good bye 2010

It's Christmas. I feel like the year has yet again gone by so quickly. I guess it's because I've done so much and been so many places. Sometimes I just wish I had a home base and didn't have to think about moving anymore. I wonder when that will happen?

The beginning of the year began with transition. I moved from the Richardson house to the Fanz. I lived there for 5 months while continuing to do marathons: January 9 & 10 I went to Florida and ran the Goofy Challenge at Walt Disney World and went home for dad's birthday. In February I wasn't able to run a marathon because I flew home for both my sister's bridal shower (with the big snow in 2010 I had to drive to Washington Dulles to fly to Los Angeles because JFK and Boston were both closed, it took 5 hours to get to Dulles even though it should have been 2.5-3 hours because there was so much snow on the road and there was only one lane open on the 4 lane highway with 5 or 6 feet of snow pushed onto the other lanes) and wedding. March came and I went to Louisville for interviews for a mission trip and drove to Knoxville for a marathon. Little did I know that the trip I made to Knoxville would not be my last.

In April I worked, took an over 24 hour greyhound bus ride to Tampa to watch the Rays and a 22 hour bus ride back and went back to Knoxville to go zorbing and on to Kentucky with Nathan for the Kentucky Derby Marathon. He became the first person who came to cheer just for me during a race ever, my first spectator! The next weekend, the first weekend of May I ran in New Jersey and the humidity and heat was horrible. I overheated and my body temp was over 103 degrees when I finished. I flew home for Kevin and Noelle's wedding and then started my long drive back across the country. Nathan and I went to an Oriole's game two days before my birthday (he took his first greyhound bus ride from Knoxville to Richmond), it was his first MLB game ever.

The entire month of June I was on the road, I first stopped in Roanoke with Nathan to visit his cousins and uncle for dinner on my birthday. We stopped in Knoxville at Nathan's and I continued on to Dayton to visit Jecca and Dan. After that I drove up to Wheaton to visit the Halls and on to Milton to visit the Richardson kids since Scott and Kelly were on the road. I drove from Wisconsin out to Minneapolis to visit Abby and Eric, run the Minneapolis Marathon and go to the new Target Field, my last of all 30 major league baseball parks that were currently operational.

I drove from Minnesota down to South Dakota and stayed with Luralyn and her husband Jordan prior to running the Swan Lake Christian Camp Marathon the weekend after the Minneapolis Marathon. Vermillion is a very small town, but at least they have an ice cream shop and a college. After my South Dakota marathon I was able to spend the night at Lura's friend's apartment in Rapid City. I watched game 5 of the NBA finals with Nathan over the phone and soon passed out after running a marathon and driving 6 hours across the state of South Dakota. Mount Rushmore was my next destination and thought it had rained all day the day before, it cleared up and I was able to get some pretty good pictures with the president's faces in the background. Later during Nathan's graduation weekend I learned from his Uncle Kenny and Aunt Nancy, who had also been to visit Mount Rushmore this summer, that one of Nathan's relatives had been an engineer on the project and his name was on the stone "Blewett, Thomas "Tom"."

I continued on to Wright, Wyoming to visit Elizabeth and her family. The sky looked huge with just land and no buildings or trees along the way. While I was drive from Wright down to Fort Collins, Colorado Nathan asked me to be his girlfriend. Ninety one days after knowing each other, I entered into a "relationship" with him after not dating anyone for 8 years (and I mean official, if it's on facebook, you know it's real). I told you 2010 was a big year. In Fort Collins, I slept on Donnie's (one of Nathan's best friends) chair and then stayed with Tony Time in Denver while waiting for Ashley and Brian's wedding to roll around. Tons of ice cream to be eaten before then! Tony dropped me at the airport with the evil horse statue that killed it's creator (it has red lights lighting up it's eyes) and I flew down to San Diego to stay with Shane and hang out with Kim and go to Rachel and Jeff's wedding. I flew back up to Colorado and hung out with Coop and Lindsay prior to driving 8 hours up to Salt Lake City to visit Thy. After Salt Lake City and hitting up In-N-Out (they have it in Utah now!), I wanted to visit Bryce Canyon but didn't have enough time. I made it down to Ian's in North Vegas and hung out there for a night before staying at the Brausell's house with Wally and Sylvia's parents. Lazarus broke down on the way to the 50 miler in the desert and I was so thankful that Sylvia's mom was able to get me after the tow truck too me to the shop to get my car fixed. While I was running the marathon (I switched to the marathon instead of the 50 miler because I made it just in time for the marathon start and had missed prime cooler hours for the 50 miler) they fixed my car.

