Shoe Tree

Whew...I'm exhausted from decorating tonight's tree:

Yep, it's my ginormous 2 foot shoe tree with somewhere around 10 ornaments.  This is only the 2nd year I've put it up since I was in MT last year.  It lived in my office the first year, but now it can be home. This tree could use a few more ornaments to fill it out so I went window shopping:

 

Of course I found a blue one first.

Isn't this a fun shape?  I can't imagine it would be comfortable as a real shoe since it looks like it would stab the top of your foot, but I like the color and the design. 

More blue, and more fun detailing.  Stumpy little heel, though.

How perfect is this since my parents own a movie theater?

I just thought this was a fun picture with lots of different options.

Well, now that I'm so very tired from all of that hard decorating work, I guess I'll head to bed.

Happy Birthday, Grandma

As a kid we would always spend December 23-26 at my mom's parents' house.  The 23rd is  my grandma's birthday, so we'd start by celebrating and eating angel food cake.  (it was really the only dessert Grandma liked, despite forcing 12 different kinds down the rest of us)  So today the seester, Flower, and Laughter drove me back to the parents' and are now staying the night.  The brother came over for dinner and then we all had angel food cake and whipped cream in honor of Grandma, who would have been 97 today.  I also saved the last Christmas tree for today as it has Grandma's ornaments on it.

This is the tree in Mom's room.  Part of the ornaments are hers and part are Grandma's.  I helped Mom decorate it this year and it was fun to pull out the old, glass ornaments that I remember from so many Christmases.

 

This was also Grandma's, although I'm not sure how much it was out.  I vaguely remember it, but not terribly well.  From a distance it looks pretty good, as you can't see how terribly cheesy the plastic figures are.  I don't care if they're cheesy, though, they just help remind me of  how much I loved Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa's.

I really didn't expect to find any vintage, glass ornaments that were shoes, but I was surprised.  There are actually quite a few out there.

 

Frankly these creep me out.  The shoes are fine.  The face in the last one and the cats in the top 2 are what give me the heebie jeebies.  A cat in a shoe, OK, but a baby's face in a shoe?  Why?

 

I like these 2 a lot better, especially the color of  the second one (duh).

Somewhat less disturbing for some reason.

Cute!  And look, the ornament hook is shaped like a Christmas tree!

Fun ornament, but definitely not a cute shoe that I would covet in real life.

This one reminds me of Snow White.

I miss my Grandma.  I miss the constancy of the traditions of Christmas at her house.  There are new ones, of course, and they are lovely and wonderful, but the nostalgia of the Christmases of my childhood will always be there.  

Love you, Grandma.

Teeny Tiny

I'm being very domestic today:  dishes, laundry, packing, wrapping presents, hopefully crocheting.  I leave for the seester's this afternoon to spend a few days with them before Christmas.  It will be fun and I get to hang out with Flower and Laughter!  

I wasn't sure if I was going to, but today I decided what the heck, I'll show you the tree in the bathroom:

It's a teeny tiny tree with no lights and teeny tiny ornaments.  It tends to stay decorated all of the time, and sometimes it just stays up all year.  I was trying to decide how to tie in teeny tiny shoes, but all I could find were Barbie shoes, and I didn't want to do those again.  As usual, though, the Pinterest Friend was reading my mind because she sent me 8 pins last night.

 

Teeny tiny crocheted shoe ornaments!  Aren't they adorable?

The rest are regular sized ornaments rather than teeny tiny, but hey, they're smaller than regular shoes, so I say it works.  SKD needs these for her tree.  Green AND flip flops!

 

These are really cool.  Apparently I need to learn to sew.

 

Disney ornaments!  Look at the Jasmine shoe, her hair is the heel.

Ooooh...sparkly!  Also, ankle strap and t-strap.  My kind of ornament.

See?  I need to invest in a sewing machine.

These aren't ornaments, but I thought it was really cute.  I should have had it for the jingle bell tree post.

Once again, thanks PF!

Hopefully I haven't shocked anyone too much with this early posting.  They happen occasionally.  Just chalk it up to a Christmas miracle.

White Crocheted Ornaments

Tonight was the Elementary program at school, so we got to go see The Bean, The VH, Pippi, and Tink perform.  It was a lot of fun if you were able to block out the amazingly rude adults sitting behind us.  The Bean and The VH both play the saxophone.  They are in 6th and 5th grades, respectively, and those performances always crack me up.  The students are all so earnest and the music is all so loud and kind of monotone.  It's awesome, and I totally remember being the earnest flute player in the 5th and 6th grade bands.  Tink and Pippi both sang 2 songs with their classes and did great jobs.

I think I also finished decorating at Mom's house today.  At least I'm saying I'm done.  I'll need a fairly compelling reason to do anything else.  I finished decorating the tree in Mom's room today, and spent way more time than necessary (because I was being OCD and stubborn) putting up these cool, old frosted Christmas lights from my grandma's house.

Speaking of trees, here is the one I finished yesterday:

No, wait.  Dad actually finished it, because he put the garland on, shoved it back in the corner and put the tree skirt on.  This is the living room tree, and the biggest one in the house.  It used to be full of all of the random ornaments we kids got each year, so of course nothing matched.  Then we finally grew up and moved out and Mom could have a themed tree.  And that theme is white crochet.  And some tatting.  And some cross stitch.  And a few  things that aren't white.  But you get where I'm going with this.

So of course, white crocheted shoes!  These are pretty, but I would most likely have them (and every pair following) dirty in about 30 seconds.

Also pretty, but my favorite part is the visible sock line.

