I’m the subject of a little secret project.  Well, I guess it is not exactly SECRET.

I’m writing an article for Frederick Magazine.

Who cares, right?

Well the article is actually about … ME.

I’ve been asked to write an article about training for the Frederick Marathon.  I guess the interesting angle here is that I am not a youngster (ouch!).  I am a middle aged? married woman with two small children trying to train for a marathon while balancing a full time job, children and a husband.  (Not to mention a dog, 6 fish and a bearded dragon, but I digress.)

So, I’ve been keeping a journal of my experiences and have been working on the story for a couple of weeks now.

The interesting part of this whole experience is having a photographer assigned to you.  Oh yes, I have my own personal paparazzi. (Actually, my paparazzi’s name is Mike and he is a pretty great guy with a lot of patience who I am quite certain thinks I am a little loopy.)

Poor Mike has had to follow me around at all hours while I train for this sucker.  And by train, I mean run.  So how boring is THAT? You have got to feel for him.  It’s been cold, rainy and well, EARLY.  And he has been taking pictures of some silly woman doing the same things over and over again.  They can’t be paying him enough.

Although I must admit that it has been pretty amusing to see people’s expressions as we (meaning me and my running partners Katie, Rani & Rachel) run through downtown Frederick with this photographer jumping out at us taking pictures.

I feel like Britney Spears.  Only older.  And wider.  And…. okay, gonna stop now.  You get my point.

So, because I work as an independent contractor,  I get the opportunity to work for a number of different clients…  One of  my clients is a local magazine.  I handle their social events section.  What that basically means is that I attend various functions around town, take pictures and write a story on them.

Essentially, I get paid to go to parties.  Not such a bad gig, huh?

This does pose one small problem, though.  With these functions come various dress requirements.   And no matter how hard I try, I have not yet been able to convince the IRS that cocktail dresses and gowns are a business expense.  They are not buying it.  Apparently, Beyonce can do it but, alas, I cannot.  (So WRONG!)

It is just plain impossible to own enough cocktail dresses to attend these functions.  I see many of the same people at these events and that just doesn’t give me the freedom to repeat the same dress 12x a year.

If I lived in Hollywood I would be seriously ostracized right now.  Same dress two times in a row?  Scandalous!

Luckily for me, I have a nice cache of girlfriends who hang in the same social circle who are more than willing to offer up a dress in the name of a female emergency.   You just can’t put a price tag on that kind of friendship, can you?

A new influx of dresses to choose from courtesy of a girly-friend. What a life saver.