Treadmill Goals:

• Get on the treadmill (or equivalent exercise) daily
• Pace is fine at 30 min/mile, although I may up it on occasion
• Time range between 30 minutes and 1 hour per day
• Distance 1-2 miles per day
• Read the chosen book, which I won’t allow myself to read outside of my treadmill time, hopefully motivating me to reach or exceed the above goals (the only exception to this is Saturday nights, if I want to finish off a book so I can start a fresh one for the new week)

Note: Although I will try to avoid them, my daily #amreading updates may or may not contain spoilers, so read at your own risk.

What I #amreading (rereading): The Peacock Prince by John Tristan ♡

My favorite lines this week:

• SUNDAY – NOTE: (not a book quote) I totally flaunted my own rules and watched the Game of Thrones season opener instead of reading. Even though I love this book I’ve chosen to reread this week, I’m not even going to pretend to be sorry. And look at the bonus time I spent on the treadmill because of it!

• MONDAY – A braid thick as a ship’s rope was thrown over his shoulder, shining like obsidian under the lamplight. His skin was a dark bronze, made darker by his stubble. When he saw me, he showed a smile, but his black eyes were sharp as a dagger and unreadable.

• TUESDAY – Lady Iris opened and closed her mouth like a half-gutted fish. I still held his eyes, Barbarian he might be, I thought, but at least he was honest. Perhaps my sister might grow to like him after all.

• WEDNESDAY – I thought I understood then what Dagon Blackstone meant about honors and titles. Here I was, the prince of Aël, and I could not even command a door to open.

• THURSDAY – “If you need to throw up, don’t do it on the Blackstone’s floor.” Jerah said. He thrust forth the bowl that had previously held my breakfast. “Use this, or run out and heave over the railing.”

• FRIDAY – Wearing as little as he did, I cold see his tattoos outlined clearly in the sunlight. On his breastbone bloomed a sleek black octopus; it was its tentacles, elaborated into bizarre geometric shapes, that formed the patterns across his shoulders and arms. By the time they reached toward his wrists, the lines barely seemed to relate to their octopi origin—still, they had a kind of wild, jagged beauty, the beauty of swords and cliff’s edges.

• SATURDAY – For a long moment, nobody spoke. Above us, in the rafters of the temple, a bird squabbled for a moment with its mate and winged off through the greenery. I could feel my heart beating in my lips, in the tips of my ears. I counted the silent seconds with my pulse as metronome—five, ten, fifteen.

Week 34: July 16, 2017 – July 22, 2017