Smurfy

Here's a thought.  Let's not talk about me tonight, mmmkay?  After the last 2 nights I think it's time for a break from my blah blah blah.  The Holidays Calendar tells me that today is Global Smurfs Day!  Why?  I don't know!  But the link says it's always celebrated on the Saturday closest to June 25th.  Any of you Smurf aficionados out there know if there is significance to that date?  I haven't seen any of the new Smurf movies, but I used to watch The Smurfs on Saturday morning cartoons (in black and white for part of my childhood, thank you very much).  I had Smurf books and at least one little smurf figurine.  Which one?  I don't remember.  It was a boy.  That's all I can tell you.  But not Papa Smurf.  Let's look at shoes!

I think I could do with out Gargamel on the tongue but I appreciate the thoroughness of this shoe.

Is this Smurf running away?  Why is he so happy about it?  Maybe he's just going for a picnic?

I know there are women out there who love this style of shoe, but I am just not one of them.  I like the material, though.  Papa Smurf looks so happy!

Ooh, I love the red!

I love Mary Janes, you know this.  So I love the shape of this shoe, but the Smurfs + the pink + the polka dots + the black straps, heels, and soles are just too much.

I love the yellow shoelaces!  You know, when I was a kid Smurfette was the only girl Smurf.  Which was weird.  And a little creepy.  Oh wait, let me try that again:  In MY day we didn't have all of these high falutin girl Smurfs!  We had one!  Her name was Smurfette, and she was just Smurfy, thank you very much!  Heehee..I feel better now.

I'm off to bed with a book, I think.  TTYL!

PS - I THOUGHT I'd already done a Smurfs post!  At least I have a tiny bit of memory left.  And I only duplicated 2 of the pictures.

Wallowing

Let me start this post out on a positive note:  we had a bright moment of hope in our day today that I absolutely needed, and for which I am super grateful.  Before that happened I spent my morning pondering the question, "when is it acceptable to give up?"  And yes, I know that the answer to that is "it's not.  Keep going."  Also, I want to be clear that I don't mean giving up in any sort of permanent sense.  It's more that I just want to crawl into my blanket fort for 1-3 months.  I could nap, eat chocolate, and read, and when I emerged, rather than having transformed into a butterfly the world around me will have transformed.  The hubby will be healthy, our finances will be in hand, we won't be struggling to keep our heads above water all the damn time.  Sigh, that's called denial.  I understand this.  But the daydream is nice sometimes.  We do keep having bright spots, and those are the things that are keeping me going right now, but the things that are dragging me down are numerous:

• We're still in limbo about the hubby's health
• This is the week for me that the migraine hits.  Tuesday was the worst, but the darn thing has been lingering ever since
• My blood sugar has been up, which freaks out the hubby and makes him worry that I'm going to get diabetes and die (yes, this is a bit of a trigger for him)
• I HATE the job search process.  I'm qualified!  I'm educated!  I show up on time, I'm professional, and I'm nice, dammit.  Someone should want to hire me.
• It is 9 billion degrees this week
• We are about to lose our storage unit.  There have been several times in the past week or so when we though things would work out so we'd be able to pay our past-due balance, but they've all fallen through.  All of our stuff goes up for auction on Saturday.  90% of it really is just stuff that I'm mostly OK with being without.  The other 10% has me heartbroken, though, as it's irreplaceable.  I should have found time before it reached this point to go get that stuff out, but I didn't.  Because I suck.  And now I feel stupid.
• I have numerous friends who are hurting right now for various reasons and I can't do a thing to help any of them.  This makes me feel like a horrible person.  I love them, I should be able to help them in some tangible way.
• There are a bunch of other things that combine to make me feel like a giant, stupid, loser-failure.

OK, I'm done.  I just needed to wallow for a bit.  Tomorrow I will try to do a post about happy, positive things in my life, because they do exist.

Since this post is about wallowing, what's more appropriate than piggy shoes?

Oh my goodness.  It's a pig in a tutu and teeny tiny high tops!  This is ridiculous.  Or maybe it's repigulous!  And adorable.

I actually knew a kid who had these shoes.  The piggy bum cracks me up.

They are soooo happy!

I would like this better if the shoe wasn't pink so the piggies would pop a little better.

