Tomorrow is my champagne birthday--I'll be turning 29 on April 29th. If I weren't rocking a mild-to-medium-obscene wine buzz right now, I'd probably be much more upset. But right now, I'm in a happy little shiraz cloud, Gossip Girl is on, and I had a panini for dinner with goat cheese on it. Do not EVEN try to bring me down when the killer combo of booze/trans fats/teenybopper TV is at play.

Never mind the fact that it's the last year of my 20s, my final 365 days of being able to check the 25-29 age box on surveys, the end of what will arguably be the most fun decade of my life.

I'm going to make 29 at least borderline apeshit. I want to live every day as balls-out as possible. Not literally, that's gross. But I want to enjoy every single day this year. I want to push myself a little bit more in everything I do. I want to turn 30 in 366 short days and be able to say that this was my best year yet. I don't want a mediocre year.

Studies show that talking about your goals makes you less likely to achieve them. By sharing your goals with others, you feel subconsciously like you've done something towards accomplishing them, and therefore, you're less likely to act on your plans. I have some pretty lofty goals for this year, and I'm going to keep them to myself. Hopefully a year from now I'll be feeling totally satisfied about having a kickass 29th year, with a big ol' completed to-do list and a renewed interest in actually turning 30, instead of crying about it and gorging myself with stolen Bulk Barn chocolate (AKA my 27th birthday).

For now, I'm going to keep checking that 25-29 box on every survey I take with relish and attempting to go to sleep happy at the end of each day. 28 was a great year: I got married, went to Europe, made friends, learned a ton of new stuff at work, and found a new home. This year will be hard to top but I'm determined to do it.

In four days, I'll be turning 29, which sounds shockingly old and makes me want to down bottle after bottle of $10 wine and cry while watching Dawson's Creek Season 2 (the best season, obvi) and reminiscing about the good old days, when the $5.60 an hour I earned was considered pretty good money, my biggest worry was keeping my average above 90%, and I never got less than nine hours of sleep every night.

As old as I feel right now, I still feel way too young to be a homeowner...yet, today a pretty big step in the house-buying process happened. Over the weekend Pete and I put in an offer on a lovely four-bedroom house about 20 minutes out of the city. The owner counteroffered, we went back with a new price, and this morning we found out our offer has been accepted.

I keep alternating between "woo hoo, we're going to have a house!" and "oh my effing gawd. We're going to be PO'." I have never been in debt in my life. Having a six-figure mortgage is panic attack-inducing for me, even though our monthly costs are barely going to be higher than our current rent and bills. It's scarily adult.

In the weeks before our wedding, all I wanted to do was go home to my parents', sleep in my old room, eat cereal for breakfast, play with the dog, and not have to think or worry about anything, and today I find myself feeling the same way. I can't wait to go home this weekend and spend a couple of days not thinking about home inspections or bank meetings or paint swatches.

As thrilled I am to have found our new home, I'm excited to stop thinking about it for a couple of days...probably because we've been searching for the perfect house like homeless banshees and agonizing about this and that appointment and this and that meeting. I'm pumped to take a deep breath and focus on other things this weekend: my little sister's wedding shower, my sick horse, and catching up with family and friends back home.

We have our house inspection this Wednesday, and if all goes well, we'll pay a small deposit and then wait until mid-July for possession. This sounds like a long time to some people, but for us, it's perfect. It gives us time to find a washer and dryer, a barbecue and a lawnmower. We'll have time to pick out our paint colours and decide which furniture to put in which room. We're not rushed in cleaning out our apartment and deciding what to chuck and what to keep.

I wonder when or if wanting to run home when things get stressful, or crazy, or start feeling like too much to handle, will end.

The year is 2007. It's a warm spring evening and I'm almost finished my run through my neighbourhood, which is a quiet residential area. I'm puffing along and probably feeling like keeling over or voming all over the sidewalk, because this was pretty early in my recreational running career, when some degenerate on a bicycle comes up behind me and speeds past, GLARING back at me and muttering in a crazy voice. All I can make out over the sweet sounds of the Pussycat Dolls on my iPod is to the tune of...

