My Thirtieth Year

As something of a kick-off to my 30th year and my mom's 50th, we ran a half-marathon back on December 3.  It was cold but dry and sunny, and we finished!  Now, I have ambitions to run a marathon with one of my good friends (who is also turning 30 this year) in May, but I'm not sure whether my knee can hold up - it hasn't felt right since the half-marathon.  Also, there's this thing about time commitment.  I enjoyed the structure and discipline required to train for the half-marathon.  Someone plotted out the miles I needed to run and which days I needed to run them, and I did it.

No one does this for me for writing.  Nobody sends me a schedule and says, SWells, sit down and give me 20 pages, and tomorrow, I want 20 more.  Plus, the time I've dedicated to running has filled any time or energy I had for writing.  I want to run this marathon (I think I do, anyway... I'm suffering short-term memory loss from the half-marathon).  But I also want to write, now that I've gotten a few essays done, toward a book-length manuscript.  I'd like to make year 30 the year I finish it, but that might be too ambitious.

There's a few other things besides writing and running I'd like to have happen in Year 30:

• take a family vacation
• go on a fancy date with my husband
• go line dancing at least once
• take Lydia and Elvis on two special one-on-one "dates" each
• cut our credit card debt in half, with a two-year goal of being credit card free by our 10th anniversary
• blog once a week
• read ten books
• run a marathon (maybe... at least another half-marathon)
• write six or more essays toward the manuscript
• incorporate Bible reading and prayer into daily life more
• write twelve new poems

My immediate goals for 2012 are to get well - this sinus infection needs to go away - and to survive the next week of Brandon being out of town.  He's had a lot of work lately, and I'm ready for him to be home and around more.

Thirty years old July 30.  This is a crazy life.  I wonder what challenges and opportunities God will give us in 2012.