On Turning 30...

**This post was written in advance so I could take the day off (officially) from blogging.

A few weeks ago, Lauren was talking to me about this list she saw in a recent copy of Glamour about the "30 Things Every Woman Should Have and Should Know by the Time She's 30".  She sent me the online version, and I figured since today I turn 30, it's relevant.

Here is what they list:

By 30, you should have:

1. One old boyfriend you can imagine going back to and one who reminds you of how far you’ve come. HALF DONE.  I'm not sure I believe the whole "boyfriend you can imagine going back to".  If they are a PAST boyfriend, aren't they that way for a reason??  So I have 1/2 of this.
2. A decent piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone else in your family. DONE.  My dining room table was my first major purchase (from Crate & Barrel) and I love it!
3. Something perfect to wear if the employer or man of your dreams wants to see you in an hour. HALF DONE.  The work appropriate attire, done.  Easy.  The man of my dreams wants to see me in an hour??  Right now, I would struggle with that one.  I could pull something together, but I don't know if I would consider it perfect.
4. A purse, a suitcase, and an umbrella you’re not ashamed to be seen carrying. DONE.  Really?  This is important?  An umbrella???
5. A youth you’re content to move beyond. DONE, DONE, DONE.  See ya later 20s.  You sucked.
6. A past juicy enough that you’re looking forward to retelling it in your old age. Um... sort of?  I have plenty of stories to tell when I am older (much older) - but juicy?  That's subjective.
7. The realization that you are actually going to have an old age—and some money set aside to help fund it. DONE.  Trying to get better at the funding it part.
8. An email address, a voice mailbox, and a bank account—all of which nobody has access to but you. Ha, DONE.  It's things like this that makes me think Glamour is stretching it for this article.
9. A résumé that is not even the slightest bit padded. DONE
10. One friend who always makes you laugh and one who lets you cry. DONE.  I have amazing friends.
11. A set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill, and a black lace bra. DONE, well, almost.  The drill is on my list for the new place - Not sure how the bra related to the others, but whatever.
12. Something ridiculously expensive that you bought for yourself, just because you deserve it. What defines "ridiculously expensive"?  I'm going to say no to this one.  I have not bought anything really expensive for myself just because.
13. The belief that you deserve it. MOSTLY DONE.  Yeah.... mostly.  Getting better.
14. A skin-care regimen, an exercise routine, and a plan for dealing with those few facets of life that don’t get better after 30. MOSTLY DONE.  Let's just say... the exercise routine is on the "need to do asap" list.
15. A solid start on a satisfying career, a satisfying relationship, and all those other facets of life that do get better. HALF DONE.  So far, I'm pretty proud of what I am accomplishing with my career.  Obviously the relationship part needs work... but it will come at it's own time.

By 30, you should know:

1. How to fall in love without losing yourself. DONE
2. How you feel about having kids. DONE
3. How to quit a job, break up with a man, and confront a friend with-out ruining the friendship. DONE. The last one is probably the hardest.
4. When to try harder and when to walk away. Getting there.  Knowing when to walk away is easier said than done - for everyone.
5. How to kiss in a way that communicates perfectly what you would and wouldn’t like to happen next. What?  I'm not even sure I know how to define this one.
6. The names of the secretary of state, your great-grandmothers, and the best tailor in town. MOSTLY DONE.  I need a tailor.
7. How to live alone, even if you don’t like to. DONE.  (And I do like to.)
8. Where to go—be it your best friend’s kitchen table or a yoga mat—when your soul needs soothing. DONE
9. That you can’t change the length of your legs, the width of your hips, or the nature of your parents. Ugh.... I'm getting there.  That exercise routine will help that realization.
10. That your childhood may not have been perfect, but it’s over. DONE.
11. What you would and wouldn’t do for money or love. DONE. Sort of.  I don't think there is really ever a point where this is done and decided... you should always be learning, right?
12. That nobody gets away with smoking, drinking, doing drugs, or not flossing for very long. DONE.
13. Who you can trust, who you can’t, and why you shouldn’t take it personally. DONE - and getting better at it.
14. Not to apologize for something that isn’t your fault. Eh, this is a hard one.  Can I take a pass?
15. Why they say life begins at 30! DONE!

These quizzes/lists are mostly stupid, but there are a few good points mixed in there.

I'm excited to be 30 and start a new chapter.

#7 - Find myself the perfect "Home"

As I may have posted here quite a few times, I finally found an apartment I liked in the City.

On Sunday, I stopped by to pick up my keys and show the place to Amanda.  While I was there, I managed to grab some photos of the place completely empty.  I figured that's the best starting point to showcase the transition of decorating and moving in.

