29

Like most people I love the holiday season. Parties, presents, twinkly lights, the incarnation of God and in the middle of it all I get to celebrate my birthday. Being at the end of the calendar year my birthday is a wonderful time for me to reflect, celebrate and set goals for the coming year. This year was the big two-nine. My last year before exiting my 20s and becoming an official 30 something.

Josh made my day extremely special. A hair cut and color the Friday before, breakfast out, a day spa treatment, lunch at Chick-Fil-A and a fancy dinner downtown Nashville at Sambuca followed by Jeni's ice cream. I was incredibly indulgent and reveled in being spoiled on my one big day of the year.

On the drive to and from dinner Josh and I talked about what a big year 28 was and what I hoped for in the 365 days to come. It was a bit of a hard question to answer, honestly. I felt a bit like I needed to have the perfect answer and like my thoughts needed to be sorted out more clearly. It took some time to form a response to the question of "What do I want in the coming year?" "How do I want to grow?" "What do I want to do?" "What direction am I headed as a person?"

Here is where I landed. I want to go deeper.

I want to know what it looks like to have deep unbreakable relationships. With Josh and Felix - being in tune with their needs and desires. Creating a home and safe space for their passions and personality to thrive. Genuinely listening and encouraging them to fully become who the Lord created them to be. And I want to go deeper with the community around me. Intentionally reaching out to those I care about. Praying for them. Listening to them. Having laugh-till-your-sides-hurt lunches and late night conversations over an open bottle of Pino Noir.

I want to go deeper in my understanding of myself. I want to know my triggers. know my weaknesses and strengths. Know my passions and direction. Know the calling that is placed over me and move deeper into that calling.

I want to go deeper in my walk with Jesus, too. I want to search out the hidden things of God and find them and I want the Lord to reveal new things to me and teach me how to feel his saturating presence in my life day in and day out. Making dinner. Doing laundry. Changing diapers. Photographing friends. Shopping at the grocery. Sleeping and waking. Feeling the the Holy Spirit's pleasure and closeness in every aspect of my life creating deep roots of faith and trust.

So that's it. No more shallow spread thin plans and ambiguously moving forward in life. I'm hoping for big things as I open myself up to allowing some roots to take place in the coming year. After all, this tree is going to grow pretty big over the next decade and the roots need to go pretty deep to keep things growing in the right direction.

Because if you can't post a selfie on your blog on your birthday...when can you?

(My last shallow act ever...? Nah...)

Birthdays and Before 35 Lists

Today at 12:29 pm marks my 26th birthday. I'm pretty sure I can still call myself mid-twenties, but there is something about crossing over to the closer-to-thirty-than-i-am-to-twenty zone that frightens me just a little bit.

Last August I made the first part of a "Before 35 List." Most people make a before 30 list, but since I was already in my mid 20s I wanted to give myself at least 10 years to get some of this done.

The list is currently 32 items long. Not overly aggressive, but not simple things to complete. This past year I've done 1.75 of them. I visited europe. I made wine - but it wasn't my own, so that only counts for .5 of the "Make my own wine" goal. And I read two classic books. Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights, so that's approx. 25 of the read 10 classic novels goal.

I know some of these goals will take time. I mean, learn to speak another language often takes more than a year to do, especially when you work full time and you live in an english speaking country, but I'm kinda disappointed in myself. I really thought that I would get more done. With that said, I'm kinda leaning toward turning my before 35 list to being a bucket list instead and thus, I want to add some more items to expand beyond 32.

32. Visit Africa
33. Learn to make a croissant.
34. Run a Marathon
35. Shoot a gun.
36. Learn to snowboard
37. Go fly fishing
38. Go sailing
39. Learn sign language
40. Sing in an Opera again
41. Try out for a play at the Boiler Room (or other local community theatre).
42. Spend a week in silence.
43. Go rock climbing
44. Visit Cedar Point again.
45. See Mount Rushmore
46. Visit Bethel church in Redding.
47. Learn how to play chess.
48. Try photography professionally
49. Own some chickens
50. Knit a blanket
51. Become an Early Riser
52. Attend a TED conference
53. Meet a president or former president
54. Donate blood.
55. See someone healed of blindness/deafness/smell (something tangible).
56. Sleep in a castle.
57. Invest in the stock market.
58. Go whale watching
59. Go on safari
60. Milk a cow
61. Finish reading the Bible all the way through
62. Go to a Renee Fleming concert
63. Go to the Kentucky Derby
64. Be at the Macy's Thanksgiving day Parade in person.
65. Live car-less for a month
66. Take an Alaskan cruise
67. See a Broadway show in New York
68. Make my own pasta.
69. Eat snails
70. Donate my hair to Locks of Love
71. Try being a vegetarian for 30 days.
72. Fly first class.
73. Drive a tractor.
74. Learn to play the harp
75. Be able to do 50 normal push-ups
76. Get a tattoo
77. Be debt free
78. Build a giant snow man
79. Find/buy a great garage sale deal. (ex. awesome leather chair for $20 bucks.)
80. Pay respects to my grandparents at their graves
81. Learn my heritage (I know i'm Scott-Irish and part english, but I would love to know specifics.)
82. ...
83. ...

