33 Life Lessons from a 33 Year Old

I can't believe I'm 33 years old. I remember being in my early 20s and thinking it will be forever until I'm in my 30s! And yet, here I am! I'm not sure where I expected my life to be at this point, but I feel confident that this is exactly where I am supposed to be. Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the fantasy of a different life, what I would do if my life turned out differently. But it didn't turn out differently, this is the life I've created, and the life I wanted. The life I want.

Of course, I'm still young and there are many things I still hope to do, places to see, things to accomplish, in my life! But for the present day, I love my life. I love my home. I love my husband. I love my son. I love being at home with my son. I have great friends. I am content and happy. But I haven't always been this way...when I first had my own apartment, I didn't like being alone. I didn't know how to just "be". But that's the cool thing about growing up - you learn life lessons along the way - and those lessons ultimately shape you into a better version of your previous self. Or at least, I think they do.

I don't necessarily think I have any wisdom to share that hasn't already been said by someone else, but nonetheless, here's a list of 33 things I've learned along this journey called life.

1. You'll never be bored if you learn to love to read.

2. Never under estimate the power of a good nap.

3. Speeding gets you nowhere. Except to the next red light beside the person you passed earlier.

4. The best of friends will pick up with you wherever you left off last with them.

5. The internet can be a scary place, but when used correctly, it's also pretty awesome. I've made some of my closest friends off the internet.

6. You do not know the extent of your patience, or lack thereof, until you have a child.

7. A king sized bed is worth it.

8. Pictures of just scenery are boring. Try to include yourself or your travel companions in photos whenever you can! Your older self will thank you.

9. You will never wear that dress or top you never wear, while on vacation. Don't pack it.

10. McDonald's is still the best hangover cure.

11. Marry your best friend. You have to spend a lot of time with that person, so it should be someone who's company you enjoy.

12. Be kind to others, because being kind is just the right thing to do.

13. Life is too short to hang out or be "friends" with people you don't like.

14. Pay your bills on time. Interest on bills is wasted money.

15. Start a Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA). The money is still yours, you can access it anytime without repercussion, but it's a great way to save.

16. Do your own taxes, by hand, at least once.

17. When a day is really bad, just remember, "this too shall pass".

18. If you can't afford to travel to other countries, be a tourist in your own city/province/country. Sometimes the most beautiful and interesting places are close to home.

19. Learn to say no. It will liberate you.

20. Go with your gut feeling. It's usually right.

21. You don't have to be flexible to do or enjoy Yoga.

22. Play sports as an adult. You don't have to be "young" to enjoy adult soccer, dance classes, ultimate frisbee or dodgeball (to name a few).

23. Get a library card. They're usually free and you will have access to thousands of books, CDs, audiobooks, and DVDs.

24. You'll get to a point where "uncool" things become "cool".

25. Think twice, three times even, before you get a dog. They are a huge responsibility.

26. Run at least one race in your life, even if you aren't a "runner". It's a great experience.

27. Carry a book with you always. You never know when you will be stuck waiting somewhere and a book fills the time nicely.

28. Make eye contact with the homeless. They are people too and deserve to be acknowledged, even if you have nothing to give them except your smile.

29. Join a book club. It will get you reading and you will meet new people.

30. Have at least one tried and true recipe under you belt that you can rely on for potlucks. It's so much more satisfactory to bring something homemade than store bought.

31. Don't save "special" things for a rainy day. That rainy day will never come and before long, you will have a closet full of unused special candles, special underwear, special shirts, special bath products. Instead, make everyday a little bit special.

32. Learn how to cook a turkey. It's actually not that hard and you will feel like the ultimate adult when you do it.

33. Baby wipes aren't just for babies. Everyone should carry a small pack with them. You never know when they will come in handy.



What valuable life lesson would you share with me?




*linking up with Jill for Living a Life of Fitness Health & Happiness

Currently...{May}

I already mentioned in yesterday's post, about how much I love the month of May. It's true, it's my favourite month for a few different reasons (my birthday, the weather, Mother's Day, May Long, etc). It's a great month! It's also turning out to be a really busy month, but I'm not complaining! I get to see more of my friends, try new things and run a few races (like that 10k at the end of the month I'm so not ready for!).

