When Bryan and I lived in Japan, our Japanese tutor got us a Cafe of Okinawa book to encourage us to learn more Japanese.  It was a great idea because it checked of all of the boxes we love best about life:  Food, Adventure, Exploring, & Togetherness.  Since being back we haves missed that aspect of life, so this Christmas Bryan got me this book.  We are going to work our way through all the restaurants and Pies in our great State of Arkansas in 2013!  The longer we stay in Arkansas the cooler we discover this state is so please join us in our Arkansas adventure here!

I have always said that thirty is when you become legit as a person. I am rapidly approaching this milestone in life and, even though I have a few more months before the big day, I have already started planning my “coming of life celebration.” Yes, I am quite excited with the idea of leaving my 20s behind me. I have had no roadblocks that has detoured my excitement and positive attitude until maybe a week ago. While in the process of fixing my hair my eye got distracted by a flash of light. At first I thought it was the light hitting my hair but further investigation resulted in my first felt tremors that is the age-quake.

I found my first grey hair.

My heart dropped and all the excitement of leaving my 20s crumbled and was replaced by a flood of anxiety and an avalanche of “What if’s”.  Where would I be today if I had known at 16 what I know now?   Why didn’t I persue this or that harder?  Why did I do THAT?!  Why did I let that dream die?  What the hell were you thinking in term of THIS?  You could have been this! You could be doing this!

Along with dealing with being filled with regret on how little I felt like I accomplished in my 20’s, I was also dealing with all the things that I also needed to accomplish in my 30s. It was like this ever increasing volume of a tick that is my biological clock.  Bah!  Isn’t that great?  Not only do I have to fill in the gaps in my 20s but I also have to somehow do that and also be comfortable with the new set of goals in my 30s.  How the hell am I going to do that?!  Then comes the flooding of anxiety again and the whole thing starts all over.

I was stuck in a revolving door for a while, but then one day as I was driving around I realized something.  I can be quite critical about America and American culture at times but on the topic of age, I am quite grateful of this society’s mentality on the subject.  30 is the new 20.  I’m not just saying it to combat my aging, but the truth of the matter is that for a lot of us 30 is the new 20.  My generation and the generations the have come after me are not in the same place as, say my mother’s generation and those that have come before her.

When my brother graduated from high school, my mother asked if he was going to miss high school.  He said no.  She couldn’t understand why this was.  For her, her high school days were some of the most joyful days of her life.  For my brother and I, that kind of friendship and fond memories come a few years later in our college days.  I’m not sure why this is so.  Perhaps it is because for those that came after my mothers generation we were given a chance at a longer exposure to childhood.
Whatever the reason, I came to the realazation that I do know at 19 what I know now.  It’s not too late.  Time has not passed me by yet.  I have the boldness and confidence to do what I want to do.

Today I have come to this realization about myself.

I am attracted to men that look like this:

But I fall in love with men that are like this:

I thought that putting a counter on our wedding website was a cute idea, but that was a year ago.  Now it is just intimidating and stressful!  113 Days.  There is so much to do and I am so overwhelmed that I have been avoiding the whole wedding planning thing for the last two months.  How do people do this!?

Bryan ended 2011 with a nasty cold and I am starting 2012 with awful cold/flu like symptoms. My entire body hurt yesterday and that made me great full for two things, Theraflu day and night time pills and good health. Maybe it’s a getting older thing, but I have recently become more and more aware of how important it is to have good health. I wouldn’t be able to travel the way I do or eat the things I do or live my life the way I want to without my health. Here is to drinking more water, exercising regularly, and being better to myself in 2012.

It’s time to come clean.  I have been having a love affair with Anthropology.  Can you blame me though?  Look at the cool stuff they have!  Here are two things that I REALLY want!  I just need to win the lotto…

Just two little things running through my head today.

1. Why on earth did I stop running? I don’t like it (the running) but I do it because it is good for me, so I began the long road to pushing myself to run 2 years ago. The process never really gets easy for me. It sucks the whole time, but the worst is starting the running routine.  That really really sucks. However, I somehow managed to muddle through it the first time and started running 5 days a week. The hardest part was and still is the fight in my head.  That fight never goes away, even in my best runs, but the more I do it the less violent I am with the verbal abuse that I toss back and forth between my ears.  The whole process at the beginning of the routine is more emotionally exhausting than physically exhausting.  So when you finally get over that initial hump why would anyone ever stop right?  Good question.  For some reason I decided to take a day off and that day turned into 6 months.  I am now cursing myself for taking that break because I ran for the first time today and talk about a self-esteam beating!  UGGGG! If I had never stopped I would not have to do this again. Yes, I said again. This has happened before. When will I learn that I cannot stop running because starting over is CRAPTASTIC!

2. I recently got myself involved in a situation where I was working with people that was way outside of my normal work circle. It was a short lived thing because the company went south real quick but during that time I heard a lot of, “I am a huge social networker”; “I am big into social networking”; or “Let’s get this out through social networking!” from my new and short-lived coworkers. These women had more experience in the traditional work force than I so I was quite curious on how one went about conducting business through Social Networking.  I mean, isn’t social networking just Facebook?  No, it can’t be.  I mean that’s just Facebook.  It had to be something bigger and more legit than piddling around Facebook, twitter, blogging, or Google+(yes, even Google+) right?  Nope, it turns out that “Social networking” is just mucking around FB at work.

Well, that’s all for now.  I must go get some work done through my social networking media….lol I guess that does sound way more productive than, “I’m going to get on Facebook to snoop around on people’s pages and play Words with Friends.”

Bryan informed me today that Facebook will be making some changes that I may not like. I have a feeling that I will be limiting my FB use in the future. I am kind of bummed because I have so many pics on that thing. It’s fun to look through them and see how you are connected to so many people around the world but maybe it is time to take a few steps back in the future. This all means that I will be taking a few steps forward on this little blog that has suffered a great deal of neglect this year. Let’s hope this move will be less like the google+ move that I made a few months ago.

oooo on a super happy note!  If you don’t know already, we finally closed on our house and have moved in.  There are a few boxes about but the main room are livable!