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Yes @higherheels has been a real inspiration, not only wearing 12cm as a matter of course but taking on the challenge of wearing Hot Chicks and her even higher boots out and about. It’s nice having that sort of example and inspiration - as well as your high mileage efforts. i am going to do exactly what you describe - set a number of minutes or metres each day and work up. I’ve already noticed how the challenge has dramatically improved my abilities in my 10cm boots. I’m looking forward to the new years challenge!

Firstly, congratulations! I think 365 sounds like a sensible goal for 2026 - one you know you can achieve yet still requires a high degree of dedication.

My thoughts, @Shyheels Perhaps it would be good to set defined goals, such as "we're going to wear our 12 cm (which I don't technically own, by the way) three times a week for x minutes, or y meters. Something like that. Maybe you will have the opportunity to move your boat to a better spot for getting off of it without safety concerns or ruining nice shoe concerns. But, if you're already having to carry your art supplies to someplace, why not a different pair of boots? As for me, I need to get over feeling a little self conscious about "walking over my head." @higherheels evidently does not have a problem walking around her neighborhood in insanely high heels, so perhaps it's time to take a page out of that book. Happy New Year everyone!

It makes sense that a washer/dryer combination would take forever and a day to dry clothes, at least in the western hemisphere. The handicap of 120V. With a normal cord-and-plug connected appliance, you're just not going to get all that much wattage out of the dryer portion. Even with the heat pump setup, you're never going to get the blast of heat that you'll get with a traditional 240V dryer. Even one with one broken heat element, like mine has. I suppose I'll fix it someday, buy why? It actually works just fine if you turn it up to high!

In other news, as it is the last day of the year, and I know I won't go out walkin' until AFTER midnight, I can report that I walked a record breaking 460 high heeled miles this year, or 740.6 km, whichever you prefer. I do not at this time have the statistics about how many were walked in mid heels vs. high heels, and in any case my definitions have changed this year, thanks to standardization brought about by the high heel challenge documented elsewhere. How did I break my previous record by more than 100 miles? I didn't intend to. A little history: I had 312.7 miles in 2023, which barely broke the previous record of 310.1 miles way back in 2014, which was my second year of public heeling and I was way enthusiastic. I followed that up in 2024 by exceeding 350 miles. At the beginning of 2025, I had this idea that if I were to average 30 miles a month, I could get 360. Then I thought, let's shoot for 365, or one mile per day. Then, due to a combination of good weather and being laid off for the first part of the year, by the end of April I was WAY ahead of a mile a day. I decided to up the goal to 420 miles, or 35 miles a month. It was then that I ran into a problem. I had a job again, but it was more hours than I really wanted to work, and six days a week. How was I going to keep up that walking schedule, especially when I often got in over 20,000 steps at work, depending on the day? My solution came by accident, as oftentimes I would crash right after supper, sometimes as early as 7:30, being exhausted from work. I started waking up naturally at 3:30 in the morning, way earlier than I needed to. I used this time to get things done around the house that I didn't get done the previous night, like mop the kitchen floor, and I set aside a couple of days a week to walk. It was in this way that I was able to get the total annual mileage up, little by little, often one mile at a time. By the time I got to October, I knew I was going to blast past the 420 mile goal, so I again upped it to 455 miles, or one mile per cubic inch of displacement in the engine of my son's 1973 Oldsmobile. And I did it, having only walked 16 miles this month. I purposefully told myself I was going to take it easy in December. I do not know whether I will take the trouble to figure out some interesting statistics about this year or not. Since I do not have any kind of spreadsheet, I have to go through and figure it out manually from what I have written down. As for next year? It would be crazy to plan to walk that much again. I think I'll dial it back to a one mile a day average, or 365 miles for the year, and then see what happens.

New Years Eve and one of my great resolutions for 2026 is to master the art of walking gracefully in 12cm stiletto boots - ideally to take a stroll around a city in them, call in at a cafe and enjoy coffee and cake in my 12cm heels. My other ambition for the year is to take up sketching and watercolours - something I’ve been wanting to do for ages. That too will require practice. Maybe I can somehow combine these two ambitions, wear my heels when I go out with sketchbook and pens …

Mine were always dried inside on a drying rack

I spent yesterday afternoon working on an outboard project, wearing my 4" nine west booties. These booties are very easy to walk in and look great. But, will have to admit it, sore feet after standing around at the work bench for three hours...

YIPES! You gambled on playing with fire for sure

Indeed. It’s what I would call living dangerously

I’m a boots, jeans and jumper guy and will remain so. It’s nice that the English climate accommodates me so well although even when I lived in Australia it was still boots and jeans as a rule. It’s more fun still when the boots have a 10cm - and more exciting still, a 12cm heel!

