Meet my little friend Jacqueline and her big brother Billy. I love this moment I captured on film a while back because it screams delightfulness that only children can emit.

Jacqueline has a genetic tumor disorder called neurofibromatosis (also referred to as “NF”) where nerve tissue grows tumors for life and there is no cure. She has myopic glioma, tumors that grow inside the brain as well as an abnormal mass on her tongue and on the back of her head.

Imagine what it is like to be her family, dear friends of mine, who have to take her to several specialists each month.

This week, I’m going to summer camp!  Remember summer camp?  Crafts, games, songs, snacks, making new friends and being outdoors all… day… long?  (Minus the bugs, sunburns and outhouses of course!)  Forget long hours in the office, looking out the window at the beautiful sunshine – I’m in it!  As a bonus, I get about 18,000 steps on my pedometer a day, just by hanging out at camp.

I have several…hundreds of them. Thousands of them.
Since leaving my previous “dream job,” I have been asked numerous times by friends, family and interviewers about what my “ideal job” is.

I don’t have just one ideal job. That assumes that that there is only one kind of job or position out there that is going to fulfill me and bring me great joy. I have a set of gifts and skillsets that I seek to honor God and serve others. That makes the possibilities so endless that I find myself giddy at times. Here is Nhung Hurst’s contribution to the world:

If you happen to be in the area of Newington, Connecticut on the last Saturday of July, please consider supporting Scottish Rite Freemasons 5K Run/Walk to Benefit Children With Dyslexia.  The Children's Dyslexia Center of Connecticut provides free tutoring to children who face reading difficulty. You can register for the event on active.com or contact Jeff Flynn for more information at jedge60@yahoo.com. I was the first place teacher in last years race and the second woman overall.

In June, The Travelers, a world-famous insurance company that is headquartered here in Hartford sponsors a PGA golf tournament in Cromwell, Connecticut.  Today, I met several of their young interns at the Red Dress Run. Scott, originally from Illinois, who studies at UPenn’s world-famous business school came to Connecticut via The Traveler’s Summer Internship Program.

I have always been a silver lining kind of girl, so I was not overly discouraged today when my nagging tendonitis kept me from racing in the Red Dress Run.  Like so many other volunteers, I woke up at 5AM this morning in order to arrive in Elizabeth Park by 6:15AM.  From 6:30 to 8:30, I had the great pleasure of working with two fine young people in their twenties.

I have always been a silver lining kind of girl, so I was not overly discouraged today when my nagging tendonitis kept me from racing in the Red Dress Run.  Like so many other volunteers, I woke up at 5AM this morning in order to arrive in Elizabeth Park by 6:15AM.  From 6:30 to 8:30, I had the great pleasure of working with two fine young people in their twenties.

Adding the “athlete” designation to our list of roles as women is both a privilege and an accomplishment.  I feel fortunate to be a teacher-runner-mom, and a bit presumptuous to have taken on this blogger name, since I keep meeting other amazing running, teaching moms at different races. Today I met Carrie, who is a Science teacher at The Renbrook School in West Hartford, Connecticut.

I’d like a do-over of middle school please. Had you asked me six days ago whether I would volunteer to go back in time and redo middle school, I would have vehemently opposed. I often think of my middle school time as the “lost years.” The years I would prefer never to think about again because of how painful they seemed. But this week, I volunteered to serve as a team leader for a youth camp and was challenged to remember it all.

One never knows where inspiration is going to come from and I have not been very inspired these last few weeks.

While making breakfast this morning, a line from a song on the radio popped out at me. "Another day, another dollar," the singer harmonized. The full lyrics of the song slipped away, but the gist was, that we all have a higher calling than just the dollars we bring home.