So I creep.... yeah.

Remember the good old days? When I had a lovely porch and fun back alley and even an indoor location where I could take some perfectly lighted outfit photos before anyone else got to work?

When I got my new job, my photoshoot locations suffered. To get an outdoor shot, I have to wait for a weekend and a willing photographer (ahem, husband, ahem).

Well, today as I was walking to the mailbox to send off some belated Christmas cards, I saw this alley. It's a little creepy, but also well lit at four o'clock in the afternoon. There was even a band practicing somewhere in one of the buildings off of the alleyway, so I felt like I had my own photoshoot theme music.

I didn't stay long, but I did manage to find a ledge on which to prop the point-and-shoot to take some quick timed shots. I think I'll be back.

On another note, I'm listening to the Civil Wars right now and I'm digging them so much. If you have Spotify, listen to their album, Barton Hollow, here: The Civil Wars – Barton Hollow

That's another Christmas present from me to you! I'm on a roll!

Gap top, jeans and belt, Old Navy vest (hubs thinks it looks like baby puke), boots and bag, gifted scarf

P.S. Did you notice I brought the rounded edges back? No? Oh, well. I like 'em.

Faster than a bumblebee.

January's issue of Wired Magazine features an entire section all about speed. No, not the drug or the movie, but the scalar quantity.

One of my favorite features in the speed section was on the world record setter for fastest guitar playing: a 28-year-old named John Taylor. Apparently, in order to set the record or beat the current record, you have to play "Flight of the Bumblebee" because the judges were sick of people just playing one note over and over again.

Well, I just had to see his 600 bpm rendition of the song myself, so I mosied on over to YouTube and found it. It's pretty amazing.

So Merry (early) Christmas to you, reader!

My pants say, "Merry Christmas!"

I know what you're thinking: "Pants can't talk!"

And you might be right. But I still stand my my holiday-esque assessment of these pants.

I went to Old Navy the other day to pick up a replacement pair of black Rock Star jeans. I wear mine so often that they're getting a bit thin. When the store didn't have a pair in black, I decided to hit up the Gap. 

I realize these jeggings aren't black, but I couldn't resist they're cranberry color or cozy fit. I'll be getting another pair, for sure. Maybe this time in black.

These photos are from Saturday (you know I only get myself together enough to take pictures outside on the weekend), when the hubs and I were out and about shopping and helping a friend of his get a whole new wardrobe. Let me tell you, helping someone else spend their money is fun. Especially when your opinion is wanted.

I carried around this fun San Francisco tote all day. Hubs got it from his secret Santa at work, but since he doesn't carry tote bags (surprise!), he passed it on to me. Thanks, Santa!

Gap jeggings, gifted top, belt, bag & scarf, Banana Republic shoes, F21 bangle

I'm so ready for the holidays, despite being a couple of gifts behind in my shopping. The husband keeps bragging about how awesome his gift for me is, so I'm dying to know what he's come up with.

I hope it's not a San Francisco tote. I already have one of those.

What are you wishing for this Christmas?

How much did you spend on clothes this year?

I wanted to write a riveting data-filled post about how much I spent on clothing during 2011 and how I would try to curb my crazy spending ways. After all, I write about personal finance on a daily basis; why not on my own personal blog?

So I crunched the numbers: I tallied up each and every clothing and accessory purchase for the year (so far) and averaged it out by month. I thought for sure I'd find it an appalling number. I would be horrified with myself.

"Bethy!" I'd say (out loud). "How could you spend so much money on clothes?!" Then, I would have a small fainting spell before coming to and vowing to fast from shopping for a year.

You know what I actually found out? I spent an average of $140.38 each month on clothing and accessories. That's it. When you look at the 11-month total of $1,544.15, it seems like a lot. But $140.38 per month for someone who loves clothing as much as I do is surprising.

To give you a couple more fun numbers (because that's what I do!), my spendiest month was May, with $202.94 in clothing and accessories. I'm not sure what I bought that month, but I know that there were several trips to Old Navy and Gap and one big trip to Target involved.