"blah blah blah...fuckin' bitch...blah blah...ass...fuck...mumble mumble..."

Alllll righty then. Good thing I'm almost home! I keep running/stumbling along. I can almost see my apartment building!

Uh oh...here comes somebody on a bike. My nearsighted eyes can't distinguish if it's the swearing sociopath from moments ago. As the bike gets closer, it swerves towards me on the sidewalk, almost hits me, and the biker (same guy) SPITS DIRECTLY IN MY FACE! Not just blowing raspberries--we're talking a wad of spit. Slimy. This is also an adult, not a five-year-old child. I have some crazy's saliva, in a glob, on my cheek.

I can't remember what I said but I do remember rubbing my face on my sleeve as I sprinted home, because really, after a swearing episode and a spit-in-the-face encounter, what's he going to come back with next time, a chainsaw? Terrified, I make it home in record time, run to the bathroom, and start disinfecting my face. I rub every single cleaning product in the bathroom on my skin to get rid of whatever germs might be lingering there. I throw my shirt, with its spitty sleeve, in the hamper. And that's around the time it starts to sink in.

I just had my face spit in. For no reason. Who even does that?

I've made the transition from scared to disgusted to angry. Hulk-style angry.

Suddenly, I'm so mad I can't see. It's probably one of the top-five pissed-off moments I've ever experienced. I decide that people can't just go around spitting on runners and that justice must be served.

Frantically I start looking in all our closets for a baseball bat, but given that I'm spending all my time working and drinking wine and watching Dawson's Creek and my roommate spends her days going to class and hitting on married men, we aren't the most athletic of girls and sports equipment is minimal.

I grab the next best thing--a clothes iron, which is the only heavy-ish, portable object that could potentially do some serious damage--and my car keys. I start driving up and down Dunbrack Street looking for men on bikes and when I see the spitter, my plan is to put the car in park, jump out, and beat his ass down with my iron. And in that moment it all seems perfectly reasonable.

Up ahead, I see a bike. Aha! I'm ready to give my spitter the beating of his life when I realize it's a kid of about nine. That would have been stupid. I scour the neighbourhood for at least an hour before deciding that the spitter has probably retreated to whatever crack den or halfway house he pedaled out of and I go home. And I cry, because it's been a waste of an entire evening, I just chased someone with a freaking clothes iron for eons, and there's still some asshole out and about spitting in people's faces.

Three years later, I still get upset when I think about that evening, but I can kind of laugh about the iron bit, as well as be thankful I never found the guy on the bike. I don't know how I would have fared in beating up a grown man, iron or no iron.

You know how there are five stages of grief? There are also five stages to being spit upon.

Stage 1: Denial. "Oh my God. That didn't just happen."
Stage 2: Fear. "Holy shit. I have to get home before I get butchered. Runrunrunrunrun!!!!!"
Stage 3: Disgust. "The saliva has permeated at least five layers of skin. Javex Javex Javex...oooooh, it burns..."
Stage 4: Anger. "I'm going to beat his futhermucking ass with this futhermucking iron that I've only ever used twice and this is going to be the best $17.99 at futhermucking Zellers I have ever spent...BIIIIIATCH!"
Stage 5: Acceptance. "I can't believe I was planning on beating someone up with a frigging iron. He's probably dead now anyway. It's OK."

Today's post is inspired by Mama Kat's writing prompts. I picked the following: List 10 rules you’ve unlearned (meaning 10 things you thought were expected of you or were the “right way” of doing things, but that you now ignore).

10 Things I've Unlearned

1. If you drink vodka, you won't be hungover tomorrow!
I can't remember which brainiac gave me that advice, but it's not true. To this day, vodka gives me the most wicked hangovers in the world. I can drink rum all day and all night long and wake up completely fine. Wine only hurts when I totally abuse it. One little vodka drink always makes me feel all regretty and headachey the next day.

