What I did with my tax refund

At the moment I am impatiently waiting for three new books to come in the mail. For the most part I try to get my books from the library because it saves me money and space, but these three books are not available at my public library and I've been wanting them for months. So when I got my tax refund on Friday I couldn't resist ordering a couple of them from Amazon. Now, even though I know they won't arrive for about a week, I'll be checking the mail continuously for the next several days. I am also waiting for two review copy books and a book I won on Dewey's blog! I'm the luckiest girl ever right now! Here are the books I ordered and am waiting for:

First is High Infatuation: A climbing life by Steph Davis. I've had this on my Amazon wishlist for more than a year and am so excited to finally be waiting for it to arrive. Steph Davis is an amazing climber, who basically gave up her "normal" life for a life on the road, going from climbing paradise to climbing paradise. She has her car (pictured on the front of the book) filled with all her climbing gear and has become a great climber because of the amount of time she's able to spend on the rocks. As a rock climber I'm totally envious of her lifestyle and can only pray that I'll one day be able to climb some of the great walls. I can't wait to read about her life and her decision to go on the road so she could climb more often.

Second is Radiant Days by Michael A. FitzGerald, a fellow writer at The Nervous Breakdown. I've read some of the books by other TNB writers and have made it a goal to support their work. Radiant Days is another one that's been on my list for more than a year. Here's the Amazon description: "FitzGerald's quiet debut centers on Anthony, a Gen X-er slacking away at a meaningless but remunerative Web producer job in dot-com–boom San Francisco. Anthony's life takes an unexpected turn when he meets Hungarian bartender Gisela at a local watering hole. Beautifully irresistible (and entirely untrustworthy) in the manner of all foreign femme fatales, Gisela quickly persuades him to travel with her to Hungary, supposedly so that she can be reunited with her missing son. In Budapest, the two meet jaded British war correspondent Marsh, a Graham Greene–like character who becomes the third leg in a rapidly evolving love triangle. Anthony spends his time just as purposelessly in Hungary as he did in California, though there are more lengthy sociopolitical and philosophical discussions to be had. Were it not for his glimmers of self-awareness, Anthony might be just another unbearable ugly American."

Lastly, we have The Nonrunner's Marathon Guide: Get off your butt and on with your training by Dawn Dais. I just discovered Dais' book when I decided to start reading about properly training for that half marathon I'm planning on running in October. As some of you know, I did my first half marathon last year and ended up having to walk a good 6 miles of it. I can guarantee that this was because I didn't take my training seriously and thought I'd do it anyway. Word on the street is an old man with a walker finished the race before me. So this year I decided to take it seriously and try to increase my finish time by at least 30 minutes. And I want to run the whole thing. I've been reading The Complete Book of Running for Women, which is an amazingly informative guide. However, I'm a little scared when she talks about going for a short 3- to 6-mile run when you don't feel like getting out on the road one day. Um, a long run for me is 2 miles, so we have issues. That's why I decided to go with Dais' book, which is a combo of training guide and her experience going from couch potato to marathon runner. It includes journal entries from her first year of running and should be a more realistic comparison to my life (I hope).