30 before 30 update: organize files (paper & electronic), part 1

one of the things on my 30 before 30 list was to organize my paper and electronic files. a few days ago i finished the first half of that - the paper files. it was getting to the point where boxes of old pay stubs and bills were exploding in my closet. so i took a saturday morning, popped "crazy, stupid, love" into the dvd-player, and sat down with a 3-ring binder and a 3-hole punch and organized all the papers. it feels good to know i'm starting 2012 off organized in at least one small corner of my world. so, in case you're wanting to do the same, i dug around on the internet and found the general rules of thumb for record retention. i printed this guide off on a piece of paper and stuck it in the front of the binder:

Tax Returns & Backup Documentation – 7 years

Health Records – indefinitely: contact info of physician, medical history, prescriptions/treatments

Medical Records – 7 years if claimed on taxes, otherwise 5 years after end of treatment

Life Insurance – life of policy + 3 years

Medical Insurance – 5 years from date of service rendered

Home Insurance – 5 years, or 10 if you predict issues

Warranty – when expired

Home Repair Bills & Contracts – 10 years

Pay Stubs – keep each stub throughout the year. At end of year keep only year-end stub. Keep these for 7 years.

Bank Statements – 3 months

Financial Documents (stocks, bonds, etc) – indefinitely

Utility Bills – if claiming on taxes 7 years, otherwise 3 months

Mortgage Statements – ownership period of the mortgaged property + 7 years

Mortgage Documents – 10 years

Credit Card Statements – 3 months (although i suggest you go the dave ramsey route and not use credit cards, ever. at almost 29-years old, i never have.)

homesickness

it's not often that i get homesick. y'all know i love nashville way too much for that. but there are a few things i get homesick for, so i've decided to list them:

-waking up on a cold december morning to a foot of fallen snow glittering in the sun
-watching the sunset over lake michigan at almost 10pm in the summer
-driving through the corn fields/vineyards/apple orchards in the middle of the night and gazing at the stars

a season of reflection

december. it's that month when we all begin to reflect on the past year and plan for the one ahead. when 2009 was wrapping up, i looked back on it with fond memories. a new house, new friends, finally starting to form some community in nashville. but i had this feeling that 2010 was going to blow 2009 out of the water. and let me tell you, it did.

as 2010 ended, i felt as though 2011 would be... not bad, but less exciting and adventurous as 2010. i anticipated a little more struggle and discipline in 2011. and that's what happened.

i'm sure there's a certain degree of self-fulfilling prophecy in all of this, but whatever it is, it's there. but 2012... i think, and hope, it might even surpass 2010 as being an incredible year. i guess we'll see...

traveling thoughts

i definitely love nashville, and i'm thankful to call it home. but sometimes i hear the open road calling my name...

i'm thankful for all the road-trips i've had the chance to go on this year.

michigan, twice.
indiana, not sure how many times.
missouri
kansas
north carolina
south carolina
georgia
florida

i know it's not much compared to all the traveling musician's in this town, but it's been enough to keep me feeling alive.

a month of thanks

throughout the month of november, i was tweeting one thing i was thankful for each day during the month, but i slacked off on the last couple days. so in order to complete the list and to re-jump-start my blogging efforts, i've decided to compile the list.

here are 30 things for which i am thankful.

1. a job that pays the bills.
2. nashville's fall weather.
3. the best roommates a girl could ask for (jacquelyn, stacy, & karissa).
4. living in a city full of dreamers.
5. the talent in this town #musiccity.
6. midtown fellowship.
7. pain killers, caffeine, and sleep: their powers combined working hard to battle my migraine.
8. hope in something bigger than myself.
9. my community group (aka: the swamp tigers).
10. thankful for haikus/and free baja burrito/30 days of thanks (baja had a twitter contest. the best haikus about burritos won a free meal. i won for sheer volume of haikus. maybe another post for another day.)
11. weekends.
12. restoration.
13. wine.
14. coffee.
15. god's timing.
16. facetime.
17. grace.
18. that i live in town (vs the suburbs) and therefore my normal commute is only 10 minutes
19. all the friends and memories i have because of a little orange plastic disc i bought 14 years ago.
20. opportunities to step outside of my comfort zone.
21. work-from-home mondays.
22. that i didn't die when someone almost t-boned me by making an illegal u-turn.
23. that i made it safely to michigan for thanksgiving.
24. family.
25. christmas.
26. that i had the opportunity to visit and reconnect with two friends. one whom i've known for 25 years, and one for 23 years.
27. that i made it safely back to nashville after thanksgiving, and for stacy's company along the way.
28. that both my house and my neighborhood have character.
29. opportunities to serve.
30. forgiveness.

