NaNoWriMo 2015: Day 12

Took longer than usual
to get to Les Mis. I must
be losing what was left
of my mind.

First sentence: She stopped walking.

Last sentence: “Ten years of my lfie carefully documented, now downloaded onto a thumb drive that’s tucked in the back of a drawer never to see the light of day again.”

Bonus round: Managed to work in a Les Misérables reference today.

Today's word count: 1752: First on-par day I've managed since the first weekend.

Total word count: 12,196

NaNoWriMo 2015: Day 11

Today's words were entirely bus written, because this evening I went to see the Kinky Boots tour, which is fabulous and you should definitely go see it.

First sentence: She had a small cooler filled with snacks, sodas, and an ice pack, since her arm was still swollen past its usual size.

Last sentence: "It's Titus Andronicus," he said.

Today's word count: 402

Total word count: 10,444

Remembrance Day

I woke up this morning thinking that everyone was posting early for Remembrance Day before I finally got the date worked out in my head.

Source: Ali Taylor on
freeimages.com.

It still amazes me when I run into Americans who don't know about poppies or why other countries wear them. I don't know about everyone else, but I learned about the poppy tradition in high school (although U.S. veterans' groups that make and sell poppies usually do so around Memorial Day in May--but still, they do it). So I'm a bit sad to hear about the debate raging in the UK about the expectation that one must wear a poppy. As with so many other things, this is a personal decision about which different people will of course reach different conclusions, and it's a shame that it's become a battleground.

As it happens, "In Flanders Fields," while beautiful, is far from the only poem written about WWI. You can read several of them here, but the one I'm particularly touched by this Remembrance Day is "For the Fallen," which includes this beautiful verse:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

 May you and yours be blessed this Remembrance Day.

NaNoWriMo 2015: Day 10

First sentence: The run-in with Brad came sooner than expected, as he appeared at her desk he second she put the phone down.

Last sentence: She reflected on teh trip that she probably had an unhealthy addiction to public transportation.

Today's word count: 1161

Total word count: 10,042

NaNoWriMo 2015: Day 9

First sentence: “Very true.”

Last sentence: She would set an example for the team of how to do this right if it killed her.

Bonus round of most typos in a row: She hoped none of her taem was veelind estra-vulunerable that day.

Today's word count: 555

Total word count: 8881

NaNoWriMo 2015: Day 8

First sentence: Kathleen gave her a treat, which also did not produce any excitement, so she gave up on making hte cat like her and instead went hunting for some medication.

Last sentence: “It makes it easy to get them to do their besa, but is not always fun to watch.”

Today's word count: 1221

Total word count: 8326

NaNoWriMo 2015: Day 7

Yes, I missed a day of updating. I did write a few words on day 6, but nothing to get excited about. So, let's instead get a bit more excited for day 7:

First sentence: “Okay, obviously, or you wouldn’t be asking.”

Last sentence: She arrived home to the consternation of Jellylorum, who was napping on the couch and didn’t seem excited about waking up.

Today's word count: 1095

Total word count: 7105

Fun Runs: Dos & Don'ts for a Great Race

This weekend is the Race for the Cure in Austin and it's that time for year all over for holiday fun runs, which are awesome. These events are great for runners and non-runners alike to have some fun with family and friends, maybe meet a goal, and mix up the holiday season. However, there is a prescribed etiquette for races, fun or otherwise, and it's not good to ignore it. Here's what you need to know before you head for the start line:

1. Slower participants start at the back. No exceptions!

This was my 52nd race in 8 years. Do
you see where I'm standing? That's
what you should do, too, unless
you're a speed demon.

This is so important, I'll say it one more time: Fast people get the front of the start area. Slow people get the back. Why? Because the fast people might just trample any slow people in their way, and the slow people will almost certainly frustrate the life out of the fast people. Remember, however relaxed and laid-back this event may be for you, others in the crowd will be using it to get a serious workout or try to beat a previous time. Trust me, we are slightly crazy when we're in that mode. You get in front of us at your peril.

If you're walking, go to the back of the crowd at the start, no matter what your friend says about how she started at the front last year and everyone just went around her and it was no big deal. And-- I can't stress this enough-- no matter what time you arrived. Please don't come to the race an hour early just so you can be up front.

