"I FEEL THIRTY..."

"Oh so thirty. I feel thirty, and witty and gay ... " Westside Story lyrics keeps swirling around in my head today. Too much karaoke last night. Speaking of karaoke last night ... guess who serenaded me into this new age?

I turned 30 yesterday. Contrary to my amended "I feel pretty" lyrics, I do not feel thirty.

What I thought I would be at 30:

- a wife

- a mom (who cooks, cleans and folds laundry well)

- a career gal (I've always thought I could have it all)

What I am at 30:

- a very happy girlfriend

- a woman who lives vicariously through her friends with kids but is also glad she doesn't have her own just yet.

- a career gal!

One out of three - not so shabby.

With the help of this bliggity blog to hold me to it, here are my goals for November 4th, 2011 (aka 31) :

- have a beautifully decorated apartment

- manage to keep it clean and organized 92% of the time. I get 8% of my days to throw clothes on the floor.

- Cook dinner at home four out of seven nights a week. Exception to this rule - holidays. Then I get to party it up and eat free party appetizers Monday through Sunday.

- cook a vegetarian Thanksgiving for my family so they stop eating the bad stuff.

What else should I add?

Also, a note on 30: pretty psyched I'm not in my 20s anymore. Sorry suckers ... I'm out of the messy years!

FREE COOKING CLASS

Or, free with purchase of food. My find of the week: if you eat out at hibachi style restaurants, you also get a cooking class!

What I learned over a work bday lunch:

1) unless you ask for no or light butter, you will get a shit load of garlic butter in your rice. What I took from this - butter makes things taste good. Too bad I already learned that from Julie/Julia.

2) Anything dumped onto a sizzling hot surface will cook pretty quickly. Maybe this is what I need to fix my "starving by the time I go to cook" problem - a big griddle!

3) raw meat is gross. My kids are going to be vegetarians so I don't have to touch that stuff.
(eeeeeeew gross raw meet)

4) They use these cute little steamers to cook the veggie meals ... I need one of these asap! I found this pretty bamboo one on line and shall be ordering pronto. Going to have to hide it from the BF - he's convinced I buy too many products that I don't use.
(inside this steamer are my delicious veggies)

I'LL KNIT YOUR BABY A BLANKET

Confession of the day: I am addicted to deal sites. And by addicted I mean, I spend a shit load of money on things that I would otherwise not need but since they're half off I must have. (excuse the run on sentence please.)

I tried to cut down on these deals but I started to get the shakes as I let them slip by ... so my new justification:

IF THEY ARE RELATED TO LEARNING DOMESTIC DUTIES I A

M ALLOWED!

Just in time to for todays Groupon ... ARTS AND CRAFTS!! Okay, okay, it's not really domestic duties. But if I limit myself to taking classes like knitting or crocheting it is ... right? My theory is that a complete woman should know how to make a baby blanket at a gift for a friend. I can't let my friends babies go around sleeping under store bought blankets. In my mind I can make this pile of awesomeness that I found at the PURL BEE site.

Confession #2 of the day: I've actually taking a crocheting class at HANDS ON 3RD before. It was really great ... I was just really, really bad. I was also the only one there alone. I guess most girls do that kind of thing for girly bonding?? Anyone want to make me feel better and come with? If you do I'll buy you coffee after ... and knit your kid a blanket ... GET THE DEAL HERE!

I DID NOT GET MY MOTHER'S GENES

Or her jeans. And I'd love to have a couple of her 70s pairs.

My mom makes homes pretty. Organized and pretty. She knows things about fabrics that sound like pig latin to me. When she met BF her first reaction to "Indian" was "I have to ask him about the silk in India." What?!

My mother ... where to start ... she lives in a cute, cozy home that's two sizes too small but still manages to feel like home and smell like Christmas. She currently works at a store that if I named you'd all be jealous about (lets just say ... 40% off is a real bonus. And mom, I have my eye on a couple pieces for XMas.) She's always saying things like "you know, I understand the house wife ... it's a full time job to pick out curtains and keep a home up." To this I roll my eyes and down a glass of wine ... "sure mom, whatever you say to make yourself not want to punch out your customers."

Except ... except ... shit. I think she's right. I have made the decision to MOVE ... little known fact about moving - it follows "death of a spouse" and the #2 stressful thing to go through. With the word move comes the word DECORATE. "But I don't have time for all this, I have a job." And there it is - my mom's words.

But I'm not a housewife with kids and an excuse to quit my job (plus, let me reiterate, I love my job.) So I must decorate and declutter and budget for these expenses on the lunch break.

Here are the current photos on the google doc I have going labled "WISHES FOR APARTMENT." Note the word "wishes." We shall see what really unfolds ...

INSPIRATION

This idea that I'm not that great at anything related to the home is not a new one. It's something that's been kicking around for some time in my head. And every time I feel super discouraged, I look at my friend Kate's blog ... and get more discouraged.

No, I kid. I get inspired. I'm sure somewhere inside of me is this artsy kick ass woman like Kate. Maybe?

Kate's apartment is like what my apartment looks like in my dreams before I wake up and slip on a pile of dirty clothes. It's colorful and original and organized and clean. Like a house should be.

Adding to her kick ass-ness, she also helped design Rachel's kick-ass wedding...

AND designs the most kick-ass jewelry that helps me strike awesome poses like this one (yes, the other ginger is my brother.)

I am resigned to the fact that I may never be Mr.Kate ... but I will keep following her lead into the world of pretty, unique style.

Inspiration. Keep it coming.

CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO GODLINESS?

Isn't there some weirdo phrase like that? If that's true then maybe I should be an atheist.

Update on GOAL #2: Apartment has been clean for 2 days! I realize the fact that this has an ! after it is pathetic. I have a serious problem putting things away. I don't know why ... I've really thought long and hard about my childhood and what would make me this way. The only thing I can come up with (and believe me, I use this as an excuse all the time) is that I never ever had my own room ... so now that I'm a big bad grownup and have my own place, I will damn well messy it up. And no one will tell me to clean up!

Except that I'm now taking major steps to fix my brain and all its issues ... so this will no longer be an acceptable excuse. Bye, bye traumatic room-sharing memories of my sisters reading my diary and my brothers waking me up with Nerf guns pointed at my head.

LOOK WHAT I FOUND!

A site that has therapy for people like me!! 20 cures in 20 days ... hmmmmm. We shall see if I can follow through. I mean, I've always wanted to go to therapy.

http://cure.apartmenttherapy.com/2010/fall