My thriftiest month was March with $40.89 total spent on clothing and accessories. I must've been saving my cash for my trip back home that month.

So what does this all tell me? Not a whole lot, to be honest. Until I took a look at individual purchases. Basically, it follows along the same lines as what I wrote on my work blog last week: I buy clothing like I'm buying lots of cheap cheese. Instead of saving to indulge in one high-quality item (a.k.a. Manchego cheese or designer denim), I buy a lot of little things, just because they're on sale (like cheddar cheese or sale tops at the Gap). You get it? No? Well, read the blog post, then maybe you will.

Bottom line is that I keep forgetting what I really want as soon as I'm in front of a sale rack. The madness has got to stop. So maybe that's one thing I'll work on in the new year. Instead of setting myself a budget (I already have one of those), I'll set myself some savings goals. Now, what to save for first?

If you were me (let's pretend!), what would you save for?

P.S. Don't forget about the Blogiversary & Holiday Giveaway!

Gap top, Old Navy cardigan, jeans and flats, F21 bangels

Blogiversary & Holiday Giveaway! (Closed)

Nearly one year ago, I kicked off this blog, full of wide-eyed wonder at the world of style blogs.

I've had fun, and I have some plans for the next year of the blog. (Oh! Exciting!) But for now, I have something to share with you, awesome readers: a giveaway!

I'm giving away the bottle of BADgal lash mascara from Benefit that I scored at a charity event a few weeks ago.* I've been using my own bottle of the mascara since then, and I'm digging it.

How to enter: Easy peasy. Just follow Style Aesthetic with Google or Bloglovin and leave a comment below!

The giveaway closes on Dec. 20 at 6pm PST. I'll draw a random winner next Wednesday, December 21.

Good luck!

*This giveaway isn't sponsored or endorsed by Benefit, I just wanted to spread the makeup love with you wonderful people!

Crafty: Pyramid Advent Calendar

My first December craft was inspired by this Advent calendar. Now, mine may not have come out as fancy as that one, but I like how it turned out.

Here's how I did it.

Step 1: Gather your supplies. Stuff like lots of cardstock paper, markers (mine are fancy scrapbooking ones!), ribbon (for the hangin'), tape, garland, a ruler and scissors. Oh, and don't forget the YouTube video instructions on how to make a paper pyramid. That about sums it up.

Step 2: Light some seasonal candles. Thanks for the holiday cheer, Ikea!

Step 3: Put something festive on the tube. I chose Futurama's Christmas special, of course.

Step 4: Cut out a square and a corresponding triangle. The dimensions are up to you, but a 2" square worked well in my case. (Give the triangle a 2" base as well. Duh.)

Step 5: Cut out your pyramid origami using your square and triangle as guides. A la the YouTube instructions. Make sure to add tabs at the base of the square and base of the topmost triangle.

Step 6: Cut out lots of pyramid origami. You know, 25.

Step 7: Decorate and fold! Don't forget to add a looped ribbon (to hang on your garland) before you tape your pyramid closed.

Step 8: Add somethin' inside. I chose Advent Bible verses.

Step 9: Keep on making your pyramids. All 25 of 'em. Decorate as you see fit.

Step 10: String up your pyramids along some garland. Marvel at their prettiness, and enjoy!

 

Contribute

Well, hello there!

In order to further expand my online writing horizons, I've been looking for places to contribute in my spare time. Well, I found the easiest one: the Yahoo! Contributor Network. My understanding is that you contribute original content, following Yahoo's guidelines, and wait for it to be reviewed and, hopefully, published.

For my first article, I decided just to claim a "story assignment" and get to writing. My post, "8 Low-Maintenance Winter Beauty Tips," was published yesterday! I'm excited, even though this contributor network is kind of like a black hole for content. It's at least out there, and it didn't take me long to create. It's something else to add to my portfolio, and something besides credit and personal finance (not that I don't love writing on those topics).

I'm still researching and looking for other places to write, but for now, it's a start.

And I promised a giveaway this week, didn't I?

