Why I'm Not Waiting For My 30s to Get My S...stuff Together
I feel like I've always heard about the glamour of your 30s. They're supposedly your best years. You're old enough to not be a starving student, to know better, to hopefully not be living in your parents' basement (oh so relevant), but you're still in your physical prime, or something like that. Well, I think my 20s have been pretty fantastic. I got a college degree, traveled lots, tried to put myself aside for a little while during my mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, met my hilarious husband, had our first child, and hopefully accomplished some other things that I just can't remember right now. But as I'm closing out my 20s, I realized that I kinda don't really have any hobbies anymore. And I'm not exactly in that whole "prime" stage, physically speaking. I have an idea of how I'd like to be and show up in my 30s, so I'm taking the next year to get myself to that point. And I'm going to hopefully get there by working on this stuff I'm about to get into (and I totally reserve the right to add to this list at any point throughout this whole process. I'm the boss here, sorry).
READ. I love books. I haven't read as many as I should have by this point in my life. (Not that there is a "should have" here other than the self-imposed "should have.") I think books are such a healthy escape. I love referencing them and drawing parallels to them. I love how my vocabulary tends to get more colorful when I'm reading good books. I love how quickly my mind seems to work when I read regularly. And then there's the information you get from books, even novels! I love learning new things! So, my goal here is to read a book a month for the next year. Any book. Parenting books, novels, memoirs, whatever. I just want to always be reading something. In the (paraphrased) words of the late Richard Gilmore, you should always be able to talk about the book you're reading. (Although now I’m not sure if that’s what he said. Do you know what I’m talking about here? Help me out if you do, thanks!)
BAKE. Have you seen The Great British Baking Show? If you have, I feel like I shouldn't have to explain myself here. I know I'm not the only one who's watched it and thought, "I should be able to make a lovely creme patissiere. Why don't I have the recipe for a basic Victorian sponge committed to memory?" I'm not going to try to memorize it. But I am going to try to do 30 bakes this year! Some might be keto-friendly, because #keto, but I just love baking and I'd love even more to try to hone that skill a little and stretch my baking repertoire.
GET HEALTHY. Funny for this post to follow the last one, but that's the kind of balance I'm looking for. Generally speaking, I am not suffering from any chronic illnesses or diseases (yet), my cholesterol and blood pressure are great, and I feel pretty good most of the time. I've gained and lost weight, on and off, since high school probably. I have not had a healthy relationship with food for a good amount of that time. I caused myself a lot more pain than was necessary in pregnancy and childbirth because I wasn't at a healthy weight when I first got pregnant. The obvious part of this goal is I need to lose weight. And poetically, I've got about 30 pounds that need to go. I get that you should love your body at any weight, and I don't think that my beauty has much to do with it, but weight is weight, and get this, it literally weighs you down.
More than losing weight, I don't want my daughter to have the same mean relationship with food that I've had at times. I want her to see her mom eating healthy food and loving it and loving what it can do for the body. I want her to know that treats don't have to be food, rewards don't have to be food, solace doesn't have to be found in food. Honestly, I want her to be able to eat the cake when she's with friends, and not beat herself up about it later. I want her to enjoy all the food a country has to offer when traveling this incredible world, and be able to return to a healthy routine when she gets home. And really, I want her to have all these things, because it's really what I've always wanted for myself. I've still got a lot of life left to live that way, so that's where I'm heading.
SQUAT. This is a pretty technical goal, but I want to see a good habit pay off. So, I'm going to do squats every day. Nothing like a good squat, right?
JOURNAL. Anyone who follows me on Instagram has seen a good deal of Harper's life and milestones so far, so sorry about that. I'm not going to stop posting there, but I've realized how many of the little details I'm letting get right past us and I'm already forgetting some of them. I used to write in a journal every single day. From the time I was 17 to about 24, I wrote about pretty much everything going on in my life. I've only gone back and read over it a little, but I love knowing it's there if I ever want to read it. More so, I love how much I appreciated every day when I took the time to reflect on it. Aside from this blog and Instagram, I'm going to get back into keeping my own personal journal. The goal here is to write at least once a week. I've even got a reminder set for Sunday evenings in my phone. Now I just need to get a new journal because I'm pretty sure my old one has been in storage with all our stuff for the last seven-ish months.
BE GRATEFUL. I'm a big believer that "gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions." -Zig Ziglar, I think. I get that ambivalence is probably a super common emotion (having two feelings at the same time. Thank you, Daniel Tiger.), but I really think that it's hard to not feel happiness when you're expressing gratitude. I haven't really quantified this goal yet, but I know I want to show others my gratefulness for them more often. I love thank you notes, receiving them and writing/giving them. So I want to have more of those happening this year.
