Hi, happy Wednesday.

It's my birthday week and if you don't know -- I take that kind of thing pretty seriously. But if you are my Oma, you should know that I've gotten the grip you told me to get. I'm mostly just celebratory these days.

Once upon a time, I was born. It's been a delight.

Seriously though -- the countdown is on, so this is the part where I typically break out the scales and start weighing the year. I mean, what happened? Where can I attribute some meaning?

Well, let's begin by establishing some kind of a name for this annual phenomena. And let's give it a good middle-school-essay-assignment name, like "How I Spent My Summer"

"I ate lots of ice cream and went to New Hampshire and in July, my cousin won a hot dog eating contest that made us local celebrities, but he couldn't move for seven whole days. Also, I saw what a half masticated piece of hot dog looks like first hand exactly 90 seconds after he won."

None of those things happened, but it is the kind of thing I'd have made up circa the 7th grade.

I'm going to be brief, because I think I can sum it up pretty concisely. This year, I learned the value of humility. There are a lot of places that I could be hella more humble, but 26 gave me the gravity to know it. And I'm still learning.

Now, I usually write a list full of things like, I learned how to cook or wash my car more diligently, but those kinds of things filled the years past. I mean, who knows, maybe next year I'll be like, "guys! I learned how to make a decently tall souffle", but for this year, I felt like the change was more evolutionary, rather than growing up. I have years of those lists, but what I really wish right now is that I had spent more time in previous episodes of How I Spent My Summer considering what I hoped for in a new year.

I hope that next year, rather than exploring random change, I'll acknowledge intentional change.

I hope I write more words in 27.
I hope I'm a better text responder and friend in 27.
I hope I lose my temper less in 27.
I hope there is never a day in 27 that makes me feel bad about how I spoke to someone.

And of course I hope I get famous in 27.

****

In the meantime, I'm currently focused on wrapping up 26 in the most power-packed with awesome way.




I also tripled my lipstick collection, so a very non-humble high-five all around. 

Cheers!

*Edited* to just laugh for a minute. I almost linked previous year's, pre-birthday freak outs. Then I realized I'm hugely embarrassed of those, so nope.