To you on your birthday…

1. Life will only get busier and more complex.
2. Find new ways to enjoy your friends yearly. If you don’t nurture and feed your friendships now, you won’t be able to undue the damage later.
3. Travel. See the world around you. Those things that others go to your home town to see, SEE them!
4. Get a passport and don’t save travel for a special occasion…do it now.
5. Experience God in nature, not just in the church building and in a song or reading.
6. Don’t be so dainty and ladylike that you can’t splash in mud!
7. Have kids when you are ready.
8. Let God be your guide for life not an excuse.
9. Fall in love. Genuine love that makes you smile to the tips of your toes!
10. If a relationship be it significant other or friendship causes you pain and heartache more often than pleasure…allow yourself to feel that emotion as you let go of the person.
11. Cut your hair off, it grows back!
12. Use moisturizer and sunblock you only have this one set of skins!
13. Smile!
14. Keep it real with yourself and others. Honesty is a gift that gets better with age.
15. When you feel devastating heartbreak, don’t hesitate to call a friend and share your pain, real friends want to be there for you and live you even when you aren’t at your strongest.
16. But remember to feel new pain! I mean if all you ever do is complain about the same issue and you don’t make changes in life…DON’T BE THAT GIRL!
17. Learn to pray…not pretty words but rather honest words in conversation with God, remember that S/He knows the real you so there’s no need for all them extras.
18. Read: Trashy books.
Read: Spiritually fulfilling books.
Read: travel books.
19. Learn to be a person that can keep yourself occupied!! Don’t depend on the tv or others to be your entertainment.
20. Buy a pair of awesome shoes that you can barely afford. Better 1pair of amazing hot-to-death shoes than 5 pairs of so-so’s!
21. Before you get married or have kids give yourself the gift of an amazing girls-out-of-town weekend that you honestly will NEVER forget. It gets harder to do that once life gets busier.
22. Make friends with people that are not like you. Diversify! If we are all the same what do we really bring to the friendship?!
23. Take pics of yourself. Someday you’ll realize that you weren’t as —– as you thought!
24. Don’t take so many pictures that you aren’t living in the moment. Be present!
25. Say I love you often!