stay creative.

i saw this video on jon acuff's blog and loved it so much, i'm posting it on mine as well.

enjoy.

29 WAYS TO STAY CREATIVE from TO-FU on Vimeo.

another thankful thursday

today i'm thankful for living in a city of dreamers. there's something to be said for a community focused on the arts, chasing ones dreams, and living out its passions. it's inspiring for someone like me who is still trying to figure it all out.

the beginning of the end.

august is flying by. i usually consider it my least favorite month of the year, primarily due to the outrageous heat. however, this august in nashville has been pretty mild, especially in comparison to earlier summer months. october remains my favorite month, with september falling not too far behind. i love everything about fall, and as usual i have several exciting plans to look forward to in the months ahead, leading up to the end of the year. i know it will all go by much quicker than i would like, but such is life.

i'm also realizing how few of my "11 in 11" i have accomplished. but there is still time to get stuff done, and honestly some of it i don't really care about anymore.

here's to the next four months, the best four of the year.

five moments in five years

as of this past saturday, i have officially lived in nashville for five years. and so, i've compiled a list of my top 5 nashville moments.

(in no particular order)

1. my friends katie and jess are from the north, like me, so this past december we had no problem bundling up and heading out into one of the worst winter storms i've seen in nashville. to us, it was nothing. we hopped in our car and drove to katie's friend andrew's apartment, where we decided to make our first caroling stop. only, we had the wrong apartment number. so we got a practice run of caroling for strangers. we finally found the right one, appropriately made fools of ourselves (in the best way possible), and drove back to our neighborhood. we stopped in on a few friends and also went door-to-door to old neighbors and strangers. we even got free hot chocolate from our favorite coffee shop. we had so much fun that katie (who no longer lives in nashville) promised to come back around christmas this year just so we can do it again.

2. nashville is obviously known for its live music, and a few years ago the mayor helped get a new, free, concert series going, called live on the green. they have pretty well-known artists perform on the lawn outside the courthouse, in the heart of downtown. there was one night in particular where the artist had the crowd sing part of the chorus. and as we did, he backed away from the mike and the band stopped playing their instruments. it was just the sound of 500 or more nashvillians singing... and when nashvillians sing, it might as well be a giant professional choir. listening to that while surrounded by the night sky and the city lights, it definitely ranks as one of my favorite moments in nashville.

3. easter 2010. there wasn't anything super magically about that day, but my family came down for the weekend and it was my first time ever hosting a real holiday. we had absolutely perfect weather the whole weekend (minus the massive amounts of pollen jaundicing everything it landed on). we also all piled in my car and drove down to the jack daniel's distillery in lynchburg, which is an absolutely gorgeous drive.

4. i previously wrote about how i got to be an extra on the set of a movie based off one of my favorite books. after writing that blog entry, i got to go back 3 or 4 other times, and so i have a feeling i might be all over the film. it's set to release this fall and i can't wait to see it. (you can watch the trailer here). also, here's a picture from a scene i'm in:



5. the flood. it seems strange to consider a natural disaster which killed over 20 people one of my favorite moments in nashville; but the way this city pulled together to help out neighbors, friends, and strangers really struck a chord with me. i think it's rare to find the kind of community this town has, especially in a city. nashville has always been a big small town, and that's one of the things i love about it. the flood gave proof to the old saying that it's when we are at our weakest that we are our strongest. if there was ever any doubt in my mind that nashville was home, the city's reaction to the flood changed that forever.

