Gretch Runs

It's about that time again- I decided to sign up for more triathlons! I had so much fun last year at the Wrightsville Beach Sprint Tri that I decided to get an annual membership to USTA Triathlon and sign up for a few more races this year. Not only am I doing Wrightsville again, but I have a variety of other races I want to do! The first race is at the beginning of June which feels far away but also very soon, so training starts now. Here's a look at how my first "official" week of training went. Monday 1500 yard swim I can't wait until the pool in my neighborhood opens again, because while I've been enjoying swimming over the winter at my gym it's such an ordeal to actually get a workout done! It's only a 15 minute drive, but that's still an extra 30 minutes to get there and back, then time to change and shower, and also try to find a lane because it always seems to be busy. I definitely am glad I have a place to swim now though and have been tryi

February is always the month that feels the longest to me. It doesn't matter that it's the shortest month- it drags on and on! This was no exception, but thankfully it felt long because it was so packed full of activities. At the start of the month, I drove down to Savannah to surprise my mom for her birthday and had a great trip with her and my sister! It has been in the plans for a while- the two of them were flying down for a fun weekend but didn't know that I was going to show up at the airport to pick them up. The look on my mom's face when she saw me was priceless and we had such a great weekend. After that, I flew up to Pittsburgh for work and got to stay a few extra days. It was great to be back in town and see some of my friends and also my nephew, along with some of my favorite co-workers. It's great to be able to go back to my hometown with work! My last big event of the month was going to Oak Island with some friends for a half marathon. We rented an Air

February was another great month for reading- I listened to more audiobooks than usual because I had a lot of travel this month, but also read a decent amount of physical books as well. A lot of them were for book club and most of them I enjoyed! Here's a look at what all I read- The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston Florence Day is the ghostwriter for one of the most prolific romance authors in the industry, and she has a problem—after a terrible breakup, she no longer believes in love. It’s as good as dead. When her new editor, a too-handsome mountain of a man, won’t give her an extension on her book deadline, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye. But then she gets a phone call she never wanted to receive, and she must return home for the first time in a decade to help her family bury her beloved father. For ten years, she’s run from the town that never understood her, and even though she misses the sound of a warm Southern night and her eccentric, loving family and their f

I'm going to be honest here- January was kind of a meh month. I feel like after a few months of non-stop activities and fun, I kind of hibernated this month! I don't like it, and I've been feeling in a funk because of it. The start of the month was especially rough for me, but I feel like I'm pulling myself out of it slowly. Just in time too because February is going to be a PACKED month. A big highlight was checking off a project we've had on our list forEVER- adding a carpet runner to our staircase! These were hard wood and Selma would always slip going down them (sometimes I would too!) so we knew we wanted to do this as soon as we moved in. It took a while to get the runners delivered, and then we were procrastinating on starting. I'm so happy with how they turned out and glad we can check that item off our list! Let's start with a look at how my annual goals are going. Annual Goals Korean Vegan Cookbook In January I started with the "basics" c

This was another amazing month of reading for me! I think I've been hibernating a bit in the winter (more on that in my goals post coming soon), and have been plowing through books like never before. It's been fun to escape in other worlds right now! I had some great reads this month, kicked off reading some of the 2022 Goodread Book award winners, and had one big disappointment. Let's get into them! The Office BFFs by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey Note- this won Goodread's Best Humor book of 2022. Receptionist Pam Beesly and accountant Angela Martin had very little in common when they toiled together at Scranton’s Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. But, in reality, the two bonded in their very first days on set and, over the nine seasons of the series’ run, built a friendship that transcended the show and continues to this day. Sharing everything from what it was like in the early days as the show struggled to gain traction, to walking their first red carpet—plus exclusiv

I'm finally back with another travel recap! Our trip to Europe continued from Belgium as we drove across the border to Luxembourg. When we were originally planning our trip, we were debating going to Netherlands instead, but after not seeing much information or hearing a lot about Luxembourg we thought it would be fun to explore a more unknown area. I'm so glad that we went that route, because the country is absolutely incredible. We did such a variety of things in our short few days there, and I really want to go back!  Here are some highlights of what we did. Hotel - Hôtel-Restaurant de l'Ecluse I absolutely loved this hotel! We wanted a spot that was close to the city, but also had beautiful views of the Moselle River and was close to vineyards and hiking, and this hit all of those areas. The restaurant at the hotel was great, and we spent most nights with a glass of wine on the terrace writing in our travel journals. I would definitely recommend this hotel if you're