30 before 30

While dinking around online a while back, I saw a 30-before-30 list at Making It Lovely. It got me to thinkin’ about how I’ve got a smidge more than a year before I hit the dirty thirty myself, and I set about making this list. Over-achieving? Under-?

1. Begin composting kitchen and outdoor waste.
2. Lose 25 pounds. Again.
3. Stop drinking soda. Again. (I’ve gotten a head start: No soda in two weeks!)
4. Grow something edible in the garden.
5. Do round three of Project 365.
6. Buy my beloved 24-70mm f/2.8 L lens.
7. Pay off both credit cards.
8. Start saving for retirement.
9. Volunteer some time with an organization whose mission I feel good about.
10. Go on a road trip across either rural Arkansas or rural Mississippi.
11. Start selling stationery I’ve designed in the Etsy shop.
12. Be a better, less frazzled, more organized and proactive manager.
13. Go to art trolley tour on a non-zombie night.
14. Have a date that ends with a night spent at the Peabody.
15. Acquire and integrate some salvaged historic Memphis artifact into my home or yard.
16. Attend Sunset Symphony. (I’ve never been because I always have to work.)
17. Get handsy at the drive-in theater since I never got the chance as a teenager.
18. Start planning meals and taking my dinner to work with me at least three times a week.
19. Paint the hallway so that the weird peach-colored sponge treatment never has to be seen again.
20. Record some of my family’s stories for an oral history project.
21. Get off of the demon nasal spray.
22. Get a bicycle and learn how to get around town on it.
23. Read three classics I’ve never read before.
24. Meet all of my neighbors.
25. Learn how to use chopsticks.
26. Go honest-to-God camping.
27. Start saving money with coupons.
28. Learn how to make cheesecake. Good cheesecake.
29. Get my first-ever manicure and pedicure.
30. Finally unpack the few remaining boxes that I never really dealt with when I moved into the house in 2009.