If you’ve been reading my blog since this past summer, then you might remember my 60 Before 30 goals list I posted! If not, basically 60 Before 30 is a list of 60 “bucket list” type goals that I want to complete before I turn 30. This isn’t about fear of turning a certain age - I am honestly excited for EVERY age - but more about using a set amount of time as motivation.
Some of the goals below just say Personal (and a category in parentheses), which means they are either private, have to do with surprising someone, or not fully my own story to tell. If they are done and I can share them, I have updated here :)
Since posting my 60 items this summer in June (when I had exactly 3 years until I turn 30), I have actually managed to complete more of them than I would have thought, less than 6 months later! In case you’re curious to read, here’s the original list, with bolding and notes added for the ones I’ve already checked off.
1. Marry Grace Baldridge - YES.
2. Go on a honeymoon - yes, we went to Hawaii for 2 weeks and it was truly perfect.
3. Legally change my last name to Baldridge - yep! So glad I got it done quickly!
4. Build an emergency fund of 6 months’ living expenses with Grace
5. Start a collection of Christmas decorations - yes, and they are all up in our house right now and making me SO happy! I’m hoping to post a Christmas decorations tour soon
6. Increase planned/intentional charitable giving
7. Host a baby shower or a bridal shower
8. Switch to all natural beauty, cleaning, and laundry products - slowing doing this; I wouldn’t call it done yet but I am making progress
9. Personal (career) - now that this is done, I can share it: this one was to leave my current job (at the time I wrote these goals). I honestly thought this one would happen toward the end of my 20s, but I was blessed with the most amazing turn of events and I already did it!
10. Get first Christmas tree of my own (for my first married Christmas) - yes, the cutest best smelling Fraser Fir. I never want to take it down!
11. Personal (spiritual)
12. Go somewhere wild/exotic/remote (some initial ideas are Bora Bora, Antarctica, or Kenya)
13. Personal (family)
14. Personal (spiritual)
15. Make a beautiful heirloom-quality wedding album - YES. It is stunning and I know we will have it for the rest of our lives.
16. Make a beautiful heirloom-quality album of pictures from our Alaska road trip
17. Make a beautiful heirloom-quality album of pictures from our honeymoon
18. Make the outdoor spaces of our house special
19. Make an awesome and welcoming guest room - still a lot of progress to do here, but we have now had our longest-term guest (6 weeks), so that counts for something, right?! haha
20. Combine all finances with Grace and have both our names on all bank and credit accounts
21. Personal (surprising someone)
22. Celebrate my mom’s graduation from divinity school
23. Celebrate my sister’s graduation from college
24. Go back to Elon with Grace (maybe for her cousin’s graduation, or for homecoming?)
25. Visit D.C. to see two of my best friends and my grandmother, who all live there - yes! This is another one that I thought would not happen for a long time, but a couple of months after making these goals, my grandmother offered to fly Grace and me out to DC and I got to see her, as well as my best friends who live there! It was a super short visit so I want to go back, but so happy that this officially happened.
26. Do a month-long contentment/spending freeze challenge
27. Celebrate our first and second wedding anniversaries
28. Find a dentist in LA
29. Personal (health)
30. Send out our first ever Christmas cards (as the Baldridges!) - YESSS! Best moment putting them all in the mail!
31. Personal (career)
32. Personal (career)
33. Go a week without social media
34. Be able to say, at least at some point, that I’m in great physical shape
35. Go back to Grace’s hometown in Belgium
36. Fix our closet and hallway lights - thank goodness for Grace’s parents - they did this while they were pet sitting for us at our house over our honeymoon!
37. Give a speech at a wedding or rehearsal dinner
38. Have my blog featured somewhere
39. Personal (surprising someone)
40. Personal (health)
41. Blog every detail of wedding planning and the day itself - yes, I’m so proud of my wedding planning series and so happy with how it has been received by sweet readers.
42. Personal (surprising someone)
43. Upgrade/change up my car when my lease expires in 2019
44. Replace our foundation mattress (we just got it, but it’s from IKEA and not good…)
45. Offer to help a friend with some aspect of their wedding: hand-addressing invitations like I did mine, serving as an informal day-of coordinator, passing down my collected wedding décor items, etc. - I definitely want to do more, but we did pass down our table numbers to some of our best friends who got married about 6 weeks after we did!
46. Personal (misc.)
47. Personal (gift/surprising someone)
48. Start a tradition with Grace of having tea in the evenings - little by little we are doing this more :)
49. Take a trip with both dogs (instead of boarding Bean like we’ve been doing while he’s a puppy)
50. Take Grace to my parents’ place on the Chesapeake Bay
51. Hang art or photos over our bed
52. Introduce Grace to my grandmother (finally!) - yes!! on the DC trip mentioned above.
53. Have 10+ baby books in my collection (Grace and I started a tradition after we got engaged of collecting baby books on special trips we take . . . it might sound crazy, but I love the idea of having an amazing collection of books from special places for our babies if we’re lucky enough to have them one day) - still building our collection, but we did add one from Hawaii! And I want to get one in New Orleans when we go there at the end of the year
54. Swim (actually swim) in the ocean 10+ times - working on it! Swam 3 times on our honeymoon (I’m talking actually treading water not just wading out)
55. Visit Ojai at least once a year
56. Have a dinner party using our beautiful new kitchen wares we’ve gotten as wedding gifts - yes!
57. Get orthotics/generally get my flat feet assessed by a professional (I truly have the flattest feet on earth—like the palm of a hand—and I need to be more proactive about the health problems my lack of arches will cause me as I get older)
58. Go skiing with Grace (and stick to the bunny slopes because of the knee issues we both have!)
59. See Carly Rae Jepson live with Grace
60. Have professional photos taken of Grace and me each year of our marriage - so far, we’ve gotten one set: our professional honeymoon photos in Kauai
So far, I’ve completed 13 out of 60. I still have 2.5 years to go, so I’m feeling good about this!
If you have made a similar list, please feel free to share a link - I’d love to see it!