Objects in Mirror are Closer Than They Appear // Weekly Round Up 1.26.20 - 2.1.20

I'm dogsitting this knucklehead for the next week while Cassie is off on a tropical vaca! It's nice to have some serious doggo time. I haven't had too much since Brett and I moved last spring. Abby is a bundle of energy so I have a feeling I'll be getting plenty of outdoor time over the next week. As I'm typing this we've already gone for a short walk and spent about an hour at the dog park, and it's not even noon! She's napping next to me on the couch right now but I'm sure she'll be back raring to go in a few hours! Before she does I wanted to make sure I took time to type out this week's round up. Here's what's been going on!

Kobe Bryant and Complicated Legacies

The news of Kobe Bryant's death last weekend has been incredibly shocking and the circumstances of the 9 lives lost is such a heartbreaking tragedy. However, it has brought up a lot of complicated feelings for me. This article really perfectly sums up how I've been feeling this week. This situation is a great reminder that people are complex and are comprised of both good and bad qualities, decisions, thoughts, and feelings. I feel like I'll be reflecting on this for a while, but for now it's just an extremely sad situation.

Balancing a sad piece of news with a happy piece of news, our police department continues to be wholesome AF. Whoever decided to make the town's therapy dog the face of the police department was a genius because I melt EVERY TIME. I love that more towns in our county are seeing the merits of having a therapy dog available to folks experiencing traumatic situations. They are really seeing the value of considering mental health in their work. I also saw this amazing article about the jail diversion program - so incredible! Bravo Franklin PD!

Corral placements came out for Princess Weekend! I never submitted a proof of time so, as expected, it'll be party in the back for me. Luckily my pace these days will allow me to get way ahead of the sweepers after a couple of miles so hopefully I'll be able to do some character photos toward the end of each race, but we shall see! I'm just so excited that my Disney trip is coming up. I just bought my ticket for a post-half marathon trip to Magic Kingdom as well. It's getting real, people! ✨

We went to Brett's mom's house last weekend and this pic of tiny Brett just absolutely KILLED ME. How adorable is he? I love that he's pulling a duck face. 😂

I googled how many days were until my birthday to share with you in this post, and it turns out May 11th is exactly 100 days away! *sweats* 100 days left of my 20's... wild! I have a lot of fun things planned so I'm sure I will be giving this decade a great send off. 🎉

Disclaimer: I received Built Bars to review as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to review, find, and write race reviews!

If you've been following my social channels, you'll know that I received a shipment of Built Bars for a promo through BibRave! I've been really enjoying them so far and I can't wait to give you all a full review in a couple of weeks. In the meantime if you're interested in trying out Built Bar for yourself, you can use the code "BUILTNOW" for 15% off your order!

TOO REAL.

Weekly Round Up (December 29, 2019 - January 4, 2020)

This, this, this!

I really loved doing these weekly round up posts during Blogmas so I thought I would make them my little weekly ritual on Saturdays! It's nice to have a "catch all" spot for things I didn't get to throughout the week, and it actually ends up being such a fun post to write every time. This week was so weird with New Year's being smack dab in the middle and returning to work for two days after nearly two weeks off, but here we are.

For New Year's we had plans of going into Boston, but Brett came home from work super tired so we decided to hang at home with our roommate and friends. We made our favorite "cocktails" which was really just hard seltzer with frozen fruit (Honestly, try it. So simple yet so good!) while I updated my blogs layout (NERD) and Brett and Craig played video games (DOUBLE NERD). 

We did end up going out to our local Chinese food joint and drinking cocktails and eating all the food! This has become one of my favorite things to do on New Year's Eve and I'd be totally content if the tradition continued for years to come.

The Mai Tais I ordered at this place were PURE ALCOHOL. Needless to say I had a great night. 😂

We ended the night playing Super Smash Bros on the Switch while we waited for the ball to drop, then a game called Fibbage which I never heard of before but had a blast playing. I'm a big fan of group games so staying in and playing games all night was the perfect way to spend New Year's, IMO. I love New Year's Eve. I know a lot of people hate on NYE as being super disappointing, but if you don't overthink it, it can always turn out to be a super fun night!