30 before 30

so i made a list of 30 things to do/accomplish by the time i'm 30... which is in 18 months (let's not go down that road right now, though). anyway. here they are. some are silly. some are boring. but they're all me.


1. reach a healthy weight.
2. read the entire bible, including the apocrypha.
3. read every unread book i own.
4. organize files (paper & electronic).
5. run a 5k.
6. have a small emergency fund.
7. write a hand-written letter and send it via snail mail.
8. leave the country. (it's been five years [minus driving around canada from 3am to 5am once in 2008])
9. visit a new state.
10. go to a drive-in movie.
11. watch the "back to the future" trilogy.
12. watch the dark side of the rainbow.
13. return to warner camp. (it's been six years)
14. buy a little black dress.
15. learn to drive a stick-shift.
16. do something concrete to better my photography.
17. shoot a (real) gun.
18. pay off my 401k loan.
19. become a member of midtown.
20. interview someone who makes a living doing what they love.
21. do something creative with my broken mug.
22. purchase domains for my blog, photographs, and etsy.
23. visit dinosaur world (kentucky).
24. visit mammoth cave.
25. walk the cumberland river pedestrian bridge.
26. make baked caramel apple donuts.
27. go camping. in the woods. in a tent. with friends. (it's been 11 years)
28. visit a physician. (it's been 10 years)
29. discover my story. write it down.
30. make a list of 30 people who have influenced my life.

a welcomed change.

change is inevitable. sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. the change i want to talk about is most definitely a good one:

the weather.

for the first 23 years of my life, i lived in the north/midwest. (technically michigan and indiana are considered the midwest but this has never really made much sense to me.) that being said, i'm a wuss when it comes to hot weather. as each southern summer goes by i'm realizing that i'm slowly growing accustomed to it, but i still prefer the cooler temperatures.

we had a few lovely spring days here in nashville, but then the cicadas invaded our city for two months and stole the best of what early summer has to offer. by the time they were gone the temperatures were consistently in the mid-to-upper 90's... even as late as 10pm.

but today was different. today was breezy. and in the 80's. oh how i missed the 80's. i know that it's august... and as such i can't depend on these "cooler" temperatures to stick around, but i will most certainly enjoy every cicada-free below-90 day i can.

the big picture

one of my favorite things about blogging and journaling is going back and reading old entries. i recently read part of my journal from my second year of college. at the time, i thought i knew what i wanted: the career i was studying in school, the boy i was interested in, what i hoped to get out of everyday life. eight years later (holy cow!) i found myself laughing at my former dreams. now that so much time has passed, i am able to see the bigger picture. i know now that had all those desires been met, i would have ended up pretty miserable. and i can also see now that not getting what i wanted at the time ultimately lead to where i am today. and life is pretty great today.

i would like to say that seeing the big picture of my past has enabled me to realize god has reasons for not giving my all of my current desires, but it's not that easy. but i think i'm getting there. one step at a time.

"the mind is a powerful thing"

life is starting to slow back down to its normal rhythm, and with it i've been able to spend more time processing things that have been happening this year. back in january, i wrote out a list of 30 things to do before i turn 30 (which will be february 2013). i tried to find that list the other day, but i don't remember where i put it. maybe i should have included "place this list somewhere i won't forget" on the list. i wanted to go through it and see where i have made progress, if any. i do remember that many of the things were in the self-improvement category, as opposed to more typical "bucket list" items. i was talking to one of my roommates last night. i mentioned that around new years 2009-2010, i had a feeling that 2010 would be a fantastic year. and it was... i would dare to say it was the best year of my life thus far. and i had a feeling that 2011 would be a year of growth. and i would say that so far, it has been. mind over matter. self-prophecy. what have you. i'm excited to see what the next seven months hold.

