Skittles

Yesterday was the final day of the ELCA Youth Gathering.  There have been lots of fabulous videos and articles posted on Facebook by my friends who went, and it's been great fun to stay connected even though I wasn't there this year.  One of the articles earlier in the week made a comment that later became hashtag for the event.  Many of the youth groups who attend the youth gathering wear matching t-shirts every day so it's a little easier to find your group in the mob, and this prompted one Detroit resident to say that it looked like a Skittles factory exploded.  You can kind of get the idea in this picture:

Even if the Skittles reference isn't obvious, you can at least see what 30,000 Lutherans in one place looks like.  Obviously tonight's shoes will be Skittles themed:

Recycled Skittles wrappers!  Cute AND environmentally friendly.

You know I love a brightly colored shoe.  These would be good for all of the walking that is done during a gathering. I wonder if anyone would get the reference if these were worn in Houston at the next gathering in 3 years?

I love the red, but I like the bright ones above better.

And these!  Rainbow stripes!

Those are Skittles, but the shoe color makes me think Reese's Pieces.  Does that make me a candy dork?

I'd rather these were bright instead of pastel, but I'm glad to see a heel represented.

Yikes.  I think those are actual Skittles glued to a wedge.  Not every DIY project needs to happen, people!

If you want to know a little more about what Detroit thinks of those crazy Lutherans, check out this article.

Ups and Downs

I've been trying to figure out what to write tonight.  I had a post planned (that I will most likely do tomorrow), but then I heard from my mom that my second cousin Howard died last night in a house fire.  I didn't want to do a silly shoe post when I've been so sad most of the day.  I'm not sure quite how to describe Howard except that he was kind of strange, and a bit of a hermit.  He was also hilarious and very, very nice.  We weren't close, I generally only saw him once a year on the 4th of July when my mom's family has a family reunion, but I don't have any negative memories of him.  He made me laugh and he was always nice.  I was a ridiculously sensitive kid, but Howard never once made me cry, even through unintentional teasing.  I haven't seen him in many years, and yet I will miss his presence in the world.  I'm just hoping he was greeted in heaven by his mother who smothered him in hugs and kisses (she was one of the sweetest people I've ever known).  I'm so sad for his father, Stan, who has lost not only his wife, but now 2 of his 3 sons.  A parent shouldn't outlive one, let alone multiple children.  Tonight I cling to the promises of the resurrection.

As happens with life, it wasn't entirely a bad day.  Today was Flower's gotcha day, which means that 9 years ago today my sister and brother-in-law finally got to go to the orphanage in China and meet the baby they'd been waiting for.  I mean look at this face:

This was after a million hours on a plane, and I can only imagine what was going through her mind at the strange turn her young life had just taken.  But don't you just want to smoosh those cheeks?  She is almost 10 now, and a total sweetheart.  We got to chat with her for quite awhile this morning, and she made my heart happy.

Life and death, joy and sorrow always walk hand in hand, and as sad as today made me, I still give thanks for the love and joy of my family.

Happy Birthday, Scout!

I found pictures for a post yesterday, but then got sidetracked some how and never got around to writing it.  I don't even really remember why.  Which is OK as nothing really happened today to write about, so I'll just go ahead and use yesterday's pictures.  Yesterday was Scout's birthday (Scout is Pippi's and Tink's older sister).    Scout is a wonderful sister and an amazing young woman, and I feel lucky to have known her for her whole life.  She spent a year after high school studying abroad in Norway, and is planning to start at the University of Montana in the Fall.  And, like her mama, and my mama, and all the cool kids, she has shoes named after her:

Shiny, sparkly, wedding wedges named after her!

And more shiny wedding shoes, but with a sparkly shoe clip.

I wish this picture was bigger, but these seem like they're cute.

(No, her name isn't Nina...that's the designer)  The kid has lots of styles of wedding shoes named after her.

 

Ooooh...shiny red!  Love 'em.

And shiny pink!  I'm less fond of the shiny pink, but it's still a very cute shoe.

All in all not a bad selection for Scout in honor of her birthday.

PS--on a side note, Facebook reminded me this morning that it was 5 years ago today that I arrived in California to start my call at St. Someone's.  Crazy how time flies.

Youth Gathering

I've been enjoying all of the pictures that many of my Facebook friends have been posting from the ELCA Youth Gathering in Detroit this week.  The Gathering happens every 3 years, so I've also been thinking about my experience at the 2009 gathering in New Orleans with my Montana youth group.  There are somewhere around 30,000 Lutheran youth, chaperons, organizers, and volunteers who have descended up on Detroit for a week of fun, worship, learning, and service.  Just think of all the service projects that can be accomplished by that number of people!  I have a confession to make, though:  While I would love to be there experiencing the Gathering and hanging out with people, I'm not overly sad that I'm not responsible for 20+ teenagers for a week.  I know, I know, it's wrong of me.  But I am giving giant thanks this week for all of the amazing and hardworking chaperons who are there and doing their best to give those teens an amazing week they will never forget.  Now, on to shoes:

This is the gathering logo.

This is my way of saying it would be cool to have shoes with the logo on them.  If I were there, and if I had any kind of DIY creative ability, I would like to have a pair of these (but, you know, better).

 

Instead we'll just look at blue and orange shoes that go with the logo colors.

Obviously heels are not the answer for a week of running around with teens, but I do like these.

I really like these.  Again, not appropriate, though.

Ah, now here is what I would need, especially for service project day.