Okay... i'll stop at the nice round number of 81 for now.

I was doing some bucket list research and found this website which allows people to enter their goals and resolutions from around the world. It's quite fun to view goals by region to see what people in different cities want to do with their lives. Do you wanna know what the top three items were in nearly every city from New York and London, Shanghai and Istanbul, to Cleveland and Winnipeg?

1. Fall in love. 
2. Lose weight. 
3. Stop procrastinating.  

I think that's profound. We all desire the security and passion of love. We all want to be happy and healthy in our bodies. And we all want to get our lazy asses off the couch to do something about it. The hardest part is taking the first step.

I'm lucky my birthday somewhat coincides with the end of the year and the start of a new one. It's easy to measure what happened since my last birthday and easy to set lofty goals for the new year. I genuinely yearn to be a person who sucks the marrow out of life. I don't want another year to go by with only 1.75 of my bucket items to be crossed off my list. I desire to live life to the fullest and I legitimately plan to complete at least 4 or 5 of my goals in my 26th year. Step by step. Day by day. It will get done.

What are your 2011 Goals? What's on your bucket list?

Wish List

I made a Christmas/Birthday wish list for my husband today. It was a bit of a marathon process and was tons of fun to make, but honestly at the end I felt a bit like a gluttonous over-indulgent, materialistic American.

Before I share it with all of you, let me preface it by saying that I know I have EVERYTHING I need. I don't really even want all of this stuff because that would be completely wasteful and I would feel a bit disgusted with myself if ever this much money was spent on one person. This was just a fun way of shopping for me without spending any money and also, I love making lists.

With that said, I present you the 2010 Katherine Michael Wish List. Try and not get overwhelmed...or get sick by this excessiveness of it all

• This Eye Shadow
• Woodwick Candles --> Scents: cider, biscotti, frosted cookie, carmel, buttered rum, cinnamon chai
• Season 1, 2, 3, and 10 of Friends
• Season 1-4 of the Office
• Avatar
• Disney Movies on DVD: Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Fantasia, Aladdin, Bambi, Dumbo, the Lion King, Jungle Book, 101 Dalmatians, Lady and the Tramp, Toy Story, Robin Hood, Peter Pan
• Nintendo 64 with Golden Eye game
• Scarves
• Long necklaces. Ideas --> http://bit.ly/aPrf97, http://bit.ly/a1ptNd, http://bit.ly/9loUvs, http://bit.ly/cQs7eh, http://bit.ly/d5TFgO, http://bit.ly/dadrQe, http://bit.ly/9eKXuM
• Dangly earrings. Ideas --> http://bit.ly/967uUV, http://bit.ly/dA659M, http://bit.ly/bktlHn
• a tattoo
• New pots and pans
• Black or gray Kitchen Aid mixer
• cooking classes
• tasty wine
• truffle oils
• New couches
• new desk
• a Vespa http://www.vespausa.com/scooters.php#/home/Vespa LX 50 4V
• Red and Brown area rug for living room. this one --> http://bit.ly/apr15v or this one -->http://bit.ly/a7OmZj
• the carpets cleaned
• New Chairs for our kitchen table (6)
• a new trash can (with a lid so willow doesn't eat everything in the trash all the time!)
• a new laundry hamper
• new stove
• nook
• this camera/lens --> http://bit.ly/bb8bq3
• iPad
• A good pair of gloves like these but maybe in black --> http://bit.ly/abxTmK
• Long soft cardigans like this one. http://bit.ly/9r3EQZ in XXL. (stripes, colors, neutrals, anything)
• Purses with long straps. http://bit.ly/d4gN59, http://bit.ly/9dkOuE
• Another computer/lap top
• Better bedding/pillows for our room
• Curtains for our bedroom and the guest room
• better patio furniture
• This bike http://bit.ly/aHz0IK
• a bigger TV http://bit.ly/aiXxo3
• French Rosetta Stone: http://bit.ly/9GgXfv
• a Dictionary (printed)
• Games: Catan expansion Pack, Yatzee, Balderdash, Pit
• Puzzles!
• Other DVDs Scrubs (any season), all 3 Lord of the Rings DVDs, It's a Wonderful Life on DVD, Miricle on 34th Street (this version http://bit.ly/bDwRMm), Sound of Music, Gone with the Wind, Wizard of Oz, Fiddler on the Roof, A Christmas Carol, Mary Poppins, Anne of Green Gables movies!, Mission Impossible Movies, Independence Day (the one with Will Smith),The Harry Potter Movies 1, 3, 4, and 6
  Mulan Rouge, Chicago
• Patty Griffin music (iTunes gift card to buy various songs)
• The new Mariah Carey christmas album