434 days.
62 weeks.
37,497,600 seconds.

That’s how long I have before I hit 30 (and thus the amount of time I have to complete my 30 by 30 list!)

Even more scary is the fact that I have only 112 days to complete my dissertation if I want to graduate on time, which by the way IS part of the professional category of my 30 by 30. So where do I stand? Here’s where I was the last time I remembered to swing by my website:

Travel
√ Chicago
√ Quebec
Charleston/Edisto Island (this will be my next blog post, coming soon hopefully!)
France and Belgium
San Francisco

I can now check off Charleston/Edisto Island from the travel category, though I never blogged about it. Vacation 2015 was lovely, and quite possibly one of my all-time favorites. It’s a lot of fun to vacation with the niece and nephew (and their parents and Mimom and Grandaddy are pretty nice, too!) With that vacation, plus some serious family time this Christmas (both my side and Karen’s side, as I write this at Karen’s grandparents’ house!), I think I can safely check off another big (and certainly ongoing) item from the personal category: spend time with family. I’ve also been able to check off some items from the Musical, Spiritual, and Just for Fun categories this year. It’s been a great start to the list, and looking back in total, a year of great accomplishments.

Here’s where the list stands (again, not giving it away in full!) heading into 2016, with some comments:

Personal
√ Spend time with family

Professional
Earn my PhD
Seven publications (no really—I’ve already got five if you count the two book reviews, with three more dissertation chapters and a third book review under development!)
Land a job
Month-long photo challenge
Purchase a professional suit (perhaps a bit vain of me, but I’ve been waiting to lose some weight first…and hey, forthcoming job interviews are maybe not all wishful thinking and pipe dreams, right??)

Spiritual
√ Talk theology with a minister—Thanks, Rev. Matt Hampton!
√ Volunteer for a good cause (more on this if I ever get around to it, but suffice to say that volunteering at Church Street’s Soup Kitchen has been one of the most meaningful, amazing additions to my life this year!)

Travel
√ Chicago
√ Quebec
France and Belgium (forthcoming, summer 2016!)
√ Charleston/Edisto Island
San Francisco (forthcoming, March/April 2016!)

Musical
√ See another Broadway show — Godspell (I don’t care if it was staged in the Church Street Parish Hall, it was an amazing production!)
√ Sing in another opera—Knoxville Opera’s production of Boito’s Mefistofele (sure, I was just in the auxiliary heavenly chorus, but it was fun!)

Just for Fun
52 in 52 book challenge—this may never happen at my current reading rate!
Hike Mt. LeConte—seriously HAVE to do this in 2016
Watch a dozen classic films—now taking suggestions!
Watch a meteor shower?—or something else if the opportunity does not astronomically present itself…
√ Baseball at Turner Field—finally checked this stadium off of my MLB travel list, now up to a grand total of Busch Stadium II & III (STL), Kauffman Stadium (Kansas City), Nationals Park (D.C.), and Turner Field (ATL). So many more stadiums to visit…I’m looking at you next, Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati!

TTFN! There’s life to be lived (and dissertation chapters to be written…!) Much love and best wishes to my readership (all, like, four of you) in 2016.