Not sure if you're a fast runner or not? Here's a good way to find out: If your running friends who you usually train with are at the front, go ahead. In all other circumstances, including if you don't train at all, move back. If your race has signs with your expected pace, LINE UP THERE. Seriously.

2. Please do not form a human wall.
Walking two abreast is fine. Three abreast is sketchy. More than three abreast, and you've become a roadblock. Don't do it! It's great that your family is all walking together as a group, but you need to arrange yourselves so that every other person on the course doesn't have to squeeze through the tiny gap you left them out the side.

On the same note, please be aware of the space between you and other groups on the road. If you are walking three abreast and you happen to fall in step with another group that's also walking three abreast, the same problem ensues. If people are yelling "Excuse me!" a lot or you get brushed by more than one sweaty arm, it's time to re-think your position.

3. Do not, do not, do not stop in the middle of the pack.
Feeling a cramp? Screaming baby in your jogging stroller? Just tired and need to walk? That's fine. Pull over to the side, make sure that no one is directly behind you, and then stop. Alternatively, you can tuck in behind another walker if you just need to take a breather. Whichever one you choose, know that stopping dead in the middle of the road is a recipe for someone running into you. And I promise, no matter what kind of distress your baby is in, there is no universe in which stopping so that runners can knock into the stroller and send you both flying is a better situation. Take a few seconds to get out of the road.

4. Be kind!
Remember, whether it's your first race or your fiftieth, there will be people who don't know about race etiquette and it won't even have occurred to them that they need to look it up before heading out. Reserve your patience for those people, and if you must say something, do so as kindly as possible. Do your part to make sure everyone has a great race. And be sure to thank all the volunteers and race officials that you see, including the police officers directing traffic. They're out there working hard so you can have a great experience!

And one last thing...
There are some experienced runners who make a big deal out of not wearing the event t-shirt to the event. On the one hand, "nothing new on race day" is a good principle to live by-- when you put on new clothes for the event, you run the risk of chafing since you don't yet know how it will fit/rub/feel after three miles. So that's a good reason not to wear the event shirt. All other reasons people throw out-- well, what you choose to wear is none of anyone's business. I've known experienced runners, people who are age group winners and Boston qualifiers, to wear the race shirt to the race. If that's what you want to do, go right ahead. If other people wearing the event shirt bothers you so much, maybe run faster so you're too tired to care.

Are you running or walking a fun run this holiday season? Where and when?

NaNoWriMo 2015: Day 5

I wish I could have worked in a Guy Fawkes joke today, but alas, it's only September in my novel.

First sentence: “Do you think you can guide us to a table, then?” Clara asked.

Last sentence: “Do we have a first aid kit?” she asked without even bothering to say hello.

Today's word count: 464

Total word count: 5897

NaNoWriMo 2015: Day 4

First sentence: “Yeah, about that.”

Last sentence: “I wish I could deny either of those allegations, but I”m afraid it’s completely true that I”m brilliant at my job,” Dom said.

Today's word count: 242 (Yeah, not a good day.)

Total word count: 5433

NaNoWriMo 2015: Day 3

In case anyone forgot this year's
unofficial motto of NaNoWriMo

First sentence: “Story of my life,” Kim said. “Well part of the story.”

Last sentence: “It’s just that we’ll never hear the end of it from Clara if we act liek we’re hitting it off that well.”

Today's word count: 1518

Total word count: 5091

NaNoWriMo 2015: Day 2

(Remember, this series is as-is, typos and all!)

First sentence: Obviously, her own teachers had been interested in making sure she was ready for a world of red pencils and morons.

Last sentence: "You don’t want something so unusual that you can never find gifts with your name on it, but not so common that your nickname is practiaclly ‘No, the other one, not that one.’"

Today's word count: 1669

Total word count: 3673

NaNoWriMo 2015: Day 1

First sentence: Kathleen Mitchell was already on her third coffee spill of the day, and was about to ask if four meant she could go home.

Last sentence: Kathleen didn’t understand how some of her coworkers had graduated from high school, let alone college.

NaNoWriMo: The Plan

This is not my plan for NaNoWriMo itself, for which I still have no ideas and only 17 hours to come up with one. This may not be my most stellar NaNo ever. (BTW, are you a Wrimo? Let's be friends!)

