Turning 25

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what it was, but my 25th birthday was one of my best. That's not to say the ones before it were awful, but this year, everything came together. My work (which I love, and am so happy to be a part of) surprised me with a decorated cube on my return from lunch.

I came home to a crepe paper bomb from Dom. He did an amazing job choosing prints for my walls, and getting the complete works of sherlock holmes, in a fancy schmany binding (among other things). But what really made this year one of the best birthday's I've logged was all of my favorite people being in one place on one night. I was so happy to get my SF friends out to the East Bay (for most of them, the first time they've visited me on this side of the bay), my mom and sister were there, my bar friends were there (included my brother from another mother Justin), Dom got the night off...it was ideal. I've never been so giddy. Thank you everyone for making 25 amazing. I wanted to throw a party, settled for a gathering, and had a way better party than I could have every planned.

I generally use any arbitrary occasion to make resolutions, and a 25th birthday feels like as good an occasion as any. It also falls a little more than five months after New Year's, so it's a great check in point. As far as New Year's resolutions go, I got a full-time job (yay!), and I've been cooking and reading more. But now that I've hit a quarter of a century, I'm torn between being a kid and getting serious. And that's fine. Here are my resolutions, whether I fulfill them in the next year or the next quarter century.

1. Visit new states. Dom go me an amazing hanging chalkboard map (pictured here), and the list maker in me wants to cross everything off immediately. Kentucky (where my Dad was from) is high on my list, and I'd love to visit Chicago, Boston, or Austin. But I also want to go back to New Orleans and Seattle, and explore New York more. Decisions! 

2. Pay off my debt. It's ridiculous I have debt, and I need to start being an adult about things. I learned how to figure out when I'd pay off all of my debt based on how much I wanted to pay each month, and it's looking like February of next year. Which is great! Not using my credit card isn't.

3. Read more. I need to stop passing out in front of the TV.

4. Do a pull-up. This one is totally doable! Mainly because I want to rock the crap out of Tough Mudder. I could also throw run a 10K in there.

5. Listen better. I can't count how many times I've introduced myself to someone and not even registered their name as I was shaking hands. It's awful. This year, I've made a conscious effort to try to actively listen and not think about the next thing I'm going to say, and it's still a struggle. I'm just going to blame it on the fact that I'm in my headspace so much.

6. Stop talking so much shit. This one's going to be hard, and it's seldom mean-spirited, but so much of my humor is based on hating people. And true, these people generally deserve it (those people who creep up on you in the car waiting for you to get into your car so they can get your parking spot, obnoxious drunks..mainly because, as a silent half-lidded creeper, i don't understand where their energy comes from, etc).

And that's it! That seems reasonable....right? Big thanks to everyone who came out on my birthday. I've celebrated most of yours with you, and I hope I can keep doing it! Don't move?