Thanks

Today I am thankful for our veterans.  Military service is not something I have felt called to or think I could do, but I'm grateful for those who are called to and are willing to serve in such a way.  I posted these 3 pictures on Facebook today in honor of Veteran's Day:

These are pictures of Mom's dad, my dad, and DJ. Apparently we're a naval family because my uncle was also in the navy, I just don't have a picture of him.  In honor of my these extra special veterans here are some nautically-inspired shoes:

You know I'm going to love these because they're blue.  I also like that they're themed but not over the top with their theme.

Ditto to these.  I think they're adorable.

This is creeping toward that over the top edge of theme-y-ness.

Love.

Navy shoes for the whole family!

Thank you to those who serve.  I am a proud auntie when it comes to DJ, and I pray for her continued safety as she moves forward in this journey.

From the Brain of the Bean

Tonight's post is brought to you by inspiration from the Bean because I couldn't come up with anything and I didn't take pictures of the kiddos' cute shoes today.  So she suggested I type in all of the nieces' names + shoes, and then she helped me pick a pair for each niece:

DJ.  She likes black, she's not terribly girly when it comes to shoes, and apparently she wants a Harley.

 

Double A.  These aren't real, they're for a doll, but she loves green.  She wouldn't actually wear these, though, because they have heels and she's strictly a flats girl.

The Bean chose cute sandals for herself, which is kind of funny as she loooooves heels.

Flower.  We like the colors.  Not sure if they look like Flower or not.

Laughter didn't have a lot of choices.  These were the best of the bunch.  At least they're blue!

Speaking of blue, Pippi gets awesome blue wedding shoes.

This is actually a little sedate.  Tink loves color and crazy patterns, but The Bean and I thought this was really cute.

And that's it from Montana.  I'm tired and the 6 girls who are having a sleepover tonight are probably going to wake up much earlier than I am prepared for.

Memory Lane: 2013.

Happy Birthday, DJ!

Today, as I'm sure you've deduced from the title, is DJ's birthday!  She's 19, in the Navy, currently stationed in San Antonio, TX, and wants to be a nurse.  It's hard to believe I was 2 weeks shy of being legal drinking age when she was born.  Where the heck did the time go?  And how can she be 19 when I'm only 25?  In exciting news, she's currently in Montana, and I got to talk to her today while she was at Mom and Dad's house!  And then the silly phone started ringing off the hook and I had to get back to work.  Don't people know I'm trying to talk to my niece?  Oh well.  In honor of her new career in the Navy, here are some navy blue shoes:

That's an odd and interesting detail on the toes of these.

I had to include these after the old lady post the other day.

Another interesting detail.  Maybe a little fancier than I would tend toward, but still pretty.

I'm fairly sure I've posted these before (I've decided to stop caring if I have or not and post anyway...if your memory is better than mine you can tell me when and where the shoes were originally!).  The details are a little funky, but I like them.

 

Simple.  Classic.  Yes.

Shiny patent leather Mary Janes!

Sigh.  Ankle straps.

You know I hate the thing between my toes, but how perfect are these?  Dang, now I wish I'd gone in a more nautical direction.  Next year, I guess.

Happy Birthday, DJ!  Love you to the moon and back!

Memory Lane: 2013 (poor kid had a Good Friday birthday). 2014. 2015 (a Palm Sunday birthday is much more cheery).

More Buttons

The other day when I was looking for button shoes I of course found the ones that I posted, but I also found button-up shoes.   The kind that need an actual button hook to fasten:

 

I've always been fascinated by both the shoes and the hook.  I remember my mom showing me a pair somewhere (Grandma's, maybe?) and showing me how the hook worked to fasten the buttons.  It's possible the conversation came about because of my fascination with all things Little House on the Prairie (I've read the entire series roughly 30 times).  It might just be that I was a weird kid with weird fascinations.  How many elementary-aged kids do you know who were obsessed with Gibson Girl brides?  Oh well, I'm probably still weird.  Let's just look at shoes, OK?

