Happy Saturday!! I hope it has been treating you all well so far. I had a great morning of sleeping in until 8, then eating a delicious bowl of oats before heading to Power + Kick class. I think Saturdays are my favorite workout day. It's the one day I push a little more by doing 2 classes and I always leave feeling strong, but also confident it is still a good decision for my current situation since it is only once a week. All about balance, right?

Before I head on to the rest of my weekend, I wanted to do a review of the book I finished reading earlier this week. I want to be sure I tell you all about it before I forget, because I really enjoyed it. A lot. The book is called The Time of My Life by Allison Winn Scotch.

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This book kind of reminded me of the last one I read, Don't You Forget About Me, because it was about a woman named Jillian who was questioning her life and reveling in the past. I didn't intend to read two books like this back to back, and no, I am not having a "quarterlife crisis" or anything like that to draw me to these books. However, they are things that I can relate to on some level and they are fun reads with just a little more oomph to the plotlines.

While Don't You Forget About Me is about a woman living in her past by having to move home and prepare for her high school graduation reunion, The Time of My Life is about a woman who actually wakes up and finds herself about 5 years ago in her past. Right smack in the middle of all the situations and changes that she wondered "what if I had/hadn't...." about from her past and how it affected her current life. Kind of like a Back to the Future effect.

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Jillian is a stay at home mother to a toddler and a wife to a husband who travels a lot  and whom she blames for their less than stellar relationship. She feels caught up in being the perfect housewife and lost in all of the errands of day to day living, cleaning, cooking, shopping, etc. She feels she has no one she can relate to and that she is, basically, lost in her current life. After hearing about her ex's upcoming wedding, she gets draw into the "what if" game. What if she had worked harder to stay with him? Would her relationship still be passionated now, instead of lackluster from an absent husband? Would she still be working in her high-power advertising career, instead of blowing raspberries on her daughter's tummy all day? Would she have opened up to her estranged mother and had a better relationship with her, instead of blocking her out and constantly fearing like she is headed down the same path of parental failure?

You will have to read the book to see what happens. But she does get the chance to go back and change many things, affecting other people's lives in the process as well. She also learns more about herself and gets a more realistic perspective on some of the things in her current life. But will things ever be the way they were if she wants to go back to the future? It's a fun, light read that I highly recommend. And reminds us that "what-ifs" are a waste of time and things might always look better when we are removed from the situation. I admit that "what-ifs" sometimes cross my mind, but I know that relationships, family, passions, hopes, and dreams take work and aren't always going to go smoothly. And I know that the decisions I made to lead me to where I am today, lead me to exactly the place I want to be. Like heading out to a first birthday party for a friend's daughter, to a park for family time, and pizza + movie for date night. 😉