'Never Stop Reading This!'

On Tuesday's episode of "New Girl," Jess and CeCe took a test to see how many eggs they had left and how much time they had to start families. Thank you, universe, for bringing up this topic yet again.

I pretty much said all I really need to say about all that two weeks ago, so, thankfully, another plot point in the episode struck a chord with me as well.

Nick has regularly been struggling with his quarter-life crisis on the show. In Tuesday's episode, pushed by the success his lifelong friend Winston has found at work, Nick decides he's going to finally write his zombie novel. Unfortunately, Nick isn't a finisher—he didn't finish law school and Winston's confident he won't finish the zombie novel either.

After a drunken visit to the zoo (Nick's attempt at a Hemmingway-esque adventure), he does pound out the zombie novel, which is terrible, and dedicates it to Winston, who does an incredible read for all the roommates.

Even though it's terrible, Nick's zombie novel is an accomplishment I can relate to. I'm more of an idea person than a follow-through person. I have millions of plots and schemes and, sadly, very little to show for any of it. Lately, though, I've made some progress.

On my other blog I started a project earlier this year where I would listen to every CD I own in order and, nearly eight months later, I'm nearly done. It only took me six months to get started, and at times seemed impossible that I would get through all 346 CDs, but I'm doing it.

At work, I pitched a somewhat involved feature story for our December issue that's currently in the production process. I found the people to interview, made the calls, did the research, gathered the art and wrote it, and it's pretty good.

These are very small victories, but victories nonetheless. Like Nick's zombie novel, I know seeing these projects through to the end won't magically make everything in my life perfect, but they're both setting me on a path where I know I can turn more ideas into reality.

'That's the Word, Tom's a Bird'

The end of the year lends itself to reflection. What did I do? What didn't I do? What should I have done? What would I do differently? I think it's always better to reflect on what you have rather than what you don't have, your achievements rather than your failings.

Thanksgiving is the holiday for taking that sunnier look at yourself. Regardless of how often I feel frustrated, unaccomplished, stymied, uninspired or lackluster in anyway, I know that my life is filled with an overwhelming amount of blessings.

For that, I'm truly grateful.

'It's All Part of God's Plan'

You know how when you buy a new car, you start seeing your car everywhere? Is it that there's suddenly more of that type of car out on the road, the increase somehow spurred on by your purchase decision, or is the same amount of that car in the world as always but it's just that you're noticing the make more?

I've had similar experiences with interests, thoughts, concerns and so forth, where a certain topic on my mind springs up all around me. Lately it's been the question of having children or not having children. Maybe it's the election, maybe it's my age, maybe it's just all a big coincidence, but the talk feels like it's everywhere.

On several occasions, I got sucked into the recent season finale of "Keeping up With the Kardashians," watching the three oldest sisters deal with their family planning issues—Kourtney gives birth to her second child, Kim considers freezing her eggs and Khloe learns why she hasn't gotten pregnant after more than two years of trying (and looks to gets very little sympathy from her family over the news).

Over the weekend, The Huffington Post featured a blog posting from Iman where she shared that her 34-year-old daughter, Zulekha Haywood (who wrote this great article for Glamour two years ago about being the plus-sized daughter of one of the most famously beautiful women in the world), is considering freezing her eggs, delaying motherhood until she's in a more stable position in her career, finances and everywhere else. (The first part of the article is really touching but it goes off in so many directions about health care reform and politics and such that the original point—a daughter discussing a life-altering decision with her mother—is muddied.)

The Style Network's Sunday "Sex and the City" marathon featured an episode from the final season where Carrie has the tough talk about the future with her new, older, super-glamorous, globe-trotting boyfriend Aleksandr. He had one child and didn't want more. She wasn't sure if she did want any but wasn't quite sure if she didn't want children either. He pointed out that she was 38 and probably should have had all this figured out since time definitely wasn't on her side.

Last night on "The Mindy Project," successful 32-year-old OB/GYN Mindy is getting an examination from another doctor in her practice. He asks her if she plans to have children and she responds that of course she is, four, and she's already picked out their "Gossip Girl"-esque names. He immediately sets about bursting her bubble, mapping out a future where it will be at least 12 years before she's in a stable enough relationship to even think about having kids, and, really, how realistic is having the first of four kids at 44?

I didn't get any clarity from these little messages making their way from the screen into my brain, but they're just a few more pushes telling me that even if I don't have a solution, I should at least be considering the question. Is this something that I want? Am I sure? And if I'm sure, what am I doing to make it happen?

I'm still at a bit of a loss on all three questions. I know that being an aunt has been one of the greatest gifts of my life and that being a mom would explode that feeling infinitely. But what if it doesn't happen? What if it's just not meant to be? What if I missed my chance? What if, for a million reasons, I can't? Will I be OK with that?

I'm not ready to throw in the towel and I'm also not brave enough to say that, yes, this is what I want. In the meantime, I'll keep filtering in all the articles and storylines and People magazine covers, and I'll continue to feel sympathy for Khloe Kardashian-Odom as she struggles with infertility for a national TV audience.

'If You Want to Master Something, Teach It'

When I first started thinking about this "What Is 35?" project, I did online searches to see if anyone else had done what I was planning to do. Though I didn't see anyone else interviewing people about their experiences of being 35, I did find one blog, "Starting My Life at 35", that was tackling many of the same issues swishing around in my brain.

In this blog, which its creator started three years ago and has maintained to the present, the creator talks about the big changes and risks she was planning to take in her life at the age of 35. Reading through her earliest posts, I admired how brave she was to not only admit that her life wasn't completely hitting her expectations but that she was also willing to lay out her goals before the universe, ready to take the feedback (anonymous, though it may be) if it didn't work or she didn't try.

I've been thinking about what I want to accomplish in my life this year and beyond. Some of it I'm still formulating and other bits I'm not ready to say out loud yet. One thing I've been contemplating for a few years and am now confident in saying yes to is taking yoga teachers training.

Last week I wrote a bit about my Kundalini yoga practice. Like so many disciplines, in yoga students have the opportunity to become teachers. Even at this point, I'm not sure if I want to be a yoga teacher but the idea of making an in-depth study into something I enjoy so much and feel so much benefit from is really appealing.

When my practice was at its strongest a few years ago, teachers training was a somewhat fuzzy concept to me. I knew people who were going through the program and thought it was an interesting option, but I didn't consider the following steps of what it would mean or take to participate myself.

As I've returned to my practice over the past few months, countless classmates and teachers have asked if I've taken teachers training. The first few times I said no, the subject was dropped, then one time a classmate confidently responded, "You will."

These many months, many asks and many confirmations later, I've decided to accept this challenge from the universe and am committing myself to taking teachers training in 2013. This will be a sizable commitment but I really feel I'm ready to give it my all now.