31 Things to do Before 31

1. 100 Pushups
2. Do another 28 or 30 day challenge
3. Log my food and exercise every single day for a minimum of 3 months
4. Go ice skating
5. Run a 10K
6. Go to sleep early
7. Improve my posture
8. Buy a house
9. Knit a sweater
10. Schedule "me" time at least once a week. Strive for at least two hours of solitude
11. Meditate
12. Visit a new state
13. Visit a new museum
14. Go to at least one lecture or creative performance
15. Read Four Classics:
    The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
    The Age of Innocence (Edith Wharton)
    The Stranger (Albert Camus)
    The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
16. 52 Weeks listing Things for which I am Grateful
17. 52 Weeks to an Organized Home
18. 90 minutes of Yoga at minimum once a week
19. Learn about my family tree
20. Make cheese souffle
21. Buy a watch
22. Make hot buttered rum
23. Take a stunning photograph
24. Write a haiku
25. Make a pair of earrings
26. Get my eyebrows shaped professionally
27. See a Penn State Game at Beaver Stadium
28. Letterpress
29. Buy number or letter balloons for an occasion
30. Find a new shade of lipstick
31. Buy It's a Wonderful Life on DVD

30 Before 30 List Update

Up until 30, for some reason it made sense to me that I wanted to to x-1 things before I turned x. But 29 before 30 seemed kind of...silly. 30 is big. 30 is...thirty. So without further adieu, my list of thirty things I wanted to do before 30:

1. Visit Fallingwater
   Frank Lloyd Wright's PA treasure was beautiful, and definitely worth the wait. We got tickets for the in-depth tour, and we learned some really interesting facts about the house, plus I was allowed to take some really great pictures with a wide angle lens that I rented from borrowlenses.com.
   
2. Visit a new state
   I was not able to do this this year. We made it up to Maine, out to California (twice), Nevada, and back to PA, but we've been to all of those places before.
3. Visit a new museum
   I visited the Andy Warhol museum while I was in Pittsburgh over the 4th of July weekend. It was pretty awesome, and although they didn't allow photos, I was too mesmirized by the David Bowie interview to really pay attention to anything else (well, besides the silver clouds)
4. Make my own flavored vodka
   I made cherry flavored vodka with a mini-bottle of Bully Boy and some in-season black cherries. Sonic ain't got nothing on my homemade cherry limeade slushes!
5. Make ice cream
6. Find a piece of good furniture
   I feel like I did one better and got a very beautiful rug by Austin artist Alyson Fox (from West Elm). It is gorgeous and I love it. We even bought a vacuum cleaner JUST BECAUSE I love this rug so much, and want to take care of it properly forever. We also finally got around to getting a cube Expedit for our vinyl collection.
   
   
7. Grow tomatoes
   Yeah, baby
   
8. Add a lens to my camera collection
   After some deliberation, I decided to rent the lens I wanted whenever I needed it. This worked out for the best, financially. Although I'd still like to add it to my collection eventually, the cost for this one was prohibitive.
9. Take bird pictures
   Done! Got a photo of a hawk a week after I posted this, which was more than I ever could have dreamed! Now I need to use the good old telephoto lens and get some "real" bird pictures as the telephoto intended.
10. Make a lightbox
11. Finish knitting a blanket
12. Sew a skirt
    I will update with this project soon!
13. Make a travel book for guests/Scrapbook about Boston
    I collected some maps from the airport, and gathered all of those plus soaps, shampoos, and a list of suggestions for things to do.
14. Take a haunted trolley tour
15. Ride the Swan Boats
16. Learn to play guitar
    Ha. Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking.
17. Take spanish lessons
    I didn't really follow through on this, even after I looked it up and asked around.
18. Read Three classics: War and Peace, Persuasion, and Crime and Punishment
19. Start waking up early
    I had to start waking up before 6:30 for my new job. So...done!
20. Visit a national monument
    Turns out that Symphony Hall is a National Monument, so check!
21. Run another 5K
22. Repaint/refinish our kitchen chairs
23. Overhaul the sh*t out of my closet
    My intentions were good, but I did not have time for this.
24. Overhaul the sh*t out of my online portfolio
    I kind of did this, but not to the depth or extent I wanted.
25. Serve on a Jury
    Okay, this wasn't strictly on my list, but I did finally get to serve jury duty. It felt great to do my civic duty, even though the trial was pretty abysmal and left me with little sense of justice. Innocent until proven guilty, though, right?
26. Get my first tattoo
    I decided I'd rather have a house. We'll see what happens after we save all our extra $$$ and buy property.
27. Do 30 days of yoga
    I did this challenge
28. Keep a Therapy Journal
    I never got around to this, but I do jot down some of the more important things when I think of them or when they help me more than usual.
29. Set a measurable goal in therapy
30. Eat a cleaner diet
    J and I started doing Paleo in July. We hoped to make it a lifestyle change instead of something we did for a few weeks. I think it made us more aware of where our food was coming from, and how lazy we had become since I started working full time. We're still making adjustments, but it was good for us, and we both lost some weight and learned some things.

Total: 20/30

28 before 29