sister tattoo. Bryan and I have been talking about doing this since I was 16. We are actually going to do it in September. Finally. It would be even cooler if we could convince Kaira to join, but I know tattoos aren't her thing! :)

12. Go on a wine tour. No, I can't believe I have never done this either.

13. Take a cooking class. Do I really need to explain this? This would make my husband's life.
14. Make an ABC photo book using family photos. I saw this on pinterest and LOVED it! Maybe I will get even fancier and make a family book like this one, too!
15. Learn to make baby food. There is my gift to my sweet Griffin and to our bank account. I'm doing the whole nursing thing and hope to stick with that for his first year and I would really like to give baby food a shot. I have the tools necessary, let's hope my determination is there, too. This will be the first real step (along with #9) to getting Rick on my healthy organic train. Who knows, maybe we will have our produce delivered weekly by my 30th birthday and have a compost bin with our edible garden (this would be lots of checks on my bucket list) but let's not get ahead of ourselves here...

16. Go somewhere I've never been. I wanted a few super vague ones to be left up to the right moment and time.
17. Read a classic. In light of The Great Gatsby coming out, I have chosen it. I half read it in high school but I think I will appreciate it more now. My reward will be to see the movie!

18. Catch-up on the boys' photobooks. I know, I know, Coop is almost 3. Better late than never.
19. Make a new friend. Just felt like a good idea.

20. Throw Coop a birthday party that is triple the fun. He says he wants a train party or a dino party. It will probably change 100 times between now and August. Either way, it is going to be the best damn party. Ever. Poor guy hasn't ever had one.

21. Do something extremely out of my comfort zone. There are tons of quotes and cartoons that illustrate that you grow the most outside your comfort zone, which is the whole purpose of this, right?
22. Write/blog weekly. It's my therapy and a passion. I need it.
23. Share my love for theater with Coop. Virginia Repertory Theatre does a lot of awesome shows and Cooper is finally old enough to go and begin appreciating live performance art. And I just discovered Go, Dog, Go is coming and that is Coop's FAVORITE BOOK. He has all kinds of back stories about all the dogs, in fact, we rarely read the words because he tells me those stories instead. I can't wait!!
24. Get a blog-lift. I am dying for this. I love this blog, but you sure can't tell.
25. Discover a skin regiment that works. I am almost 30. This has to be done so I don't look like I am in the wrong decade!

26. Learn to ask for help. It's time I learn that I can't do it all. I mean I did have seizure and the consensus is that it was stress induced. So if that ain't a sign, I don't know what is. 
27. Say thank you to the St. Mary's NICU in a big way. I am the mean mom who doesn't let her kids get birthday presents... I think Griffin's birthdays will be centered around doing things for the NICU at St. Mary's and maybe March of Dimes in the future. Giving back starts at birth! :)
28. Bake a new recipe each month. I just love baking. And my coworkers and husband love when I do. Sounds like a win-win.

29. Plan regular kid-less date nights. I am not sure what regular means except to be serious about not forgetting the relationship I have with my husband separate from him being the father of my children. This is just as important as his role in my children's life and I think we forget this sometimes.
30. Choose joy. No explanation necessary.


So there you have it. I really wanted to add some more items from my Bucket List like heading to New Mexico for the International Hot Air Balloon Festival but some things will be better enjoyed when Cooper and Griffin can enjoy them, too!

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