Leaderboard

Living where the ground is not flat, walking down a steep driveway or across a surface that is slant perpendicular to direction of motion. That compound angle is hard to navigate.

My sister has that position now with my mother in assisted liviing now and over100 y.o. I've learner how mean my mother could be towards her daughter. One granddaughter wont visit her again. My ex-wife was that way, I was never right, if I did A she would complain why I didn't do B, if I did B, she would complain why I didn't do A, if I did A and B, I was still wrong. The key word here is Ex.

Re the stability thing, I've got a pair of 3" dancers shoes, ie those things made of mesh with laces that you can tie tightly and are stable because snug fit. They're so stable they've got boring to wear so I took all the laces out. They remain surprisingly easy to balance in, at least round the house, but that may be because my heel still gets a bit of guidance at the back. So I've ordered from Temu a pair of 4" pumps with only open toes and only a single skimpy strap behind the toes. Will report!

I have always sucked at doing two things in heels: 1) Walking down stairs. I have never once felt truly graceful doing it, especially if there is more than 3 or 4 of them at a time. 2) Bending over to retrieve dropped objects. Number Two really hit home the other day when I was out on my morning walk. There was a small branch laying across the sidewalk from an overhanging tree, and as I bent over to pick it up to move it, it suddenly seemed like it was a looooong way to the ground, and I found myself doing a spread-kneed squat to actually pick up the branch. Not graceful at all. I have no problem picking up stuff off the floor in flats, I don't know why it's so much harder for me in heels. Another thing for me to analyze in the future! It may come down to being as simple as that when I'm wearing flats, I don't worry about what I look like, because I know nobody is ever going to notice me anyway.

You are both quite correct, and there are so many other factors which affect stability besides heel width. All of the shoes in question that I tested are sandals, and thinking about it for a minute as I write this, they were all mules as well, so zero ankle support, aside from my own muscles. None of it really means anything, it was only a pleasant distraction for a few minutes. I can remember from my youth watching girls my age walking in heels, which back then was not a rare sight as it is today. My estimation back then about a girl's skill was based upon whether each step was rock steady, or whether there was a slight lateral wobble with each step. Memory is a very unreliable thing, but I kind of remember the number of girls who could walk in narrow heels without wobbling was maybe half a dozen at the most. I guess those 5 or 6 had the strongest ankles. Nowadays, I have a different set of gait characteristics I look for and strive for, and the wobbling metric really doesn't apply these days, as nobody wear stilettos anymore. I should do another test where I step on a certain size pebble wearing different shoes, just to see how they really react to it. That will test the old ankles out!

That is too bad. I saw this very same thing with my ex-wife and her mom. No matter how she tried it just was never good enough, yet my ex-wife kept trying for the impossible, hoping. It has ruined her life. I brought her out of that saga for ten years, but then she got sucked right back into trying to please her mother. It was not just our marriage that got ruined, but several before ours, and she has a trainwreck of a life just because she tries to placate her mother. Deep down inside she knows she never will, but she keeps trying... Sad.

Well, the right place, wherever it is, will not be a place where one would wear the suits with which they have been paired in the catwalk

I have acquired two pairs of purple pants in the past week. One linen pair (shown with proper full picture), and one denim pair, which is of course much more casual. Both seem to go well with my mauve pumps, but I will have to experiment with some other color combinations for the fun of it. The linen pants are Loft brand, and the jeans are Michael Kors. For whatever reason the designers at Loft decided to omit belt loops entirely. This might be a dealbreaker for me.

Here we are at the end of another year. I wonder what 2025 will bring? I am not one to make New Year resolutions, but I have been thinking loosely about things I would like to accomplish in the coming year. For one thing, once the weather improves, there are some repairs/improvements I need to make to my house that I've already put off at least a year longer than I should have. Another goal that I've had in the back of my mind for a while is to make a "how to walk in high heels" video. There are two main reasons why I haven't made one yet: First, it's very unclear that I currently have the production resources to make the sort of video I would like. Second, I don't think I've mastered the art to the level where I feel I could instruct others competently. Part of the problem is that, even if I am doing everything what I would call "right," I still don't like the way I look, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it, because I am physically bowlegged. I can try to compensate for it, but the fact is, my legs will never be long and straight. My knees can be physically touching, but my calves will always have a gap between them that is disproportionate to the rest of my legs. So, the video will probably never happen. The other high heeled goal, mentioned elsewhere, is what do I make my walking goal for next year? I did 350 miles this year, and I feel pretty good about that. It may seem silly to some to make an artificial athletic goal for something that is essentially an aesthetic fashion accessory, but I can tell you that if I simply walked in athletic shoes, I wouldn't walk nearly as much. I just like walking in heels. I am hesitant to up the ante and say that I'm going to do 400 miles next year, because so much of it is dependent upon my work situation, which is far from stable at the moment. I had planned 300 miles for this year, and the only reason I was able to make it to 350 is because for a good while my work schedule allowed me to go 1 - 1.5 miles every day before work. After a while, that adds up. To finish this post, here is last Sunday's church OOTW. I decided to go with a sort of monochromatic look, as I often do. I did not wear matching shoes because I just didn't feel like it. And besides, I hadn't worn these Coach Cammy pumps in a little while, and I was not feeling energetic. The Cammys are a mere 4 inches, and they are super light. As long as I remember to put a Bandaid or some tape on my right third toe (the right shoe rubs me there for some reason), they are all day shoes without thinking about it. I got a couple of compliments about my outfit, but nobody specifically mentioned the shoes. I guess there is no real reason to, as they are styled very conservatively. Happy New Year!