1/11/11 - I Turn 29!

Well, I didn't intend for my last post of 2010 to be a Thanksgiving one...but I'm back in 2011!


And what a day to come back - I turn 29 today!

Love from Malibu, CA*

It's hard to believe that my 20s are almost over. (Although after this, aren't you supposed to celebrate the 1st anniversary of your 29th birthday, and then the 2nd, and so on, so that you never really leave your 20s?) So much still to do, so I better crackin' on making and crossing things off a 30 Before 30 list!


What have I been up to?

• I mentioned that I might get laid off from my job. Well, it happened at the beginning of December. But it's okay! I had been interviewing and (so luckily) had something lined up. Whew!
  
• I started my new job the week before Christmas, which allowed me to join James on the interview trail in St. Petersburg, FL, the LA area, and Chicago! It was so much fun, and we got to stay 3-4 days in each city. (The photo above is from Point Dume in Malibu. We had hiked up to the top and there was a group of 3 other guys up there...one a photographer, one a cinematographer, and I happened to ask the guy who was neither but just so happened to take my new favorite photo!)
  
• Christmas and New Years were there before I knew it. I hadn't finished Christmas shopping by the time I was laid off, and I was in town only for a few days up until the week of Christmas, so I pretty much ordered everything online this year!  All of our family is here in Dallas, so we spent the holidays at home and had a wonderful time.
  
• I got rid of 100 things in December...and I'm hoping to do it again in January! As it gets closer and closer to Match Day, the idea that we are moving is slowly sinking in, and we have some major decluttering to do! The sad part is, getting rid of 100 things didn't make a noticeable dent. About 25 things were books (we still have a million left), and 60+ were items of clothing (sadly, I had not cleaned out our closets in forever, seeing as how lots of things dated back to high school, and many items had been out of site, out of mind in a box under my bed). The books we sold to Half Price Books for like $10 (probably not worth it, I should look into other sources as well since we still have a lot of medical ones that may be worth something), and the clothes that were in good shape were all donated. Please tell me I'm not the only one who has this much stuff.
  
• We've been slowly planning our trip to Europe, and this month we're going to kick it into high gear and finalize everything! As always, we're trying to be frugal about things like our accommodations, so that always takes a lot of research. Our steal so far is that we got a 3* hotel in London on Hotwire for $70! (We used Better Bidding to help guess what the hotel was beforehand so we could scout location and read reviews before pulling the trigger, as described in this post.)

So, Happy Birthday to me! It's going to be a great year. Any ideas for my 30 Before 30 list? What is/was on yours?

P.S. I figured out where the leopard flats from this post are from: they are the Joe's Jeans Stella III