Don't worry, there's one a-comin'. Its just been a bit delayed, thanks to a busy birthday week. (By the way, 29 feels eerily similar to 28.)

Well, I'm off to a Christmas party!

Gap sweater, Old Navy tee, vest, pants and boots, gifted scarf, H&M bracelet

Wish List

My birthday is tomorrow and Christmas is just a few weeks away, so I put together a list of things I'm currently craving. At the very least, I have something to save for.

Accessorize & Apparel-ize:

* Some boots to replace these cowboy-style boots that have served me well for the past 3ish years. I'm drooling over the Steven Intyce boots, but there might be others out there better suited to my aesthetic.

* A satchel bag. Something quirky like this fluorescent one from Bohemia or a calmer, more classic style like this one from Modcloth.

* Colored denim. Digging this red legging jean from Gap.

* Black pumps. My neutral Banana Republic pumps have been one of the best shoe investments I've made. 

Beautify:

* A bright or deep red lipstick, like one of the last two pictured here. And the guts to wear it.

* A gift certificate to Sephora. I'd love an opportunity to go crazy in there and not freak out at the prices. 

* Bare Escentuals eye makeup brushes. Yeah, I've been using a concealer brush to apply my eye shadow. Whatevs.

Digitize:

* An iPad. A girl can dream can't she?

* A digital SLR camera. It'll be either this or the iPad that comes from my SmartyPig savings.

Kitchenize:

* New oven mitts. (How practical of me!)

* An immersion blender.

* A Le Creuset dutch oven. Those things are fancy!

* A Vitamix. (Ha!)

* A new set of knives.

(Basically, I just want to upgrade all of my kitchen stuff. Except for my dishes. Hubs and I have awesome dishes.)

Banana Republic sweater, Old Navy scarf and coat, Steven boots, F21 bag

December: Do one thing.

I did not finish my novel for NaNoWriMo. Phew! Glad I got that off my chest.

I won't make any excuses. I could have finished, but I didn't. The good news is I have a story. With characters and a plot and all that good stuff. I even know--mostly--how it's going to end. Right now, I'm at 28,000 words, which I think is still awesome. And I'll probably finish it one of these days. But if I don't, that's OK, too.

And now it's December, and time for me to choose another thing to do. This month, I'm getting crafty.

No, seriously, I'm going to do several crafty things and then tell you about them. I've already finished one (what?), so just you wait.

My friend and I threw a crafting party last week, and I guess it just got me motivated to explore my crafty side. I'm no Martha Stewart, but I enjoy having a project. We'll see what I come up with this December.

Are you crafty? I'd love to hear about any fun crafts you've done, or any projects you'd like to do.

Target sweater dress, H&M scarf, Gap socks, Old Navy boots, F21 belt, Banana Republic jacket

Ahem.

I'm feeling rather wordless today.

I wore this outfit to a work breakfast. It was hosted by the women from Daily Worth, and it was all about women in finance (specifically about how to market to them). Most of the women there worked in financial services or marketing firms, and many of them were dressed pretty fancy, I'd say. A step up from business casual.

If you know me, you know that I work at a start-up (it's several years old, but a start-up nonetheless). And if you know anything about start-up culture, you know it tends to be more... um... casual. This outfit is about as dressed up as it gets (unless our founders have fancy meetings).

But for the breakfast, I decided to "dress up." And this is what I came up with. What can I say? I guess I enjoy the start-up culture too much to take on pumps and suits everyday.

MNG blazer (from Spain), Gap top, Old Navy Rockstar jeans, Target flats, gifted (from Venice) scarf

Score

 

I prefer some fluorescent with my fair isle.

This sweater was my one Black Friday score.

The end.

Not enough

Four-day weekend is almost over. And I'm not nearly as far along in NaNoWriMo as I wanted to be. It's because my holiday laziness took over. (Blame it on the turkey.)

I got some writing done today, and I think I know basically how I need to build the story and then wrap it up, but I'm still lots of thousands of words behind where I need to be.

