The End of a Decade, the Start of an Age

I used to think people were crazy when they would tell me, “just wait until you graduate- the years will start to fly by.”  And here we are, at the end of another year (and another decade!!), and those words never rang truer.  I feel like it was just yesterday that I wrote my 2018 reflection post and now I’m writing this one for 2019.

Speaking of 2019, what a wild ride it has been.  While I’m looking forward to everything 2020 and a new decade will bring, I’m feeling nothing but gratitude for my experiences in 2019 and the last decade.

In the last year, I:

• Attended 8 weddings in 4 different states;
• Celebrated my dog Oakley’s 3rd birthday;
• Saw my brother graduate with his third degree;
• Celebrated my second wedding anniversary;
• Visited Pittsburgh, my college town, Rehoboth Beach and a few new places including North Beach, Maryland; Niagara Falls, NY; Egg Harbor City, NJ; and Hico, WV;
• Ran my 2nd half marathon ever and absolutely crushed my PR;
• Slowly built up our savings account again;
• Finished my 1st ever draft of my first novel;
• Worked on my first edit of said 1st draft that went from 30,500 words to $73,000 and counting!

Over the last decade, I:

• Attended somewhere between 15-20 weddings;
• Graduated high school with honors;
• Started/graduated college with honors;
• Met the love of my life in college;
• Married the love of my life;
• Traveled to 2 different countries and 11 different states;
• Ran 2 half marathons and many collegiate 6Ks;
• Moved from WV->PA;
• Started my first big girl job and left that job for a new one almost three years ago already!;
• Adopted Oakley;
• Bought our first house;
• Saw 2 of my siblings get married;
• Attended somewhere around 10-15 concerts;
• Attended at least one pro-sports game in Pittsburgh for each team (Steelers, Penguins, and Pirates);
• Faced my fears of swimming in the ocean;
• Survived 2 monster snowstorms, one in WV and the other in PA;
• Attended around 3 (I think?) Countdown 2 Craziness events in Durham;
• Joined a sorority and gained the most wonderful sisters and friends;
• Started this blog;
• Published my first ever article;
• Began freelance writing;
• Created a magazine for my senior project that promoted body positivity.

And those are just the good things.  Of course, there were a lot of tears throughout the years- from deaths in my family to heartbreak to a lot of stress.  But I’m choosing to look at the positives and all of the wonderful opportunities I was fortunate enough to experience over the last year/decade.

With a new year/new decade come new goals.  And while I didn’t quite hit all of last year’s goals from my previous post, I’m determined to work hard on them constantly in the new year.

My goals for next year:

• Read at least 15 books;
• Finish at least one (but hopefully two!) GoT books;
• Practice more self-care;
• Stay more consistent with my skincare routine;
• Exercise consistently;
• Run another half-marathon, this time with my brother;
• Finish my novel;
• Create a website for my freelance writing;
• Do more house projects including painting my kitchen and our bedroom, and ripping out the woodstove in the basement;
• Get outside as often as possible;
• Travel somewhere new;
• Write frequently;
• Enjoy the year and the start of a new decade.

My goals for the next decade are:

• Work on my personal growth;
• Write another novel or two;
• Get a certificate/degree for editing;
• Start a family;
• Become financially stable enough with a side gig that I no longer have to work a part-time retail position;
• Enjoy everything the decade brings- the good, the bad, and everything in between.

My challenge to you is this- have an incredible year/decade.  Be true to who you are even if you’re still figuring that out.  And most importantly enjoy your life and make the best out of the cards you’re given.  I certainly will be.

Until next year,

Emily

P.S. Happy New Year!!

 

Featured image by: Deva Williamson on Unsplash

Title of this post inspired by Taylor Swift’s Long Live.

Update on life

To those of you who read/liked my post earlier this week, thank you for the love!  It’s always hard starting up with writing again after a long hiatus, and you have given me more inspiration to consistently write.  Again, thank you.

Over the past few months that I have been MIA, I’ve actually been quite busy with life. I thought I’d share some updates with you as to what I’ve been up to so you get a little glimpse into my life.

