Teacup of Kindness - Randomness all the way to 1!

I am about 13 days away from my 30th birthday. I am actually very excited to celebrate as my fiance and I are traveling to Pennsylvania to celebrate. My birthday falls on Groundhog's Day and for the first time in my life I am getting to celebrate in Punxsutawney, PA with the groundhog!

I have been walking around all week saying 'ta-dah!' as I completed my last acts of kindness. I remember when I first started this and it felt like a huge task to take on. As each month passed and each act was completed it became easier and increasingly more fun to execute these acts.

Below are the final 3 acts of kindness that give me a grand total of 30 (well, 31 because I did an extra one for good measure).

#1 - Gifts to the neighbors. This past weekend I randomly picked three neighbors in our building and left them a small treat. I made small labels for the candy bars I bought for some 'punnies'. I got 100 GRAND candy bars, and wrote you are a GRAND neighbor. I was anxious as I placed them through the building as I was afraid they would open the door as I was placing them on their doorknobs. We did it on our way out to lunch, and when we came back two of the three were already gone which was exciting.

Extra 1 - I had to run to the dollar store to pick up some items, and thought what a fun idea to hide dollars throughout the store. I left a dollar in a best friends book, a dollar in a newlywed book, and a dollar in a plastic piggy bank in the toy aisle.

Extra 2 - It has been raining off and on for the last couple of weeks here. I drive past a few bus stops on my way to and from work and notice people standing in the rain waiting. I picked up two umbrellas and left one down the street from work, and the second one down the street from our apartment. I got an idea from another act of kindness blog to leave notes that say 'Finders Keepers' which I thought were so cute. I borrowed the idea, and attached tags to the umbrellas I left.

Extra 3- A coworker told me how she was grocery shopping, and as she picked up one of her items there was a coupon hidden underneath. I felt like this was such a creative and tricky act that I wanted to do this as well! When we went to the grocery store I brought some extra coupons, and left them underneath the items. Hopefully they get a happy feeling when shopping, like my coworker did when she found hers.

Teacup of Fun - FINAL ONE - Running for joy!

I cannot believe it is January 2014 already. I feel like I just had my birthday, and just started thinking of grand ideas for the upcoming year.

Here we are, at the final new task of my journey! This past year I began making strides towards becoming more fit and more active. Along the way I have found myself newly engaged which gave me motivation to push myself to becoming more fit.

In February when I was coming up with ideas I knew that I wanted to learn how to run, and become a runner. I say learn to run because running is a way of life. It isn't like getting on a bike at the gym, or going for a walk at the park. You do have to have the right gear to be comfortable, learn how to run, how to find your stride, and figure out how to push yourself to go further and longer. Most importantly, overcome the mental barriers that whisper in your ear that this is too hard.

What I've discovered along the way is that running is a very fickle and a very motivating activity. I was hoping by the end of this year I would have improved my time by 15 minutes, and I envisioned myself as this world class runner. That does not happen overnight, and it certainly does not happen within a year (unless I imagine that you are running 3-4 a week and putting in serious training). I did see small improvements with time, but then it started to regress, and now it's coming back to an improved time. You can't look at your time though and base your running caliber off of that. Some races are flat, some are full of hills, and some are crazy hot or freezing!

 I say running is a fickle thing because you will have good runs, and you'll have bad runs. The most important thing is that you run. Even though my time did not improve to where I would have liked to have seen it, I did have HUGE successes with all of these races -- I ran my fastest 5k, I have run the furthest I have ever run without stopping to walk which is 1.8 miles, and I have run my fastest mile time. These may not big things to some of you out there, but to someone who could barely run a lap around a track last year I see them as big victories!

Running is also motivating because I never thought in a million years that I would run (1) 5k, let alone (12) 5ks. I started using the couch to 5k app to train and motivate myself. Once I crossed that barrier of the basics I knew I just needed to keep going, and it was a great feeling. I have read many inspirational quotes about running, but the truth of the matter is, just getting up and doing it makes you a runner. I also found motivation in my two of my best friends who ran almost every race I did this past year with me. Having friends to share in this experience helped push me along, and I think ultimately brought us closer together. My fiance even joined in and did a few races with us as well!

2013-2014 5K challenge:

1. Celctic Cantor
2. Mud Dog Run
3. Color Run
4. Moonlight Run
5. Pirate 5K
6. River Valley Run
7. ZERO Prostate Cancer Run
8. Heropalooza
9. Turf Valley Trot Family Fun Walk & 5k
10. YMCA Turkey Trot 5k
11. Ugly Sweater Run
12. National Commitment Day 5k Run