life vs. blog

april 22-24: family is in town for easter
april 25: invisible children's 25 event
april 25-may 14: erin arrives for her wedding and all pre-wedding events
may 6-8: friends are in town, roommate's family is in town
may 9: roommate's birthday
may 10-11: friends are in town
may 11: community group
may 11-12: new roommate moves in furniture/belongings
may 13: airport run for jen
may 13: erin's bridal shower/bachelorette party
may 14: erin's wedding
may 16: katie gets into town
may 17: airport run for myka and jeff
may 17: friend has a show at 12th & porter
may 18: roommate has a show at the listening room
may 20: airport run for myka and jeff
may 21: musician's corner
may 22: church picnic
may 25: business trip to baltimore
may 25: community group
may 27: house show/goodbye party for roommate
may 28: roommate has a show
may 31: roommate's final night in nashville before moving to san fransisco

i apologize for my lack of blogging lately.

a perfect weekend.

sunday night i tweeted that the weekend had every ingredient of a perfect weekend, and that i couldn't list them all in a single tweet. i typically believe that if you have something to share and can't fit it all in one tweet, that's when you need to blog, rather than send out 10 tweets in a row. so, here are the ingredients to a perfect spring weekend:

a: one night of relaxation. i found this on friday night, as i went to dinner (pizza) with my roommates, then came home and immediately changed into pajamas, ate homemade cookies (courtesy of stacy), and watched a movie.
b: a sleepover. my roommate, kirsten, is a nanny and watches a 7-year old named natalie who is so.stinking.funny. she spent the night with us on friday.
c. a lazy saturday morning. although i technically didn't sleep in (my internal alarm clock considers 7am late on the weekends, as i wake up around 5:30-5:45 during the week), i still got to lay in bed for awhile before getting up, with no immediate plans to attend to.
d. a good breakfast. kirsten made made us all pancakes, scrambled eggs, and strawberries. and of course coffee.
e: good coffee with friends. kirsten, stacy, jen and i all went over to frothy monkey for some good coffee and conversation. i think frothy is my second home at this point.
f. a productive afternoon: stacy and i did some much needed spring cleaning around the house. we aren't messy people, but our old house tends to be a dust factory.
g. a visitor from far away/catching up with old friends: our dear old friend erin came to town. erin used to live in our house (before i did), and she is one of the first people i met when i moved to nashville almost five years ago. a year ago she moved to haiti for what she thought would be a 3-month mission trip. but god had other plans when she met her now husband-to-be, born and raised as a missionary in haiti. erin is in town planning their may wedding, and it was great to catch up with her face-to-face, as opposed to the chat function in words with friends.
h. good live music. which was free, by the way. and semi-outdoors. jen and i each won a pair of passes to this year's tin pan south, and she, stacy and i headed downtown to the roof of the hard rock to see the best of the best in nashville's independent music scene: matthew perryman jones, sandra mccraken, andrew ripp, amy stroup, trent dabbs, and katie herzig.
i. a lazy sunday morning: i always wake up on sundays long before i need to be at church. i love knowing i have somewhere to be soon, but not feeling rushed to get ready.
j. an excellent church service: i unexpectedly caught myself crying in church on sunday morning. this doesn't happen often (the last time was several years ago). some truths we can never hear enough.
k. perfect weather: saturday was in the mid-60's and sunday was near 80, and the sun shone both days.
l. simple reminders of how lucky i am to live in my neighborhood. i love that i am able to walk to a grocery store to pick up some basics.
m. popsicles at the park. kirsten and i walked down to hillsboro village, picked up some las paletas, and walked over to the dragon park to read and soak in the... shade.
n. a cook-out. our chef-friend suzanne had a group of people over to her place to cook out on the deck. fresh fruit, grilled asparagus, salad, and grilled hot dogs. summer is near.
o. making new friends. while at suzanne's, i met a few new people who i'm sure i'll see again. i also got to know my future roommate a little better.

that pretty much sums it up. although "o" is a weird letter to end on, i'm not going to change it to numbers nor force myself to make it all the way to z. you probably wouldn't
want to read all of that anyway.

