I hope you all had a great weekend! I did, a good and very busy weekend! I was taking care of Molly this weekend, which tends to take up a lot of time, and then I also had blogger book club AND a trail 5K in the burbs!
The 5K was pretty much a blast. It was the Thriller in Schiller, it’s inaugural year, and it was a Halloween-themed trail run out in a forest preserve in Schiller, IL. I ran the race with Kelsey, Lindsay, Emily and Alyssa and it was so much fun I couldn’t breath because I was laughing so hard!
Alyssa was a referee, I was a runaway bride (took your suggestions!) and Kelsey, Lindsay and Emily were Cone Heads.
(pictures by Lindsay)
The trail was… well I wasn’t sure it was even a trail for a good bit of it! We were basically just running through the woods: over and under trees, through ravines, and even over a river! It was beyond hilarious with all of us in our costumes and we ended up really kicking butt: 37:10!!!! Hahahahahaha NOT. Despite our less than stellar time, it was so much fun.
Unfortunately my IT band was really bothering me during the race, just a mile into it, so I’m not so happy about that. Luckily I had some hilarious cone heads running into tree branches to distract me…
Saturday (the race was Sunday), I had book club with some other Chicago Healthy Living Bloggers. This was our third time getting together, last two:
Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
The event was hosted by Diana out in Oak Park, and I LOOOOOVED getting to go out to Oak Park! I’d been there once before and I not so secretly wish I lived out there. It’s a beautiful neighborhood with several Frank Llyod Wright homes (which we got to walk around and see!). I just miss the neighborhood feel!
We had a ton of great fall-themed food (I made Chocolate Covered Katie’s Peanut Butter Pumpkin Cups but with sun butter) and I loved getting to see everyone.
The book for this month was Dark Places by Gillian Flynn. I read another one of her books, Gone Girl, so I was excited to read this one.
The novel follows Libby as she realizes she’s out of money and begins to re-visit her path because the Kill-Club, a secret society obsessed with solving notorious crimes, offers to pay her for information. As the story unfolds, Libby realizes that the evening her mother and sisters died may have not gone as her sever-year-old self believed.
One thing I loved about this book was that Gillian switched back and forth between present-day Libby and the story of the murders. She used the same technique in Gone Girl, but it made the whole story so much more interesting. I realize the story line is a bit dark, but we wanted to choose something spooky for Halloween, and honesty, who doesn’t love a good murder mystery? This book definitely kept me interested and I finished it in just a few days. I actually liked it much more than Gone Girl and was constantly kept guessing as the story evolved.
So far I’ve only gotten a couple link-ups or reviews from readers (um maybe because I gave you 4 days warning…), but your more than welcome to still send one in. Check out reviews of Dark Places from these awesome bloggers:
Next month our book club will be reading The Sweet Life In Paris, by David Lebovitz. If you’d like to participate, just read along and send in your review or a link to it online before Monday, December 3rd.
Have you read any of Gillian Flynn’s novels?
Have you ever ran a trail run or in a costume?