30 Before 30

Today is my 29th birthday!

I think it’s safe for all of us to say that it’s a strange time to be alive. Our state has lifted almost all stay at home restrictions, but things are still just not normal. And I don’t know when or if they will ever be!

At the beginning of the year, I would have imagined this birthday much differently. Celebrations would involve more people I love, and more specifically the people that I love who live really far away. Let’s be honest, I also imagined the weather would be much warmer and sunnier! Is it just my quarantine mood or has it been cold and rainy for an endless amount of days now?!?

Anyways, although I’m tempted to whine and complain, let’s move on! There are circumstances of life that I just cannot control, but I can absolutely control my attitude in the midst of the circumstances.

I’m not feeling very goal oriented right now…making goals feels paralyzing because I have no idea where things will be in a week or a month let alone a year. I’m afraid to make goals and then fail at them, so I would just prefer to not make them at all.

But, instead, I’m sitting down and I’m writing out this blog post. I’m thinking through what goals I would like to accomplish before I turn 30 in one year. I’m going to go big and bold but also please know that I’m terrified of half of these goals and wonder if I should even think these thoughts let alone publish them in a blog post!

1. Take two trips with my entire family
2. Get passports for my entire family
3. Volunteer with refugees or immigrants
4. Get away for a weekend with just Theo
5. Go camping with the family
6. Make an income for our family
7. Own 3 rental properties
8. Grow my IG following to 5k
9. Work with at least 10 companies on my blog
10. Successfully harvest at least two vegetables from my garden (#lowstandards)
11. Learn to buy meat from a farmer
12. Break up with Amazon
13. Break up with fast fashion
14. Get away with friends
15. Host 2x a month in my home
16. Publish my book
17. Do another Enjoy Our Kids Challenge
18. Do a marriage challenge
19. Do a spending freeze
20. Clean out and organize garage and house- have a place for every item and get rid of unnecessary things that are not used anymore
21. Learn how to make YouTube videos
22. Lead a Bible Study
23. Make a collection of encouraging messages and comments that I have received online
24. Have a screen-free summer
25. Be interviewed on two podcasts
26. Do a 100 day workout challenge
27. Write one letter/card a week
28. Build a better habit of prayer
29. Build a habit of reading the Bible with Theo each night
30. Learn how to speak out encouraging words even if they won’t please everyone

Phew! That seems overwhelming just reading my list, but I have an entire year to accomplish this, and many of these goals are already in the works, so I just need to to continue to plug away.

Do you ever have those moments where you think about a topic, and then everywhere you look, you see that topic over and over again? That has been happening to me recently with the topic of goals and how to accomplish them slowly but surely. I obviously cannot wait until next May right before my 30th birthday to accomplish this! Instead, I need to ask myself: what can I do this quarter to accomplish these goals? What can I do this month to accomplish these goals? What can I do this week to work towards these goals? What can I do TODAY that will lead me a step closer to accomplishing these goals?

I never could have predicted where I would be today, on my 29th birthday. I also cannot predict where I will be on my 30th birthday. But I will do my best to live day by day to make choices that take me in the direction of living this wild and mundane life to the glory of God.