Brownies

What have I done?  I hadn't gotten my return plane ticket yet for a variety of reasons.  The hubby and I were talking today and I was looking at prices.  For the next week they are a decent price, and then they get really high over Christmas.  January 5th had the lowest price, and the hubby said, "why don't you just stay?  Take advantage of being able to hang out with your family for an extended period."  So, I now have a return ticket for January 5th.  On the one hand, yay!  Family time!  Niece snuggles!  On the other hand, massive guilt for leaving my husband alone for Thanksgiving, Christmas, AND New Year's.  I know it was his idea, and believe me, he wouldn't have said it if he didn't mean it, but I've been having really mixed emotions all day.  And I miss my puppies.  Oh, and I have no Christmas socks or earrings because I didn't pack any.  And Pedro only has his tux and his Thanksgiving shirt, so I can't dress him appropriately for the season.  (Also, yes, I know those last 2 things are completely inane, but this is how my brain works when I get weirded out and feel guilty about something)  I'm feeling very selfish at the moment.

OK, moving on.  Did you know that today was National Brownie Day?  Me either, until a few minutes ago, but I made brownies today!  It was cold in the house today and we had a box of brownie mix in the cupboard, so I figured I'd use the oven, warm up the house, and get chocolate all in one go.  Tonight's shoes are inspired by this happy coincidence:

I like them all.  Brownies are yummy.  I still have guilt.  Good night.

White Christmas

Tonight was one of my favorite times of the year:  The annual rewatching of White Christmas.  This year was a family affair as Mom, Dad, the brother, The Bean, and Double A all watched it with me.  It was just as fabulous as always, and tonight's shoes are in honor of it and of my desire to have my life be like a 1950s musical (which is what I typed in for tonight's search):

I think these are fuchsia.  I love a t-strap.

I'm sure there would be a suitably patriotic number (and outfits) to go with these.

These would not be good for dancing, but they would be awesome for standing around singing in a fabulous outfit.

 

These are a bit strange, and would fall off of my heels, so no dancing, but again:  singing in a fabulous outfit.

Sigh...good day.  I love White Christmas.  I would like to live in it, please.

Yay, Women!

Today is International Women's Day.  As a woman who knows lots of amazing women, I say hell yeah to International Women's Day.  It could be argued that doing a shoe post to celebrate isn't very enlightened or feminist, but oh well.  I'm not insisting women should wear heels, I'm not saying all women love shoes, I'm just writing a silly blog post, not intended to offend or minimize anyone or anything.  If you want something with a little more substance then check out these young women dressed up as amazing women from history.  It's pretty awesome.  If I weren't so tired I would try to write a more substantive post, but alas, I will have to leave that to others tonight, most of whom are more than likely to be better written and/or spoken than I.  

According to Wikipedia, the first occurrence of  this day was in 1909, so I decided to look at shoes from each decade since.  As always, I make no claims that the dates of these shoes are accurate.

1909 wedding shoes!

1919.  The shoes are cool, but I especially like that this picture shows a bit of the dresses, too.

1929.  Not my favorite color, necessarily, but you know I love t-straps.  I like to try and imagine fun outfits that would go with these.

 

1939.  These are really kind of weird, but really interesting.

1949.  They're a little clunky, but also really fun.  Again, I'm imagining outfits.  And hair.  Really awesome 40s hair like Victory rolls.

1959. LOVELOVELOVE.

1969.  I chose this picture more for the tights than the shoes.  The shoes are cool, but those tights are amazingly crazy.

1979.  Crazy heels aren't a new thing, y'all!

1989.  Is that measuring tape?  I mostly chose this pair because the heel shape is so very 80s.

1999.  Had to go with a good, chunky heel for the 90s.

2009.  Where's the arch support?  But I like the colors.

2016.  I love these, too.  I'm not this pretty or dainty, but I still love these.

Thank you to women everywhere for everything they do, for those who have gone before to pave the way, and those who continue to work and fight.

Memory Lane:  2013. 2014. 

3 Things:

1. All of the fabulous women in my life:  Moms, grandmas, sisters, friends, aunties, nieces mentors.
2. Coffee with one of those fabulous women.  I needed some social time away from the office.
3. Some forward movement on potential moving (do you like that vague play on words?).

Movie Marathon and Sleepover

SKD and I are currently watching White Christmas as part of our 3rd Christmas movie and sleepover.  It's not our 3rd annual because I was in Montana last year, and we missed our night.  We're hanging out in our jammies and she is getting puppy snuggles.  The puppies LOVE SKD, they get so excited when she comes over.  Tallulah was spinning circles at the door tonight when she got here.  

So I Googled SKD's name with shoes tonight for the first time.  Her first name is unusual and I didn't expect to find anything, but it turns out she has shoes with her name spelled correctly!

How cute are these?  I feel like I've actually had them on the blog before but didn't know what they were named.

 

She also has a line of Ralph Lauren layette shoes named after her.

Another in that same line.  Sadly this yellow is the closest I could find to green, which is her favorite color.

In honor of the movie I also Googled something along the lines of 50s musical shoes:

 

Probably not actually from the 50s, but I don't care because they are soooo cute.

Same polka dot heel, so same line, maybe?  Also cute!

Lots of pink in this particular search.  I love the cutouts on the heels of these.

Ahhhh...here is SKD's green!

I know you're shocked that these are my favorite.  Blue t-strap spectator pumps.  I'm in love.  Definitely going in the imaginary 50s musical closet!

Now if you'll excuse me I must finish watching this movie for the 8 millionth time.