Can I complete my novel in time? Only time will tell. But it will take some major writing sessions.

In other news, Thanksgiving was great! As is tradition, our friend provided the turkey (he gets it from work for free), and I roasted it. 17.61 pounds of roasted meat and lots of side dishes later, 20 of us were stuffed full around my neighbor's makeshift banquet table. Yes, 20 people around a table in a one-bedroom apartment. It can be done, folks!

After the big meal and several hours of chatting, hubs and I went to our second, and more non-traditional, dinner at his coworker's place. It was a Puerto Rican feast of deliciousness and much smaller, with just six of us in attendance. All in all, Thanksgiving was great.

I'm super grateful for my SF friends, wonderful neighbors and awesome husband. I'm also grateful for my family near and far (but mostly far), even though I wasn't able to be with them this Thanksgiving. I'm thankful to have seen my in-laws just recently and that my parents will be here in just a month.

What are you thankful for?

Old Navy top and vest, Gap jeans, Madden boots

Speed reading? Try speed writing.

With NaNoWriMo in full swing, blogging has become a secondary priority. I apologize for the neglect, but it's a necessary neglect, you know?

As for my progress, I'm doing better than I expected, which means I'm still about 10,000 words behind. But I have learned something about myself. I'm a speedy writer, y'all! Well, as long as I have an idea, I'm a speedy writer. For instance, I just spent about 25 minutes writing over 1,000 words. If I keep it up, I can actually finish NaNoWriMo, which is the goal, after all.

The really cool thing is that I'm actually enjoying my story now. I think I've got something. It may not be terribly original, but it's a story. A cohesive story with characters, settings, action, drama... and I'm really enjoying it.

I still don't know if anything will come of it. In other words, I'm not sure that I'll be showing this story to anyone but myself and maybe the hubs, but I'm at least proving to myself that I can formulate a story and get it down on paper (Word doc). That's pretty cool.

I hope to at least share an excerpt with you blog readers sometime soon. I think you deserve that for sticking around here, even when I neglect you.

To give you a quick idea, I'm writing a young adult fantasy/adventure novel (surprised?) about a boy who has adventures in his daydreams (not to be confused with night dreams, of course). He enters a world and meets lots of characters and has to figure out who is lying and who's telling the truth, and who is evil and who is good. I'm having fun crafting a fantasy world and characters, I tell ya.

Top from Azalea (I forget the designer), Gap jeans, Old Navy boots and bracelet

Support System

Well, we're more than halfway through NaNoWriMo, and I'm nearly 1,000 words behind. Hey, that's not so bad! Especially considering I didn't even know what my story was about a couple of weeks ago.

Today I have a plot, characters and a developing story. (I even have a spreadsheet to help me remember the names of characters and places.) For those reasons, 1,000 words doesn't seem like to big of a hurdle. I also have a support system. Two of my coworkers are doing NaNoWriMo. I mean, it makes sense. They're also writers at work. And apparently gluttons.

We're all at different stages, as far as word count goes, but it's nice to know I have a couple of people I can check in with from time to time.

I should be writing right now, but I'm too busy blogging and catching up with "The Walking Dead." (Have you seen this show? It's pretty amazing. That is, if you zombie apocalypse dramas. I, for one, do.)

Gap tunic, Prana leggings, Old Navy booties, gifted scarf

Loot!

Check out what I scored from a charity event gift bag this weekend. Hm... I don't need two mascaras. Do I spy a blogiversary giveaway?

Stay tuned!

Not a failure

Failure is relative.

Saturday I set out at 9:00am from Stinson Beach to run a marathon. I knew it was a trail race, but I had no clue how difficult it would be. We ran across the beach and across the street onto the Dipsea and then Steep Ravine trails. Imagine going for a strenuous mountain hike--lovely, but all uphill. For a straight 3.5 miles. Running (or, trying to).

Then you get a nice break. Well, sort of. You get two miles downhill. Sometimes, you feel like you're going to lose your footing and fall down the hill, which means you really have to pay attention to each footfall. Not to mention all of the roots and rocks causing the terrain of your path to change and shift all of the time.