And these for general running around if they had good arch support.  If I remember correctly I only took one pair of shoes to NOLA with me and they were my Keens for exactly the arch support reason.

 

But how cute are these?  I'm sure there would be some occasion to wear them.

Or these.  Polka dots!

And, I couldn't resist finding a pair for the PB to wear in this whole fantasy world.

Thinking of all of my friend in Detroit this week.  Have fun, and wear comfortable shoes!

Weather Report

Today, according to my handy holidays tracker, is National Dork Day!  As I said on Facebook, this is pretty much every day for me.  I thought about making this the theme for tonight's post, but wasn't that inspired when I started looking at shoes.  And, if every day is Dork Day, that would make all of my shoes dork shoes, right?

Today is also St. Swithin's Day, which I'd never heard of and had to look up.  "St. Swithin's Day is 15 July, a day on which people watch the weather for tradition says that whatever the weather is like on St. Swithin's Day, it will continue so for the next forty days."  Huh.  See how I learn stuff from writing this blog?  Today was sunny and hot, which I'm sure it will be for the next 40 days.  No real surprise there.  Let's look at some weather inspired shoes.

Oh wow, these are awesomely random.  Meteorology tennis shoes.  Who knew?  I like them.

I've posted these before on a rainbow post, but tonight's picture was titled something like "Things Ms. Frizzle Would Wear," and since it's true and I love Ms. Frizzle, I had to share again.
 

For those of you who don't know Ms. Frizzle, she is the 3rd grad teacher in the Magic School Bus series, and her outfits are always subject-appropriate.  In the PBS series she is voiced by Lily Tomlin, which only makes her even more fabulous.

 

Back to weather.  Partly cloudy shoes.  I would wear these.

Hmmmm...Sun and clouds and rainbows.  And a penguin, an octopus, hearts,  an alien-monster...?   I have no idea what is going on with these shoes, but you'd never be bored looking at them.

Blue and cloudy!  I would add these to the canvas shoe collection.

Also blue and cloudy (and pink and cloudy).  I'm good without these, though, thanks.  Dang, that heel is tiny, I'd most likely snap it right off.

 

Ooooh...lighting shoes!  Very dramatic.

Happy St. Swithin's Day!  And if you think about it, weather shoes almost definitely fall under the category of "dork" shoes, so I say I killed two birds with one post.

Boring

Apparently today is National Nude Day, so if you're a nudist I hope you celebrated!  I don't have a problem with nudity per se, but I'm not going to go hand out in public in my all together either.  The puppies and dragons are the designated nudists in our family; even Pedro wears clothes.  It won't stop me from doing a post with nude shoes, though.  Nude color, NOT the other kind.

Nude shoes are mostly really boring, so at least these have some interest with the lace and the bow.

More bows, but still boring.  They would be better in a different color, but still not that exciting.

Aaaaaand another bow.  This would definitely be cuter in a different color, especially since it's patent leather.

What's up with the bows?  This one is actually a really cute shape, and I don't hate the nude color in this case.  I'd still like it better in a different color, but that's just me.

At lease these are interesting.  Not my cup of tea, but interesting.

Even just the little bit of black manages to add a lot of interest.  I like these.

T-straps!  I'd like these in  turquoise or red, I think.

In this case only I approve of the nude color.  This shoe is just plain weird, and I think it should blend in as much as possible.  Weird, I say.

And that's it from me today.  It's 6:30 and I'm going to bed.  I've had a massive headache most of the day and have been exhausted.  I just feel blah and yucky so I'm calling it a day.

Poor Froggy

Last summer a good friend of ours gave the puppies 2 squeaky chew toys as gifts:

Tallulah and Chalupa liked Froggy and Piggy just fine.  They played with them some, fought over them some, but weren't rough with them, and thankfully didn't discover that they squeaked.  After awhile the started to ignore Froggy and play only with Piggy. Even if I would try to entice them with Froggy they would want Piggy instead.  Until a couple of weeks ago when someone apparently flipped a switch in Chalupa's head and he went bonkers over Froggy.  Soon, poor Froggy looked like this:

And by the following day all 4 limbs were off and some of the stuffing had been strewn about.  Chalupa goes absolutely bat-you-know-what crazy when he sees this thing, and the hubby can get him completely spazzed out just by picking it up and waving it around a little bit.  Because Chalupa has taken such a shine to it the hubby talked me into sewing all of Froggy's limbs back on and sewing his squeaker back in (I'd tried to surreptitiously dispose of said squeaker because the hubby delights in squeaking it non stop until I want to get violent with him, but got caught, dammit).  So I sewed and the hubby kept Chalupa from attacking me and Froggy until he was out of surgery.  Chalupa immediately took him under the coffee table and went to town.

By the next day he had managed to get all of the stuffing out of Froggy's torso and rip off one of his limbs.  Once again I got the puppy eyes from both Chalupa and the hubby, so here is what Froggy now looks like:

No more torso stuffing, and holes sewn up as best as possible where poor Froggy had been shredded.  He made it through today with all of his limbs, so we'll see where it goes from here.

I know I just did a frog post (exactly 2 months ago, actually), but in honor of Froggy's sacrifice for Chalupa's over-exuberant love, I have to go with more frog shoes tonight:

These frogs seem appropriately sad in light of their brother's plight. (heehee...rhyming)

I posted these last time in blue, but green looks more like a lily pad.

Here is a video of Chalupa-Froggy love.  In the meantime I'll just go back to making up more verses to "Froggy and Chalupa" (sung to to the tune of "Froggy went a-courtin'" of course).