Back in 2016, at the ripe young age of twenty-three, I comprised a list of thirty things I wanted to accomplish by my thirtieth birthday (a blog post that can be found here). Since then, I’ve made it a point not to hold myself to any kind of timeline, especially since I am almost never in control of certain things. It’s been so long since I initially put that “30 by 30” list together, that I actually forgot about it until I was scrolling through the archives of this blog recently. Like I said, I don’t really try to hold myself to any kind of timeline, but having just turned twenty-nine a few months ago, I thought it would be fun to revisit that list, and see all the things that I actually did end up doing, all the things that I now have less than a year to accomplish, and all the things I naively thought I could actually accomplish. Here we go.

1. Be an extra in a movie or TV show. – I’m gonna go ahead and mark this as done. I’ve been to a handful of show tapings where I was in the eye-line of the camera, so I might have been on an episode of America’s Got Talent and Whose Line Is It Anyway.
2. Learn to drive a stick shift. – Nope, though this would still be a great skill to learn (maybe just not while I’m living in a place with high elevation and where it snows).
3. Leave for a trip on a whim. – This has become my favorite thing to do.
4. Give someone a reason to believe in God. – I’m not sure about this one. That would be really cool if it did happen, though.
5. Write (and sell) a screenplay. – There was a season in my life when I was really dead set on working in television and getting to create or write for a TV show. Clearly, my priorities have since changed. I’m not saying that this will never happen, but the possibility of this ever happening is getting slimmer and slimmer.
6. Learn a new language. – I’ve recently stumbled upon a few Tiktok accounts that teach Tagalog, so work in progress I guess?
7. Visit the east coast. – Florida in 2017 and New York this past October.
8. Host a dinner party. – When you’re involved with a young adult group at church, you often get roped into hosting a bunch of these.
9. Go on a personal retreat. – See item number 3.
10. Take a trip somewhere with some close friends. – San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Joshua Tree with da boiz™
11. Fly first class. – Still very much on the to-do list at some point, but probably not before I turn thirty.
12. Roll my own sushi. – I feel like this had to have happened at some point in the past couple of years.
13. Throw a surprise party. – Have not had a surprise party thrown for me yet, either.
14. Adopt a puppy. – This is at the top of my to-do list, especially now that I live alone.
15. Get published. – With this blog, I guess you can say I’m technically self-published? Would still like to publish a whole book, though. We’ll see.
16. Do an in-depth research on my family tree. – Full story can be found here.
17. Write a novel. – I can barely finish reading a novel, let alone write one. Though this is still a goal of mine.
18. Serve on a jury. – I’ve been summoned a few times, but have not yet served.
19. Get a second (and third) tattoo. – Done (and done).
20. Try not to eat with a fork for a year. – I’m gonna be honest. I don’t know why I listed this as a thing I wanted to accomplish.
21. Play in the snow. – Guess who lives in Utah now.
22. Learn to play the banjo. – Again, another goal that I still have, but have yet to take the steps to accomplish.
23. Work at a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving (or just on any other normal day). – Sad, but I have not done this yet.
24. Sell something I created. – There was a very short season of my life when I commissioned graphic design projects.
25. Watch the sun rise. – Not counting the times I woke up in the wee hours of the morning and couldn’t go back to sleep, right?
26. Stay up all night having a heart-to-heart. – These are good.
27. Move somewhere new. – See item number 21.
28. Dissect the Bible in great detail and retain a better understanding of the Word. – I’ve been fortunate enough to have been part of several Bible studies and discipleship groups over the years.
29. Fill up an entire journal (either with entries or hand-lettering). – Little known fact about me: I hand-lettered church sermons every week in 2019.
30. Cook every recipe in a cookbook. – Maybe not every recipe, but I did make a significant number of recipes from Joshua Snyder’s website last year, and continue to reference it for new recipes.