I’m Honestly Fed Up With All The Bad News, So I Illustrated 50 Of The Best Ones From 2019

The Happy Broadcast

I came across this link on someone's blog and I have now found my very favorite Instagram account. The Happy Broadcast is an account that just shares all the GOOD news in the world. I think we all agree that we can use more good news on our feeds. PLUS the illustrations are just so stinkin' adorable! Highly recommend giving this account a follow! These are a couple of my favorite that I've come across so far:

The Science Behind Why You Don't Remember the Pain of Running Marathons

What an interesting read! It's so true that when I look back on marathons I definitely remember the ones that were painful, but I don't exactly remember the pain. I feel like my brain mostly remembers the accomplishment itself rather than the fact that my ankles were on fire for 10 miles or that my calves were totally cramping or that I felt like the sun was going to melt me alive. I really liked this quote from the article: 

“If a painful activity produces outcomes of value, positive emotions result, and these emotions seem to help ensure that pain does not prevent us from doing it again.”

Thursday was Cassie's birthday and for  a gift I got her a Motivate Wrap from Momentum Jewelry! On it, I put our favorite mantra which sprang from Florida Marathon weekend last year - Just Show Up - and I also got myself a matching one (her's is turquoise and mine is purple - our favorite colors!). I've seen these all over the place and I think they are a great extra little motivator when you're running. Can't wait to wear this on my long run this weekend!

Yesterday our Associate Dean brought in a couple dozen donuts from a local donut shop, Kane's! Honestly these donuts are HEAVEN. If you're ever in the Boston area, I highly recommend checking them out. It was a perfect treat to end the short-yet-painful week back from vacation. YUM.

This weekend I have quite a bit going on - mostly "back to reality" kind of stuff. I have a dentist appointment this morning (siiiiiiiiiick) which will be interesting as I haven't been to the dentist in a few years. *shame* I then will be hitting the gym and doing a big grocery shop & cooking a big meal before the Patriot's game tonight (🤞). I'll be mainly focused on getting myself mentally and physically prepared for my 18 mile long run tomorrow. These training runs are always so scary, no matter how many times I do them, so my main focus will be getting myself into a good mental head space to chip away at the miles early on a Sunday morning. I think later in the day tomorrow we're gong to try and go see Star Wars, but I guess we'll see where the day takes us!

In terms of reading, I have a few books that I'll be trying to focus on and hopefully finish this weekend! I'd really like to finish Bunny by Mona Awad, which I started on New Year's Day, as well as The Marathon Maniacs by Malcolm Anderson, which I started back in August when I became an official Maniac. 😂 I'd also like to start Permanent Record by Mary H.K. Choi - I'm craving a good YA contemporary right now and I absolutely loved reading Emergency Contact by the same author, so I'm hoping I'll feel the same way about Permanent Record!

How was your New Year's? What'd you get up to?

What are you hoping to read this weekend?

Do you have a long run or a race on your schedule for this weekend?

Weekly Round Up (December 15-21, 2019) | Blogmas Day 21

Hello from the sky! As I type this post, I am currently flying through the air with Brett on our way to Florida for the Christmas holiday. I knew this post would be going up a little bit on the late side today, so I wanted to at least draft the post from the plane so it's ready to be published when we finally get to my parents' house. Blogger probs! Luckily since today's post is a weekly round up it won't take too much effort or creativity to come up with things to write about. 😂 

PLUS we have the Patriots/Bills game going while we fly which is a total bonus!

Monday was a huge day for runner happy mail! I received my BibRave Pro swag which I am so excited to wear. I actually packed my singlet for this trip to Florida and plan to wear in on my long run on Monday! I also love the winter hat. For whatever reason I've developed quite the winter hat collection and I'm excited to add some BRP orange to the collection.