Anyway, here's a look at what I'm currently up to!

Thinking about: the massive wildfires in Northern Alberta that have displaced almost 90,000 people from their homes. In case you aren't local, about ten hours north of where I live, a massive wildfire started early Tuesday morning. The entire city has been evacuated while people watch their homes burn down around them. I stayed up way too late on Tuesday night, watching the footage and reading the news stories while crying myself to sleep. I can't even begin to imagine what these people are going through - losing their homes, their pets, their vehicles, their jobs. And what a terrifying situation. It isn't easy to get into and out of Fort Mac and the drive to Edmonton is about 7 hours South of there. People ran out of gas, or their cars choked on all the smoke and couldn't run. People slept in their cars on the sides of the highways. Animals are running around everywhere. And homes are burning down. It's such a helpless feeling to watch all of this unfold between your eyes, especially when it's in your own province and so close to home (I have a family member and a few friends who had to flee). Right now, the best thing people can do is donate money, as Red Cross and other charities can then provide exactly what is needed. Even a small donation of $5 makes a difference, and it's so easy to do. All you have to do is text REDCROSS to 30333. My prayers are with all the people and family affected by these fires.

Reading: I just devoured The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry and it was pretty awesome. I posted a full review here. Then yesterday, I started The Hero's Walk by Anita Rau Badami. This is actually one of the first books I really remember reading (like 16 years ago!) and absolutely loving. Of course, the feelings from reading it have stuck with me over the years, but not the actually storyline. I'm not a big re-reader, even though sometimes I wish I were. But then the Calgary Book Club that I periodically attend, picked this book for our meeting next week. It seemed like a sign to finally re-read it. Basically, in a nutshell, it's the story of a Indian man named Sripathi, who is estranged from his daughter who has been living in Vancouver for many years. One day he gets a call that his daughter and his son-in-law have been killed in a car crash, and he is the appointed guardian for his 7 year old granddaughter whom he has never met. He must travel to Vancouver from India and make the necessary arrangements to bring his granddaughter home with him. I'm already hooked again at just 50 pages in.

Listening to: So I've been going through my old CDs, looking for one's I used to love, but haven't listened to in ages, and one's I want to upload to iTunes so I can finally start purging some of them in their physical form. Charlie Winston's album, Hobo (2009) was one that grabbed my attention, and I think I love it even more now than when I first listened to it. It's fun, it's different, and it really gets your toes tapping. Sully loves dancing to it, especially the first song, In Your Hands.

Watching: One of my goals back in April was to watch more TV with my husband. Sounds ridiculous when I type it out. Who actually strives to watch more TV? Haha! Well, let me rephrase that. Jim and I have a lot of TV shows we like to watch together on Netflix and we haven't had time to watch movies in months. It's something we enjoy doing together, so it was important to me that I find a way to make time for it again. But the problem with watching a movie is picking which movie to watch! Even though our interests are for the most part, pretty interesting, our lists on movies to watch on Netflix are ridiculously long. Half an hour into deciding I'm usually saying, "too late, it's too late, no movie tonight". So I came up with a new rule: we take turns picking the movie, no ifs ands or butts. (One exception: I can't pick a complete chick-flick, and he can't pick a horror movie). In one week, we watched 4 movies (Spy, A Walk Among the Tombstones, Still Alice, and Wild Card)! It was great.

Eating: Nothing too exciting. We've just kind of been eating through our pantry and freezer and BBQ'ing. I feel like overall, I've been making better food choices in my life: no sweets or deserts, and more smoothies. Since falling off the meal-planning wagon, I've struggled to get back on, and am often scrambling to make dinner that night. Or I don't make it at all, and we have French toast, or cereal, or whatever strikes our fancy. It's ok sometimes, but I need to find that meal-planning high again.

Wearing: Oh man, it's been so hot this week! I'm really disliking the few summery clothes I have so I think I might need to break down and actually go shopping. Ick. Whenever summer weather comes around again, I'm always like, "what did I wear LAST summer!?", because it always feels like all of a sudden, I have nothing to wear for the appropriate season. But I know I wasn't wearing wintry clothes last summer...

Laughing about: 

Oh man, I can't tell you how often this happened to me in life! Story of my life. Damn IBD!

