Who writes a blog post on the Sunday morning of a long-weekend? Well, I do! Because it just so happens to be the 5th of the month, and we are 10 months into my 30-before-30 project, and just two short months away from my 30th birthday.

I woke up this morning at 6:30, baked some delicious blueberry yogurt muffins to celebrate cheap and ubiquitous blueberries (recipe forthcoming) and then decided to sit down and write my heart out.

Aside: I appreciate I promised you a soul-barer last week. This post is still in the works. It’s about happiness. But I had a roller-coaster of a week last week, so I set it aside because it was losing the upbeat tone that it started with. Ah, the joys of self employment!

But back to the business at hand. This morning I took a look at my list and realized that while I will certainly fail at some items, and not complete others because my outlook has changed in the last 10 months, I’ve actually done a pretty good job.

13 items aren’t complete as of today. Of these items: 5 I will fail at (2 because I actually will fail, 3 because they don’t make sense anymore.); 4 are ongoing projects (but will be successful provided I work on them for the next two months); 2 I’ve just started and will complete (meal database); and 2 are awkward to do in the busy summer wedding season, but are items I’m going to concentrate on in the late fall.

So, here is the “state of the nation” (ok… the “state of the project”) as at 7:25 am on August 5, 2012.

1. Start Project The Rest of My Life.
2. Go to Antarctica, the last continent. 
3. Photograph my grandparents in a “Love” session celebrating their 60th anniversary.
   • I’m certainly going to fail at this item. But I realized that this isn’t really my grandma and grandpa’s thing. So, instead I’ve captured some candids and will be sure to take lots of pictures while in Palm Springs for 10 days this October.
4. Book and shoot at least 10 weddings as the primary photographer.
5. Make a wickedly awesome video application for a CreativeLive course and hope to get selected!(Made a cute video, even if I didn’t get selected!)
6. “Learn” to Tango.
7. Dance like no one is watching.
8. Convince my brother to let me plan his wedding.(Didn’t take much convincing.)
9. Get back out to the mountains in the winter. I’ve missed it!
• Epic Fail. Ran out of time due to move to Argentina. But now I live in Vancouver: Winter 2012/2013… here I come!
10. Learn basic (or not so basic) web-development skills. (I’ve still got a ways to go, but people are paying me to build their websites, so I’d call this a success!)
11. Improve my Spanish skills.
12. Become a better food photographer. (I’ve still got a ways to go, but compare pictures from today to pictures from this time last year and you’ll see there is no contest!)
13. Become a better proofreader.(I’ve still got a ways to go, but my daily proofreader friend finds fewer and fewer typos!)
14. Cook something that takes more than one day.
15. Clean my oven.
16. Learn how to use stumble upon and spend at least 4-6 weeks trying it out.
    • Not gonna happen. Because nobody uses this anymore.
17. Master the art (and the manual focus) of my new film camera.
    • “Master” is a big word. I’m certainly improving, and I love it! I just need to shoot more. That’s a goal for the next two months.
18. Be less afraid.
    • I think I’m actually doing a really good job on this one: see update.
19. Find a friend with a sail boat who will teach me how to sail, so one day I can disappear and sail around the world.
    • I think we *may* be out of time this year. But this was a stretch goal. This is a long term goal, I don’t need to do it today!
20. Figure out a workout regime (hopefully running) that works for me.
    • I’m figuring it out! Lots of yoga recently is making my tendons and my shin splints feel better, the hubs and I have started playing tennis, and I just want to work a little bit more running back into my routine (and maybe start TRXing again). 2 months to go to get into a better habit!
21. Do a 365 project.
    • This one is still going, and I would say it is a relative success!
22. Find (or create) a great community of photographers to be friends & colleagues.
    
    • I’ve started to meet people, slowly, it’s hard in the summer but is fully a goal for later in the year once the season slows down.
23. Develop relationships with other wedding vendors.
    
    • This is going very slowly as well. Same reasons.
24. Set up and shoot a styled shoot with awesome wedding vendors.
    • I’m actually NOT going to do this one. I’ve got another plan instead. A plan that is more my style.
25. Start a series on my photography blog (or this blog?) where I interview influential wedding photographers. (I interviewed one photographer, than realized that style of writing isn’t really my thing.)
26. Get new business cards. Twice.
27. Come up with a sweet database of lunch ideas, both for home and brown bag style.
    • It’s not yet in database form, but I’ve started.
28. Better arrange my database of dinners.
    • Ditto.
29. Post at least one new food post on the blog each week. (Even though the year isn’t up, I’m going to proclaim this to be a success. I’m sticking to a pretty strict schedule of 1 food post a week).
30. Spend more time in Alberta with my family and friends.