I also ordered a bunch of fuel off of Amazon this week. I ordered an 18-pack of Clif Blocks and a box of my favorite Clif gels (the vanilla TOTALLY tastes like frosting - no lie!), and I also ordered a bottle of salt tablets. I've been wanting to try out salt tablets for a while now because I hear it helps so much if you tend to sweat a bunch (which I do 😂). I'm going to do some more research and start incorporating them into my training in the lead up to NOLA and LA to see if they make a difference in how I feel in those later miles.

This Baby Yoda meme is totally me. 😂

 As weird as it sounds, I love to watch people play video games and cheer them on to destroy the enemy!

I saw this on a random Facebook group and thought it was SO FUNNY for some reason!

Our town made national news this week thanks to our police department's therapy dog, BenFranklin! The police department has been running a toy drive during the holiday season and Ben - who has free reign of the department - may or may not have thought all of the toys were for him. I guess the department has allowed Ben to keep the toys and replaced the ones he "stole". So cute!!

My mom sent me this adorable camper ornament in the mail this week. She has been really into wood crafting over the last few years and has gotten so good at it!!

My two favorite meme topics colliding - Baby Yoda and Untitled Goose Game!

Brett sent this Snapchat memory my way from two years ago this week. We miss our Lupita so much!!

Too real.

I dream about Kiwi every now and then, and I always think that it’s a sign of her visiting me.

Lmao I saw this and felt SO ATTACKED. 

Gotta love anxiety making you feel like everyone hates you when literally no one does.

I've been listening to this podcast this week and really enjoying it! The host describes it as "true crime without the murder", and it's actually so fascinating to learn about scammers and grifters! It's crazy what people are able to get away with.

Speaking of true crime, I've been OBSESSED with watching clips from Live PD on Facebook lately. I know it's a super popular show and it has been for a while, but I haven't watched it until I fell into a Live PD rabbit hole on Facebook Watch the other day. I keep watching clips right before bed and I've been having some pretty interesting dreams as a result.

Last but not least, my pal Jess sent me these two books this week for Christmas! I cannot wait to get to these titles. We're planning to revive the Read Your Face Off Book Club in the new year with the intention of Twice in a Blue Moon by Christina Lauren being our first book club pick. Be on the look out for more details if you want to read along with us!

What are your plans for the last week and a half of 2019? 

Let me know in the comments!

Weekly Round Up (December 8-14, 2019) | Blogmas Day 14

Another week has come and gone which means it's time for another weekly round up! This week was a weird mix of quiet and busy as we near the end of the semester.  I spent most of the week playing catch up on the things that I missed while I was away from work and essentially secluded from society 😂 I feel like things are pretty much back to normal which is great because there's a LOT to look forward to in the coming weeks. It doesn't feel real that it's the end of the year, but pretty soon we'll be bidding 2019 farewell and welcoming in a new decade. Honestly, I'm ready!

Today is our 7 year anniversary! I'll recap what we got up to in my blog post tomorrow, but I wanted to share the collage that I posted this morning. I've been posting a collage of photos of us from the last year since our first anniversary all the way back in 2013 and I absolutely love looking back on every collection of photos. This was our 7th year together in review!

(from the top left corner)

1. An unexpected 4th of July at home (July 2019)

2. Run, Run, Santa 1-Miler down in Viera, FL - Brett's first race! (December 2018)

3. Post-Newport Marathon (October 2019)

4. GIANT Trulys at the Celtics home opener (October 2019)

5. A lil photoshoot by our dear friend Kristen before heading off to a friend's wedding (January 2019)

6. Celebrating Brett's birthday during a Halloween bar crawl (October 2019)

7. On a fan boat looking for gators (June 2019)

8. Having fun before a friend's wedding in Maine (November 2019)

9. Fun day out and about in Boston (June 2019)

This GIF kills me. "HOW THE HELL ARE YA?!?!"

