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My feet got a running shoe upgrade this weekend! Brooks Launch 4 → Brooks Adrenaline GTS 18

Happy Wednesday, y'all! This last week has been much better than recent weeks past in terms of mental health. It's always good to appreciate the moments when you're feeling okay and I definitely appreciated that these last few days. While I haven't necessarily done anything too exciting, I've kind of (and by kind of, I mean REALLY) needed this down time to charge my batteries because I feel like I haven't had a chance to really rest my brain since I started job searching back in November. That's a long time feeling drained! I'm feeling like I'm seeing some light at the end of the tunnel of these really tough months and I hope it just continues on this path.

Pre-surgery Halloween-themed selfie

Brett had his surgery last Thursday and it went very well. He was taken into the OR around 3:15 and came out around an hour later. He came out of the anesthesia like a champ and had very minimal bruising and swelling. (He was even up for watching the newest episode of Jersey Shore when we got home that evening! #funfetticakenoooooo) The doctor didn't prescribe any pain meds to him which I was pretty surprised by, but he's been recovering so well with minimal discomfort and high spirits. He has a splint on his nose which he'll be getting off on Friday morning and we can finally put this whole debacle behind us!

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Over the weekend was the #ReadYourFaceOff 24 readathon where I was able to finish An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (highly recommend!) and also went on a bit of an impromptu shopping spree. I knew I needed to go buy new running shoes (pictured above!), but I also wanted to grab Brett some new button down shirts for a wedding we have coming up this Friday and wound up also snagging myself a new fall colored dress (which I still haven't tried on yet... oops) and snagged a sweet Gryffindor hoodie which I am so pumped I own. Not gonna lie, being in the most mainstream Hogwarts house has it's perks, like having the most merch to choose from!

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I know I'm like 2 years tardy to this party, but I've been getting really into the Dear Evan Hansen cast recording this week! It's one of those musicals where the music could easily be on the radio if you didn't know it was from a specific musical. I often question why I torture myself by listening to cast recordings because going to actually see the shows themselves will always be far out of my financial reach. D: I guess I'll just have to settle for the music and reading through the show synopses for now! :P


Another musical highlight from this past week is the "Trees" sketch from this week's SNL. I've gotten into the habit over the last couples weeks of watching SNL on Sundays and it's been kind of fun keeping up to date with the show instead of watching clips here and there as they pop up on my other social media feeds. Brett and I watched last week's episode before the Patriots game on Sunday night and this sketch was our favorite, hands down. It's just so dumb which is the kind of humor I can truly appreciate. We've been quoting it all week! XD

I've been doing a reading vlog this week because for whatever reason, I keep hating the vlogs I'm recording for #ReadYourFaceOff for the last couple of months and I wanted to make up for it in a way. I had Twitter help me decide my TBR for the week and folks picked 3 spooky books for me to choose from which y'all know I'm a big fan of. Here's what you can expect to see in the vlog, which should go up on my channel next week and will be cross posted here at the beginning of next month with my reading wrap up!

The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero

Misery by Stephen King

This weekend will be a 3 day weekend for me. I have Friday off for our friend's wedding, then nothing on the schedule for the weekend. I am shooting to run 18 miles this weekend (probably for #SundayRunday). My 16 mile long run this past weekend went really well so I'm hoping that 18 will be okay as well. After that it's time to taper before the big race in November! I'm hoping running around on the hills of my town over the last few months will be a big advantage when taking on the nice flat course in Richmond. We shall see!

LINKS I LOVED THIS WEEK

Quirky Husky Loves To Do Flips from The Dodo

Some dogs just want to watch the world burn from Dog Addict

18 Hilarious Posts That'll Make You See "Harry Potter" In A Whole New Light from Buzzfeed

21 Dogs Who Will Sleep Wherever They Damn Well Please from Buzzfeed

Recovery Struggles...

Hey all! Sorry I missed posting last Thursday. Recovery from surgery proved to be more difficult than I anticipated (you can read about that further down in this post) so I decided to take a little break to recuperate. Here's what I've been up to the past few weeks!

