30 Before 30: Update

Whew! I'd say this fall has been one of my busiest ever. Every weekend had commitments of one kind or another. In September, I'd established a "wish list" for the season: all the things I hoped to complete before Thanksgiving next week. But let's be real: next week is, well, Thanksgiving, so anything I haven't completed certainly won't be next week, either.

How'd I do?

1. Visit a local winery:  Check. When our apple-picking plans were rained out (after we drove up, of course), we visited a winery in the same neighborhood.
2. Go apple picking. Nope, see above. We didn't have another free weekend together to do this. 
3. Make and can pasta sauce and applesauce/fried apples. Pasta sauce, check. Apple products, fail. Can't do it without apples.
4. Host dinner with friends at our house. Check. We had a great evening of conversation, puppy cuddling, and vegetarian baked ziti.
5. Host an Operation Christmas Child Packing Party. This was probably my biggest disappointment of the season. I planned the event (it's been an annual tradition) and sent an invite out over a month in advance. Not a single person would commit, then the day before, everyone suddenly had other plans. I'll be honest, it's been lonely in Baltimore since fewer people like to come out this way (I get it, I used to dread coming here, too), but this particular weekend was really hurtful to me. I ended up donating all the box-filling goods we'd already purchased to the church to stuff other shoeboxes, and look forward to my three upcoming volunteer shifts at the OCC Processing Center.
6. Have all family birthday gifts purchased (4 birthdays between Nov-Jan!). Check! I've been buying birthday/holiday gifts in spurts each pay period since September. Birthdays have been bought and wrapped (the first birthday is this weekend), and I've made a good dent in Christmas gifts as well.
7. Raise $1500 for Miles for Mothers. Not quite. This was my first time participating in the event and fundraising was a challenge for sure. I raised $200, but combined with all my participating colleagues, over $12,000 was raised to help our non-profit help others in times of urgent need.
8. Update decor and sort through more boxes. Done and done. We got some mums for the front porch and a pretty fall wreath.(We also brought in my jasmine plants and are trying to sustain them with a light over the winter) Knowing I had an overnight guest coming one weekend was motivation to sort through and empty some of the boxes we still had in our guest room.
9. Select Christmas cards and update mailing list. With the exception of last year, I usually send out boxed cards. I choose some pretties from Hallmark this  year, and thankfully I'm pretty good about updating the excel mailing list I keep for cards throughout the year.
10. Make decisions in our church search. I haven't really mentioned this on the blog, but Sean and I started exploring churches closer to our new home back in February. No church felt like "it". and while we found one church that seemed promising, I  couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right for us. We attended for a few months and I just didn't feel comfortable committing as a member. our Sunday-Sunday cruise vacation was just the thing we needed. Neither of us were in a rush to go back after being away which was just the freedom we needed to move on. We went back to our home church the next week and I teared up just being there. I'm thinking we're there to stay.

How was your fall? If you had a bucket list, how many items did you achieve?