November 2013 Recap

And just like that November is gone. I’m still trying to figure out where September and October went, let alone November! I will say having a major event at work this month really helped to keep me distracted, but then all of a sudden I had so much free time I honestly got lost not knowing what to do with myself. As Heather pointed out I disappeared for a while. I skipped Culture Corner, Workout Wednesday and The Classics Club Monthly Meme and even let five reviews/responses back up. I clearly needed a break and it was great, but I’m slowly catching up, so sorry for the plethora of posts this past week!

Part of my relaxation and not knowing what to do with myself resulted in my learning how to crochet! I can only do one stitch but I’ve made a midget scarf, a real scarf (it’s a little short still, but I made it really wide…whoops) and have started a third scarf for a friend.

And then on top of that there was all sorts of holiday fun this month! My friends and I had our annual friendsgiving/schmanksgiving lovingly retitled Geoffsgiving this year and it was a lot of fun. It’s the time of year when my multiple friend group merge together and have a great night of food and fun. And that same weekend my sister and I took a tour of the Tazo Chocolate factory here in Somerville and after that I’d had so much unhealthy food since late October that all I needed for dinner was a simple salad (bottom left).

The bottom right photo is my little Christmas tree. I bought it a few years ago and I’ve kept it around. It’s simple and I like it – the topper is a candy cane ornament given to me one of my first two years in Boston and the baubles are little four colored round baubles. Underneath you can see that I got most everyone books! I’m really excited about most of them and hope what I chose for people will make them happy. A couple I wasn’t so sure about but I think they’ll enjoy them anyway.

On the reading front, I had a rapid reading month: I read nine books! Of those, four were galleys, three were re-reads (The Hunger Games trilogy), one was a library book and one counted for multiple challenges and the Classics Club (Wuthering Heights).

Recent Acquisitions
For the third month in a row I kept book purchasing to a minimum, if you exclude the WAY too much money I spent on friends’ books for the holidays. But what’s exciting is I didn’t buy a single book for myself this month again!

I did pick up three digital galleys: Mindscape, After the Fall (Tucker Springs #6), and Marionette, by the awesome T. B. Markinson, which I’m finishing up over the last few days of November. The only physical book I got was A Year Up: How a Pioneering Program Teaches Young Adults Real Skills for Real Jobs with Real Success by Gerald Chertavian which was a give away at our event as we were honoring Gerald and Year Up.

Challenge Progress
As with last month, I only read one challenge book, Wuthering Heights and only have one left: War and Peace. It qualified for my Back to the Classics Challenge and The Classics Club bring my totals to the below numbers. I’m moving into War and Peace after I finish reading my last ARC for the year.

• Mount TBR Reading Challenge
  • Monthly Progress: 0 books
  • Overall Progress – 11/12 (92%) + 13 not listed
• Back to the Classics Challenge
  • Monthly Progress: 1 books
  • Overall Progress – 10/11 (91%)
• Tea and Books Reading Challenge
  • Monthly Progress: 0 books
  • Overall Progress – 3/4 (75%) + 3 not listed (Les Misérables is so long it counts for two books!)
    
• The Classics Club
  • Monthly Progress: 1 book
  • Overall Progress – 29/100 (29%)

What’s Next?
Well I didn’t get back to the gym as much as I wanted this month, but a couple of things happened. I passed 600 miles in my tracking app (left) with over 450 of those miles since July 1, 2013. A good portion of those are coming from my recent pushing through the Couch-to-5k.

My crazy friends took advantage of my physical and mental exhaustion and got me to sign up to for my very first 5k: The Jingle Bell Run. I’m absolutely terrified but super excited about it. I’ve been working hard to get ready (and am in week six of the program and should finish the weekend the 5k is). So, unfortunately, since I’ve been trying to get ready for this I’ve taken a brief break from CrossFit, but I’m ready to get back into both early next month! I did this on purpose because I was concerned going to hard at CrossFit might require more recovery time and I might miss a running day which is more important at the moment with this race looming over me.

As mentioned above I’m should be done with Marionette by December 1st and am going right into War and Peace to cap off my 2013 Challenges. I haven’t officially decided, but I’m 99% sure I won’t be participating in any challenges (officially) and am actually wondering what form my blogging will take in 2014, but that’s for a later post.