My predictions of the semester were right - it's crazytown right now. It seems that when I'm awake, I'm focused on either one of my jobs or school work. I've gotten a routine down, though, and each week it's gotten easier to navigate what needs to get done and when I'm going to be able to do it. I pretty much live and breathe by my planner and making lists, and if I were ever to lose my planner or any of my notebooks, I would be in serious trouble! Though it is hectic, I'm working on some seriously awesome projects this semester and my students always make being busy worthwhile. :)

Surprisingly enough, I have been able to find some time during the week to fit in my runs! I ran my last long training run a few weeks ago and have been focused on tapering ever since. I've been doing lots of stretching, hydrating, and shorter runs in hopes that when October 4th (this Saturday! AHHHH) comes around I won't be in too much pain when I hit mile 20! I'm pretty nervous for the marathon, and I really don't feel as prepared as I was last year, but my training goals were pretty different this time around, so we'll see how it all shakes out on race day. I will be going out to find something fun to wear on race day (which is always the best part of races, besides finishing!). I'm not sure what I'm going to find, but my mom already bought me a couple awesome Bolder Bands, so I'm sure it be something along the lines of one of these patterns/color schemes!

Of course, I also got all 4 of my wisdom teeth out recently. The weekend I spent home recovering really wasn't too bad. It was good to have other people around making sure I was taking care of myself (parents are awesome), and I had all the movie channels at my disposal! I really didn't swell up too much either, so that was an added bonus. 

Morning of the procedure, before heading to the surgeon's office.

Day after the procedure.

But when I went back to work I really started struggling with the amount of pain I was experiencing, and wound up getting really sick over the weekend. I had to work from home on Thursday, spent the majority of the day in bed on Friday, and though I was feeling a bit better during the day on Saturday, I got the most painful migraine of my life (like so painful we were considering going to the ER). I have a feeling it was a combination of my diet being unusual for me during recovery, the fact that I almost never take any medication in my normal life and I was taking a lot that week, and the unseasonably warm weather in New England over the weekend, but I would never wish that kind of pain on someone else. I hope to never experience that again.

I did get to go on a bit of a fall shopping spree while I was home. I'm in love with all of my finds, and have already worn a few of these pieces a few times. They're perfect for this time of year! The photo kind of messes up some of the colors, but here's what I got, counterclockwise from top left:

Olive green sweater - Pink Rose

Charcoal cardigan - Dalia Collection

Navy sweater dress - Romeo + Juliet Couture

Cognac heels - Zigisoho

Brown boots - White Mountain

I hope you all have been well! 

See ya later, Wisdom Teeth!

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Tomorrow I'm getting my wisdom teeth out - all four of them! This has been a long time coming. My parents and I have been planning on getting them out since I was in high school, but my schedule has never really allowed me to take time off, and they never really bothered me enough to do something about it. This year has been different. My teeth have been giving me headaches, my jaw has been swollen since February, and my mouth has been sore pretty much daily, so I knew this year it would be absolutely necessary for them to come out. (Go figure, it's at the busiest time of my life!)

This is my first surgery (thankfully) and will be my first time being "put to sleep" with anesthesia. I'm pretty nervous, mostly because I don't really know what to expect and I don't want to make a fool of myself (I'm also not the biggest fan of needles being jammed into my arm...), but I'm sick and tired of my mouth being in pain, so I'm looking forward to that (hopefully) being over after a few days of recovery. (I'm also curious to see if my teeth have been the source of my migraines for the last year and a half. Having those be gone for good after this procedure would be wonderful!)

Anywho, I thought I'd write a quick post filling y'all in on this life moment. I've heard mixed reviews on the experience (pretty much everyone who finds out I'm about to do this has told me about their own experiences, and my #1 strength being Context, I love it) so I'm interested to see how this will go for me. All I know is I'll be on an all liquid diet for the next few days because I have no idea how else I'm supposed to feed myself, so if you have any advice for helping with recovery from wisdom teeth extraction, please let me know! :)