I drove from Vegas down to SoCal and watched a Dodgers Yankees game with some of Nathan's friends that he had met while couchsurfing last summer in California. Then to visit sister and fly back to Knoxville to hang out with Nathan for two weeks before flying back and driving home through San Luis Obispo. I made it in one piece. I had decided I wanted to hike Half Dome and Nathan wanted to be there when I did it, so we split his flight out to California and hiked it on a Thursday (since they had new permits for Friday, Saturday, Sunday and holidays) after watching the A's beat the Red Sox after he arrived California (Nathan went from no MLB parks to three in the span of 3 months because he took me down to Atlanta to visit Stone Mountain and go to a Braves game for 4th of July weekend when I was in Knoxville). I organized my stuff and my family went to Japan to visit my dad's sons and their families. We went to the Tokyo Dome to watch the Giants play (they're like the Yankees in Japan). I was going international with my baseball watching. I still need to go international with my marathons, but I want to actually get in shape before I do that.

As soon as I got back I unpacked, washed my clothes and headed back to the airport to fly to Knoxville. Nathan and I went camping in Roan Mountain with his family (this was the first time I met his parents). I flew from Knoxville to New York for orientation for the mission trip, I still can't believe I cried when he was dropping me off at the airport. (Seriously, I feel like I've become a pansy over the past years, I get so much more emotional.) Orientation was interesting, I got really sick and ended up sleeping a lot. Flew from New York to Tucson and was there for 5 weeks, during which I flew to Tennessee for the Florida game. Nathan flew out for the Mount Lemmon Marathon, his first ever and went to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. We flew to Nashville together and then drove to Knoxville where I stayed for 3 weeks before flying back home and drove down to San Luis Obispo to get the condo ready for renters (I drove from San Luis down to Anaheim and back and then back home, basically making two trips because there was a lot of stuff). I flew to San Antonio for the San Antonio Rock n' Roll Marathon and determined that if I'm going to roller skate prior to a marathon, I should either roller skate regularly, or just not do it. I was in Miriam and Sal's wedding which was in our little home city of San Leandro with the reception further out in Walnut Creek.

The weekend after the wedding Nathan flew out for Thanksgiving and we went to Alcatraz on Black Friday, which turned out to be a wonderful day to go because it was chilly but the sun was out so it wasn't too cold. Soon after I flew to Tennessee for his graduation and got back a few days before Christmas and spent two days at the DMV trying to change my car from a planned non operative car to an operative car. Note to self: just pay for registration and keep in it the garage, it doesn't matter if it's 50 bucks more over a year, it takes way too much time and effort to change it back!

To sum up 2010: I now have a boyfriend who lives in Tennessee and just graduated from University of Tennessee, making me a Volunteer Football fan. I drove thousands of miles with everything in Lazarus up and down the east and west coasts and across the nation. Took a 25 hour bus ride down to Florida for baseball with a 22 hour bus ride back and decided it was worth it to pay more and fly if it was over 10 hours on the bus. I flew over 22 times on countless airlines (including Delta who loses your luggage; I miss JetBlue's all you can eat snacks and 36 channels of direct tv included in the ticket price) from Virginia to Florida, Washington D.C., Nor Cal, SoCal, Tennessee, Arizona, New York, Texas, and Japan. I ran 10 marathons in 10 different states, including 'the world's toughest marathon' and got both my boyfriend and my sister to run their very first marathons on the same day: October 17, 2010. I moved 4 times and next week will be 5 (all different states except the first from one house in Virginia to another) in the past year. Oh, and I also finished my Master of Science degree from Northeastern University. I suppose that's pretty important too. I always forget that. Whoops. Here's to 2011 and a new home base. God please help me to find a job! I pray that I will continue to follow You and strive to do Your will and not mine.