It's my goal to finish the Fullmetal Alchemist manga series by the end of 2019. I ordered the last two volumes this week and I'm hoping to read through them while we're down in Florida next week! Brett is stoked to have me finally finish the manga so we can watch the anime together, and to be honest I'm super excited as well!

I saw this comic and immediately thought of our friends Erin & Cullen so I had to send it their way. 💗

This meme is me AF. #sorrynotsorry

Brett wants to get me a new Garmin for Christmas (*SQUEAL*) so we've been doing some research together! I'm thinking this is the one I want to go for. If you have any feedback on this Forerunner model, let me know!

Brett knows that I'll react this way if I don't get a snackie from the store whenever he goes, so he always gets me one anyways, even if I say no 😂 I'm a lucky gal! 😍

TOO REAL 🤷‍♀️

LMAO I've never felt more attacked by a comic IN MY LIFE! I'm so impatient with technology. It's a character flaw... 🤷‍♀️

We're half way through the holiday season and I realized this week that I had yet to order my very favorite seasonal beverage - the caramel brulee latte from Starbucks! I grabbed one on my way to my staff Christmas party on Wednesday and it honestly hit the spot and put me in such a festive mood! 🎄

This comic is morbid AF but I honestly LOLed when I read it and immediately shared it with some of my HP loving pals 😂 NOOOO NOT RON!!

Weekly Round Up (December 1-7, 2019) | Blogmas Day 7

There's always some snaps that sit on my phone throughout the week that tend to get skimmed over while I'm putting together blog posts. I thought it would be fun to end each week during Blogmas with a collection of what didn't make the cut for the rest of the week for one reason or another! This week was particularly low-key because I was only in the office for a whopping one day. Monday I worked remotely, Tuesday was a snow day, then Thursday and Friday I was sick (still am 🤧), so nothing particularly exciting happened aside from lots and lots of Netflix and lounging in bed to get better, but here are the things that you missed from me this week!

I finally registered for Half Fanatics, and became a Double Agent! You might remember that I qualified for Marathon Maniacs in the spring, where I ran 3 marathons within 90 days. Over the summer I qualified for the Half Fanatics by running 3 half marathons in 90 days - the Wallis Sands Half Marathon, the Sour Apple Half Marathon, and the John & Jessie Kelley Half Marathon! They were putting on a Cyber Monday sale for a lifetime membership for the Fanatics so I decided to jump on the deal! PLUS when you're both a Marathon Maniac and a Half Fanatic, you're automatically considered a Double Agent, so I'm now officially Marathon Maniac #15241, Half Fanatic #18266, and Double Agent #3578! I really enjoy being part of the Maniacs so I am beyond excited to be part of the Fanatics & Double Agents as well! 🤗

Untitled Goose Game has been one of my favorite things about 2019 and I absolutely love all the memes that have come out of it. I saw this posted and thought it was genius 😂 We need more horrible geese in this world! 🤪

WHY DON'T WE DO THIS EVERYWHERE?! Dogs deserve the most, tbh.

I saw this tag floating around Twitter and I was curious to participate! The song I originally got - "Butterfly" by Weezer isn't the happiest song in the world lyrics-wise, but I'm hoping that 2020 will be beautiful like a butterfly. This year has been full of challenge and growth, and I hope that means that I will evolve in 2020! I also accidentally hit "next" when I was laying down in bed after doing this tag and the next song that popped up with "The Healing" by Bloc Party which I thought was appropriate because I also hope that 2020 is a year full of healing!

I've been really enjoying seeing everyone's Spotify end-of-year wrap ups. I shared my top artist of the decade a couple of days ago, but I wanted to share some of my other stats as well. I definitely was super into Khalid in the spring/early summer thanks to him being our Spring Day artist at work (he puts on an amazing show, btw!) and I absolutley played "Outta My Head" right to death 😂 Also not a huge surprise that Lizzo was my top new artist. I feel like she was on everyone's top artists this year (and rightfully so!).

This will 100% be me on Christmas morning 😂