Summer = me time

As a teacher it is a natural assumption to believe that I love my summers off. Yes it the frequently most mentioned perk of the job, and no we do not get a paycheck during the summer. It would be a pretty sweet gig if we did! What I really enjoy about this pocket of downtime is that I get to slow down from the hectic pace of life and focus on the things I love and which are easy to neglect during the school year.

1. I get to spend lots of quality time with my dog. Isn't he cute? I think he likes having me off for 2 months as well.

2. I've had time to reconnect with my writing side. Putting words on paper has been a part of my life since I started keeping a diary in elementary school which then progressed into keeping a journal and my first attempts at poetry at 14. I majored in English and Journalism in college and even worked as a staff writer for the campus newspaper my junior and senior year. So writing was for a long time a central part of my life, then came a busy full-time teaching job and my free time for writing disappeared.  This summer I have realized how much I miss having a creative outlet and have worked on getting back into my writing groove.

30 for 30

I'm getting ready to turn 31 next month and I can honestly say that it is so much easier than the 30th birthday of last year. I spent the months leading up to my 30th birthday in stereotypical female freak out mode. Silly when I look back on it now. Why was I freaking out?  Yes, I found my first gray hair at age 29 (eek), but I had accomplished a lot in my twenties. I graduated college with both a bachelors and masters degree, started a career in teaching, and bought my first house 3 months before my 30th birthday. I think too many of us this idea in our heads that we are supposed to have our lives figured out by age 30. If our 20's was our time to explore and learn from our mistakes, then this new decade is when we are expected to buckle down and be adults. I remember seeing a few lists of things you should do before you turn 30, as if life stops on the particular birthday. It got me to thinking of all the goals I still have for myself in this new decade of my life and that is for I came up with the idea of the 30 for 30 list. (If the name sounds familiar to you, I took it from an ESPN series of the same name)

I'm still not done compiling all 30 items on the list, I figure I can add as I go along. So far I have come up with 18 goals that I would like to accomplish by my 40th birthday.

30 for 30 List

(Goals to accomplish in my thirties)

1. Visit Europe

2.  Take a photography class

3.  Take a Calligraphy Class

4.  Visit New Orleans, LA.

5.  Become an educational consultant for side income

6. Pay off my student loans

7.  Visit the Pacific Northwest

8. Buy a Pair of Jimmy Choo Shoes

9.  Go skydiving

10.Take Rock Climbing Classes 

11.Make a career Change

12. Take a Mediation class

13.  Learn to bake something not out of a Betty Crocker Box

14. Do a Zipline

15. Make more visits to see my nephews

16. Continue to learn to feel more comfortable in my own skin

17.  Host a Dinner Party

18. Visit some part of Europe

Anyone else do something similar for their 30's? 

The reality of wedding planning

For some reason the movies and t.v. paint the picture of wedding planning to be a sea of picture perfect moments, but I'm quickly learning that the reality is very different. What started out as a small destination wedding in our favorite place (Key West) has now morphed to a 75 people local wedding in 4 months (eek). As progressive as my future husband is, the bulk of the planning of this wedding falls on my lap.

(This is my awesome reception room!)        

 Now the major components of the wedding have already been selected- venue, photographer, caterers (come with the venue), DJ (I have a female DJ and I knew she was the one when she said that she agrees with me adding all line dances on my do not play list)- I wanted to use the massive amounts of free time I get during the summer to work on some of the smaller things that need to get done before November 10. I figured it would be easier this way than try to squeeze everything to the last minute when I'm smack dab in one of the busiest parts of the school year.  I am finding some parts of the planning to be quite fun, like choosing the music for the ceremony and reception, for example. One of the perks of not getting married in a church is the ability to use modern music for the ceremony. I loved spending hours coming up with the right songs for the ceremony that showed our personalities and music taste. Sneak peek- we are walking out to All You Need is Love by The Beatles! Our wedding theme so to speak is our love of books. I came up with this idea early on and now I am coming to the realization that my non-DIY self might have trouble executing. Library card style escort cards sound a lot easier than all the DIY tutorial online present it to be.

What I never expected in planning my wedding was the loss of my best friend. Shortly after my engagement she was all psyched to plan my bachelorette party and sharing party ideas before my wedding date was set. I have sensed a pulling away from her starting on my 30th birthday almost a year ago and in the last 5 months she has only texted me twice. I have emailed her asking her what is wrong and if she can't be in my wedding to just let me know. But all I have heard is silence back from her. So at this point she is not part of the wedding party and I am not sure if she will even show up to the wedding of a friend of 15 years. I imagined her being part of this process, but that is not how its ending up. I can't lie and say that I haven't shed some tears over this. I have. I just remind myself that the most important thing is that at the end of all of this I am marrying my best friend and love.

Introduction

Hello! I've contemplated starting a blog for awhile now and finally I'm doing it. I'm an English major turned English teacher (going on 6 years now) who is getting married this year. I named the blog A Life Less Traveled because I think it represents my life. One of my favorite poems is The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost and the last few lines of the poem say:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 


I have definitely taken the road less traveled in life and it has made me who I am.