Every year, I try to make sure I get in at least one run past the Bishop's House in DC. It's my own personal version of a holiday lights run.



This one house gets so decked out with Christmas decorations and lights, it draws all kinds of crowds as people come check out the lights.

I was planning to do my run past the Bishop's House on Monday evening, but the forecast called for rain, so I scooted out the door a little earlier than planned, hoping that because the skies were overcast, the lights would come on earlier than normal.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.



When I ran by, it was too bright outside for the lights to be on, but I still got to scope out some of the crazy decorations. (I should note, I edited all the pictures to make them brighter for this post. It definitely wasn't that light outside when I did this run).



I ended up doing about a three mile run and just when I got back home it started pouring. It made me glad that I squeezed the run in earlier than planned even though I didn't get to see the house all lit up. I guess I'll have to try to swing by on another night time run to see the lights.

I used to do nice little monthly wrap-up posts where I'd recap the books I'd read that month. When I was looking back through my archive recently, I realized I hadn't put up a book post since my vacation in July. Such a fail.



Granted, my reading levels took a major nose-dive once grad school started up again in August, but I definitely did some reading, and zero updating on it.

I figured since it's the end of the calendar year and lots of people are doing book reviews, I'd catch you up on the books I've read this fall (in sort of chronological order).

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl -- Jesse Andrews

I bought this while I was on vacation at the beach but didn't get around to reading until several weeks later. A coworker had recommended it, and after another friend told me the movie made him sob, I figured I had to read it. It definitely didn't disappoint. In fact there were times it was laugh out loud funny, which is really weird considering the book is about a girl dying from cancer.

Modern Romance -- Aziz Ansari

I read this in like a day and a half while chilling at the pool. It was a good pool read, but I didn't think there was anything too groundbreaking in the research. A lot of it had been pop psych stuff I'd read elsewhere. This might have been eye-opening to my mom, but if you've dated in the 21st century, you'll likely just go, "Duh."

In the Unlikely Event -- Judy Blume

This was a book club book, and most of my book club really loved it. I thought it was good, but a little too long. There were parts that I didn't think were necessary and that the last bits of the story weren't totally necessary.

The Martian -- Andy Weir

One of the best books I've read this year. Perfect mix of nerdy science and math stuff with OMG will he survive stuff.

Why Not Me -- Mindy Kaling


I love Mindy. If you love her too, read this book.

S Street Rising: Crack, Murder and Redemption in DC - Ruben Castanenda
Another book club read, picked basically because this guy was/is a Post reporter and it takes place in our backyard. It's crazy to think how bad some of the neighborhoods in this book were back in the day (or not even that long ago really) compared to what they are like now. The biggest complaint our book club had dealt with the way women were portrayed in the book.

Wild - Cheryl Strayed
I started this book about four times before I was finally able to finish it. I'm glad I stuck it out though. It was a good read after the depressing start.

The Survivor -- Vince Flynn/Kyle Mills
I loved the Mitch Rapp books when Vince Flynn used to write them. I was curious to see how another author continued that character. I liked this book a lot and flew through it like I used to do with the old Flynn books. There were plot points I didn't love that I won't spoil here, but overall, I liked it, and I guess I'd keep reading books with this character.

The Girl in the Green Raincoat -- Laura Lippman
I was excited to see Laura Lippman was writing Tess books again, but I didn't love this one as much as I loved others mainly because Tess was on bed rest and couldn't move off her sofa so it just didn't have the excitement of some of the other books.

Terminal City -- Linda Fairstein
If you like Law and Order SVU, you will like Linda Fairstein's books. They are about an NYC sex crimes unit. You don't have to read them in order, but it helps a lot if you do because the characters are the same in each book, and their stories develop a little more in each book. This was book #16. Flew through it in two days. I basically wish I could be best friends Coop, Chapman and Mercer in real life.

So that's basically what I've been reading during the semester. Now that school is over until January, and I have a little bit more free time on my hands, I imagine I'll start crushing books that have been laying around my apartment or sitting on my Kindle. I'm also working on my list of books to read in 2016, so if you've got recommendations, send them my way!

Every week at the beginning of yoga class, the instructor asks us to set an intention for the next hour of practice. Usually my mind draws a blank, and I feel all this pressure to come up with some sort of good and meaningful intention. I have to think really hard and then wind up with something like "Be less stressed."



That's generic and so broad, I'm not even sure what I mean by it half the time, but it's what I go with because I don't have anything better.

But this week, when the instructor asked us to set an intention, the phrase "What will be, will be" immediately leapt into my mind. I'm not sure what exactly triggered it, but lately I have been trying to be more present in the current moment rather than worrying so much about what I've got going on the next day or the next week or the next month.

"What will be will be," or the more religious "Let go and let God" that I heard frequently in my many years of Catholic school, are not easy things for me to actually put into practice.

I'm such a Type A planner that just being present actually takes quite a bit of mental work on my part. As weird as it might sound, planning and thinking about the future are my ways of feeling in control of a situation. In my mind, I link just being present with being unprepared, and even though I know they aren't the same thing, that puts me really on edge.

But given how crazy this time of year can be, I'm trying to spend more time just being in the moment and appreciating what's going on around me now and not worrying so much about what tomorrow holds. I guess somewhere my subconscious mind realized that and threw "What will be, will be" into my mind at just the right time in yoga this week.

I'm sure all this being present stuff is going to be a huge work in progress for me, and I'll probably still have moments where I call up my best friend and the first thing I say when she answers is, "PANIC!" (True story, that happened Sunday night...she thought I said, "Can it!" and was very confused at first ha!)

But yes, so being present is a thing I'm working on. If this were the New Year, I'd say it was a resolution of sorts, but we've still got some of 2015 left, so this is just a thing I'm working on so I can worry less and appreciate life more.