You’re Doing It Wrong: The Complete Guide to Motherhood: So this is 30...

This is me at the beginning of my 20s. I had long blond hair and weighed 135lbs at 5 foot 8 inches. I was attending Simon Fraser University, pursuing a Bachelor of Education and I was in such a rush to get on with adult life in my career. I had set some loose goals, originally to achieve by the age of 25 and then as my mid-twenties approached, I decided to revise. I decided I wanted to achieve the following before I turned 30.

Complete my Bachelor of Education (well it certainly wasn’t with honours... CHECK).
Get a permanent teaching contract (well, I’m currently 40% of the way there with an additional 50% temporary... one day... one day...).
Own a home ( I have actually owned 2 condos and a house).
Get married and have a baby (initially I had hoped for this sequence, but I found that having the baby and then getting married still achieved this goal).
Complete my Masters degree before having children (accomplished with 2 weeks to spare).
Be as fit as I was at 20 when I turned 30 (sigh... still working... very hard...).
Travel (this became a goal a bit late in life and while I managed a tour of the UK and Portugal and a quick trip to Mexico to watch my sister get married in 2008, lived in Quebec in 2009 and Oregon in 2010 and visited Hawaii a few times, I still have a few trips on my list transferring over to my Before I Turn 40 List ;-)
Find myself.

The last goal is a big one and I truly believed it when somebody once told me that your 20s are for finding yourself and your 30s are for your family. I’m not sure if the person I found in my 29th year is the person I’m going to be in my 39th or even my 49th year, but I definitely feel, that at least for now, I pretty much know who I am.

That being said, I guess it’s time for a new list, because, that is WHO I AM. I am an overachiever and I do not like NOT having goals to attain. I am learning to find balance between sitting back and enjoying life AND achieve goals in a non-obsessive manner, but I still feel the want to have some goals. So here they are. Before I turn 40 I would like to achieve the following:

Have a happy marriage and two children (please do not ask me if I’m knocked up, I’m not).
Advance my carrier (I’m not sure what direction yet, but my Masters Degree says Administration and Leadership and my heart says Counselling... time will tell).
Purchase, build and mould our family home. Sadly, when I met my husband, I was already a home owner who had bought at peak time. It is our 4-6 year goal to purchase a house together to be able to build a home together, for our family, from scratch. This means a lot to him.
Travel. My remaining dream trips are to Portugal and then follow the Mediterranean to Turkey, a trip involving Australia, New Zealand and Fiji and Alaska. We would also like to do trips every 1-2 years to Hawaii as a family... perhaps one or more of those above trips will be without ALL our family... just sayin’.
LEARN TO BE HAPPY WITH MY BODY IN THE HEALTHIEST FORM I CAN ACHIEVE, NO MATTER WHAT THE SCALE OR THE TAPE MEASURE SAY (man is this a stinkin’ toughie!!!).
On that note, learn to really manage and be in control of my health issues, primarily my arthritis and my anxiety, but also my weight and eating habits.
Have a raging party for my 40th and not be out of the country when it takes place because turning 30 was also kind of one of the most anti-climactic events of my life.

Here’s a few more random pics (that I feel safe sharing on the world wide interwebs) from throughout my last decade!