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HAHA. Every single time!

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YES! This literally just happened to me at Superstore the other day.

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THIS.

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Looking forward to: This weekend! Tomorrow is my birthday, and Becky and her son Liam are coming for a sleepover because a few of us are running a 4k race on Saturday morning. And Ange will be joining us for drinks and food as well! Then Sunday I am running a Mother's Day 5k run with my aunt. And I'm hoping at some point I can sneak away for a pedicure to treat myself :)



What's your favourite month of the year?

Tell me something you're looking forward to!


*Linking up with Kristen and Gretchen for What's New With You?

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May Goals

It feels like so long ago I shared my April goals, yet I can't believe it's May already. I love May though. It's my favourite month of the year, and not just because it's my birthday month. Ok, partly because it's my birthday month. We were spoiled in April with amazing weather, but usually it's May where we finally have super warm days and can feel that summer is just around the corner. Mother's Day is also in May, so now my family has double the reason to celebrate me (not narcissistic at all over here!). And there's finally a long weekend again. So ya, I love you May!

Let's take a look at how I did in April before we get into May goals.

APRIL GOALS REVISITED 

1. Work out every single day: DONE. I'll talk about this more in another post, but I'm happy to report that I've now "worked out" for 28 consecutive days. Anything from strength training, to long walks, running or just relaxation yoga. The goal is to get moving every single day.

2. Wake up at 7 every single day: I can confidently say this happened zero times. Haha!

3. Do one load of laundry every single day: I should have kept track. I don't remember. I know it wasn't every day, but I feel like I was on top of the laundry more than I usually am.

4. Watch one show or movie with my husband every second night: SUCCESS! Maybe not every second night, but we finished off season 5 of The Walking Dead, a few episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and we watched 4 movies so I'm thinking we did pretty good.

5. Clean up the kitchen every evening: I still struggle with this. I did better than I normally do, but some nights I seriously just couldn't be bothered. I found listening to an audiobook or propping up my laptop so I could watch a show on Netflix while doing the dishes and tidying up made the experience much more enjoyable though!


So where does that leave me for May? Well, since I'm trying to build better habits in my daily life, I want to continue working on the above. I'm not ready to take a complete rest day from working out because I'm afraid I'll fall off the wagon again. I've been incorporating a lot of yoga this past month, and I'd like to keep that up. As for getting up early in the morning...I'm not sure if I will ever be able to make this happen, but it's still something I'm going to try for. But I'm also not beating myself up over not making it happen right now.

As for more specific goals, here they are:

MAY GOALS

1. Continue with my workout streak, but include a daily yoga practice.

I've discovered some neat yoga accounts on youtube and there are a lot of 30 day challenges out there. I'm going to do one from start to finish for 30 days (I haven't started yet though). I can either include it as my workout for the day, or as an addition to my daily workout.

2. Give my blog a makeover.

I've been wanting to purchase a new design for my blog for over a year now, and I have my eye on a few on etsy. It's not even the money, I'm just putting it off. But it's time for a refresh! Happy birthday to me!

3. Create blog categories and an About Me page.

I'm embarrassed to even make mention to the fact that I don't have an About Me page. Totally taboo, I know. But I think it's the hardest thing ever to write. I have a partially written one in drafts, but I cringe every time I read it over. Why is that? I talk about myself all the time on here!! It shouldn't be that hard to do.

4. Finish Sully's room.

The current bedroom Sully is in, needs a lot of work. It was painted a horrible colour, the closet needs to be redone and the light fixture switched out. So, we are in the process of painting the spare room next to his and will move him into that room when it's done. The closest also needs to be rebuilt. And then I need to find new curtains and decorate his room. He deserves a finished room, and I feel guilty that it's taken us a year to finally get started on this.


And that's it. Of course, I'll continue working on past goals, such as keeping on top of the laundry and tidying the kitchen every night, but if I listed every single thing I want to work on in my life, this post would never end.

May feels like such a busy month - I have 3 runs coming up, another fun group workout with the Blog Squad, my birthday, Mother's Day, and then Jim's folks arrive for the whole month of June! So if I can continue with my workout streak and new yoga challenge, I'll be happy with that!


Did you make monthly goals for May?

What's something you hope to achieve this month?