…from yesterday. I turn 40 next Wednesday and have been gearing myself up for this. I feel more confident than ever before – in who I am and my capabilities. But I also know there’s room for improvement. I feel like we should always be getting better. So I’m going to list below some thing I want to do to improve. Some may seem a little extraneous but have reasons for myself.

• Start wearing a little more makeup. Not because I’m that vain but I do feel like I look a little weathered now. A little tired. I also like how I look when I put on a bit of foundation and eye-liner. I used to be able to get away without it – my skin was naturally clear and didn’t look bad at all. But this is something I would like to explore. I just never fit it into my daily schedule.
• Exercising. Obviously I have been doing this for a long time – I first joined a gym in 2004. I switched to outdoor running 6 months after my second child was born nearly 9 years ago. I have run four half marathons, multiple 15, 10 and 5ks. I have briefly gone to exercise classes with friends. But lately, though my pants seem a little looser, my wedding ring is tight going over my finger. This worries me. Am I retaining water? Or am I gaining weight in weird ways? I am going to give it a couple weeks of good eating and more running to see if this fixes the problem. But overall, I want to make sure I keep up this life: watching the balance of foods, the number of calories, and the overall mileage.
• Start being more positive. This is so simple, I know, but lately, as I have watched a lot of these people who seem to run in the same circles as Conservative political types (Looking at you Jordan Peterson) they all have a lot of smart ideas about personal gain. They discuss the crisis of purpose that Americans do seem to have. What IS our purpose? We oftentimes lose sight of it BECAUSE of social media and the way we interact with the world around us. I see more and more young people disillusioned because they have college debt (that could have been avoided) or convinced they don’t want kids and all these things take away from your sight line to purpose. If there’s one thing I KNOW we are supposed to do here on earth is having kids. Check. Done. Now what? I seek to find new purposes.
• If you’ve been reading me the past few weeks, you know my main goal is to find a new job. I watched a video today about some psychology principles and one of them had to do with that positive thinking and the laws of attraction. So basically, be present in thinking positively about finding a new opportunity and it will present itself. Oh I hope so. I am ready to move on. Funny, right after I typed that, my husband texted to say the woman who ended up not hiring me passed my resume along to some other people there looking for admins.
• Manage my time better. I don’t feel like I waste a lot of time but I do allow myself to sleep in the evenings a little too often and those are prime hours when I could be productive. Yes, we all need downtime but I think I could better organize it.
• Teach myself guitar. I know I’ve said I was going to but I have yet to pull it out and do it. 40 is not too old to learn something new. In fact, I firmly believe that we should always be learning.