Christmas cards from Shutterfly!

So... I don't usually make my Christmas cards this early... but when I received an email from Shutterfly with a promotional 10 FREE cards, I knew I had to start Christmas cards a little early... At least 10 of them, right?! Shutterfly has FANTASTICALLY great personalizable Christmas card designs and I am happy to say I have purchased my Christmas cards for going on 3 years now. I would HIGHLY recommend them to you and anyone else who is looking for a creative and personal way to send out Christmas cards to your friends and family.

Check out my card!

Stationery card

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Just Closed...[Gone Girl]

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I actually REALLY liked this book. It was not at all what I expected it to be and that is definitely not a bad thing. I liked how they transitioned back and forth between the two main characters and it was definitely easy to follow. A very psychological book and look at the demise of a marriage, the secrets people hide, and the horrors that can arise when people go off the deep end.

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Just Closed...[Beautiful Ruins]

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying.

And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot—searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier.

What unfolds is a dazzling, yet deeply human, roller coaster of a novel, spanning fifty years and nearly as many lives. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Walter introduces us to the tangled lives of a dozen unforgettable characters: the starstruck Italian innkeeper and his long-lost love; the heroically preserved producer who once brought them together and his idealistic young assistant; the army veteran turned fledgling novelist and the rakish Richard Burton himself, whose appetites set the whole story in motion—along with the husbands and wives, lovers and dreamers, superstars and losers, who populate their world in the decades that follow. Gloriously inventive, constantly surprising, Beautiful Ruins is a story of flawed yet fascinating people, navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams." [Book description via amazon.com]

Now for my review. I LOVED this book. I won't lie, it was a little hard to get into at first, but after it got going I devoured it. The last book I read "The Red House" did a poor job of linking multiple story-lines. This book did a FANTASTIC job. Even with going between stories it did so in such a fluid way and the author really connected the characters all to the main story. I was very moved by the book. I felt the happiness, the sorrow. I even caught myself tearing up at points. This story really captures the realities of life and how things can be so "beautifully ruined" and how while things may not often go according to plan, they often go in the ways that they should, even if its not what we initially hope for. Sometimes it is what we need.

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Just Closed...[The Mansion of Happiness]

The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death by Jill Lepore
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really liked this book. I thought it was an interesting way to write a "history" of rather mundane things. I would say that at times it was a little bit too technical, which is why I gave it 3 instead of 4 stars, but other than that, I really liked it!

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Just Closed...[The Red House]

The Red House: A Novel by Mark Haddon
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I was expecting more from this book. Not that I read anything by this author before (so I wasn't expecting like another such and such book or anything). But I did read great reviews. It wasn't that this was a bad book. It was just an "ok" book. It was a quick read which was nice, but it was too disjointed between the characters. It would jump from one person's perspective in one paragraph into another's, and that made it hard to follow for me. I also found myself confusing characters because of this... I think it was a good mix of characters and it made the overall "plot" good, but the subplots were often badly written. This is why I only gave it 2 stars.

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August Fitness Goal - Weekly Plan

So, as you have seen, I ran a total of 5 miles in July. Just 5.

I recently decided that for the month of August I would like to try to run (or "wog") every day! 

ACCOMPLISHED

Sunday - 40 min wog + Day 5 Strong Like Susan = 41:00 for 2.90 miles

Monday - 40 min wog + Day 6 Strong Like Susan = 41:00 for 2.90 miles

Tuesday - 40 min wog + Day 7 Strong Like Susan = 40:00 for 3.20 miles

Wednesday - 40 min wog + Day 8 Strong Like Susan (rest) = 40:00 for 3.06 miles
Thursday - 40 min wog + Day 9 Strong Like Susan = 40:00 for 3.01 miles
Friday - 40 min wog + Day 10 Strong Like Susan
Saturday - 40 min wog + Day 11 Strong Like Susan

Weekly Miles (Thus far) = 15.07

A new month means it's time to get back on track!

Last month I ran a total of 5 miles.

Yep.

A measly 5.

I will not be doing that again this month! No siree!

Today I did a jog/walk combo where I did 10 minutes jog, 2 minutes walk, 8 minutes jog, 2 minutes walk, 6 minutes jog, 2 minutes walk, 4 minutes jog, 2 minutes walk, 2 minutes jog, 2 minutes walk.

Hopefully I can do this again tomorrow and maybe even cover a little more distance? :)

In addition to starting afresh with my running, I have also decided that I need to do start the Strong Like Susan abs program that I had signed up for last month but failed to ever start.

I didn't even do 1 day.

That will not be the case this month!

Plan for the rest of the week...

ACCOMPLISHED

Wednesday - Wog 40 min + Day 1 Strong Like Susan

Thursday - Wog 40 min + Day 2 Strong Like Susan

Friday - Wog 40 min + Day 3 Strong Like Susan

Saturday - Wog 40 min + Day 4 Strong Like Susan (rest day)