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.