“Wow” (Day 30)

Folks, it’s over. It’s been a ride. It’s been 30 days of what turned into quite a challenge.

For those of you who have kept up with the challenge – you know what a roller coaster I’ve felt I’ve been on the past 30 days. Only amplified by inability to turn to my comforts of food, normality, laziness, non-preparedness and un-routine.

This is my 3rd annual 30 day challenge and I am so happy to say that this will indeed be a yearly thing. This is the 2nd challenge that I’ve blogged about daily and that in itself is super interesting! I am the type of writer that does not pre-plan, but rather just sits down to the key board and starts typing. Often, even I don’t know where the post is going, until it veers off horribly to where I thought it was going and turns into me pouring my feelings, emotions and daily activity out to you – friends and strangers.

If you have a blog, or even better if you don’t have a blog, I STRONGLY encourage you writing or journaling for 30 days straight. Any challenge you can do is a wonderful gift to yourself. As easy as it seems. After all the idea of “eating vegan” sounds easy, but then you get to the practical side of it when you wake up hungover in the 112/44 desert heat and just think “I want a burger and fries and delivery,” and then soon remember those conveniences are no longer an option.

This challenge changed my perspective and made me a lot more conscious and aware of how broad the vegan/vegetarian and moral, ethical or health beneficial communities span. Also, having worked in restaurants I now TOTALLY see how really annoying it actually is when a person strongly and passionately disagrees with eating meat or animal products for whatever reason and yet most restaurants do not cater to those with preferences. Or at least do not provide a tempting meal option.

I hate pasta. I’ve eaten pasta probably 10 times in the past 13 days. Granted I work at a small outback motel with an average Aussie fare boasting bistro, but still, I had to construct a meal that was appropriate for me to eat by dissecting at least 2 other meal options on the menu.

As far as the other challenges go. I know I broke all of them at least once – mostly because of that one night I got really drunk and passed out. Ha. I wanted to take a video or picture of my day 30 push up, but I don’t have the capabilities to do so at the moment, but know I still mostly stay on my knees but can do it stronger and more intentionally than when I began and would have to take a break almost after the first 3! So now, 20 pushups, no sweat.

I strongly encourage you to check out Phys.org for articles. I’ve read some really cool ones over this month! I like outer space and stuff, so it interests me as someone who literally refers to it as “outer space and stuff.” The other good thing about that website is the articles are fairly short, so if you’re lazy you can get in a 3 paragraph one and call it a day.

Meditation has always interested me and benefited me so I was happy to be challenged to do it for 30 days straight. Since I have the Vipassana (10 day meditation retreat) under my belt I can refer back to that technique. However, I prefer to meditate at night because that’s when my brain goes wild and I need to calm it down and center myself. I’ve been a big fan of MeditationOasis.com for some time as they have a wonderful list of guided meditations under “podcast” on their website.

They are free to use and are great for the novice or the Buddha. ESPECIALLY when you’re too crazy to focus yourself, it helps to focus on someone else’s voice and just breathe.

The sun salutation was a good challenge and I may keep doing that. I always meant to look up stretches that were good for waking up because sometimes I wake up a little stiff. It really makes me miss Bikram and how ABSOLUTLEY FANTASTIC AND AMAZING I felt during my challenge. #aw #memories #lastchallenge

I fell short on the language challenge and writing about my family challenge. I did do a lot of writing over these 30 days between blogging and the complimentary journal writing, but my brother wanted me to write a play. I thought I would, but when you start digging deeper you have to allow breaks to rest. It is really intense when you start hauling out the shit you’ve been stuffing down your whole life. Keep that in mind if you do a challenge that rocks your boat.

My good friend Stephanie was the one who challenged me to the language challenge and since I’m not fluent in German or Sinhalese… or English for that matter 😉 I will send her a present as was the terms of the challenge when I requested challenges from friends.

What did I forget? Breakfast every morning and picture/selfie of it – well, check. You all saw those. And enjoyed them no doubt.

OH! Smoking… hahaha. Oh yeah,, I quit smoking. Actually, I took a break. I already have a date at 6:30 tomorrow with the breakfast chef to smoke a cigarette before we head into work. It’s not something I’m ready to say good bye to yet. I just like taking breaks and again – this may change on Sunday when I wake up unable to speak because I smoked a pack of cigarettes with the bottle of tequila and quarter of a cow I plan on taking down tomorrow night.

Lastly all I can say is Thank You. You yourself have been an amazing help and inspiration for me during this challenge. Partly because of the accountability aspect and partly because I’ve never had such consistently high numbers of reads on my blog. =) That’s a big deal to an insecure writer.

Until next time, my darlings… Oh, let’s face it I’ll blog on Sunday as a 30 year old.

Which means that this was my last post from my 20’s. Whoa.

I wish I would have realized that 900 words ago I would have bored you with the highlights of my 20’s. However most of you know how that went:

21-24 Drunk

24-26 Obsessed with Travel

26-28 Obsessed with Kevin

29 Obsessed with moving to Australia

This next year of life and this next decade of life is one that will surely be rich and full. That’s what everyone keeps telling me anyway. I’ll keep you posted as I start traveling and don’t be shy to sign up to follow my blog or shoot me a line.

My love goes out to you.

Goodnight.