Treadmill Goals/Tracking

• 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. I’m officially modifying my original rule of not reading the book-of-the-week off-treadmill. I’m usually going to look at length and try to divide it up somewhat evenly per day, even if that means either closing that book early (if it’s short) or continuing after (if it’s long).

Week 189: July 5, 2020 – July 11, 2020

DAY	PACE	TIME	DISTANCE
Sunday	30 min/mile	34:54 min:sec	1.1 miles
Monday	30 min/mile	30:14 min:sec	1 mile
Tuesday	30 min/mile	30:24 min:sec	1 mile
Wednesday	30 min/mile	33:29 min:sec	1.1 miles
Thursday	30 min/mile	34:33 min:sec	1.1 miles
Friday	30 min/mile	36:17 min:sec	1.2 miles
Saturday	30 min/mile	47:34 min:sec	1.5 miles

What I’m Reading

Note: Although I will try to avoid them, my weekly reading snippets may or may not contain spoilers, so read at your own risk.

What I #amreading: Murder at Pirate’s Cove (Secrets and Scrabble book #1)

Ellery Page, aspiring screenwriter, Scrabble champion and guy-with-worst-luck-in-the-world-when-it-comes-to-dating, is ready to make a change. So when he learns he’s inherited both a failing bookstore and a falling-down mansion in the quaint seaside village of Pirate’s Cove on Buck Island, Rhode Island, it’s full steam ahead!

Sure enough, the village is charming, its residents amusingly eccentric, and widowed police chief Jack Carson is decidedly yummy (though probably as straight as he is stern). However, the bookstore is failing, the mansion is falling down, and there’s that little drawback of finding rival bookseller–and head of the unwelcoming-committee–Trevor Maples dead during the annual Buccaneer Days celebration.

Still, it could be worse. And once Police Chief Carson learns Trevor was killed with the cutlass hanging over the door of Ellery’s bookstore, it is.

**This story contains NO on-screen sex or violence.

My favorite lines this week…

✿✿ SUNDAY ✿✿

Anyway, if he abandoned ship now, he would feel like a failure. A real failure. Because there was a big difference between not succeeding and just giving up. He needed this change. He needed a fresh start. As much as he loved New York, the city had become a giant dead end for him. Whereas Pirate’s Cove, small as it was, contained endless possibilities.

✿✿ MONDAY ✿✿

“Is there a problem with the door?” Carson asked, which was a rhetorical question if there ever was one.

Ellery huffed his exasperation, straightened, and glared at the chief. “Why no. Why do you ask?”

Sarcasm bounced off Carson like bullets off Superman. “Let’s step inside,” he said.

✿✿ TUESDAY ✿✿

On the one hand, it was nice to experience a profitable day. On the other hand, Scene of the Crime was probably not a sustainable business model.

✿✿ WEDNESDAY ✿✿

He dug his cell phone out, pressed the Home button, and saw an unsurprising absence of bars. No service.

Of course not. Because he was sitting on the edge of the flipping world, with nothing beneath him but a bottomless abyss of futility and failure.

Okay. Maybe not that bad.

But now what?

✿✿ THURSDAY ✿✿

A tweed walking hat sat on a very dusty shelf. A couple of outdated raincoats hung limply from a wooden bar. A pair of galoshes faced the back corner as though in trouble for splashing through the mud still caked on their soles.

✿✿ FRIDAY ✿✿

“Where’s the fire?” Tommy laughed. And then, “Hey, are you free for drinks? I was thinking we could go over to the Salty Dog.”

Ellery hesitated. “I’d love that, but I have to talk to Chief Carson.

Her brows rose. “Anything urgent?”

“Uh, no. Nothing urgent.”

“Then phone him from the pub.”

Yeee-ah. No. No way he was talking to Carson with every ear in the Salty Dog turned his way like a field of satellite dishes primed to overhear interstellar communications.

✿✿ SATURDAY ✿✿

“Honestly,” Ellery said. “I didn’t think you liked me much. Anytime I caught your eye in here you were always watching me, like you didn’t trust me.”

Carson gave him a funny smile. It wasn’t that. You were just very…watchable.” He added gravely, “I used to really enjoy those toothpaste commercials.”

Ellery groaned and then laughed.