Brownies

I've been doing some baking experimenting.  The hubby often craves something sweet, but since he's diabetic he no longer eats sugar or flour.  Sugar free frozen yogurt is a good option sometimes, but it jacks up his tummy, so it's not good on a regular basis.  The other night I decided to try and bake something with what we had in the house.  The result was sugar-free, gluten-free, vegan brownies.  Or, "soulless brownies," as the hubby calls them.  The first batch was OK, but the 2nd batch that I made last night is actually pretty good.  I used bananas, almond milk, natural peanut butter, cocoa powder, oatmeal, quinoa flour (quinoa flour is one of the few alternative carbs we've found that doesn't screw up his blood sugar), and a little bit of Splenda.  Like I said, they're actually pretty good, and the hubby decided they are so good he no longer has to call them soulless.  Go me and the health food!  Here are some shoes in honor of my tiny kitchen accomplishment.

My brownies didn't have shoes on them.  Or frosting.  But these are adorable.

Vintage brown shoes from the 50s.  With an apron and some pearls and wearing these shoes I can whip up a batch of brownies in no time!

I'd like these better with a different heel.  These would be brownies with caramel.

Oooh, brown velvet!  Fun.

More brown velvet and bows.  Apparently I'm enjoying a theme tonight.

I love riding boots right now.  I'm not sure how I feel about gray and brown together, but I won't hold that against the boots.

And just because they're adorable, and the PB needs something for when we bake brownies someday. 

Ugh, I feel crappy today.  Allergies are kicking my patootie, but my stomach has been weird all day and I keep having sweats/chills and I'm all achy.  I think it's time to go to bed.

Happy Birthday, Auntie!

Yesterday was the parents' anniversary, and today is my auntie's birthday.  My parents got married the day before my mom's sister's 12th birthday.  Hopefully the auntie was a better behaved preteen than I was, because I might have been thoroughly PO'd.  Although, she was probably way cooler than that, as she is one of the coolest people I know.  Growing up I usually only saw her  once a year, at Christmas, so I'm sure I had this totally false impression of what her life was like.  I think for awhile I thought she lived on the airplane when she wasn't at my grandma's.  This is also the aunt I lived with in TX for 3 years, so I also got to know her an adult, which was a lot of fun.  She was still pretty cool, but it turns out she did NOT live on an airplane.  So, some shoes in honor of her birth:

 

 

This was the shoe from the calendar today, and it just happens to be from the 50's.  Good job, shoe calendar!

 

 

These are the shoes she was wearing today, she said they were new.  See how cool she still is?  How awesome are these?

 

And now some pictures that the internet tells me are of stuff from 1954:

 

 

Seems fitting to include a baby outfit since we are celebrating the year of her birth.  This whole thing is adorable, but baby shoes have definitely gotten cuter since then.

 

French Elle from 1954.  Awww...cute puppy.   Oooooh...hot shoes.

 

These said they were from British Vogue, November 1954, which is absolutely perfect.  I don't think I would necessarily buy these now, but as vintage they are beautiful.

 

I don't particularly care for the shoe shape, but I like the picture.

 

Happy Birthday, Auntie!

 

 

 

Today

Today was a good day.  It was busy, with lots of meetings, but overall, it was a good day.  Unfortunately, it was a day where I had absolutely no idea of what to write here.  Instead of overthinking it, I'm just taking what the day gives me.  We'll start with the shoes of the day:

 

 

If you feel like you've seen these before, you have.  I think I was wearing pants the last time I put them on the blog, but I'm too lazy to go look.  I also have these in blue, and I'm not sure those have been on here at all.  Again...too lazy to look.

 

 

The poor shoe calendar has been neglected of late.  There have been some cute/hideous/boring/whatever shoes, but I for some reason haven't been posting many of them.  Since today's post is about today, though, the calendar shoes finally get to make an appearance.  And I like them.  Sorry for the poor quality, I had to use my phone camera.   These have green and pink flowers on them, and are satin, with a gold platform.  Very cute.

 

 

Today is 11-21-13.  11+21+13=45, so this is page 45 of the handbag book.  Yay for a fun, beaded handbag from the 50s!

 

And this is page 45 of the shoe book.  The top pair was made for Elizabeth Taylor in the 80s, the lower pair were worn by Lana Turner in the 1955 movie The Prodigal.  I don't particularly care for either pair, but I'm always up for some random, celebrity trivia!

 

There you go, random shoe-ness inspired by the day.

 

 

 

Doggies!

Today I made our Vicar choose the number.  A vicar is a seminary intern, and most often the title is used on the East Coast, but as our Senior Pastor went to seminary in Columbus, OH, we use the term, here.  I was also a vicar on internship, because I did mine in PA.  For 10 months no one really used my name, they just called me Vicah.   Which is what I now call our poor vicar, and consequently so does part of our congregation.  My apologies to the vicarrrr.  Anyhoo, the vicar chose 300, which gives us this in the shoe book:

 

 

On any other day I might get more excited about this.  It's historical, and the explanation says that waterproof boots were one of the first steps in emancipation for women.  Huh.  That's worth exploring.  But not today, because today the Handbags book has given me this:

 

 

Scottie dogs!  (and poodles, but it's the Scottie dogs I'm interested in).  I love Scottie dogs!  I had an adorable outfit as a kid that was green with black Scottie dogs wearing red bows (I think).  I'm not sure if I loved Scottie dogs as a kid and chose that material, or if my mom chose it, made the outfit, and THEN I loved them.  Regardless, I still have a soft spot in my heart for them.  Of course I went searching for shoes:

 

 

Normally I wouldn't show multiple colors of the exact same shoe, but I love these so very much that I had to show them all.  If you want more Scottie dog shoes you can go peruse at your leisure.  I'm pretty sure I  now need a pair of Scottie dog shoes.  Probably not this exact pair because most likely they are freaking expensive, but I am now on a mission!