Then it's through Muir Woods for a quick, flat jaunt before heading back uphill and through the mountainous woods.

I could keep going, but I think you get the point. The trail was so beautiful, but also underestimated. I didn't really know what I was getting into, which was my fault.

The cut-off time was six hours, and by the time I had done the seven-mile loop twice, I was going to be cutting it close to make it for the couple-mile out-and-back. When I reached the final aid station, they announced that any more marathoners wouldn't be able to do the out-and-back because of time constraints.

I had been struggling with pain in my right knee and hip, so part of me was glad to hear it. I only had the 3.5 miles back to the beach along the Dipsea trail, which included the Dipsea steps (seriously--this was insane--just tons of steps constructed to slice right through the mountain) and a glorious view of Stinson Beach--my finish line.

In the end, I finished just 22 miles according to my measurement (the website says 21). And I burst into tears as I cross the finish line, partially due to my elation at having finished, but mostly due to the pain I was in.

All in all, I'm proud of what I accomplished. Sure, I ended up being one of the slowest marathoners there (um, there were only 50 of us), and I was four or so miles short of a true full marathon, but I'm still proud. I realize (should have before) that it isn't exactly smart to run a trail race when you've only trained on city streets. That I guess I learned the hard way. I feel like trail marathons are at least twice as hard as road race marathons.

Would I do it again? I'm not so sure. In fact, I'm not sure if I should keep running marathons, with the way my joints were responding to this one. That's up for debate. They say trail races are gentler on your joints, but I'm not sure that I believe that. Or maybe it was just the steepness of some portions of the race that killed my joints.

Do I consider this a failure? Not at all. The amount of energy I exerted in this race was more that either or my road marathons, and that's saying something.

Plus, I got to spend a long weekend hanging out with the guy below. I might still be a little limpy, but all in all, it was definitely not a failure.

November: Do one thing

You know what the easiest excuse in the world is? "I don't have time."

So I'm bringing a different excuse to the table: "I'm a bad beginner."

It was an awesome and inspirational October. Two things specifically inspired me as a writer (both of song and otherwise):

1. John Vanderslice's house show, put on by KC Turner. JV--yeah, I know him. So what?--is quite the inspirational songwriter. He tells stories about his songs (or just about being a musician in general) that are so compelling, so endearing. And it makes me want to tell stories with my songs. Like Patty Griffin tells stories. (Have you ever heard her song "Makin' Pies"? It's beautiful. And haunting. And it tells a story.)

I wrote down several song ideas while I was enjoying the sweet sounds of John Vanderlice's music on someone's back lawn.

But have I actually made any of those ideas into songs? No. And I'll tell you why. It has to do with my second inspiring event.

Gap cords and top, Madden boots, F21 necklace

2. CAFe Salon Talk #1. It's an artist series curated by my church here in the city. CAFe (City Arts Fellowship) wants to connect artists so they can connect with and inspire one another. I went to the first "Salon Talk," which was basically a dinner at one artist's home (in this case, a blogger--love it!), during which we shared what we're interested in art-wise and our struggles with being a "poor beginner."

And I realized something while I was there. Karl--an amazing musician and our church music director--talked about how when you hear an amazing song, there are never any liner notes that say, "This song took six months to complete." You don't know how much work went into it and how long the songwriter had to struggle with getting started with the writing of it.

I felt relieved when I heard that. Maybe the beginning of writing a song really is just having those ideas scribbled down. And eventually one or more of them will become a song. But it's ok that it didn't happen in a month's time.

Speaking of things happening in a month's time, I have my "do one thing" for November. Are you ready for this? I'm doing NaNoWriMo. I'm writing a novel (or, at least a lot of little vignettes). My main idea is just to start getting ideas out there. I have several, many of them autobiographical in content. So, tomorrow starts my goal to average 1,666 words per day.

This will be interesting, and I'm really excited about it.

OH, and on the style front, I can't wait to show you my new shoes.