Sad

Happy New Year!  Yeah, I know I'm 4 days late, but I haven't posted yet in 2017, so you're getting a belated greeting.  I've been soaking up as much family time as possible this past week because  tomorrow I get on a plane and head home.  You're probably thinking, "it's about dang time she went home."  And you're right.  I've been here for 7 weeks, which is crazy.  Awesome, but crazy.  Oh, and I feel compelled to tell you that I have been working the whole time I've been home.  Not as much as I would have if I'd been in the office, but I work several hours in the morning during the week because there are things that need to be done that I'm in charge of and no one else at the office does.  There.  I feel slightly better now that you know I'm not a complete and total slacker, just mostly a slacker.

Anyhoo, as I said, I leave tomorrow and while I'm super excited to get home and see my hubby, I'm also very sad to leave my family.  It's just so nice to be home and get to participate in all of the family stuff that I normally miss out on.  There are still about a million things I wish I could have done while I was here, and I still didn't get to spend as much time with my aunt and seester as I could have, and there were friends I didn't see at all, and I always still have guilt when I leave.  Yes, I know I have issues.  Plus, tonight was saying goodbye to Double A and The Bean and that is always REALLY hard.  Not that it's not hard to leave everyone, but there are special circumstances that make those 2 really rough.  I won't embarrass them with being mushy on the blog and talking more about it, but I am sad right now.

Moving on.  Want to look at shoes?  Since I'm going home tomorrow tonight I typed in "travel shoes" just to see what came up.  Here are a few of the pairs that popped up:

For some reason these 3 popped out at me.  I'm not sure I would ever buy brogues, but I like all of these colors, and these would be practical for traveling.  Contrary to what you might think, as much as I love heels, I don't actually wear them much, and I never wear them when I fly.  Women who go racing through the airport in 6 inch heels.  More power to them, but I can't do it.

 

 This looks really comfy and snuggly.  If they have good arch support they'd be great for traveling in the winter.   And they slip off and on, so they make going through security easier.

I love this color.  Except for the snuggly part, I could say the same thing about this pair as the one above.

Love this color, too.

Now I must go finish laundry and pack and then hopefully sleep without having more crazy anxiety dreams.  Wish me luck on all of that!

Vacation Day 1

Aaaah...Montana...how I've missed you.  Today was a fairly perfect day.  It started a little after midnight when my plane landed in Missoula and the Auntie picked me up at the airport.  I then got to see her new house and we chatted way too long and didn't get to bed until after 2:00.  One downside to the day was waking up at 7:30 because I had to go to the bathroom and then not being able to fall back asleep.  Oh well.  The Auntie and I then spent the (unseasonably warm) day playing.  We went to the University of Montana (my alma mater) bookstore and wandered around campus for awhile.  We had lunch at a new-to-both-of-us place downtown that was super yummy and then did lots of walking and window shopping.  We went to Rockin' Rudy's, which is one of my favorite places ever.  Then we me the seester at the girls' school and watched Flower and Laughter during their soccer practice, after which I spent the rest of the evening at the seester's, which is where I'm staying tonight.  Holy buckets, Flower and Laughter have both gotten so tall!  And they were cracking me up tonight with all of their stories and antics.  Here are some shoes from the day:

This selection of adorable baby shoes was in one of the stores the Auntie and I wandered through.

Flower's sparkly, strappy wedges.

Laughter's fun, polka dot fleep flops.

The Auntie's awesome Keenes.

The Seester's awesome Tevas.

My new shoes!  First pair I've bought in maybe a year?  I needed some black flats for this trip and for work, and really liked these.  It was incredibly stupid of me to walk around all day in shoes I hadn't broken in, though, and I now have the blisters to prove it.  But, I think JG will be so proud of my black shoes!

 

Laughter's feet selfie.

Laughter's and my feet, one each in a pair of the Seester's adorable purple shoes.  Picture taken by Flower.  You can also see the back of one of my new shoes, so you get a better understanding of the whole.

I really could not have asked for a better day.  I love my family.

Memory Lane: 2013 (funny, as my battery is about to die again tonight). 2015.

Nativities

It's Christmas day, so instead of shoes, we're going to talk about Jesus.  Well, not talk so much as look at.  For tonight's post we'll be taking a tour of my mom's nativity scenes.

Mom made this one, and I love the patterns.  The characters are so cute.  But dang Jesus is a big baby.  Poor Mary!

 

I'm not sure where she got this one, but Mom's joke is that there is a Noah's ark toy somewhere missing a zebra and giraffe.  Why else would a nativity have a zebra and giraffe?!

 

This is the one the kids can play with.  We don't have any tiny kids right now, but in years past we used to find pieces of this scene all over the place.  I can't believe we still have them all.  Last year Laughter had a whole plot going where the kings had kidnapped baby Jesus and Mary had to go kick some butt to get him back.  That kid kills me.

 

This one is my favorite.  The angels aren't part of the set, but The Bean and I decided to add them anyway.  Hmmm....come to think of it, I'm pretty sure the angels for this set are at my house.  I bought them, I did NOT steal them from my mother!

 

I love this one, too.  The Holy Family used to be in an egg shaped thingie with an opening and a light, but the egg shaped thingie broke a long time ago.  I didn't break that, too, did I Mom?

This Holy Family is a candle stopper that is on a candle under the jingle bell tree.

Another one Mom painted.  I have the same set that I painted, but mine is nowhere near as good as this.   Mine looks like a 2nd grader painted it.

Mom-made.  This is the same Holy Family pattern as in the first one, and here you get to see the angels that go with this set since they aren't visible in the first set.

I even put one in the bathroom this year!

This one is a tea set.  The sheep are cups and the angel's and shepherd's heads come off.  Which is a little creepy when you think about it.

This sampling doesn't include everything.  The stained glass nativity Mom and Dad made years ago doesn't come out anymore because there isn't a place big enough to display it anymore.  Or the nativity tree skirt Mom made.  Or Grandma's set that is under the tree to Mom's room.  OR all of the various ornaments on various trees that are nativity-themed.

Finally, here is my confession.  I torment my mother at Christmas.  Many years ago I was being a dork and switched out various figures from nativities and had them go visit other nativities.  You know, so they could hang out.  Mom was not appreciative, so of course I had to do it every year, and then I taught the nieces.  This year I was sooooo good and didn't move anything until last night when I switched around all of the baby Jesuses. As you can see, I put them back where they belonged today before I took pictures.  Sorry (not really), Mom.  I wouldn't give you crap if I didn't love you!

Merry Christmas!

Silent Night, Holy Night

It's Christmas Eve, and there are no children at my parents' house (a rare occurence), so it's a calm and quiet evening for us.  Flower, Pippi, Tink, and Laughter were all here for part of the day, so it was loud chaos there for awhile.  The brother made dinner for us, and I've done a little baking, but other than that we're all just hanging out being introverted and doing our own things.  In the spirit of that first Silent Night (which most likely was anything but silent), I'm going to give you some Christmas shoe art, and keep all the blah blah to myself.

Merry Christmas, my friends.  May the light of Christ bring you joy and peace.

 

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.