• 5/20/17- Harrisburg Comic-Con: So, as an early wedding gift for my then-fiancé Kyle, I purchased tickets from a comic con in Harrisburg, PA.  This was only Harrisburg’s second year for doing a con, so it really wasn’t anything spectacular, but I wanted to go for the sake of getting photo ops with both David Ramsey and Matt Letscher who were two scheduled guests making appearances.  For more explanation as to who these actors are, David Ramsey plays John Diggle on Arrow, and Matt Letscher plays the Reverse Flash on The Flash.  Both of the panels were extraordinary.  David Ramsay’s panel was filled with non-stop laughter and Matt Letscher’s (who teamed up Michelle Harrison who plays Barry’s mom on the show) gave hints to the season finale.  Funnily enough, since this was my first con, I didn’t realize that when purchasing photo op tickets, you can have between two and four people in the photo per ticket.  I accidentally bought two photos per actor (aka four photos altogether), and even though I wasted more money than I should have, the results of the photo ops were incredible.   Oh, and one even blew up on Twitter!  Honestly, it was just a great experience, and I’d love to go back next year if they have other amazing guest stars in attendance.
• 6/3/17- I GOT MARRIED: What an incredibly amazing day.  I’m not sure that all of you know this, but I got engaged in May 2015 to my best friend, Kyle.  We had always planned on waiting two years to get married (i.e. to save money), so we planned our wedding for June 3, 2017.  It is insane how much planning goes into a wedding just to have that wedding fly by in a blink of an eye.  Co-workers, friends and loved ones joked with me prior to the big day saying that it was going to go by so quickly that I wasn’t even going to remember half of it.  I laughed with them, thinking they were wrong but boy were they right!!  I can’t even tell you much about what happened at my wedding, but I do remember a few details.  One, I completely forgot to wear my veil.  I didn’t notice until someone asked me about it after the ceremony as over.  Two, I wasn’t aware that in a Catholic wedding there are two times you are supposed to kiss your spouse.  I totally missed kissing Kyle the first time by giving him my cheek to kiss instead, resulting in both of us and our guests to burst out into laughter.  Three, we cut the wrong part of the cake at the reception (the top tier instead of the bottom).  Four, I was so dehydrated that I didn’t have one sip of alcohol (minus the toast)- I just chugged water.  Five, Kyle almost passed out several times because he hardly ate or drank anything the whole night.  Six, when we got back to the hotel, all we cared about was eating.  We had Wendy’s at 12:30 a.m. with my sister and brother-in-law.  Overall, it was an incredible day with silly little mishaps that just make me love it even more.  I hope you enjoy these pictures!

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• 6/4/17-6/10/17 Honeymooned in Myrtle: Our honeymoon in Myrtle was amazing.  We stayed at the Myrtle Beach Five Season Resort in the south Myrtle.  We went mini-golfing (I’m undefeated against Kyle for 4 years now), swimming in the ocean, running on the beach, exploring the boardwalk, adventuring at a water park, etc.  We saw Wonder Woman at a movie theater that allowed us to bring Coldstone in.  But there’s so much that we still want to do!  We already booked our anniversary trip for next year and we couldn’t be more excited!
  

  

