April was a pretty great month around these parts. Some solid running, a nice little vacation, classes wrapping up for the semester. Really some good things all around. I'm almost a little sad to say goodbye to this month.

Sports

April was my month to ease into softball before all my teams get into the swing of things in May. Managing one team with games only one day a week seemed so easy, breezy. By the end of next month, most weeks I'll have three, if not four games. Love summer softball season!

Also caught the Orioles game last Sunday when they scored 18 runs to beat the Red Sox.



It was the picture perfect day for a ball game, but it was a little surreal being the city. On Sunday everything was so calm, but the night before my friend's bar had been pretty badly damaged during protests, and by Monday, things had definitely turned violent again.

Miles

Running happened. I didn't do a great job of tracking it. But I had some good runs and some bad runs as I was training for Frederick. I had a disastrous long run a few weeks ago that really shook my confidence going into the race, but I rebounded after that with an OK 11 miler that made me feel a bit better about things.



I can't believe the race is this weekend. I feel like it really snuck up on me, even though I guess I've been training for a while now. I'm not sure where my confidence stands going into this race. I'm confident I'll finish, but I'm not confident that I'm ready to PR or even finish with a stellar time, and I guess that's OK.

I didn't go into this training cycle looking to PR. With grad school + work + training, I wanted to go into the race feeling strong, and I think I do. I guess we'll find out Sunday for sure...

Books

April was another pretty great month on the reading front. Once classes wrapped for the semester I dove into a lot of books that had been chilling on my Kindle. You'll notice the theme for this month was Nicholas Sparks' books (though I did read other stuff too). I think this was inspired by my trip to the South.

The Rescue - Nicholas Sparks

This book had all the hallmark Nicholas Sparks traits. Hunky dude saves woman from car crash, then finds her missing son. The two grow really close, but then because of demons from his past, he pushes her away. But by the end of the book, after a wake up call from a friend, he realizes his mistake and that the two belong together. Apparently they live happily ever after in their small Southern town.

The Longest Ride - Nicholas Sparks

This was not one of my favorite Sparks books. I thought the parts told through Ira's point of view were a little slow moving and I just kept wishing to get back to the present day love story of the cowboy and the student at Wake Forest. I will still probably go see the movie though.

Nights in the Rodanthe - Nicholas Sparks

This book was so short I have no idea how there was enough of a plot to make it into a feature length film. The story was OK, but not great. Divorced woman meets divorced guy. They fall in love and spoiler alert, he tragically dies while on a mission trip trying to re-connect with his estranged son.

A Bend in the Road - Nicholas Sparks

I think this was my favorite of all the Sparks books I read this month. It was sad, but it had a pretty well-developed plot line, and I really liked all the characters and empathized with them throughout the book.

The Girl on the Train

This book reminded me of Gone Girl in the sense that I hated all the characters in the book, but still really liked the book overall. This book tells the story of a girl who rides the train to and from London each day and passes by the same houses and she makes up stories about the people who live in them. Then one day, one of those people goes missing, and the girl on the train gets involved in solving the mystery of her disappearance. It's dark and a little twisted, but still good.

The Real Thing: Lessons on Love and Life from a Wedding Reporter's Notebook - Ellen McCarthy

Ellen works with my best friend at the Post and so we went to see her speak about her brand new book a few weeks ago. The book was a super quick and fun read on the lessons Ellen's learned over the year's of covering DC weddings. It was touching at parts and packed with good stories, told in the way only a great feature writer could tell them.

All Groan Up - Paul Angone

I've been reading Paul's blog for years now for the fun bits of wisdom he shares on growing up in the digital era so I was really excited to get my hands on his second book. This book tells the story of Paul's growing pains in the post-college years as he tried to find himself and his path in life. I appreciated the insights he shared and his openness about the mistakes he made and how he discovered new paths and opportunities in ways he never expected. It was a quick read, but packed with some nice wisdom and inspiration from someone who didn't want to settle for just an average life.

Looks

Baseball tees and maxi dresses. Man I love spring!


Opening Day in Baltimore


Phillies v Nats in DC


Maxi dress in Charleston

And I'm totally in love with this yellow cardigan and have been wearing it for everything lately (including my updated head shots at work)