woman vs. transmission

i had plans for tuesday. i was going to get to work at 7:30, go to the park on my lunch break and read for a bit. then i was going to get off work at 4, go to the library, fill my car with gas, get my hair cut, meet my roommates for pizza, then go see our friends cori, erin, and sam sing at the village pub in east nashville. as i was rounding the corner to get to the office parking lot, my transmission failed. as a result, my day turned out quite different. i spent my lunch break paying a towing charge, left work at 4:30, deanna and i picked her kid up from daycare, and then i took her car and got home at 6, just in time to eat cereal for dinner and then i did end up going to village pub.

sometimes plans change. sometimes things happen that are beyond our control. but there is one thing that is in our control, and that is how we react to life. for example, in this situation, i can be angry that my car isn't working. or i can choose to remember that god is in control and that it's much better that way, and i can choose to live in that peace. and i can thank him for my struggles, for the reminder that he is sovereign, i can choose to trust in him to work this situation out, and i can choose to write in run-on sentences.

the upper room

i sat in the orange chair in what we called "the upper room". looking out the window, i found myself mesmerized by the slow and steady falling snow. flakes bigger than i have ever seen before, which is saying something having spent all of my 18 years in michigan. i knew this place was special, a holy ground of sorts. a place where my soul felt free, felt peace. a peace i have felt in no other place. i didn't know what the future would hold, what adventures lay beyond my high school years.

five years later i returned to that room. a room which had previously represented peace now brought confusion. i sat in that orange chair again and poured my heart out on paper. the snowflakes replaced by raindrops, a relief from the heat of the august afternoon. everything i thought i had been working towards was falling apart. or so it seemed. i know now that it was a gift. protecting me from a future i didn't know i didn't want.

another five years has come and gone. i haven't seen that orange chair since. i long for it though. for the familiarity. for it's comfort. even in the confusion that room brought comfort. physically of course, but mostly emotionally. i often wonder if i will ever return to that place. but then i'm reminded it's not the room that matters. it never has mattered. what made that room so special was the community surrounding me. the great cloud of witnesses along my path, helping me to fight my battles.

and then i remember i still have that community. the face are different, as are the stories behind them. but an evolving story needs evolving and changing characters. new faces with new stories to help fight new battles in new places. here's to the next five years.

oops, i did it again

pardon the britney reference. jen has been harping on me to blog again. so. here i am. i'm back.

maybe i'll blame my lack of blogging in february on the fact that i had visitors for 9 out of the 28 days. and then i did blog for 5 of the days, so together that accounts for half the month. the other half i was living life as i always do. nothing significant to report, which probably is the true explanation for my lack of anything to say.

i'll try to be around more this month.

breaking the silence

well once again i unintentionally neglected the blog. it's not from a lack of anything to say, i've actually had several blog-worthy thoughts rolling around in my head the past couple weeks. it's been more out of lack of time to write them down. it's sometimes always better to chase after things rather than just talk about them.

a couple weeks ago i was sharing what's going on in my heart with my community group. the thing about community is that it's not safe. we were never promised safe. in c.s. lewis "chronicles of narnia", aslan (the god-figure) is described in this way:

"safe?" said mr. beaver. "don't you hear what mrs. beaver tells you? who said anything about safe? 'course he isn't safe. but he's good. he's the king, i tell you."

this is true of god as well as godly community. it's far from safe. when we truly invest in each others lives, it gets messy, dangerous, and it wrecks us. and i think it's one of the most beautiful things that can happen to humanity.

so what has been wrecking my life? stay tuned...

sometimes all i do is talk.

some of you may know me as being quiet, and i guess typically that's true. but when it comes to making changes in my life, all i do is talk. so lately, i've been trying to be silent on these issues. or at least vague. why? don miller recently blogged about a lecture he heard, where he learned that "when you share a goal publicly, your brain enjoys the sharing in the same way it enjoys the achievement itself, and you’ve lost some of your motivation."

so. here's to keeping quiet. hopefully i'll be able to share my success(es) later down the road.