This isn't my favorite style, but I really like the crochet on these.  So simple and pretty.

The obligatory baby shoes!

 These are Toms.  They are white.  And crocheted.

Slippers!  I could probably even make these if I had a pattern.

These were listed as wedding shoes.  I hope they have some kind of sole, or they are going to be ruined in no time flat.  Plus a bride needs some good arch support.

Holy buckets I'm tired.  So this is good night!

Talented

Christmas has definitely taken over, and not just with the blog posts.  I've been busy wrapping, mailing, baking (OK, not baking so far, but still making cookies), sending Christmas cards, shopping, decorating, etc.  Monday I stayed up way later than planned because I was watching A Miracle on 34th Street and finishing crocheting a Christmas present.  Yesterday I decorated Mom's big tree in the living room, and went to the high school Christmas program.  This year they did it a little differently:  In addition to the concert, they also had 2 short plays performed by the drama department.  I finally got to see Double A act!  She's really good.  I was one proud auntie/former drama nerd.  I also got to snuggle with The Bean for most of the performance.  Oh!  I also got my new glasses in the mail yesterday!  So today Dad and I traveled to the "big city" to get them adjusted because they were giving me an awful headache and I couldn't really see that well.  We got the glasses adjusted, ran some errands, had lunch, and came home.  Tonight we went to the theater for a small movie party.  Dad had invited some of his friends to watch his favorite Christmas movie, the musical Scrooge.  Can I just say it's awesome having a family who owns a movie theater where we can go watch DVDs on the big screen?  I got more snuggle time from The Bean, but tonight it was because she wasn't feeling well, poor thing.  Since tonight was at the theater, I took a picture of the Christmas tree there, that Dad and I decorated on Sunday:

 

Hmmmm... it seems to be leaning a bit.  Oh well, what I want you to see is that every ornament on this tree, with the exception of the tree topper, was hand painted by my mama.  Each stocking was made in honor of every employee they've ever had, with the employee's name on the back.  The rest are a bunch of different Santa Clauses.  She's pretty awesomely talented, my mom.  Dad cut them all out, too, so I don't want to leave him out.

So, all of tonight's shoes are hand painted.  I've had lots of hand painted shoes on here, but tonight they are all hand painted and all Christmasy.  I want these.

 

I'll take a pair of these, to, please.  Maybe I'd wear one of each of these 2 pairs for a nice contrast.

These are just begging for a gorgeous, coordinated Norwegian sweater.

Awww...colorful and whimsical.

I know a teacher who needs these.  He has some Christmas ones already, but I think he needs these too.  And maybe a matching tie.

 

Yummy little candy cane shoes!

See?  The whole family could have Christmas tennies.  It would be very festive!

All of these painter people are very talented.  That's not a skill I have.  I can't draw, and I can only paint walls if they aren't too complicated.  And now it's back to Christmas cards, and then maybe some crocheting.

Souvenirs

First the excellent news:  I haven't had a sinus infection since March!  Sinus issues, yes, but no actual infection requiring antibiotics!  In less fun news, apparently the gods of illness were disappointed with my coming to Montana and not immediately getting the head cold/sinus infection/bronchitis from hell, so they decided to gift me with stomach issues.  Yep, again.  I woke up yesterday feeling nauseous and crampy and didn't feel completely human until this evening.  Blah.  It was less than fun.  But at least now I'm feeling better, and I can show you the tree I decorated on Thursday night:

This is the tree in Mom's office, and it has all of the ornaments she has collected from places she has visited.  Or, in some cases, ornaments from places we kids have visited and gotten ornaments for her.  She started collecting them 20 years ago when she and Dad and I drove to Washington DC and about a million other places.

Here is a close-up of one of the ornaments so you get a better idea.  Some of them are just gold, but others have lots of color on them.

I don't have a travel tree, so I thought I'd look for shoes from places I've lived or visited.

Montana!  These are U of M Grizzly shoes.  UM is my alma mater.  Plus, people tend to think that Montana is full bears that just wander around so everyone sees them on practically a daily basis.  I lived in Montana from birth until I was 24 and then I moved to 

 

Texas for 3 years where I lived with my aunt.  I also lived there again for a summer while I did my chaplaincy training at Children's Medical Center of Dallas.

 

From Texas it was off to seminary in California for the first where I have now lived 3 separate times.  Look!  More bears!

These are Penn State shoes.  I lived in Pennsylvania for a year for internship.  I don't like to talk about it.  But I won't hold it against these cute blue and white striped shoes.

 

I haven't lived in Hawaii, but the BSF did her internship in Honolulu, and I got to my 3 week cross-cultural experience for seminary on Oahu and stay with her.  My choices were Hawaii in January or South Dakota in January.  Um...duh.  Flip flops are perfect to represent Hawaii.  Except there they call them slippers.

I've been to Washington  DC three times:  Once in High School (the first time I ever flew and ever traveled by myself--totally freaked out the flight attendant with my crying), then that trip with the parents and all of the driving, and again in College for the Lutheran Student Movement National Gathering.  I would love to go back.

These are actually New Orleans Saints shoes, but I just like them for the fluer de lis. I've been to New Orleans twice. First for Mardi Gras when I was 26.  That was interesting.  Although my memories tend to be a little fuzzy...  The second time was as a pastor, taking kids to the National Youth Gathering.  I would also love to go back there, as I really haven't seen much in terms of touristy stuff.

I've been to lots of other places, but this seemed like enough for one post.  Now I'm possibly off to bed, but with the amount of sleep I've gotten in the last 2 days, I'm not sure how soon I'll be able to sleep tonight.