Nope, this is what's happening here at Cheekyness during NaNo: every day I'll post the first sentence and the last sentence of the day, typos and nonsense included. This should be fun.

Additionally, a few kind folks, including some previous guest bloggers and beloved nieces, will be writing some guest posts for me. So some days will have two posts: one pretty one that makes sense and one with typos and goodness knows what.

Need more inspiration to get your November off with a bang? Check out NaNoMusical.

Here we go!

And It Some Days Will

I never had the time to write the post I had planned for yesterday, which is a bummer, because now you won't see it until after NaNoWriMo is over. (With a wait period that long, it had better be really, really good, yes?)

So much this. Image from
wojciech wolak on
freeimages.com.

So! It's raining today and is likely to continue until tomorrow morning, which has canceled my work event for this weekend (the park would have been too wet to use). But today is supposed to be green living day, so I have a question for you: How do you deal with old rain gear?

I have an umbrella that's currently holding on by a hope and a prayer, and I'll probably need to get a new one in the next couple of months. I have an old poncho that I hardly ever wear but haven't been willing to toss yet. Is there recycling for old raincoats? What are some possible uses for broken umbrellas? I hate to send things to the landfill that could have a second life, but rain clothes have me bewildered. Surely with all that waterproofing, there's some use for them?

(Post title is a line from a Robin Mark song, "Lost and Found": the entire passage is, "When the rain falls/ and it some days will/ the pavement under my feet/ sparkles silver and gold/ in reflective light/ that I otherwise wouldn't have seen.")

Stop Here, Not There

For my first week with my new theme days, I'm going to offer you a rare educational post. (This is usually the kind that brings out the folks who will tell me why I'm wrong, but hey, at least they're reading this thing.)

I was riding my bike for years before I found out how to trigger stoplights to sense my bike. It's not nearly as complicated as it seems. The bike goes directly over those lines in the pavement that look like someone with a good saw got there before you did. These lines:

Source.

The hard part may be having the confidence to put your bike over the lines. Don't be shy--it gets easier the more often you do it. And the danger in not putting your bike in its proper space at the stoplight is that you'll be waiting a while (although you can always use the pedestrian signal if taking the lane really isn't your thing).

What's something you do that's gotten easier as you go along?

Light Reading

I'm very happy to have regular professional development, am okay with the realities of nonprofit life, and embrace the value in getting spare-time things done before NaNoWriMo starts... but y'all, this is a ridiculous stack of reading I'm working my way through this week.

When I say "light reading," I really
just mean I can carry these around
without hurting myself.

First: I highly recommend the top two, Social Media for Social Good and Mobile for Good, to anyone who works for a nonprofit, whether you're in the communications department or not. As the author, Heather Mansfield, often says, nonprofits can no longer afford to ignore the impact social media and the mobile web are having on our work. Get thee to a library!

Further down the stack is The Nonprofit Marketing Guide, which is slightly more outdated but still contains solid principles, and I also recommend just about anything Kivi Leroux Miller writes down. If you work in nonprofits at all, you need to be paying attention to both of these ladies. They know their stuff.

We have a work event on Saturday, our year-end appeal was supposed to have been written two weeks ago (that's my own deadline, not the office deadline... but since I'm in charge of the year-end appeal, I suppose my own deadline is the office deadline), and then we hit the ground running for our next big event in March. Oh, and I still have no ideas for NaNoWriMo.

I'm frantically reading all of these (or re-reading, in the case of a few of them) in the hopes of learning something in a hurry. The stack of magazines at the bottom are from the meeting and convention industry and are quick reads, thank goodness! The rest--well, I'm pretty good at speed-reading, thanks to grad school. Whaddya know, I learned something I can use in real life!

What are you reading this week?

Skirting the Issue

Before: the shirts. 

I had a rare productive day on Saturday (without structure, my days tend to go poof! without me accomplishing anything at all), in which I finished the dress I shared yesterday and also a t-shirt skirt.

I started with this stack of t-shirts (one mine that I wore one time and immediately sweat-stained, sigh, and the rest were Chadwick's) and this tutorial for a t-shirt skirt, which I completely ignored once I got going, but it was great for giving me some ideas.

Other things circular knitting needles
can do-- I used mine to draw the
shoestring through the skirt without
a lot of fuss.

