Weekly Reads: The Vanishing Girls

Vanishing Girls is the newest YA book by Lauren Oliver. I'll read anything she writes, so here we are. This book started off a little confusing for me, and then got a little slow moving. Finally the pace picked up and it was impossible to put down. There are some major surprises throughout the book, so please forgive my extreme vagueness, but this book is definitely worth a read.

My rating: 3.5 stars

Summary from goodreads:

New York Times bestselling author Lauren Oliver delivers a gripping story about two sisters inexorably altered by a terrible accident.

Dara and Nick used to be inseparable, but that was before the accident that left Dara's beautiful face scarred and the two sisters totally estranged. When Dara vanishes on her birthday, Nick thinks Dara is just playing around. But another girl, nine-year-old Madeline Snow, has vanished, too, and Nick becomes increasingly convinced that the two disappearances are linked. Now Nick has to find her sister, before it's too late.

In this edgy and compelling novel, Lauren Oliver creates a world of intrigue, loss, and suspicion as two sisters search to find themselves, and each other.

Weekly Training Recap

Tuesday night at the Barre with Emily!

Thursday night sculpt. I was finally able to move up in weights for my arms and my legs! progress!

Saturday I had a super awesome power vinyasa class. We focused on our core so much that surely I now have a six pack.

And then I followed up that class with another yoga sculpt because I'm stupid apparently. It was so hard. My body was still feeling the effects of Thursday nights class, and then power vinyasa was all shoulders and abs so sculpt was hard.

March Challenge

I think handstands are the most beautiful thing in the world, but for someone with monster runner/jumper legs and t-rex arms, they seem almost impossible to me. 

Last month I participated in my first challenge on instagram (I created a new IG account so as to not annoy everyone deeply, so feel free to follow @jerileeyogi.) 

I'm hoping that a daily practice of the above prescribed poses will help strengthen me so that some of these can swap from "omg that's impossible" to "holy crap, I didn't know I could do that!"

Stay tuned.

Weekly Reads: Friendship

Friendship is a book I heard about last summer that I thought would be a good light read. And I was right. When I finally got around to reading it, I really enjoyed it. It opens your eyes to friendships and how they ebb and flow with age and new life experiences.

My rating 3.5 stars.


Summary from goodreads:

A novel about two friends learning the difference between getting older and growing up

Bev Tunney and Amy Schein have been best friends for years; now, at thirty, they’re at a crossroads. Bev is a Midwestern striver still mourning a years-old romantic catastrophe. Amy is an East Coast princess whose luck and charm have too long allowed her to cruise through life. Bev is stuck in circumstances that would have barely passed for bohemian in her mid-twenties: temping, living with roommates, drowning in student-loan debt. Amy is still riding the tailwinds of her early success, but her habit of burning bridges is finally catching up to her. And now Bev is pregnant.

As Bev and Amy are dragged, kicking and screaming, into real adulthood, they have to face the possibility that growing up might mean growing apart.

Friendship, Emily Gould’s debut novel, traces the evolution of a friendship with humor and wry sympathy. Gould examines the relationship between two women who want to help each other but sometimes can’t help themselves; who want to make good decisions but sometimes fall prey to their own worst impulses; whose generous intentions are sometimes overwhelmed by petty concerns.

This is a novel about the way we speak and live today; about the ways we disappoint and betray one another. At once a meditation on the modern meaning of maturity and a timeless portrait of the underexamined bond that exists between friends, this exacting and truthful novel is a revelation.

Weekly Training Recap

Monday I had a holiday from work, so I took advantage of a lunch time yoga sculpt class. It was the hottest sculpt class ever, and I almost melted. But I'm starting to feel stronger, so Yay!

Tuesday I skipped the gym to hang out with Kyle, and Wednesday I had to miss a class because there wasn't enough time to do the class, take Ollie out, and make it to the movie theater for our last Oscar movie. Ahhh.

Thursday night I attended another yoga sculpt class. These classes are harder than mile repeats + tempo runs put together (this is Jeri speak for HARD). But I'm starting to see muscles in places I didn't know muscles existed, so YAY!

I got an email an hour before power vinyasa on Friday that I was into class off the waitlist and I let out an audible whoop! We had a great flow series. When I got home I set about making a super healthy dinner, and then Kyle walked in with Qdoba. Ha. Nomnom.

Sunday morning I went to a really awesome heart opening flow. It was the best way to start the day.

Becoming a Yogi

When I first started going to yoga classes regularly again, for the first time in probably four years, I made it clear to myself and anyone I'd have general chit chat with prior to class starting, that I was a runner who was coming to yoga to better myself as a runner.

Somewhere along the way, that has shifted.

I find myself scouring the yoga studio's class schedule and booking my classes weeks out to ensure I get a spot to my favorites. There's enough variety in classes that there is almost always something that fits my mood and daily level of fatigue. When the weather is nice, I'll look for a ~30 minute spot of time to head out for a run. No distance in mind. No pace locked in. No heart rate data to obsess over. Speaking of data, my garmin refused to charge for months, so often I had no idea how far or how fast I was going.

And it was freeing.

And maybe that's the yogi mindset: freedom, less rigid, jumping off the severely Type A train, with an emphasis on fun and enjoyment. Running to me is fun when I'm doing well at it; it makes all the hard work worthwhile. But dedicating myself to a sport only to get knocked down by injury again and again is not fun, and clearly something I've struggled with.

But I'll be lying if I said that I didn't hope and expect all of the increased strength and flexibility that I am gaining will benefit me as a runner. I have high hopes that when I get back to running consistently, I will be able to continue attending the yoga classes that I l-o-v-e and keep injuries at bay, and maybe, just maybe finally see some breakthrough progress in my running.

And if that doesn't happen, I'll be bummed. But it's not such a bad thing to be a yogi that runs for fun, right?

Oscar Predictions

I convinced a couple of co-workers to join me in purchasing a pass from the theater to attend all of the Oscar Best Picture nominated movies. We synced our watches and our schedules and were all set! Friday kicked off the event with a double feature: Birdman followed by Selma. Saturday we caught Grand Budapest Hotel and then Whiplash. Sunday was Imitation Game and Boyhood. Wednesday we saw Theory of Everything. Kyle and I went to American Sniper a couple of weeks before the movie marathon.

I used to love with Laura (aka the Angry Runner) used to post her Oscar predictions, and while I'm grossly underqualified, I'm going to make my predictions as well. I will go ahead and say that my book award predictions are significantly more accurate than movies.

Best Picture:  Birdman
My personal favorite: Theory of Everything

Leading Actor: Eddie Redmayne Theory of Everything

Supporting Actor: JK Simmons Whiplash

Leading Actress: Felicity Jones Theory of Everything

Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette Boyhood

Cinematography: Birdman

Directing: Boyhood

Adapted Screenplay: American Sniper

Original Screenplay: Birdman

We're heading to the shorts this weekend, but I won't bore you with my picks for that.

Normally there are a few of the best picture nominees that I have to s-t-r-u-g-g-l-e to get through, but I truly enjoyed all of the nominees this year. Definitely worth a watch!

Who's your pick?






(The above DVDs are affiliate links so if you purchase them, I get a few pennies of the sale.)