SERVE. One thing I've noticed as Harper gets older, is I am not very busy in all actuality. I have quite a bit of spare time. At least for the next little while. Now, a good amount of that will probably be going towards this project, but I know I can fit the time in more often to serve others. It's not even a drop in the bucket that needs to be filled considering the world as it stands today, but I want to make sure I've gotten in a solid project once a month for the next year. I would love to help refugees in our area. I'd love to serve in the temple more regularly, we'll see how it takes shape each month.
I've seen an incredible amount of happiness in my 20s and I'm just pretty dang excited to start building on that.
READ. I love books. I haven't read as many as I should have by this point in my life. (Not that there is a "should have" here other than the self-imposed "should have.") I think books are such a healthy escape. I love referencing them and drawing parallels to them. I love how my vocabulary tends to get more colorful when I'm reading good books. I love how quickly my mind seems to work when I read regularly. And then there's the information you get from books, even novels! I love learning new things! So, my goal here is to read a book a month for the next year. Any book. Parenting books, novels, memoirs, whatever. I just want to always be reading something. In the (paraphrased) words of the late Richard Gilmore, you should always be able to talk about the book you're reading. (Although now I’m not sure if that’s what he said. Do you know what I’m talking about here? Help me out if you do, thanks!)
BAKE. Have you seen The Great British Baking Show? If you have, I feel like I shouldn't have to explain myself here. I know I'm not the only one who's watched it and thought, "I should be able to make a lovely creme patissiere. Why don't I have the recipe for a basic Victorian sponge committed to memory?" I'm not going to try to memorize it. But I am going to try to do 30 bakes this year! Some might be keto-friendly, because #keto, but I just love baking and I'd love even more to try to hone that skill a little and stretch my baking repertoire.
GET HEALTHY. Funny for this post to follow the last one, but that's the kind of balance I'm looking for. Generally speaking, I am not suffering from any chronic illnesses or diseases (yet), my cholesterol and blood pressure are great, and I feel pretty good most of the time. I've gained and lost weight, on and off, since high school probably. I have not had a healthy relationship with food for a good amount of that time. I caused myself a lot more pain than was necessary in pregnancy and childbirth because I wasn't at a healthy weight when I first got pregnant. The obvious part of this goal is I need to lose weight. And poetically, I've got about 30 pounds that need to go. I get that you should love your body at any weight, and I don't think that my beauty has much to do with it, but weight is weight, and get this, it literally weighs you down.
More than losing weight, I don't want my daughter to have the same mean relationship with food that I've had at times. I want her to see her mom eating healthy food and loving it and loving what it can do for the body. I want her to know that treats don't have to be food, rewards don't have to be food, solace doesn't have to be found in food. Honestly, I want her to be able to eat the cake when she's with friends, and not beat herself up about it later. I want her to enjoy all the food a country has to offer when traveling this incredible world, and be able to return to a healthy routine when she gets home. And really, I want her to have all these things, because it's really what I've always wanted for myself. I've still got a lot of life left to live that way, so that's where I'm heading.
SQUAT. This is a pretty technical goal, but I want to see a good habit pay off. So, I'm going to do squats every day. Nothing like a good squat, right?
JOURNAL. Anyone who follows me on Instagram has seen a good deal of Harper's life and milestones so far, so sorry about that. I'm not going to stop posting there, but I've realized how many of the little details I'm letting get right past us and I'm already forgetting some of them. I used to write in a journal every single day. From the time I was 17 to about 24, I wrote about pretty much everything going on in my life. I've only gone back and read over it a little, but I love knowing it's there if I ever want to read it. More so, I love how much I appreciated every day when I took the time to reflect on it. Aside from this blog and Instagram, I'm going to get back into keeping my own personal journal. The goal here is to write at least once a week. I've even got a reminder set for Sunday evenings in my phone. Now I just need to get a new journal because I'm pretty sure my old one has been in storage with all our stuff for the last seven-ish months.
BE GRATEFUL. I'm a big believer that "gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions." -Zig Ziglar, I think. I get that ambivalence is probably a super common emotion (having two feelings at the same time. Thank you, Daniel Tiger.), but I really think that it's hard to not feel happiness when you're expressing gratitude. I haven't really quantified this goal yet, but I know I want to show others my gratefulness for them more often. I love thank you notes, receiving them and writing/giving them. So I want to have more of those happening this year.
SERVE. One thing I've noticed as Harper gets older, is I am not very busy in all actuality. I have quite a bit of spare time. At least for the next little while. Now, a good amount of that will probably be going towards this project, but I know I can fit the time in more often to serve others. It's not even a drop in the bucket that needs to be filled considering the world as it stands today, but I want to make sure I've gotten in a solid project once a month for the next year. I would love to help refugees in our area. I'd love to serve in the temple more regularly, we'll see how it takes shape each month.
I've seen an incredible amount of happiness in my 20s and I'm just pretty dang excited to start building on that.
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