Feels Good to be 29 Again

This is the fourteenth time I’m celebrating my twenty-ninth birthday and it hasn’t gotten old yet.

I must admit some things have changed since the first time I celebrated twenty-nine. I can’t read small print unless I hold that print pretty far away from eyes. I have oddly long random hairs sprouting from my face. My right knee is plagued by tendonitis, but only when I use it for repetitive movements. Why would I ever need my knee to make the same movement twice? My gray hairs are reproducing like hares, and the internet has begun showing me ads for things like wrinkle creams and plastic surgeons.

I get the hint world-wide web. I’m not as young as I used to be.

I’m just twenty-nine. Again.

For my birthday, I thought I’d share some things I’ve been enjoying.

• YouTube

My kids love YouTube. They each have their favorite YouTubers, and I’ll watch with them every once in a while; however, I was never really into YouTube. Then Christmas break happened and the snows came and my kids had a month off from school. Somewhere along the line I decided to explore YouTube for myself and I kinda got hooked. I think I like it because the videos I’ve been watching are generally short and I can watch them while I’m doing something else, like cooking or folding laundry.

My absolute favorite YouTube channel is Justine Leconte. She’s a fashion designer from France, although she is currently living in Germany, and she talks about fashion, beauty, color, capsule wardrobes, and so many other great topics. She’s smart and sweet and gives great tips. Love her! She uploads a video every Sunday and Wednesday. You should definitely check out her channel.

• Books

I’ve been slowly reading through all those books pictured above. I get my reading time in when I’m waiting on other people. I do a lot of picking up, dropping off, and giving people rides, so I throw a book in my purse and get some reading done while I’m sitting around waiting.

I recently finished High Performance Habits. Honestly, I didn’t love it. There are some really great tips in this book, but I feel like I could’ve just read the Cliffs Notes. I’m certainly not giving this book a negative review, but it felt like I was reading the same thing over and over, and maybe this could have been a shorter book. It was probably just me though. I have little tolerance for wordiness these days. Not that you would ever know that from my blog!!!! First class hypocrite here.

Love the book Boundaries. I can go back and read sections of this book again and again. I talked about it a little in this video on Facebook, but I need to do a proper book review at some point. Definitely recommend this one!

I’m about half-way through A Million Little Ways. Love Emily’s message. Her writing style is a little different (more poetic maybe?) than I usually read, but she’s certainly put her heart in her writing.

I haven’t made it through the other books yet, but I’ll keep you posted.

• Bullet Journaling

I started a bullet journal in the beginning of the summer and I LOVE using it! This is my second notebook since summer and I use it for meal planning, grocery lists, blog ideas, random lists I’m always writing in my head, projects I’m working on, notes I take from online classes or videos I watch. Basically, I use it for everything.

I’ve always been one of those people with a million little scraps of paper all over the house. I would write down important things and then promptly lose my scrap of paper. It was a terrible habit and I’ve lost so much good information and so many good ideas over the course of my life. Keeping everything in one notebook is revolutionary. Seriously. Go get yourself a notebook for under a dollar and start a bullet journal. I use Edie’s method of bullet journaling. She blogs over at Life in Grace and shares her simple method in this video.

• Pocket Letters

If you like paper crafts and pen-pals, you’re going to flip over Pocket Letters. I just discovered them!

Thank you very much YouTube. It was a much better suggestion than Facebook’s wrinkle cream video.

Go search pocket letters on Pinterest, Instagram, or YouTube. If you head over to YouTube, search “Pocket Letter Unpocketing” and you can watch someone open their pocket letter. They are so much fun! I’ve already made three of them, and I’m giving one away here on the blog.

In honor of my birthday, I’d love to send one blog reader a pocket letter made by me. Please leave a comment here on the blog and I will randomly select one person and send you my pocket letter. All comments must be left before Sunday, February 18th. On Sunday, I will use a randomizer to pick one winner and I will contact you via email.

In each pocket, behind the card, there are little bits of craft supplies and little gifts (like a tea bag or chocolate). You can get on a pocket letter swap list and swap with people all over the world. How fun is that?!?

Okay, this post is long enough and I’ve already complained about wordy writers. So, leave a comment and get yourself entered into the pocket letter drawing. I’m going to celebrate my twenty-ninth birthday once again. It’s good every single year!