Happy Weekend:

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Happy Friday, friends! Got any fun plans for the weekend? We have a long run to knock out and then the fun can begin. And by fun I mean cleaning and grocery shopping. Ah, the exciting life of a grownup.

Our life lately:

1. I got a flu shot and it made me feel like crap for days.
2. We went to Jonesboro mid-week and got Andy's for dessert (their pumpkin pie concrete is my fave).
3. Our favorite place to eat in Little Rock, a vegetarian food truck, is closing its doors. It's the saddest news I've heard all year.
4. I love going to the state surplus warehouse to look for interesting (and cheap) pieces of furniture.

New reads:

This week, I am reading An Almost Perfect Moment by Binnie Kirshenbaum. It's been a while since I started a new book, mostly because I was busy finishing this beast of a novel (have you read this series? It's crazy! I love it!).

Curious to know what this one's about? Well, here you go:

"Valentine -- Jewish, pretty, and a touch flaky -- is an unremarkable teenager except for two things: she is a dead ringer for the Virgin Mary as she appeared to Bernadette at Lourdes, and her very being, through some inexplicable conspiracy of fate, seems to shatter the hopes and dreams of people around her.

John Wosileski, Valentine's lonely math teacher who adores her from afar, embraces the martyrdom wrought by his unconditional and unrequited love. Joanne Clarke, the bitter and sad biology teacher who schemes to be John's wife, reviles Valentine to eventual self-destruction. Valentine's best friend, a former figure-skating champion, humiliates her for the crime of being "different."

But Miriam Kessler -- betrayed and anguished by the husband she once worshiped -- loves Valentine only the way a mother could --  deeply, yet without knowing. Transposing one sensual appetite for another, Miriam eats and eats and seeks solace in a daily game of mah-jongg with her three girlfriends. The Girls, a cross between a Greek Chorus and a Brooklyn rendition of the Three Wise Men, dispense advice, predictions, and case in the form of extravagant gifts and homemade strudels. When Miriam's greatest fear for Valentine is realized, she takes comfort in the thought that it couldn't get any worse. But then something even stranger happens, and Valentine's mysterious presence becomes an even more mysterious absence. 

Written in a naturalistic voice that echoes that of the characters, An Almost Perfect Moment is a dark and sharply comic novel about star-crossed lovers, mothers and daughters, doctrines of the divine, and a colorful Jewish community that once defined Brooklyn  Sagacious, sorrowful, and hilarious, it raises questions of faith and plays with the possibility of miracles with one eye on the caution: Be careful what you wish for."

Happy weekend:

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Happy Friday! I'm so glad the weekend is finally upon us! This has been a busy week for us.
What are you doing this weekend? Got any fun plans? I have a 19-mile run planned, my longest ever. I am a little nervous about it, even though it's only 2 more miles than I ran last week. I imagine it will knock me on my butt for the rest of the weekend, so I haven't really made any other plans. We will just be lazing around, enjoying our hard-earned free time.

Have a relaxing and restful weekend, everyone!

I love:

Can we talk about the moment I seem to be having with J.Crew (big surprise) right now? I love almost everything I see. But what I am coveting most? Those pointed toe metallic shoes, that grey toggle coat, the pointed toe leopard flats, and pretty much the entire grey outfit on the far right. I need it.

Happy Weekend:

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Happy Friday, guys! Got anything fun planned for this weekend? We've got a long run planned for Saturday AM and then we've got a friend's birthday party to go to. We'll also be trying to fit in as many walks, bike rides, and outdoor meals as possible. This weather is just too good to miss.

Here's a glimpse into our lives:

1. Andrew's car is finally getting fixed! Now things can finally get back to normal, transportation-wise.
2. My new gold flats were already badly scuffed and damaged after one use, so they had to go back. Thank god for lenient return policies.
3. I've been feeling a little under the weather lately so I've been camped out at home in bed as much as possible. There's something going around, I think, and I must have picked it up at work.
4. I'm not going to lie, I didn't really like the season premiere of SNL. Even Tina wasn't that funny (sacrilege, I know).
5. Finishing that knitted blanket will be the highlight of my entire year.

Have a great weekend, everyone! XO.

New music:

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Ready for some new music to jam into your earholes? I hate when people use the word earhole. But nevertheless, there it is.

Check out my favorite playlist for the fall:

Fin:

You guys... It's done. Finally. That damn knitted blanket, the one I've been working on for over a year, is complete.

So, we started with this:

And then it looked like this:

From there it ended up here:

And then it sat there. Forever. I'm not really sure what happened. Maybe I got burned out from knitting over 100 squares (!). Maybe I got sidetracked. Mostly I think it was that I had to crochet each row into strips and then crochet all those strips together. I hate crocheting. But I finally just decided it was time to get it over with, so I did a little each night over the past month and now it looks like this:

Words cannot express how happy I am to be done with this project. I learned a very important life lesson here. I will never make another one of these so long as I live. But at least now we can snuggle up with it in the evenings as the temperature drops.

Someone (okay, more like two someones) are very happy it's done and available for use.