The Big 3-0

So I got a little caught up in the hubbub of my birthday and didn't get a chance to post.  But now it's Monday, all the festivities are over and the Mister is back at work.  I mentioned that I was going do a sort of wrap-up post about my 30-Before-30 list, and the long & short of it is that I didn't do so hot.  I've been trying to be a little less hard on myself, so I'm going to look at this as a learning experience.  What did I learn?  I've learned that as much as I love a good to-do list (and my-oh-my I do!), I do better with smaller amounts of time.  Knowing that I had a whole year to complete all the items contributed to my procrastination.  And so a few months out, I was trying to cram in all the books I didn't read and all the tasks I hadn't accomplished.  Which was sort of exhausting.  And I've put off doing things I really want to to do because of things I think I "ought" to be doing.

Of the 19 things I didn't do, I think its a tie between run a marathon and do a Color Run for the thing I most wished I had done.  The marathon idea fell to the wayside over the summer when I was flying like a crazy lady.  And the Color Run didn't end up happening because we had a bit of a last minute wedding invitation that we couldn't turn down.  But!  I did run 3 races this year, which is more than I've done before!  I'm hoping to do even more next year, including maybe a destination race or two!

The rest of the items were things I found myself less interested in or were dependent on other people.  Skiing and camping are definitely happening next year.  I was hoping to knock out SCUBA, surfing and visiting a new continent when the Mister & I took our honeymoon but we haven't been able to schedule that yet.

All of that said, there was one item on the list I just wasn't NOT doing.  So, on my birthday last week, I walked into a salon and had a stylist chop off just over a foot of hair!

The girl decided to cut it off in two pigtails rather than one ponytail in an effort to save me a little bit of length.  So my hair is actually longer now than I thought it might be.  I've been having fun trying to style it, but I haven't figured it out quite yet.  Today's style is leftover from a bit too much curl yesterday.

I've been wearing my hair up so much this summer (I am a master of the braid) that I think I hadn't really realized just how long my hair had grown.  It is taking some getting used to, but it is so nice not to have it get stuck in my bra straps accidentally get zipped into a dress.  The Mister is hoping that maybe now that it isn't so long he won't have to be constantly cutting it out of the vacuum brush.

That photo is from my birthday dinner and shows how the girl styled my hair.  I liked how sleek it looked, but I'm not sure if it is very "me" yet.  I haven't tried it on my own, but I will.  I'm also pondering picking up a pair of hair scissors to do a bit of work on the bangs.  I told her I liked a deep side part, but she parted it just off center to cut my bangs.  Other than that, she did a great job and I'm pretty happy with it!  My envelope full of hair is on its way to Pantene Beautiful Lengths and I'm excited that a woman out there who has lost her hair to cancer will benefit from my loss.