30 Before 30 Journey in a Year

Holidays are the time for family, friends, Jesus and lots of sugar. But, it's taken me almost thirty years to have enough culinary courage to attempt peanut butter roll by myself. The backstory on this one comes from many Christmases growing up, and the multiple unsuccessful attempts to make peanut butter roll with my mom and sister. Every December, we would gather in the kitchen to make a multitude of holiday fare, but we could never get peanut butter roll to come out successfully. Either it was too sticky or came out as hard as a rock. My sister and I would always eat whatever concoction came forth because it was basically straight sugar and what kid passes on that? Until finally, my mother, who is a wonderful cook and baker, gave up. Since then, the delectable candy has been intimidating, and I've never attempted to make it until this year. So interesting story that I've ran into when this initially was published as a list item and more recently when I've been ta

Push ups.....does anyone else feel like a deformed, broken worm doing these? Push ups bring back old elementary school PE class trauma because I've never been able to do an actual, on my toes push up until this past year. So why this year? The hubs and I decided to be more active. Go to the Y, take hikes, bike around town and try to do these things together. And a big part of this for me was to work in strength training in addition to cardio and running. I just don't see any positive changes in my body (i.e. increased endurance, clothes in the closet fitting) unless I'm lifting weights which is the reason I can now do these stupid, wonderful, frustrating things called push ups. Back to PE class, I remember being about seven or eight and performing group exercises with my class. Our PE teacher would call out different exercises, and I loathed when he said push ups. This is where the deformed, broken worm analogy came to me. After that, I've always just completed

Every time I think about changing a tire, I think about this classic movie moment.... A Christmas Story treat!  A pretty basic skill to know, changing a tire has never been something I've completed until now. While I've gathered the basic process from watching my husband do this countless times, the old "what if's" always came popping into my head. What if you're alone on a dark, scary road and you get a flat tire? Would you be able to change it? What if you came across a van full of children, puppies and the elderly with a flat? Could you help them? Yes - I know some of my "what if" scenarios are a little more plausible than others, but this is something I need to have confidence in doing so I don't send that car full of puppies, kiddos and old people down the road with a loose lug nut. So with the assistance of a few Youtube videos and some oversight but not direction from the hubs just to make sure I was doing things correctly, I star

Solheimajokull....that's the name of the glacier that provided more clarity for me than I expected. Seeing this glacier was on the itinerary for Day 3 of our week long trip in Iceland. And before arriving at the glacier, we had just checked out the incredible Skogafoss waterfall. Chance and I stood at the base of this aqua monster and all it's glory. Skogafoss...we were drenched at this point. Well, that probably wasn't the best idea with my DSLR camera huh? To my credit, I babied this camera throughout our trip and had a great plastic cover that kept my Canon nice and dry for the majority of the trip. The problem I didn't think about - residual condensation. So as we were heading to the glacier after the waterfall, I was so worried that I just wrecked a $500 camera because the lens and inside the camera were super foggy. In addition, I'm a little bit of an anti iPhone picture taker. While it's incredibly useful and I do take iPhone pictures like anyon

Iceland...the land of waterfalls. Iceland...the land of sheep. Iceland...the land of hot dogs?? To answer your first question which is the question that I'm getting the most from those in my life is "Why Iceland"? Well, I'll give that credit to my dear husband who selected this as the destination to celebrate his Big 30 Birthday coming up in November. So this item on my list was really for him, but how could I not include it right? For those that know nothing about Iceland (and I was in that boat before Chance selected this destination), the only thing I could remember when he mentioned it was that line from Mighty Ducks 2 about Iceland being green and Greenland being ice. Here's the refresher if you need it.  And thankfully, that was very true. The capital, Reykjavik, was our starting point with its beautiful architecture, public and street art and great metropolitan vibe. Here are some examples of our fun: Hallgrímskirkja Sunvoyager Sculpture

29.....it got here a lot quicker than I thought it would. Looking back over those 29 years (and yes I know that's not a lot comparatively and I hope to have many, many more years for adventures and experiences), there are many things I'm happy to reminisce about. A great childhood with loving parents, playing softball and experiencing life with my sister, attending the University of Tennessee, completing an undergraduate and master's degree by 24, making life-long friends, marrying my best friend Chance and finding ourselves currently living in, working for and loving the Best Town Ever .  There are also thoughts of missed opportunities, what if's and heartbreaks in those 29 years; the biggest of which is the loss of my father in 2007. But as I got closer to my 29th birthday, I realized that I wanted a challenge. And I of course could have picked a goal, a race, a task to strive for....but to all those that know me, I'm a bit of an over-achiever. So, I decided to