I am considering this a 101 goal completed because I truly believe I will live here for a while.  I love the location, it's right in the middle of everything, and it is a great space that is dog friendly.  It helps that Brooke lives less than a mile away.  I see plenty of activities in my future...

Anyways, on to the (empty) house tour!

The view from the front door.  

It's hard to see the amazing light fixture in the hallway.  There is the bathroom directly to the right of me and that first door is the bedroom.  I love that the hall closet has a full length mirror set into it.

The bathroom - don't you love the blue tub and toilet?

 View of the bedroom from the door.

 View of the bedroom from the far corner.

The living room (shot from the dining room) 

The living room (another angle)

The sun room (shot from the living room)

 The dining room (shot from the kitchen)

 The dining room (another angle)

  

 the kitchen

 the kitchen (the other side) 

 The pantry (totally makes up for the lack of counter space)

As you can see, there are a lot of really great features and some little "issues".  Lack of counter space and old sinks/bathroom is one.  But, for an old building, it's got really great details.

It will be interesting to figure out how to layout all of my things and there are some definite purchases (an island/cart for the kitchen), but I'm really excited about it.

I'm going to do my best to track my decorating process here.

#17 - Go skydiving

There is so much to say about skydiving, but I will mostly let the pictures speak for themselves.

I'm so glad that Amanda and Brooke picked to do this because it was incredible.  And just as exciting as I expected it to be.

We went to Chicagoland Skydiving Center in Rochelle.  The people there were awesome.  Our tandem jumpers were a lot of fun - the perfect people for us since we were goofing around and everything.

We arrived just around 10-10:30am.  We signed in, signed our waivers and watched the required safety video.  After that, we killed time until we were ready to harness up and go.

We each had videographers who took photos and video of our jump.  I wish I could post the video on here. My tandem jumper was Greg - and he was awesome.  He was funny and really loved giving all of us a hard time.  He said the only thing he needed from me was the "pull the ripcord so we don't die".  All of the guys enjoyed joking around.  I never once felt worried about my safety or that I was unprepared.  Greg said he had been a certified diver since '96 and does 12-16 jumps a day so I was in good hands.  In fact, I couldn't get on the plane fast enough.

There is way too much to say on here, so I'm just going to let the photos speak for themselves when I can.

Here are Greg and I getting ready to board the plane.  Right before while we were waiting to board, he asked which one of us wanted to jump first - and I immediately said I would!  Amanda had already boarded the plane, but you can see Brooke just behind me.

Here we all are on the plane, getting ready  to go.  In order from left to right - Brooke, Brooke's tandem Tom, Amanda's videographer Wes, Amanda, Amanda's tandem Monkey, my tandem Greg and me.  Missing from the photo are Brooke's videographer, Daniel, and my videographer, Carmen.  She's the only female videographer they have and she was a little spark plug.

Here Greg and I are on the ride up.  You can see how goofy these guys get - crossing his fingers that I remember to pull the cord at the right time.  The thing on my hand is the altitude meter so I could see where we were (I barely looked at this since I was looking at everything else).

That is my SUPER CHEESY - I'M SO FREAKING EXCITED smile.  I couldn't stop grinning for hours afterwards.

As soon as we hit our jumping altitude (14,000 feet), they opened the door and all the solo jumpers were out before I could blink.  Then Greg and I started scooting our way towards the door.  We stood up, Carmen positioned herself hanging outside the plane, Greg told me to put my toes over the edge, smile at Carmen and we were out!

Falling at 125 miles per hour is not the most attractive for photos - so please keep that in mind.  Here are a bunch that Carmen grabbed of my jump.

I may have this one above enlarged and frame it on a wall.

Cheeks flapping!

Here are photos of me trying to blow a kiss while traveling 125 miles per hour.  No small feat!

And goofing off!

Once we hit 6,000 feet, I got the tap to pull the ripcord and away Carmen went.

The rest of the drop down was very similar to parasailing.  It's so quiet, Greg and I were just chatting about all the cool things about skydiving.  He let me steer, so we did lots of spirals and zig zags and then we messed with "zero gravity" - yanking the parachute so hard that your body floats mid air for a second or two.  It was SO cool.

The landing was definitely not graceful.  Carmen snagged this photo once we landed.

After a group hug (or two or three), Greg and the other tandem jumpers led us over to one of the extra planes so we could snap a few photos.

It was seriously awesome.  Awesome, awesome, awesome.

#43 - Try a New Food

While having dinner on Friday at Arami, I managed to try a new food - Sea Urchin.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to grab a photo of the Sea Urchin shooters (complete with homemade soy sauce), but they were so delicious.

Instead, I managed to grab some photos of Ryan enjoying some of the oysters and a photo of drunk Brooke spying on some other patrons.

mmmm... oysters!