I used the white t-shirt for the base, since it was just the right size to go around my hips/legs and be snug without being uncomfortable. (Yes, I did step into it upside down and put both feet through the neck hole to determine this.) Also, that shirt was way thin-- I'm pretty sure it was meant for layering in the first place, which is great since that's basically what I've done with it. My original plan was to sew in some elastic, but... I hate elastic. So, I grabbed a shoelace I have laying around, cut a couple of tiny slits in the t-shirt hemline, and voilà-- we have a drawstring skirt.

So, I cut off the white t-shirt right at the armpits, cut strips (including the hemline) about 7-9 inches wide (depending on stains) from all of Chad's shirts, then tiered them up from the bottom. Obviously, this required a lot more pinning, checking, and re-pinning than I can describe in one go, but that's basically how it happened. I liked the blue shirt that's the bottom layer best, so that's why there's two of it. And that's the only one I hemmed, since it's the lowest layer. I may still hem up the others if they get to be troublesome, but for now I like the raw edges. The slightly fancy top layer is from a skirt I have laying around and have been unwilling to get rid of, since it's still perfectly good fabric.

Finished product, before washing. The white line
 on the blue layer is the chalk I used to mark
 cutting lines-- I marked that one in the wrong place. 

Also: t-shirts are heavy. This is made from six shirts, which weighs it down. I hope that translates into the skirt not riding up and displaying more of me than I intended while I'm riding my bike in it (although I'm not holding my breath). As long as it doesn't fall off, though, it's all good.

What's next? No idea. NaNoWriMo is creeping up on me super-fast (are you a Wrimo? Let's be friends!), so I may have to put things away for a while and concentrate on what I'm writing.

What did you do this weekend?

When It Rains, I Make Things

That's not totally true. What is totally true is that I finished this:

... while it was raining yesterday, since I wasn't interested in going outside to see how the Austin drivers were coping.

The top is a t-shirt I bought a couple of months ago in an attempt to occasionally wear shirts that don't have a running or Les Misérables logo on them. Apparently, I was unsuccessful. The skirt is a shirt I picked up at a clothing swap ages ago for Denise, she couldn't wear it at work because it doesn't go with her dress code, so she stuck it in a Goodwill bag, whence I rescued it to do this. (Does that even count as a rescue, since I cut it apart and sewed it to another thing?)

Edit: I realised a bit belatedly that this post is more useful if I tell you what I did! So, the skirt was a button-front shirt-- I sewed that closed so I don't get any gaps (left the buttons on), then cut it off directly under the arms (I used a rotary cutting board for the guidelines, a yardstick, and a piece of chalk to get the cut relatively straight). I thought about turning the raw edge under before sewing it, but that didn't seem necessary. I sewed it directly onto the hemline of the t-shirt, and did the gathering of some excess material in the front (and a little in the back by mistake) in places where there was already a dart in the shirt. Then I ironed the whole thing down. Since I sewed the bottom shirt along the hemline of the t-shirt, there is some excess fabric there, which may cause me some issues that I'll need to fix.

I'm wearing it to church today. We'll see how it goes.

How Lucky We Are to Be Alive Right Now

If you haven't listened to the Hamilton soundtrack yet, my goodness, what are you waiting for?

I have listened to it, many many many times in the month that it's been out, and I am so addicted. To judge by my Twitter feed, everyone I know on the internet is likewise addicted, which makes my theatrical heart dance every time I log on and see all the Hamilton references flying around. And if you can listen to it without crying, you're either stronger than I am (not that hard to be) or dead inside.

Eliza lived 50 years past Alexander, y'all. Fifty years, in which she accomplished a crap-ton of stuff. I'm barely able to cope with this first year, and the closest I've come to accomplishing anything at all is melting a bunch of crayons and hanging the results on my wall. Eliza Hamilton was obviously better at life than I am.

Anyway. I've listened to the soundtrack so many times that I'm surprised when I hear someone else's music in passing and they aren't listening to Hamilton. It's great running music. It's great working music. It's going to be perfect music for NaNoWriMo. So perfect, in fact, that I made this:

Which is my new motto for NaNoWriMo, and probably the rest of my life. How lucky we are, indeed.

Have you been listening to Hamilton? Do you have a favourite bit?