My Top Ten to Remember My Four-O

The Husband made his official entrance into his forties yesterday. Thus begins the six-week countdown until I join him, during which time I will remind him daily that I am still a young pup in my thirties. I think we are both in shock that he turned forty and I'm trailing slightly behind....how did we get to forty? I must admit thirty seems like a lifetime ago, but I remember too clearly my parents turning forty while I was an adult. Yikes. They're all turning early sixty-something now so I imagine once I blink a few times that will be us, too.

Now that we have celebrated our fifteen year anniversary last week and The Husband's birthday this week I can start to think about MY birthday. And, I've come up with some ideas to remember my 40th year ....some are not serious considerations, but I did think about it!

1. I thought it would be fun to rent a roller skating rink and have everyone dress in their best seventies clothes and have a roller derby...complete with slamming each other into walls. Gently. 'Cause we're all old now.

2. Get a tattoo of a butterfly on my ankle. That is just screaming mid-life crisis since I have never desired a tattoo in my entire life.

3. Audition for a game show.

4. Go to a foreign country, which would require me to obtain a passport now that I can't travel with a birth certificate like in the good old days. I would love to go on a missions trip in a few years when the girls are a little older and me leaving for a week wouldn't be so traumatic for #3!

5. Go back to school and finish my four-year degree. I am looking into transferring my AA degree credits....if they take all of them then I am probably going to enroll for this fall's semester. I want to earn a BA in communications.

6. Learn how to play the guitar.

7. Spa time (this one is a definite since I am traveling for a weekend this summer with my high school friends, who are also turning 40).

8. Lose forty pounds in honor of my fortieth. I'm at 11 pounds so far for the year so if I keep up this pace I may make it! I have also dramatically cut back on caffeine (two cups of coffee a day) and I drink gallons of water! Soda is a 1-2 times per week treat. Yes, it's true. You can check Snopes.com. I no longer have an addiction to fountain soda and expensive coffee.

9. Run a race, probably a 5K, but a 10K would be cool, too, if I can get my butt in gear. I'd like to do it in honor of my Pop, who my brother and I used to run with when we were all younger and he was still here with us. I miss him like crazy, so I think rather than just be sad I'd like to raise some money and awareness for the disease that took him from us (he had a stroke). I may talk my brother into doing it with me, but we'll have to compare schedules.

10. I am totally going to start writing a book. I am waiting to hear back from a super, talented gal who I have asked to collaborate on a specific project and then I'm ready to grab the bull by the horns and run with it!

So, there you have it! Of course, I won't get to everything on the list. I'm ready to start pursuing some things that I have not given much serious time or thought to, but that I feel are desires that the Lord has put in my heart for a reason. It doesn't just have to be because I'm having a milestone birthday, turning forty just gave me a reason to sit and think about some of this stuff that has been bubbling on the back burner for awhile!