Jessica's 40 Before 40
The Maybes and the Not Gonna Happens
{Spoiler alert -- at this point, I think the maybes are ALL tipping over to the not gonna happen side.}
3.) Half Marathon -- this just never happened. I had grand plans of running one in the fall, but I decided to be smart and listen to my body and not torture it into injury by forcing fetch to happen. I think I made the right call. I'm currently in the process of S-L-O-W-L-Y building up to running a 5K distance (without having to stop and walk at all) and my goal is to be able to run that fall half marathon THIS year.
5.) Illustrate a children's book -- this was a maybe that's not going to happen. It sounds fun, though, so I'm hoping that one of these days I'll get around to doing it!
11.) Do a pull up -- didn't happen, probably never gonna happen. And I've accepted that. ;)
17.) Unpack all the moving boxes -- maybe? There are just a couple left in the house -- ironically in my bedroom -- that need to be unpacked. Technically there are a few in the garage, but at this point, if we haven't needed anything in there, do we even need to keep them? The main hold up to unpacking the ones in my room is that I'm not sure where to put most of the stuff in there. Our dresser got busted in the move, so we don't have that surface area. The desk that used to be in the master bedroom in our old house is now in the bonus room here. And since I haven't gotten around to really "designing" our room, I'm not sure if I'm ready to commit to any picture placement on the walls. Okay. I've talked myself out of it. This is just another one that's not going to happen anytime soon.
27.) Marie Kondo our house -- yeah, not gonna happen either. It's a lot of work. And it's making me tired just thinking about it. I did Marie Kondo my closet, though, so I feel like that should count enough. Right??? Hahahahaha.
28.) Take an art class -- technically I thought this was a maybe at the beginning of the year, but it's harder to find one for adults than I thought it would be and also kind of difficult to find something that works into our schedule. So, unfortunately, this one is not going to happen. :(
30.) College roommate reunion -- this is probably my saddest entry in the "not gonna happen" column. :( Maybe next year?
35.) See the Northern Lights *probably a long shot, but I like to reach for the stars -- I'm going to have to keep this one on my bucket list. SOME day I'd like to make it happen.
36.) Write a thank you note each month -- for some reason, this is the only one on my didn't happen list that I feel really guilty about! I wish I would have kept it up, but I fizzled only a couple of months in.
40.) Finish all the kids' baby books -- I'm going to keep this as a maybe still! I'm pretty sure Isaac's is the only one I've written NOTHING in. Part of my problem is that all of the kids from Sophie on have been documented throughout their lives right here on the blog, so having a baby book seems a little superfluous. But I'm sure they don't feel that way. ;)
Mama Gets it Done
{I'm obviously not going to inundate you with all 24 completed tasks in this one post. I figured I'll feature 6 each night and then on Friday -- the day of the Big 40 itself -- I'll give my final tally.}
1.) and 2.) 5K and 10K -- I figured it was just easier to lump the two running achievements together. Hahaha.
August 2019
{The medal is misleading -- I ran the 5K at this race not the 10K.}
November 2019
{THIS was the actual 10K.}
4.) Submit something for publication -- okay. So when I initially made this goal, I was totally thinking along the lines of publishing my writing somewhere. And technically I wrote what I submitted for publication, but it wasn't in the form I thought it would be. Last year, my church {The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints} issued a call for hymns to be submitted for consideration in the new revision of the hymn book that is being worked on right now. The deadline was July 1, 2019 and I actually ended up sending in two hymns that I wrote the music and the lyrics for.
The first of these hymns was actually composed while I was in high school. I was taking a group music theory class {shout out to Loyola music department in New Orleans} and one of the lessons we had was on "the rules" (if you will) for writing chords. I loved it so much, that I created a couple of short hymns following those rules and then managed to hang on to that music notebook for a couple of decades! I wrote the lyrics for only one verse at the time, based on a part of the Book of Mormon that is sometimes called the "Psalm of Nephi." In trying to polish things up to officially submit this hymn, however, I figured it probably needed a few more verses. So I wrote them. And in typing that it sounds like it was a snap, but it wasn't! It took a lot of thinking and writing and praying and editing to finally land on what I felt were the "right" verses to go with this hymn I called "Wake, My Soul."
(A sample of some of those scribbled out chords, circa 1998.)
Wake, My Soul
1.) Wake, my soul and grieve no more;
Neither droop in sin.
Oh my heart rejoice evermore;
Praise give unto Him.
2.) Make my path before me straight,
Fill me with Thy love,
Give me strength from sin to escape,
Lead me from above.
3.) Thou art merciful and kind,
E're I'll trust in Thee,
Oh thou God and Rock of mine,
Faithful I will be.
4.) I will sing and praise Thy name,
Hail Thee for all time,
Ask Thee not amiss and obtain
Providence Divine.
The second one I created completely from scratch while playing around with an app called music score. It was kind of really cool, because I composed it all on the computer before I ever sat down at the piano to play it myself. Ethan was my cheerleader on the sidelines throughout this process, and he was the one who commented that there are hardly any Easter hymns in our current hymn book and that I should try to write one to increase my chances of actually having it published. ;) "The Garden Tomb" was the end result, and for whatever reason, these verses came to me a lot easier than my first hymn.
The Garden Tomb
1.) All the world was dark and dull,
Heaven's voice was still;
For three days, while mankind wept,
The garden tomb lay sealed.
2.) Weeping may endure the night,
Yet endless joy awaits;
Fear not and rejoice
for He is Ris'n and full of grace!
3.) Christ has broke the bands of death,
An empty tomb we see;
Endless light and endless life,
He's won the victory!
All in all, this was a really amazing and spiritual experience and I'm so glad that I took the time to do it. Despite Ethan's optimism, I don't have super high hopes that either of these will actually be published in the real church hymn book. BUT they have been printed out and thus "published" for our home and family use. And if that's all it will ever be used for, that's good enough for me. :)
6.) See the Grand Canyon -- check! Thanks to last summer's road trip, I have officially checked this off the bucket list.
7.) Visit a beach -- also thanks to last summer's road trip! This beach was not quite the one I had envisioned -- i.e. white, sandy beaches on the Gulf of Mexico -- but Bear Lake technically had a beach, and we did go there for our family reunion.
(The lake was so pretty.)
8.) Attend a family reunion -- this was a double hitter! Last summer on our trip out west, we were able to have an unofficial reunion with MY side of the family and an official one with Scott's. It was so much fun. It would be wonderful if we could live near ALL of our family, but since that's not very likely to ever happen, we'll take whatever family time we can get!
All right guys, you know what they say -- always leave them wanting more. Hahahahahahaha. Night 1 of my birthday week check-in is in the books!
* In case there's any confusion, the numbers of all of these items correlate to the number they were on my original list.
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