- run for life

Tomorrow

I feel like something's always happening tomorrow. I'm always trying to get things done so I can get to tomorrow. When will I just get to sit and rest in today? There are times when I feel like that's possible. There are times when I feel like I'm so far behind, even with no job or school, yes, you can get behind. I need to write about the San Antonio marathon in more detail. I don't know if I ever wrote about Mount Lemmon in detail, but I should see if that's happened yet. If I'm actually going to write a book about all these excursions for marathons, I'm going to need to keep up with it!

I feel like I accomplished more today than I have in a few days. I've been writing postcards all afternoon/evening for Christmas (all by hand!). I ran 8.5 today. I still need to pick up the pace, but at least I'm out there. There's nothing wrong with that. I ran mostly uphill because I was just trying to get going. Daddy was asking about engagement, marriage, jobs and where I'm going to live. I know he cares and is just worried, but it's frustrating the way he asks. I just need to remember that it's because he cares about me... and keep telling myself that.

I wonder often about the whole online era. Everything is seen online and even this blog, everyone can read it. People I don't even know could be reading my thoughts! Strange to think that people could read this right after I post it, somehow landing on my page through some sort of random search. Guess that's why I never put my full name so it's more difficult to find. I feel like I need to make my fb more private. I actually wish I didn't have it, but unfortunately it becomes more necessary these days to keep in touch because some people only use internet sources like email and fb to communicate. I mean, I finally got texts this past May and some people still use fb instead! I kind of want to get rid of texts or at least cut down on the amount, but with long distance it's kind of vital to have something.

Wonder how this is going to go when I move to Tennessee. I'm hopeful. I'll keep my hopes mostly to myself. I don't want to spread them around like wildfire and make people think something is more or less than it is. We shall see. I am praying that God will remain my focus and my guide. That I will always trust Him no matter what and that I will go to Him for everything. God will tell me what I need to do and where I should go. God please provide me with a job and a place to live!

Thanks!
- run for life

over reacting

I think I have high expectations for myself. I expect myself to have good will power and self control as well as drive and focus. I often become prideful and forget to give myself to God. My thought is that I am strong and have good morals and character and I so often loose the main thing in my life. The reason I even have anything. God is definitely the reason I am still living. I'm not sure why I'm here specifically, but I know that God has a purpose for myself. I often wonder what that purpose is as I feel like I'm floundering through parts of life, but I know His plans for me are for my good.

For my friends, I expect them to treat me with respect and be there for me when I need them. I guess I have high expectations of those close to me and get frustrated when they are not met. Perhaps it is my fault for having high expectations? Maybe I shouldn't become frustrated and I should act like nothing has happened? I don't think that's okay. I don't want to be a doormat to anyone. All of my closest friends who have been close friends for more than a year are great and even though there may be little things here and there... we haven't ever had any arguments or problems.

I guess it's easier like my sister said, because we're all like-minded. We think alike and therefore agree with each other on big issues and then the little things are easy to brush away.

With a boyfriend, I guess you're supposed to do the same thing. Treat him like a best friend and let the little things go... but I don't want the little things to keep happening when they clearly bother me. Oh, who knows. Maybe I should just move to Alaska or Montana and find myself a mountain man who just loves the outdoors and stays away from the crazy worldly lures of television, movies and other advertisements. I guess it's hard because I know those are bad and I don't like television and I rarely watch movies because I don't want to support them. I don't like advertisements on television telling me I need some 'thing' to make my life better. God has made my life great and I don't need to clutter it up with 'stuff.'

Sometimes I wonder if things are worth it. I do need to work on how I say things and my requests. It's hard when people don't want to even talk about things or listen to what I have to say or keep saying they don't understand. I don't think I'm that difficult to understand. When people already are plotting their argument or plan of attack... they're NEVER going to understand what the other person is saying. That is why it's important to listen and understand (or at least try to) and then respond... not formulate a response before the other person even finishes their thought.

God I need help. I don't know what to do sometimes.
- run for life