2. Bigger is better.
Not true. Better is better. This applies to a number of things: diamond rings so enormous they look gaudy and faux, boobs that suffocate you when you're sleeping, purses that haul your spine out of alignment, vehicles so large they're more expensive to operate per day than a medium sized hotel.

3. Facebook makes it easy to stay in touch with friends!
Facebook makes it easy to stalk casual acquaintances. Staying in touch with friends? That's what the telephone is for. Or, I dunno, actual interaction? I would say that since getting Facebook three or four years ago or however long it's been my actual social interactions have dropped by at least 50%, and I can only partially blame that on my work schedule.

4. Washing your hair every other day is better for your hair.
Not for this bear...second-day hair is supposed to be all shiny and manageable and cooperative. My second-day hair is limp and has as much going on as Nick Lachey's career. Every magazine I've ever read advocates the benefits of skipping hair washings, but it doesn't work for me.

5. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
I like my enemies as far away as possible, thanks.

6. Men like having their nipples played with.
Cosmo? You lie.

7. You should spend six months' salary on your wedding.
Hmm, we certainly didn't, and I don't feel like we skimped on anything. Half a year's salary for a 20-minute ceremony, some buffett food and a little dance party? It can be done for so much less.

8. Red lipstick is a great way to look polished.
I haven't mastered the art of picking out a good shade of red, let alone applying it properly or wearing it without feeling like a clown on a bender.

9. You can be anything you want if you work hard enough.
Disagree. There are other factors at stake too. I'm not sure what they are, but obviously hard work doesn't cut it, because I'm still not an astronaut.

10. Don't worry.
Sometimes, you've got to do a little worrying. Otherwise you'd be dumb.

About a year ago, when we were in full-on wedding planning mode, I signed up for a gaggle of online tools to help make the process easier. We ended up using the Martha Stewart wedding planning toolkit* and without Martha, I'm sure the wedding would have been a complete disaster. That being said, I was also receiving e-newsletters from sites such as weddingbells.com and theknot.com, which I mostly ignored from the point that Martha and I became tight.

So, today's our six-month wedding anniversary, and in true dork fashion we're spending Saturday morning on the sectional with our laptops like uber geeks. I log into Hotmail to see the following subject line on a message from theknot.com in my inbox:

Pregnant? Trying to conceive?

I made some sort of angry charging-bull noise (wooooooooooooooooooosh...kinda like that) and deleted it without opening the message. Seeing it made me irrationally angry. Here's why: I know the Knot's database knows my wedding date was October 17. I doubt it's a coincidence that exactly six months later, they're bugging wanting to know if I'm knocked up yet. It's been bad enough getting it from friends and acquaintances but now the frigging Internet also wants to know when I'm going to get pregnant.

Here's an official update for everyone, including friends, family, neighbours, medical staff, random old ladies, and intarwebz:

1. I am not pregnant.
2. I am not trying to conceive.
3. I do not have a timeline in place for giving birth.
4. I am not concerned about it.
5. When/If the situation changes--YOU'LL BE INFORMED.

The other day, I dropped my laptop down the stairs. I watched it fall in slow motion, hitting every step, bouncing a little, gaining momentum, and landing with a resounding 'thunk' at the bottom. And then I laughed.

Until I can learn to carry stationary objects without tossing them down a flight of stairs AND LAUGHING ABOUT IT, I'm going to hold off on the baby-making. I don't feel anywhere near ready to have a baby.

I'm selfish, busy, immature, and clumsy. I have a low pain threshold, seeing other people's bodily fluids makes me dry heave, needles make me faint, and I need at least seven hours of sleep at night to function. I enjoy things like drinking alcohol and coffee in large quantities. I have to work on some of those areas before I'm ready to be a mom, and I'm in no rush. I wish others could understand that, both real people and theknot.com. There's no timeframe, no schedule for bringing life into the world. It's not a priority for everybody to have a baby rightthissecond. We're really happy being a family of two for now, so please don't worry about our reproductive status.


