My Next 30 Years

It's so hard to believe that the first 30 years of my life are coming to a close, as I turn the corner into the next decade, tomorrow. When I think about the previous 30 years, it feels like it was my time for learning. It was filled with almost two decades of schooling, and then the beginning of my career has been its own kind of education every day. I learned a lot about being a friend, a sister and a daughter. I learned a lot about the opposite sex, and I am trying to learn now to be a better wife every day. Most of all, I learned a lot about exactly who I am (for better or worse), and learned how to find my own true happiness.

In my next 30 years, I hope that I can take these past years of learning, and become a better person every day. I hope that my career will grow positively, taking the "job" that I love and turning it into a successful working adventure. I hope that my marriage only continues to get better every day. I am so lucky to be married to a man who is dedicated to me and our marriage. I hope that I can grow to become a better wife, and keep the love that we have growing and strong. I hope that I can be the most amazing aunt to all of my godsons and future nieces and nephews. And of course, I hope that I can be a better sister and daughter to the family that I love with all my heart.

Beyond that, I want to travel the world and see all of the beauty that this planet has to offer. I want to learn about different cultures and eat all kids of foods. I want to fill my passport with stamps, and my home with treasures from around the world. I look forward to moving into our new house, and learning how to make a home out of one place for years and years to come. I want to have a garden that blooms every year, and trees in our yard that grow tall and strong. I can only hope that we see the state of our economy and our country and our world get better, not worse. And I hope that I can contribute to that, personally.

It amazes me to think of what the world and my life might look like another 30 years from now. But I am so excited to take the journey there every day with the people that I love. I know it is going to be amazing!

So Happy Birthday to me! I can't wait to celebrate!!

Running in Circles

Ok, so we have some catching up to do (again)...

For me, I'm able to report on a couple of good races that I've had these last couple of months! I signed up for the longer version of the Barkin' Dog Duathlon this year, and beat my goal time by 11 minutes!! I was worried because work had been really crazy before the race, and I wasn't training as much as I should have... But my results were so much better than I expected.

And just this past Monday, I beat my Bolder Boulder 10K goal time by 4 1/2 minutes!

Other than the racing, these last 8 weeks have been crazy busy. There was a six week waiting period for paperwork to finally go through on the house, but we are finally getting under way. I am training new person number next at work, and it is going VERY slowly, but my managers have officially said they will take over as of this past Wednesday. My workout training schedule has gotten harder, but I'm seeing big improvements and results in my swim, bike and run. I took on a new big project at work, but the first portion is completed and we are now booked to travel to Mexico to complete the next part at the end of June. My annual review wasn't as good as I was hoping this year, but it is allowing me to re-evaluate my work/life balance, and I'm finding my stress levels to be much lower these days. My desk is clean, the apartment has been cleared out and unwanted items have been donated, laundry is actually in the hamper for once, and all of the dishes are done.

I think it might be time to stop running around for a day and just enjoy the wonderful company of my husband and the gorgeous weather.

Our Very Own Hole in the Ground

It might not be a lot to look at right now, but we are so excited to announce that we finally have a basement poured on our lot! Our meeting with the builder a couple of weeks ago gave us some great insight into the timeline for the house from here, and we are probably going to move in a lot sooner than we thought!! Here I was hoping that we would just be in the house to be able to bring back my FAVORITE annual tradition of pulled smoked pork on Christmas Day.  (Picture a cold, dark, early morning with Christmas carols playing in the background. Hubby wakes us up early to make coffee and to start the barbecue while we light the Christmas tree and the Christmas candles to give us some light. It is the most perfect morning I can imagine).

Anyway... back to reality here... too easily distracted... then it was looking like maybe it would be a move-in date of Halloween. But we might even beat that now! We are starting to work on landscaping layouts, paint colors and appliance shopping. I can't wait to see the walls go up, and see everything finalized so soon...