 

Blue!  I would totally wear these now if I could find them.

I really love this style with the higher ankle.  I'd wear these, too.  And red - how fun is that?

Not my favorite.  I think I'd like them better if they were all one color, or the white accents were done a little differently.  The white might actually be stuffing to keep the shoes upright, in which case the lady's stockings would have shown through.  Seems a little risque, don't you think? :-)

 

Ooooh....these would have worked for a wedding!

I love vintage shoes.  Yes, OK, I love shoes in general.  Shut up.

If you are happy with button shoes and don't want to get any deeper, please feel free to stop reading now because following I'm going to let off a little emotional steam, and you're welcome to opt out.

First, 3 happy things:

1. Last week we got to watch DJ graduate from Navy Boot Camp!  Soooo very proud of her
2. Yesterday was Flower's birthday and her giggle always makes me smile
3. The Nephew lost his first TWO teeth last week!

I'm trying to remember that there are happy things in my life, even when it's crazy-stressful-depressing.  Opening a new business is no joke.  I knew it was going to be hard and stressful, but I didn't realize that it was going to kill my soul one small piece at a time.  Melodramatic?  Of course.  But some days it's how I feel.  If there were some happier work news it would help, but dear God, it just seems like it's one piece of bad news after another.  I'm trying to stay positive, and things have always worked out in the past, but I'm so insanely freaked out at the moment I can't even begin to describe it.  I'm currently suffering from a crying hangover for finally giving in last night and sobbing for awhile.

Because of the stress the hubby hasn't been eating like he should, which means his blood sugar has been out of whack.  He's needy when he's stressful, and uber needy when he's sick, so he's been clingy like a toddler with separation anxiety lately.  I get it, and I try to be patient, but damn, sometimes I want to be the one getting taken care of.  And as a introvert sometimes I just need him to leave me the hell alone.  Then the Lutheran guilt kicks in.

Because of all of this I keep having fantasies about building a pillow fort, climbing in and pretending the world doesn't exist.  If only that would work.  My escapes have been crocheting, reading, and Christmas movies.  I asked on Facebook for book recommendations the other day because I need something to distract me.  Something enjoyable and not too heavy or dark.  I also started watching Christmas movies on the Hallmark channel the 2nd week of November, which I NEVER do. Christmas is AFTER Thanksgiving.  But this year I need the sweet, sappy escapism of movies where everything always works out and Santa or Christmas in general saves the day.  Can Santa please come and make everything work out?  Is that too much to ask?

In the meantime I will go back to my mantra of happy thoughts happy thoughts happy thoughts, as well as the only prayer I can formulate right now which is pleasegodpleasegodpleasegod.

Congratulations, Graduate!

DJ graduated from high school tonight!  I so wanted to be there, and am bummed that it didn't work out, but I am soooo proud of her!  She leaves soon to spend the summer working in Virginia City, MT, and then she heads to boot camp for the navy in September (she wants to be a nurse!).  The brother sent me a picture of her with her diploma, and The Bean posted some pictures to Facebook, so that made me happy to get to see her smiling face.

To me, graduation gowns are kind of like albs.  The only thing that differentiates you are your shoes, so you might as well wear something fun and/or funky!  Let's look at some examples.

See?  Festive and informative!

These aren't shoes I would necessarily choose for myself, but they certainly aren't boring, and they definitely catch the eye.

 

Again, not a style  I might choose, but I do love the color choice.

These are my kind of girls.  Fun shoes, and they posed for a shoe picture!  Also, the picture was taken in Billings, MT, proving that Montana girls rock.

I'm not sure I've ever seen brown graduation robes, but this picture proves a point.  The black shoes?  Kind of boring.  But the gold and pink shoes pop.

Sparkly and color coordinated.  I like this woman!
 

Wow.  I've actually posted these shoes before, but here they are out in the wild!  That is one patriotic grad.  They aren't my style, but you can't say she didn't put some thought into her shoe choice.