*if you're getting married I can't recommend Martha's site enough. There's a budget tool, a seating chart, a checklist...everything you need. It's like having a free wedding planner online that's accessible 24/7!

Hubby and I spent the past week in Punta Cana, and this could be the theme song for our week:



Except by "shots" I mean, "injections". Like the kind that are administered by a nurse practitioner into a quivering bumcheek.

Allow me to summarize my week in point form...

Friday: Land in Punta Cana. It's hot, low-mid 30's, sunny and not a cloud to be seen. We start swilling Presidente like it's our job and begin working on our tans (i.e. melanoma and lobster impersenation)

Saturday: Drinking, swimming, laying out, rinse, repeat.

Sunday: Ditto, but with the added excitement of cigars and fist-pumping with Jersey Shore look-alikes FROM NEW JERSEY at the disco.

Monday: I start to feel like there's water in my ear and I can't shake it out--a weird sensation of being underwater all day. Ignore it and drink some more Presidente. Take a Jacuzzi bath with the towel swans. Overnight, crap drips out of my ear. "Yay!" I think. "The water is leaking out!" Drink more Presidente.

Tuesday: Still feel like I'm underwater and my ear is constantly plugged. It starts hurting. Tuesday night I can't sleep--the side of my face is throbbing more and more as I sober up.

Wednesday: I finally suck up the nerve to go to the clinic on the resort to "get water flushed out of my ear". Find out it's infected. I pretty much pass out on the clinic examination table upon hearing I have to get a needle in my backside. I also leave the clinic with three types of medication, directions for taking these medications IN SPANISH--WHICH I DON'T SPEAK OR UNDERSTAND, orders to avoid swimming and drinking (!!!!) and a little round band-aid on my bum. Wednesday is spent scheduling my druggings and hating every single person splashing in the pool and the ocean. I want to take every Presidente and Coco Loco I see and throw them in the face of the people drinking them. Peter says I'm being "owly".

Thursday: Back to the clinic for a check-in. My ear is still looking pretty gnarly, despite my best attempts to convince the nurse I'm feeling perky and great. I get another shot in the butt--the nurse kindly goes for the other cheek this time. She calls in another doctor for a second opinion. They look in my ears and talk to each other in freaking Spanish which I still don't understand. What are they saying?? Am I going to die? They decide I need to go to the hospital off the resort (in the jungle? surrounded by cannibals? WHAT DOES OFF THE RESORT MEAN?) to see an ear specialist who will determine whether I can fly home on Friday without my ear exploding on the plane.

Upon learning that there is a possibility I'll be stuck in the Dominican indefinitely, I experience the weirdest simultaneous mix of good and bad emotions ever. Good: Getting stuck on a 5* resort in a tropical locale. Bad: Could be stuck in the hospital. Good: Don't need to work. Bad: Will lose job if I don't return to work.

I took a local ambulance to the hospital--first time in an ambulance! *fist pump* The hospital was impressively clean and sterile and looked just like our hospitals in Canada. I had been unfairly expecting a mud hut with smoke everywhere and a Pygmy doctor mixing up a poultice of goat testicles and pelican spit. The specialist looked at my ear and told me I was cleared to fly out the next day. She also gave me a brand-new set of medications, bringing my med count up to five, and gave strict orders not to swim or drink.

Friday: Laid out on the beach all day to soak up as much carcinogenic sunlight as possible. Popped pills like my grandmother. Flew home with both ears intact.

The moral of this story is, $18 for health insurance is a lot nicer to pay than $1,000+ in prescriptions, clinic fees, ambulance costs and more. And ear infection aside, it was a really nice trip. We swam, drank, smoked a cigar, got my first ever massage, kayaked, played beach volleyball, ate, did NOT get traveler's diarrhea...all lovely.