Oooh...Spooky

Did you remember that today was Friday the 13th?  I did this morning, made a random comment about it and then pretty forgot about it.  Are you superstitious?  I don't think I am, at least not in obvious ways.  Maybe in other ways that I don't really notice?  Not sure.  In honor of Friday 13th, here are some supersticious-ly themed shoes:

Black cats are supposed to be unlucky, but I'm thinking these are too cute to be unlucky, especially the second one.   See the little tail wrapped around the heel?  Adorbs.

Walking under ladders is also supposed to be unlucky.  Can I just say that I love the ladder shoe storage idea?  I might have to find an old ladder, paint it, and add it to the shoe closet.  I'm not exactly sure what's going on with the second shoe.  Is the ladder attached?  Is it saying you need to climb it to get into the shoe?  Am I being too literal.

That's...a lot of pink.  I'm not fond of animal print in general and pink is too much.  But they're 13 shoes!  And I liked that they came in a women's version, even if it's this particular version.

 

Uh oh...7 years bad luck if you break a mirror.  What if your dogs chew on your mirror shoes?  Does that count?  Or is it just the puppies who get the bad luck for chewing on the shoes in the first place?

 

Why is opening an umbrella in the house bad luck?  I like both of these pictures because of the colors and the contrasts.  Very fun.  I think I like the top pair, but it's hard to tell because I can't move beyond the crazy tights to actually concentrate on the shoes.

If you aren't superstitious, then happy Friday! If you are, then I hope you stayed home, snuggled in with a pint of ice cream, and read a good book, thus avoiding cats, ladders, mirrors, umbrellas, and whatever else you consider to be bad luck.

Caring Shoes

It was one of those days where I felt like I went non-stop and got absolutely nothing done.  And of course I got stuff done, it just doesn't feel equivalent to the amount of running around I did.  On the plus side, I got Skype with my auntie for an hour and a half this morning.  That was absolutely awesome.  I haven't seen her in forever, so it was nice to at least be able to see her on the computer.  She's pretty darn amazing for about a million and a half reasons. 

So, remember the other night when the Pinterest Friend was on a bear kick?  Well, one of those pairs of shoes was Care Bears, and of course I had to go search out some more since they were a part of my childhood.

You know I love me some heels, and I go for a lot of crazy heels, but I don't think I'm wearing Care Bear heels any time soon.  I'd have to have a pretty specific occasion for it.

These are cute.  I'm more likely to wear these.  Have you noticed how much more I'm going for flats since I went on leave?

Obligatory adorable baby shoes.

Nope.  Not wearing these either.

Yay blue!  Hmmm...too spot on to wear these when the depression hits hard?

These sure are yellow.  I like the brightness, actually.  I'd always know where my feet were.

Another pair of cute tennies.

And slippers.  Like the colors.  I think I'm basically landing on the side of liking the bright colors of most of these shoes, but not really feeling a huge urge to wear them.

Finally, on a non Care Bears related note, I finally organized my shoe closet!

Because of the way the guest room and office fit together this closet is a really wonky shape, but this shelf fits perfectly in one of those weird angles.  The shelf came from my grandma's house and I finally found a way to rescue it from the garage and bring it into the house.  Yes, it's in a closet, but I'm counting that as progress.  So my boots are on the floor, but I fit all of my non-boots into the book case.  In the past few months I've made several Goodwill trips and gotten rid of probably 2/3 of my shoes.  I'm pretty proud of myself in that I organized this closet, one half shoes, the other half crafts, and didn't spend any money.  I just re-purposed stuff from the house.

A Tale of Many Shoes

The last couple of days have been the kind where I've been quite productive, but it's stuff that you probably wouldn't notice unless you knew what to look for.  I actually wonder if the hubby thinks I don't do anything all day because it's not necessarily noticeable.  So here are some snapshots from the week:

These are bathtubs.  Shaped like shoes.  I love shoes, but I really don't want a shoe shaped bathtub.  Although I do have to admit that the back looks quite comfy to lean up against.  So, yesterday I was the queen of plumbing.  I unplugged both a toilet and a kitchen sink.  The first I had to use tongs (ugh...don't ask), the second involved drain cleaner and a plunger.  I felt accomplished, but it's not something visible once it's taken care of.

I've also been organizing closets a little at a time.  I'm at that point where I've recycled, thrown stuff away, put stuff in the Goodwill pile, etc., but again, you can't really tell.  Well, I can tell, but I'm not sure anyone else could.  They would probably still just see a mess in the closets.  Not like the above closet which is very organized.  Holy buckets that's a lot of shoes.  No matter what  you may think, I really don't want that many pairs of shoes in my life.