  
• 6/17/17 Awesome Con: So this was never a part of our plan, but literally the weekend after we got back from our honeymoon, my sister texted me saying for her birthday they were going to Awesome Con in DC.  Kyle and I couldn’t say no, especially because David Tennant and John Barrowman were going to be there!  My sister lived in NOVA, so we drove to a metro station, hopped on a train, and got there around 10:30 a.m.  The line was outrageous and the crowds even more so once we got indoors.  Sadly, Tennant’s photo op was sold out and we got into the venue too late so we missed his panel.  But we did get a picture with John Barrowman (I only bought one photo this time!) and that was incredible.  Towards the end of the day, however, we did get to see David Tennant from afar, and Kyle got to meet some of the voice actors for Dragon Ball Super and My Hero Academia.  Despite the lines and the crowds, it was a great day.  (Side note: I don’t think I’d survive at San Diego.)
• 7/8/17 Wedding in Bethany: Bethany, West Virginia holds such a wonderful place in my heart.  Bethany College is my alma mater, and it’s also where I met Kyle.  We got to travel back only a month after our wedding to celebrate with friends of ours at their wedding.  Bethany weather has such a big reputation for being strange (i.e. hailed at my graduation in 2014, thunder-stormed at Kyle’s in 2015), and this day was no exception.  It was gloomy all morning and eventually started drizzling just prior to the ceremony.  By the end of the ceremony, the temperature rose at least 10 degrees and the sun was beating down on all of us.  It was definitely nice catching up with our friends, as well as the other guests sitting at our assigned table who we had never met/don’t get to talk to that often.
• 8/11/17-8/13/17 Delaware Beach Trip: Kyle’s aunt lives in Delaware, so we attempt to make a beach trip, even just for a weekend, each summer to visit her and her partner.  This trip was more fun than past year’s trips because Kyle’s mom was finally able to come along.  We celebrated both Kyle’s Aunt Marty’s birthday, as well as his mom Nancy’s birthdays while we were down there.  One evening, we went to the boardwalk and played in an arcade for probably almost an hour.  We didn’t realize so many quarters equaled so many turns in skeeball and before you knew it, we were playing skeeball for at least 20 minutes.  Kyle, Kyle’s brother Alex and I all walked away with small nerf guns as prizes after trading in our tickets.  One thing you should know about Kyle and Alex is that they love playing jokes on people.  Kyle had the brilliant idea to use the nerf guns against Marty once we got home from the boardwalk, and that’s just what we did.  The next morning, Kyle woke his mom up by saying there was a fire, woke Marty up by holding a stool over her head jokingly, and I woke up Alex by running and jumping on him.  It was a great time.
• 9/2/17-9/3/17 Moving Alex to college: Kyle’s little brother is finally in college!  He is attending Pace University in New York City for theater set design and he absolutely loves it so far.  Moving him up to college was a challenge, though.  1. Kyle and I drove up separately from his mom, dad, and brother.  We drove up Friday night right after work and we got into the city with no problems just after 9:00 p.m.  By the time we got to the hotel, it was 45 minutes and an anxiety attack later.  I hate driving in big cities, but New York is on another level.  We almost got hit by a taxi and it was impossible to turn left onto the street with the hotel because of a fire blocking off three roads.  In short, it was a mess, but we somehow, finally, made it there.  2. Alex and his mom were at a Broadway show when we arrived, so we just hung out in the hotel room until they got back.  Alex talked our ears off about the show and then said he was leaving but he’d be back later.  Fast forward to 45 minutes later when I woke up in a panic and Alex wasn’t back yet.  I texted him asking him where he was, in which he responded Times Square by himself.  I yelled at him through the messages saying that he was never allowed to go there by himself in the middle of the night (by this point it was close to 1:00 a.m.) just to find out he was in his mom’s room all along.  I told you Kyle and Alex like to play jokes.  Anyway, I told my in-laws and Kyle that I’m never having kids because Alex stressed me out too much.  The rest of the weekend went smoothly.  We all ate breakfast together before helping Alex move into his dorm, and after lunch, we grabbed our car from a parking garage and headed home.
• 9/15/17-9/17/17 Birthday Celebrations: I turned 25 this year, and boy do I feel like it.  I have aches and pains like I’m 25 going on 80.  However, the weekend of my birthday was so much fun.  I ate dinner at a restaurant called Black N Bleu, where I had the firehouse pasta that was to die for.  I received Kyle’s gift that night, too.  So, you all know the trending facebook videos of the people in the t-rex costumes doing ridiculous things?  I am now the proud owner of one!  I told Kyle I want to go running around the neighborhood around Halloween with it on to see everyone’s reactions.  The following day, we went for a morning hike with some friends, following Kyle accidentally hitting a curb and popping his tire.  After hiking, he went and got that fixed and we relaxed all afternoon until dinner with family at Chili’s (their chips and salsa, in my opinion, is out of this world).  Later, we met up with friends at a local winery and had a few drinks and chatted about life and Game of Thrones, which we marathoned on Sunday.
• 9/23/17-9/24/17 Love Celebrations: My brother and his fiance got engaged back in May, and this weekend we celebrated with them.  Kyle is one of my brother’s groomsmen and he and the rest of the groomsmen went to a place called “Top Golf” which is essentially a driving range but you get points each time you hit a golf ball.  The girls, my sister included, hung out at his fiance’s house as we drank good wine and talked everything wedding.  It ended with the guys meeting up with the girls at my future sister-in-law’s place and we ended the night playing Jenga.

Let me know in the comments below about any funny wedding mishaps that happened at your wedding or a wedding you attended, your birthday celebrations or really anything else you’d like to share what happened to you over the past few months.

Until next time,

Emily