Music, Books, Miles, and Looks of September

Music:

:
It's Time by Imagine Dragon - Seriously - listen to this song.  It is amazing!!  It has THE catchiest beat ever, and as you can see, this band is totally talented as they are singing this live/unplugged.  It will make you tap your feet, maybe car dance, and it is the song you put on when you are so pumped up about life and want to sing at the top of your lungs! LOVE THIS SONG.  I want to see this band live.  They look like they'd put on an amazing show!  I bought the CD and it's AWESOME.



Lifening by Snow Patrol - Oh how I adore this song.  This is a live, unedited version of the song, which shows how talented this band is. I love this song because I know we all have moments when our hearts are so full and we think - "This is all I ever wanted from life."



Books:

It was another strong reading month for me, partially because of the death virus which laid me up on the couch for several days!  I read 6 books!!


The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - I loved this book.  The writing was so engaging and enchanting.  It held my attention from the very beginning and I did not want the book to end.  It's about a boy and a girl who are engaged in a magical competition that is being played out within the tents of a circus that is held at night.  Some have complained that it moved too slowly for their liking, but I loved this book!

The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton - I LOVED this book. It was so well written and engaging. I had a hard time putting it down. The women and the relationships in this book felt real. It was neat to read about this group of women who were newly married, young mothers during the same era that my mom was embarking on marriage/motherhood (60-70s). It makes me want to ask her more about what she thought about events like Apollo 13, the Nixon era and Vietnam.

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller -  I really loved this book.  It's sort of a memoir that the author writes while helping write a screen play for a different book he wrote (Blue Like Jazz).  It makes you think about the kind of story you are living and what you want your legacy to be.  One of my favorite quotes about something I think many of us struggle with is as follows:

"There is an intrinsic feeling in nearly every person that your life could be perfect if you only had such-and-such a car or such-and-such a spouse or such-and-such a job.  We believe we will be made whole by our accomplishments, our possessions, or our social status.  It’s written in the fabric of our DNA that life used to be beautiful and now it isn’t, and if only this and if only that, it would be beautiful again."
 
The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee - Ok, my judgment of this book may be clouded by the fact that I was on codeine cough syrup while reading it in the evenings, but holy moley it confused me. I don't know if it was the switching back and forth between the 40s and 50s or keeping track of everyone's ethnicities (Japanese, Chinese, English, or a mix), but I was and still am CONFUSED by this book.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn - This is probably the most engaging and most difficult book to put down that I have read this year. It's a mystery novel about the disappearance of a woman on her 5th anniversary. The narration of the book switches back and forth between the husband and wife (partially through her journal in the early parts). It's so incredibly messed up, it will keep you guessing up until the very end!!

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaught -I loved this book. It's about a young woman, Victoria, who was an orphan. The author weaves together a tale of her childhood with the story of the present so seemlessly. You know Victoria has a secret from her past, but it is slowly revealed over the course of the book. It was cool learning about the meaning of different flowers, too!

Miles:


Ha.  Miles.  Not as many as I would like this month, thanks to the freaking death virus. I got 109 in, and over 80% of those came in the 2nd half of the month after I recovered from the death virus/bronchitis.  Not great, but it will have to suffice!

Looks:

First look:  I am bringing the fitted, colored pants trend into fall.  It's tough to tell in this blurry photo (sorry, cold meds make me shaky), but the pants are a lovely eggplant color!  I am all about fitted pants and they work great for my boyish (read:  no curves) body shape!

Second look: Yep, another elevator photo!  This is a new outfit that I got for a very affordable price as the skirt was on clearance at Ann Taylor, and the cami/cardigan came from target. I love that mustard color and think the red shoes are another fun pop of color.  I got a lot of compliments on this color so will look to add more of it to my wardrobe for the fall!