Beyond: So far

So far the "Beyond" of my BYU and Beyond has included:

-a make-believe week in Provo after tour where I bummed off Kelsey, saw Pentatonix live (Dalilah and Vocal Point were there too but...come on), performed in a Scandinavian festival, and pretended I was still part of the P-town life I have now left behind.

This, apparently, is a meal fit for a Viking. 

Look at these beauties at the concert! We had sweet seats. 

Pentatonix live is mind-blowing. 

-starting the Lemony Snickett series (okay so those books are awesome)
-Watching Anne of Green Gables/Avonlea and beginning the books (fyi, the books do not wrap up after Anne of Avonlea like the movie suggests. There are like 8 books. What?)
-Attending one of my favorite people's wedding/reception. Jess's wedding was perfect. Such a lovely day.

Jess and Matt Richards. 

-Finishing the Hunger Games series that I started the last summer I spent at home (I refused to read them during the school year because I'm addicted to school and every time I tried after that I couldn't get a hold of one without having to buy it. And I'm morally opposed to buying hard-back books)
-A lot of family. With my sister and her husband and three kids staying here until they can move in to their house and an informal family reunion including nearly all of my 8 siblings, their spouses, and most of the 23 grandkids, we have had some full houses. And a lot of fun.

The 4 year olds got along really well. 

The one on the left isn't ours. But that winner in the sequined tie? 100% related to me. 

-2 surgeries. Wisdom teeth removal and another surgery that...maybe I'll tell you about if you ask. Privately.

Thanks to diligent icing, there was very little swelling. And  miraculously next to no pain. 

-I sewed a dress! Something else I started the last summer I spent at home.

Promise it looks better on than it does hanging up. 

-I crocheted an afghan, something I started over Christmas vacation.

I actually still have a border to finish. But it looks like a blanket now!

-I successfully trained for (kind of ) and completed a 5k even though I'd never run over 1.5 miles consecutively before in my life. (I'm trying once again to make running a habit. We'll see)

The Plain City 4th of July 5K had exactly four times more Yorgasons than it has ever had. 

Shiree was my training buddy and the reason all participating Yorgasons were a part. 

-Prepared for a part-part-very part-time job teaching at The Dance Establishment (I grew up dancing there and I'm extremely excited. I get to teach ladies tap, a competition jazz team, a 5 year old combo, and a pointe class)
-I got my first non-Apple mp3 player. I'm very excited to finally be out of the iZone. I'm a PC girl yo.
-I have read a lot of news. I seriously love news so this is great to have time to read it. Though I sincerely miss having access to the NY Times for free on campus. I hear it's on WSU campus? Fact? Fiction?
-I have started listening to a free course I downloaded from iTunes U (Okay, so I'm not completely out of the iZone, it is borderline impossible in the mp3 world) on capitalism from Yale. NBD. It's awesome so far. I'm such a nerd, I already miss school. But that shouldn't surprise anyone.

What "beyond" has not yet included:

-Finding a full-time job in my career field. Or even part time (I would actually prefer part-time for the first year)
-Living in somewhere other than my house
-Having my own room/bed.

Running?

Once upon a time, when I wasn't dancing anymore because it's summah-time, I decided I should probably still stay in shape. In particular, I would like to stay in my shape, I have a nice shape. My idea is not to strengthen muscles, they seem pretty good the way they are, what I want to do is have great endurance. So I say to myself, running, this is a good choice.

Now for those of you who know me, running is not so much on the top of my list of wonderful things. It may or may not be somewhere near the middle of the list of anti-wonderful things (my ideas about running were akin to the not-so-excited look on this poor girls face.) However! In the last few years I have learned that running on a treadmill greatly helps this because I can then concentrate on how long I'm running as opposed to how far/fast I run. Because far and fast are the two worst words to me in running. Therefore, since I'm in fairly good shape because folk dance is ridiculous (!) I figure, I can run.

Guess what I was right! And it was a great run. My goal was, just keep going for at least 10 minutes, but let me tell you, by the time I hit 3 minutes I knew that would be too easy. So at the end of every carefully-selected-running-playlist song I increased my speed and I ended up running 15 minutes instead of 10 and even ran over a mile! And it really wasn't even that bad. In fact it was delightful.

This is great news, I say to myself. This means I can run every day and get a little better and maybe shave a little off my shape (I mean, I like the general shape but it could be a tinge smaller in places, you know what I'm saying?) and be happy and healthy and vegetable eating! (This has to do with a mantra of mine that if I'm working out I eat healthier. It's kind of amazing and you should try it.)

The great news didn't last long. By the next day I had a slight problem. Just kind of a shooting pain in my foot when I...walked on it. I was trying to play it off to my co-workers and I told my boss "well yeah it hurts but only when I walk on it." His reply was "that's like saying, my eye hurts, but only when I look at it." Touche. So maybe this is a problem. Thankfully BYU's the bomb and there is a dance training room I can go to so that this problem can be fixed before the great trek to Europa for me. So we've figured out the problem, it's highly fixable and everything's cool. I mean the shooting pain isn't gone yet but all in due time. And lots of massages. And stretching.

But I still can't run. I tried riding a bike today, just not the same. Who would have ever imagined me saying those words? Nobody that's who.