#98 - Have my makeup done professionally

I've had my makeup done before, but it is always nice when someone else will do it for you.  It also forces you to do something you may not have done yourself.

That's exactly what happened this weekend.  On Friday, after the architecture boat tour, we stopped at Nordstrom for our makeup.  I chose Bobbi Brown since that is a company I know is amazing, but haven't really tried many of their products.

My make up artist was Michaline (I totally recommend) and she was great.  She asked me what we were doing for the night and what I might wear and then said, "Great.  I have the best idea to play up your eyes with a nude lip" and promptly got to work.

Michaline was so funny and I think she had a great time "playing" with my makeup.  She went with a bold purple eye shadow with a winged eyeliner.

I actually liked it more than I thought I would and bought the purple and pink shadows she used as well as the nude gloss.

Here's the finished product.  Sorry for the weird looking photo, but it's hard to showcase eye shadow without looking ridiculous.

I highly recommend Bobbi Brown and Michaline at the Nordstrom on Grand.

Birthday Celebration Weekend

I have SO much to talk about this weekend, and it's going to come in multiple posts so bear with me.

Amanda and Brooke themed the weekend on ticking off things from my 101 list.  I'm going to break out the major events into a few different posts but it was awesome!

Brooke and Amanda picked me up at the house late Thursday night and we headed down to a hotel in River North where we would be staying for the weekend.  We didn't make it to the hotel until around 2am, so we went to bed pretty much immediately.

On Friday, we rolled out of bed and got ready pretty late.  We had lunch at Hub 51 and they told me that we were going to check some things off my list - take an architecture boat tour (not something on my list, but something I've been trying to do) and go to the Aquarium (something on my list).

We made it to the boat for the 2pm trip and lasted 10 minutes once we left the dock before it started to pour.

Boat tour - before the storm

We made the best of the trip even though it was raining.  By the time we got back to shore it was already 4pm and the aquarium was closing in an hour, so we nixed that plan and decided to get our makeup done at Nordstrom instead (something else on the list we were supposed to do on Saturday).

Friday night outfit (more on the makeup on a separate post)

Then, we went back to the hotel to finish getting ready (a much easier process when your makeup is already done) and headed off to dinner at Arami.  Our friend, Ryan, is an investor at the restaurant, and we had an awesome time.  The food was incredible and we really enjoyed just sitting there drinking and eating whatever they brought to the table.  It was a long dinner (about 4 hours), but we had a great time.

at dinner (me, Amanda, Brooke and Ryan)

We called it an early night because we had to be up early on Saturday.  Brooke actually turned down "one last drink".  It was the first time ever and Amanda and I were in shock.

Saturday morning, we got up, grabbed breakfast at Einsteins and then headed out west.  Once we hit Aurora, they blindfolded me and I spent the rest of the drive looking like a terrorist hostage in the backseat.  Finally, we got out of the car, they snapped a picture of me blindfolded and told me we were going skydiving!!

The skydiving deserves its own separate post, but it was AMAZING!  I'm still jazzed up about it two days later.  I can totally see this becoming an addictive hobby for me.

After we were done skydiving, we stopped in Dekalb to have lunch with our old coach, Ray.  It was great to catch up and we ended up leaving Dekalb much later than expected.  We got back downtown around 6 and had to rush to get ready and get out to dinner.

Saturday night outfit

Melissa, Justin and Brendan met us out for dinner at Uncle Julio's (music plays on the site FYI).  Dinner was okay.  Service was SUPER slow and we were pretty tired.  After dinner, we said good night to Melissa and Justin and went out to find some excitement.  We had a few bumps in the road, but finally found a dive bar near our hotel that we had  a great time at (and a few shots).  Eventually, we made it back to the hotel room at 4:30ish am and crashed.

Sunday morning, we got up (I woke them up pretty early).  I picked up my apartment keys and showed Amanda my new place (full post with photos to follow).  Then, we spent the afternoon up in Evanston showing my parents the skydiving videos and having an early dinner.

I'm so tired today, but it was so totally worth it.  Thanks Amanda and Brooke for the amazing weekend.  I don't think I could ever top this birthday.

A little girly

Last night when I was trying to decide what colors to paint my nails, I opted for a little girly.

* light pink - OPI - Italian Love Affair, pink glitter - Wet & Wild - Pink Sparkle

That same feeling must've translated into my outfit today.  I bought this shirt off JCrew's website when I had a $50 gift card.  I'm glad I know my sizes well enough with them to be able to buy things online with pretty good accuracy.

*Shirt - JCrew, skirt - JCrew Outlet, belt - Target, shoes - Payless (Steve Madden)

I have a half day committee meeting in the office today and then I'm going to be looking forward to counting down the minutes until I get to go home.

I have lots to do before Amanda arrives tonight.  Let the birthday celebrating begin!