13 by 30
Can I dub this the “30” week?
How twenty-something is it to be obsessing over turning thirty later this week? After the pandemic took two years of my twenties and then 2022 was just so tough for a variety of reasons, last year, in October, I gave myself a bucket list of sorts and called in 13 before 30, because I came up with the list 13 months before my 30th.
Super creative, I know.
The list was a list of things I wanted to do in life, career wise, publishing wise, personally, the list had a whole gambit. In October last year, I was finally getting of out a rut at work and doing well. Q4 is always my favorite time of the year and I was feeling energized. The list was an attempt to make the most out of twenty nine and have a freaking blast at it.
Before I go into how it went, I want to give you the list, as I wrote it back in October of 2022. Oh, twenty-eight year-old Laura had no idea what the hell was gonna happen in the next year.
13 by 30
- Publish Hit List
- Publish the first season of a new serial story on Kindle Vella and then wide
- Read 75% of the books on my shelves
- Weekend Writing Retreat
- Pay off my car
- Donate my hair
- Use my passport
- Learn Calligraphy
- Find a new job
- Donate blood 4 times
- Lose 40 pounds
- Go to Fredericksburg for a weekend wine trip
- See Six the Musical
If you’ve been around for awhile, it probably won’t surprise you that I didn’t get a lot of this done. Actually, I think I failed on most of that list. That’s okay, we started 2023 off with a big plot twist that threw a good chunk of this list into question, like paying off my car. I had that plan when I made decent money in chat.
In January, they folded chat at my former employer and moved me to the phones and that was a terrible thing for me. And then last month they just “sunset” the sales department all together.
But I do want to tackle these each one by one and at least show where I’m at in the process. Even though I haven’t completed many of these, even the ones I didn’t complete are still things I’m working toward. I’m close to so many, I’m just not there yet.
- Publish Hit List – well, I’m rewriting the book again for NaNoWriMo. I’m pretty positive this is the last Cassie Morgan book and I’m trying very hard to keep it out of my mind that that’s the case while I work on this. Hoping for 2024 on this one. This is a work in progress.
- Publish the first season of a new serial story – This is also a work in progress because I am publishing a serial story on Kindle Vella, just under a totally anonymous pen name. I’m working on this story while also writing Hit List. ah the joys of unemployment.
- Read 75% of the books on my shelves – eh, I don’t think I did well at this. I’ve obviously read books I own throughout the year, but honestly, Libby and my local libraries have bankrolled much of my reading habit this year.
- Weekend Writing Retreat – Thought about booking one for my birthday month and then I was let go so no spending money on this right now. Maybe I will do this to celebrate landing a new job.
- Pay off my car – This is the one I’m the closest to. Had I made money like I did in 2021, this would be paid off. After this month’s payment, I’ll have $800 left on my car loan.
- Donate my hair – this was the one I did first on this list when I cut my hair in November last year and donated it! I donate to Locks of Love, where they make wigs for kids with cancer.
- Use my passport – I did this one, too! My boyfriend and I went to Cancun in June for a wedding (he was one of the groomsmen). It was my first international trip since I was a baby and my first time on an airplane since high school. I also spent a good amount of time worrying I’d lose my passport but we made it back safe and sound (but with Covid).
- Learn Calligraphy – yeah, no, this didn’t happen
- Find a new job – Well, I was hitting the applications hard at the beginning of the year when my job changed but stopped around April because I knew the summer was going to busy and I had so much PTO off, it didn’t make sense to get a new job. And then I started looking again in the fall after we moved, but not too much. Now I have to look.
- Donate blood 4 times – this was a halfway there. I definitely tried to donate four times, I think I successfully donated two (including last month, the day before I was let go). The veins in my arms that are typically used for donating blood are in my arms really deep, so it takes a long of finagling to get the needle in there to get the blood. If they find it, I’m done donating in under 10 minutes. But they don’t always get the vein right.
- Lose 40 pounds – fun fact, stress drinking and eating are a great ways to not lose weight
- Go to Fredericksburg for a wine tasting trip – this has been on my list for years and it hasn’t happened. Maybe by next year.
- Go see Six the Musical – this is what we did for my birthday last year, went and saw this in Houston.
13 months and thirteen tasks. Yeah, I didn’t get everything but it’s always a good reminder that just because you don’t hit the goal when you think you will, you can still hit it later. Hit List will come out someday. I’ll pay off my car by March, before my half birthday. I have to find a job at some point. The goals are still there, even if I’m not quite as fast as I want to be.