I think I need green boots for wallowing days.  And a teeny tiny boot wearing pig to accompany me.  Now, will someone PLEASE make me a magical blanket fort to to which I can escape?

Sadness

My heart is sad today for 2 friends in particular.  SKD texted me this morning to tell me that their beloved Lucy died this morning.  She was a Chihuaha/something or other, and she had the sweetest, funniest little underbite ever:

They are heartbroken, of course.  She's been with them for 11 years and will be missed.

Yesterday I found out that The Coffee Friend's dog, Marty was diagnosed with metastatic cancer. It's already spread to his lungs, liver, kidney. It began in the right sinus and that tumor is now protruding against his skull. She made the heart-rending decision to have him relieved of his pain.  She will have the weekend with him and say good-bye on Monday.  Marty is the cutest Labradoodle I know:

Neither option is good.  In one you don't have a chance to say good-bye and in the other you get that chance but have to wait for what's coming.  I want to hug both of them.  SKD is closer, but I still can't get to her right now, and The Coffee Friend is in Wisconsin.

I don't want to do puppy shoes because it seems too sad.  Instead I will do rainbow shoes tonight in honor of these beloved pets who are making their last trip over the rainbow bridge.

Hug your fur babies extra close tonight, and please pray for these dear friends.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day!  Whether you are a biological mom, adoptive mom, foster mom, Godmother, motherly, or have a mother, I hope you found a way to celebrate today!  For those of you for whom today is hard, because of infertility, loss of a child, loss of your mother, or an unhealthy or unhelpful relationship with your mother, please know you aren't alone, that you are loved, and I hope today wasn't too painful for you, or if it was you had a good support system.  My prayers are with you, and I would give you a hug if I could.

I am extremely grateful for the moms in my life.  My mom, my mother-in-law, my Godmother (who is also my auntie!), the moms of my nieces and nephew (one of whom is my seester!), and lots of mothering-types who have been there throughout my life.  I am thankful for each and every one of you.

I was a terrible daughter today, though.  I did at least call my mom today.  But, I have a gift for, have had it for months...but haven't sent it to her.  I wrote her a poem...but haven't finished it.  I feel like the kid in Mercer Mayer's book Just For You.  Hopefully mom still loves me in my failure (actually I know she does, it's one of the reasons she is awesome and I am lucky).  I will try to do better in the daughter department, though.

In the meantime, here are some shoes to celebrate the day:

Yum!  Neither the dragons nor the puppies thought to get me lollipops with shoes on them.  Silly babies.  Oh wait...that's just karma for my own Mother's Day failures!

 

This is true.  I wouldn't trade my mom in for all the shoes in the world.

I think I've posted these before, but I still like them.  I would wear them on Mother's Day and July 12 and January 11 and November 27 and September 25, for a start (those are all birthdays of the people I mentioned above).

I have no idea why these came up in a search for "mother's day shoes," but they did.  They are odd, but I like the colors.  I don't think I would wear them, but still, the colors are fun.

So, once again, Happy Mother's Day!  I hope your day was full of love.

It's a Mystery

Today's shoes have a theme.  They are what came up when I typed in a certain word + shoes into the image search.  I'm just not going to tell you what that word is.  Because apparently I'm feeling stubborn today.  And for those of you who know me, you'll know that I am very rarely stubborn...😁 Without further ado, here are the shoes:

Well, that's weird.  Kind of cool in an arty way, but definitely weird from a shoe perspective.

These are very similar to the shoes in yesterday's post, and I still don't really care for the cross detail.

I actually love this, although again from an arty perspective.  The colors are bright and fun, and I can see Ms. Frizzle wearing these on a Magic School Bus Adventure.

I'm not completely sure what's going on here, but I like the colors.

Speaking of loving the colors.  Plus stripes!  So fun.

And there you have it.  Mystery theme.  If you have any guesses, let me know, but I don't think anyone will actually figure it out.

Love is Love is Love

I was reminded this week that I have amazing friends and family.  You'd think I would know this by now, but a little reminder never hurts.  First, a friend from seminary was in town from Washington DC and she stayed with the hubby and me on Thursday night.  It was sooooo good to see her and hang out.  We had dinner with the BSF Thursday night and it was really great to have some good, quality girl time.  I definitely needed it.  There were a bunch of other reminders of why my friends are awesome these past couple of days, but I'm not going to go into the details in this post. Suffice it to say that I have felt surrounded by love.  I hope I can pay that love forward, backward, sideways, and interdimensionally in thanks.  To celebrate, tonight's shoes are love themed.