So what did DJ wear to her graduation?

 

Kick-ass, boots.  That's what.  Hers are the feet in the middle  The other feet in the picture belong to Double A (red dress, brown boots), their little brother (blurry blue crocs), their mom (brown Mary Janes), and The Bean (gold flats and jeans).  Now added to the list of why I'm proud of her, we can add that she wore make-a-statement shoes with her graduation gown!  I, on the other hand, did not.  I wore brown sandals, nothing fancy.  I didn't walk for my college graduation, and while I looked for seminary graduation, all I could find were kind of boring white shoes.  

Congrats, again, oldest niece!  You did it!

Tiaras!

Oh my goodness...today is World Tiara Day!  I wish I'd known this before so I could have had a tiara tea party.  I could have gone home and one with the nieces, or invited friends over and made the hubby serve us tea and cookies.  Tiara tea parties are a tradition in my family.  I don't even remember when or why we started, but we put on tiaras (Mom has a selection), use a fun tea pot from Mom's collection, and eat cookies (usually).  We speak with totally phony accents, hold our tea cups with our pinkies out, and generally act silly.  Mom gets to be the queen and the rest of us are princesses or duchesses or something else fancy.  Are we dorks?  Why yes we are.  We are also awesome.  See?

DJ wasn't in a tiara mood that day, and Pippi is holding hers rather than wearing it, but you get the idea.  I am so not a princess kind of girl generally, it's just for tea parties, but I do kind of have a secret love of tiaras.  And we all know of my love of shoes, so here are some combinations of the 2:

Boring color (I know, this shoe would be fabulous with certain outfits), but the tiara shoe clip is fun.

Whoa...sparkly!

Awww....baby tiara shoes.

More sparkles!  I like the fancy shoelaces.

Is that like a giraffe print?  I like the tiara detail, though.  My main question is this:  why can't there be another color besides pink?  Yes, tiaras are girly, but girls can wear other colors.  I bet even princesses can wear other colors.

Happy World Tiara Day!  I'm thinking I need to be home next year on May 24th so we can have a fabulous tiara tea party.  I'm also thinking I better start writing this stuff down since I keep making potential future plans...

Palm Sunday Birthday

Today is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week and the day when we celebrate Jesus' entry into Jerusalem.  I had really good intentions of going to church but woke up with the sinus headache from hell and stayed in bed instead.  Which stinks, because I enjoy  Palm Sunday.  Although, I'm not as fond of reading the passion on the same day.  I get it, lots of people don't go on Good Friday, so don't hear the Passion, but still.  I guess I'm a Palm Sunday purist.  Oh well, let's look at shoes:

Very Beachy, not so much Palm Sunday churchy, but I'd still wear them.

Shoes made out of Palms!  This is waaaaay more complicated than simply making a cross out of your palm.  Not quite as symbolic, though.

Also Beachy, but I really want a pair like this for next Palm Sunday.  I do love a theme!

Or these!  Although the above pair would show better under my alb if I'm back in the parish.

These are kind of tie-dyed looking palms.  But I love the colors.

Today is also extra special for another reason:  It's DJ's 18th birthday!  I can hardly believe it's been 18 years since this little bundle of energy came into our lives.  She's about to graduate high school and go into the navy.  She wants to be a nurse.  She's currently taking EMT classes.  She's amazing.  Since she was born in 1997, here are some shoes from that year:

Ahhh...clunky platforms.  Not palms, but plant related.

Whoa.  And damn.

Doc Martens.  I never owned a pair, but man were they popular.

Stripes, good.  Rainbow colors, awesome.  Platforms this crazy, well, crazy.

This is the exact shoe I wore for a good chunk of 1997.  This or hiking boots.  I did have some dress shoes, but I wasn't going through much of a shoe craze at that time.

DJ, of course, spent 1997 in adorable baby shoes, and being adorable in general.  Happy Birthday, oldest niece!  Love you to the moon and back!