Kindergartenism #13:
I was pulling small groups of kids into the hall to read with me.
"Oh Miss Hansen, I thought you were Mrs. Mabie" (our other kindergarten assistant)
"Nope, it's just me."
"You look a lot like her. Except she has a lot more wrinkles on her face."

So, I did it. Today I did my first 5k. I was so nervous leading up to it. I trained pretty hard for it this summer but once I started my new job, my training tapered off to about once a week. So I didn't end up running quite as much as I would've liked (or probably could've about a month ago), but I still ran about half of it while walking every few minutes. Someone decided to put a hill at the end of the race, so when I got to it, I knew the end was just around the corner and I sprinted up the hill. Bad idea. Once I got to the top of the hill and turned the corner, I lost all of my energy. I wanted to sprint across the finish line, but I literally felt like I had used every ounce of energy left in my body and I suddenly felt like I was going to throw up. But I couldn't stop...there was no way I was going to walk across the finish line. I jogged across the finish line at about 36 minutes and 30 seconds. They didn't display the time with seconds and I forgot to stop my watch at the end, so my time is approximate until they post the times online. But I did it. I'm pretty happy with my time. I can't believe I did something like this in the first place, so I'm not going to complain! I did the 5k with Jenny and Lindsey (friends from Heritage), which was great. It was so nice to have friends to encourage and celebrate with. We all want to join a gym together to keep up with our running and then do another 5k in April. Crazy!

I finally feel like I have a life here. My weeks are filled with bible study and Impact (my church's 20s-30s group) and other events that go with that. I also hang out with Jenny and/or Lindsey almost every week. It's great to have people to connect with here. People I can get to know and hang out with at church. People I can just call up and hang out with. And I'm finding that most of the people I've met here are in the same stage of life as me...out of college, single, and just looking for people to connect with. It's nice to not feel alone here anymore. :)