I've posted these before, but they are Beatles shoes that say All You Need is Love a million times.  No, really, it's a million, I counted.  And I'll probably post them a million times more.  Also, I love the colors.

 

I don't like this as well as the first pair, but I still love the colors, and it looks like a DIY project, so I appreciate the effort.

 

Yes, I know this is the same as the first pair, but it's for a TODDLER.  Someone please get me a toddler so s/he can have these shoes!

 

I know these last two are kind of tiny and hard to see, but they are Toms, and all covered in hearts, and I like the colors on both.

It's true, all you need is love, and I am grateful and blessed to have been showered in love t his week.  Thank you, my friends.

Fast Flowers

I planned this post earlier in the day and even found the pictures, but then the day got away from (as usual), so I'm going to make this quick because I have a ton of stuff to do before I can finally go to bed.  Today I wore these shoes, which you've seen before, but it's been awhile, and I haven't bought new shoes in 5,624 years:

One of my interns did a double take when he saw these and said, "whoa! Those are, well, they're, those are some flowers!"  He's usually much more eloquent than that.  These are quite the crazy shoes, but some days you just need crazy, happy, colorful shoes.  And then you need to go find more, at lease in a virtual sense:

 

I love these with the contrasting solid color.

I love the flowers on this one.

Hey, 2 out of 3 pairs are blue, you know I had to choose this picture.

These are so stinking cute.  The PB (which I should probably change to IB for Imaginary Baby as Potential doesn't seem accurate anymore) totally needs all of these.

 

Speaking of whoa, those are some flowers.  And yet, I like these.  

Bright, crazy, colorful.  Apparently that was my mood today.

Ladybugs

I need something to make me smile today.  2 years ago I posted Doodlebug shoes in honor of KAH's birthday.  Of course, it's his birthday again today, which makes me smile.  Although I can't believe he's 24.  He was born when I was 18, so for this year we're inverse ages.  I posted this picture on Facebook this morning:

This is from when I used to do daycare for him and his sister, and this is how I tend to think of him (although I DO realize he is a grown man with a job and a life, of whom I am incredibly proud).  I have a small obsession with small children in overalls, so dressed him in them as often as possible.  

So that's my doodlebug.  I already did a doodlebug post, though, and there weren't a lot of options, but doodlebug led me to ladybug, which makes me think of The Bean, which also makes me smile.  So today's post will be ladybug shoes, of which there are lots.

 

These are very sweet.  I might even wear them if they came in my size.

I would totally wear these in my size, but only if there was a small child (or several) who had matching pairs and we used them for puddle jumping!

 

So cute.  But dang those are some big eyes.

I'm thinking my mama could totally make these in a variety of sizes.

Ribbon laces!  You know I'm a sucker for ribbon laces.  In fact, I wore my coral canvas shoes with the ribbon laces just yesterday. 

I love all the colors on this.

See?  I should post more often as this one has given me several things to smile about.

Earth Day

So, it's been a month and 20 days since I last posted.  I've thought about it a bunch, but like so many things right now, I don't seem to get around to it.  Work has been crazy, life has been crazy, things have been super stressful.  Blah...I won't bore you with the details because they are numerous and they don't even seem plausible when listed all together.  I'll just say that prayers, as always, are appreciated, and if things don't change soon, there will need to be some major changes in our lives.

Let's move on.  It's been forever since I posted, so you don't need to read a bunch of my whining.  Today is Earth Day, and there were lots of Marches for Science around the country.  I didn't march, but had good friends who did.  Instead I will post some earth-themed shoes.  Which is a little ridiculous, and I don't mean to make light of the day, it's just a theme for tonight's post since I'm actually getting around to posting something.

Let's just look at shoes, k?

If these had better arch support (I'm assuming they don't), they'd be great to wear for a march.

I love these.  The colors are so fun.

These would also be on-point for a march.

Love the green.  You know my thoughts about the rest.

These crack me up.  Earths wearing glasses!  I love the Tom's above, but these might be my favorite.

Not my most in-depth post, but hey, I had to start back somewhere.  I can't guarantee I'll post more frequently, but wouldn't it be nice if life calmed down enough to let me?