The main problem with Keds is, while wearing them, a person is not going to get any better at wearing 12 or 13 cm heels. To be fair, this is probably not a wise endeavor when one is 8 months pregnant. To answer the question, and yes this is my bias, everybody already knows it: If it had been me, I would have worn some cute leather sandals with the sundress, same as I would with a Dirndlkleid for that matter. But that is a matter for somebody else's life, as I am destined to wear bifurcated lower body clothing for the remainder of my days.

I'm surprised you didn't get clocked on the head with a frying pan!

I don't remember foot changes with pregnancy with my wife, but I have heard of it happening. Interesting that they never returned to pre-pregnancy size though. I remember getting into trouble during that time period with her weight. I teased her and called her "whale belly" because she was into workouts and fitness when she got pregnant. I asked the OBGYN at the time how much weight a woman should gain during pregnancy, and he said between 15-25 pounds. I thought my wife looked huge, so I asked her how much she had gained and he said, "15 pounds". That was when I knew I was in trouble! 🙂 But I also teased her about the baby-weight not coming off after the baby. She wanted to prove me wrong so bad that after giving birth it was 22 days before she lost her baby weight. She had to modify her exercise routine, so she did not cause damage to parts of her that had passed a baby, but I thought 22 days to pre-pregnancy weight was pretty darn good.

We get plenty of wind here; I mean this is the third gale we have had this week, but being living on an island as far out to sea as we live, you cannot dry anything outside unfortunately. The sea air has too much moisture in it, and salty moisture as well. Salty moisture always feels like your clothes are damp so why everything has to be washed in fresh water. I saw a used dryer yesterday at my local appliance place for $150 USD and might consider something like that. Room is just so tight in this small house though so we shall see.

Washer Dryer combos always take forever. I had one before in my old apartment. And yes, the drying is the time consuming part. Because the system has to get all the water out first before it can dry your clothes. It always felt like it was faster if I hung my clothes to dry.

Crawling about the rocks in high heels would be insane. Sneakers are appropriate in this case. (BUT ONLY in this case.)

Well, I don't feel it is appropriate for me to judge, Nonetheless, sneaks would be fine, but definitely not a fan of the sneaks she is wearing.

Even though this is supposed to be a thread about durable heels, it seems like a good place to put shoe failures as well. I just had Shoe Failure No. 4 in 2025 last night. I really thought I was going to make it with just 3 failures this year. My BCBGeneration Queenie wedges yielded up the ghost. Funny thing is, I never really wore them all that seriously. They were pretty much just house shoes. I'm sure I wore them to the grocery store or other errands quite a few times, but I do not have any record of them having been part of my walking routine. I do not know whether I will attempt to replace them, since I have other mid heeled wedges that are less clunky looking.

Well done! I need to do the same!

OK, so I felt guilty about slacking, so I pulled out my highest regular heels for church yesterday morning. I actually had the morning off from musical duties, so I could sit with my family in the congregation like a normal person. These particular pumps are some off brand called Elisabet Tang. There is another brand called GenShuo that is exactly the same. They are inexpensive shoes, but appear to be well made for what they are. They are slightly higher than the similar Steve Madden shoes of that ilk like the Daisie, but still clock in at a mere 11.3 cm when translated to size 38. I thought I did ok in them. I didn't have to walk more than 30 meters at a time, though, so I can't give a real assessment. At the time this photo was taken, the wind had picked up to about 40 km/h, and everything was starting to ice over. Therefore, I switched to boots to after that to run errands.

I understand that foot size often changes during or after pregnancy. My mom said she used to wear size 5 back in the 60s and before. By the time I came along, all I can remember in her closet is 6 1/2 or better. And yes, I did try on her shoes when she wasn't around. My ex-wife's feet swelled up something terrible when she was pregnant with my older son. Luckily, it was summer, and she bought a pair of single band leather slides, and that's all she could wear for a couple of months. Amazingly, only a few short hours after giving birth, her feet shrank back down to normal size, and that's where they've stayed ever since, as far as I know. My current wife's feet increased a whole size after giving birth to my younger son. This was kind of disappointing to me, because we had gone to the great trouble of bringing about 50 pairs of shoes from Vietnam, most of them heels, and none of which fit her within months of coming to the U.S.

Absolutely, I can't imagine wearing flats all the time

I think regularly wearing heels is simply a great idea all around

Incredible to see that hhplace and some of it's members exists for so long! I was still a child at that time and the Internet wasn't even really a thing for me until the early 2000s. However I do remember that when first looking for information about high heels I found hhplace 🙂