I went to the library.  Which, let's face it, was more for me than for the purpose of productivity.  Also, how cute are those shoes?

I went grocery shopping.  These are shoes crocheted out of plastic grocery bags.  I appreciate the upcycling of the bags, but I don't see myself making these anytime soon.  Especially since I use reusable bags about 90-95% of the time.  Speaking of crocheting and closet organizing, what the heck do people do with leftover yarn?  I always think I'm going to use it for something, and I've used some of it, but it just adds up.  Any suggestions as to what other people do?

After I got home from errands I got sucked into a yard project I hadn't planned on doing today.  Since I hadn't planned on it, but started working on it on one of my trips to the recycling and garbage cans, I didn't have gloves or clippers.  We have a pile of branches from a tree we trimmed forever ago and I finally decided to put as much as I could into the yard waste bins, which meant breaking the branches down as much as possible.  I only scratched myself a couple of times.  OK, 9 times.  Also, what the hell is up with these flip flops?!

Finally, I went shoe shopping and used the rest of my gift cards.  I got 3 new pairs of shoes (so 4 total from gift cards!).   These are Clarks, and yes they have the stupid thing between my toes, but I'm trying to get used to it because I like Clarks in general, I like these specifically, and they are otherwise comfortable.  And they fit better than they look in the picture. I don't know why my toes are hanging over like that.  I went shopping today because I looked down this morning to find Chalupa on the floor chewing the crap out of my black summer shoes.  Little shit.  So here are the replacements.  I would just like to point out, though, that I took a large garbage bag full of shoes to Goodwill on Monday and when I got home today I threw away the black pair and also put 3 more pairs into the Goodwill pile.

I accomplished a bunch of other stuff, but you don't need shoes for everything.  The most obvious of these would be that an hour ago Tallulah threw up and I caught it in a napkin.  I gave you poop shoes, you don't also need puke shoes.  Oh man, I really hope there aren't any out there...

Shoe Art

Once again I have to tell you that I have awesome friends and family.  I kept forgetting to take a picture of this, but it arrived in the mail on Monday from my auntie.  She said she found it on the streets of NYC and thought of me.

I love the shoe.  I have no idea why that man is trying to chop it down with a chainsaw.  OK, that's not entirely true.  I could hazard some guesses, but who knows exactly what the artist intended?  I just know it's a cool shoe and that I have a very cool auntie who spoils me.

This I've actually had for a year and a half.  Our preschool director gave it to me for one of my bridal showers, and I really love it.  I also just noticed that you can see me in the reflection of the glass.  Anyway,  I love the shoes, the clutch, the hatbox.  You know where I should put these?

In this amazing shoe room!  Surely the hubby wants me to have one, and my dad wants to come here and build it.  Right?  My cousin sent me this picture.  See?  Another awesome relative!

Still Jealous

So of course yesterday after I wrote the post for my sister's birthday, I had to go on a search to see if I get any shoes with my name.  Not so much.  When I did an image search, mostly what came up were pictures of Sarah Jessica Parker's shoes.  Which makes sense considering how much her character loved shoes on Sex in the City.  I did find these (sorry, I couldn't save a picture), which are OK, but my sister definitely got the better end of the shoe/name deal.  Sigh...older sisters ALWAYS get the best stuff!

 

In other news, one of my parishioners saw this in a magazine and ripped out the page so she could bring it to me:

 

 

Now THAT is a shoe closet.  I'd need a ladder to reach the top shelves, but I think I could live with that.  Or, we could put the hubby's shoes up there.  I think this is what I will ask for for Christmas...

 

Organization

I had one of those days where I felt way too busy and also like I got nothing done.  I got stuff done, it just feels like I am so far behind I may never get caught up.  Is it possible to get so far behind you can actually lap yourself?  I used to have this vision of myself as an adult:  I would be an amazing woman who was organized, gracious, accomplished, etc.  Well, genetically and age-wise, I am a woman, so I got one of them at least.  I used to be more organized.  We don't even have children and I feel like I can't stay caught up.  So, I decided to look at ideas for organizing shoes.  Mine are currently in a large pile on the closet floor because my shoe rack buckled under the strain.  Here are just a few ideas that caught my eye.

 

I have seen this idea before and like how the shoes would be organized and out of sight.  I would need more than one, though.  And it doesn't have room for boots.

 

 

I love this.  If only we had a stairway.  It would work for other storage besides shoes, too.

 

 

Classy.  Wish we had a walk-in closet.

 

 

Yes, please.  Again, I would need a closet big enough for it.  Maybe my dad should just come build me an extra room...