mlroseplant

It has been a whole year! It doesn't seem like it's been a whole year. I need to go through my collection as well, and see what I really have. It seems like I have been culling a lot lately and not buying new, which is probably a good thing.

Haha, one of my favorite musings: "Ya know, it's not always just about doing it the easy way. . . [pregnant pause] Which is a good thing, because we're sure NOT doing it the easy way!" Usually said while lifting something really heavy, and probably unnecessarily.

It was a shame to pitch the sandals after but one wearing, but like I said, evidently I had not seen fit to wear them for a year and a half after I bought them. Had it been a pair of shoes that I just couldn't live without, MAYBE I would have put some effort into trying to repair them, but I've been down this road before, and I've had a 0% success rate at making this kind of repair. The good about these sandals: The shape of the slope up to the heel was one of the best fitting shoes I've ever owned. At 4 1/4", you could definitely tell you were wearing heels, but they felt so natural. I wish all of my shoes fit like that. The bad: Due to their super strappy design, getting those puppies on and feeling right was a several minute process. It did not take a great deal of contemplation to decide to bin them.

I guess we got a little bit off the subject, and I forgot to say that those sandals are adorable! There are definitely things I've done a complete 180º on, and wedges are one of them. I always hated them. Since I was a kid, I hated them. Now, I wear them myself. I wouldn't say they're my favorites, but I don't hate them anymore. I think it has to do with the hugeness factor. Many wedges look like they have an excessive amount of material stuck to the bottoms of your feet. These are neat and trim looking.

I do not remember my ex-wife talking about any "image sessions, " and I'm 100% sure that she would have mentioned it if she'd had a bad experience like that. She used to work for an outfit called AirCal in the late 80s, which got bought out by AA, so she was usurped. I'm sure her image today would not be accepted by AA today. She is 61 years old and has decided to stop dyeing her hair, and wears minimal makeup, though she still wears low to mid heels for her job as a lawyer. Maybe AA would embrace her look, but it doesn't matter, as she left them behind some 30 years ago.

I may well have posted these before, as I have owned them for a year and a half. However, it wasn't until this week that I wore them for real. May I present my Schutz Ottavia mules, featuring a 4 1/4" wedge heel that is fairly narrow at the back, measuring a mere 7/8" wide. I chose these sandals to go along with my church outfit last week, but I vetted them the week before, to make sure I wouldn't regret my fashion decision halfway through the church service. Before I wore these very nice looking mules to a public venue, I vetted them with a 1 1/2 mile walk, which is a little longer than normal. The only problem I encountered was that my right little toe had a bad habit of sneaking outside the multiple thin straps. After several adjustments, I got that problem under control, and a few days later, I decided to make these sandals the focus for my church outfit. It turns out they were so comfortable that I kept them on for all of Sunday (was super lazy and didn't do any yardwork). Alas, I was on the phone with a old friend from university Sunday night, pacing back and forth, and I noticed something was amiss. A strap had broken. After careful examination and from past experience, there ain't no fixing that. Since it took me a year and a half from purchase date to actually wearing them, I guess I didn't love them all that much anyway. An early farewell to my new sandals.

I am late posting this, but here is last week's church outfit of the week. I wore my Schutz wedges, which is a first for me in a couple of ways. Firstly, I've never worn white sandals before in public, and secondly, although I've owned these for a couple of years, this is their maiden voyage. Unfortunately, it is also their only voyage, as a strap broke later in the day, and there ain't no repairing that. I'll post more about that misadventure elsewhere.

Fair enough assessment. I am totally biased, since I live in a small town, and people either know me personally, or know me by reputation. I am not aware of any haters. I'm sure they exist, but I don't wanna know.

I still do not understand to this day why some people think that you have to have painted toenails to wear sandals. It seems to be a common fashion "must." Like Cali says, I will never say never, but I don't really like it. I give myself a pedicure every other week, but leave my toenails (and fingernails) bare.

Not wholly surprising, especially for that age group (which is getting to be my own age group at an alarming clip). In my experience, which is admittedly limited, people tend to react better to the real thing than they do to the idea. When people actually meet me in person, I get the distinct impression that many of these chucklers and chortlers think to themselves, "OK, that's a little different, but we can go with that." Whereas the idea of a drag queen reading books to their grandchildren upsets them greatly. I know--apples and oranges--but you get the idea. Not that I am suggesting you do so, discretion being the greater part of valor, but if you were to show up to your tour group, dressed as you normally do for such a gig, except wearing 4 inch block heeled boots, I bet the reaction would be generally much less than their reaction to Charles II.

To be fair, I'm not out there walking in Hot Chicks. At this time, I cannot even imagine walking even 200 meters in something that steep. As many know, I never wear stilettos to walk, simply because they wear out too fast. When I say it takes me half a mile to get my rhythm (some days), I'm typically wearing something like this: Thicker heel, somewhere around 10 cm height difference once you subtract for the platform. The trouble is getting from there to 12 cm stilettos (or in my case, evidently 12.7 cm).

I supposed it's like any other skilled activity--you'll have days where you think, "I think I finally know what I'm doing!" And then there will be days when you think, "I feel like I've never done this before." Not every time, but many times I feel like I don't get into a rhythm until about a half mile down the road. This does seem to be a big step because like I've said for years, one can't learn how to walk by doing dishes and sweeping the floors at home. Eventually, one has to step out in the real world of less-than-perfect walking surfaces. Please do keep us updated on your progress (and/or your setbacks).

Wow! Congratulations! That's quite a haul. On the other note, we are still getting shipments from Germany, the U.K., and Oz just fine (motorcycle parts via DHL). We are paying mo' money, though. As one would.

Yes, there are! And it's not just boots, either. I think they have managed to figure out a way to make heeled footwear these days that is even uglier than those of the Saturday Night Fever era. I didn't think that was possible. I saw a woman at a restaurant just two days ago wearing Mary Janes with substantial heels, but they were very Frankenstein's Monster-like. Worth a second look, but not a third.

My ex-wife was a flight attendant for American Airlines from the late 80s to early 90s. I remember reading through her material, and at that time, female flight attendants were required to wear no less than 1" heels in the airport and while seating passengers. There was a maximum, too, and I think it was 3-something inches? Can't remember. During the flight, the "allowable" heel heights were 0-1.5 inches. My ex-wife simply wore block heeled Ferragamo pumps, for which she paid a princely sum, but wore for years, with heels of 1.5 inches, and never had to switch shoes. It would seem, from recent experience, that all Asian based airlines still require their female flight attendants to wear heels except during the actual flying part of their jobs. If it's not required, they just all do it, without exception. To be fair, I've never ever seen a flight attendant in Asia with actual high heels. Their standard issue appears to be sub-3 inch. I know that for many people, that's a burden.

That's an interesting chart, and I'm surprised I haven't run across it before. Pretty much what I thought--I have to have a full 5 inch heel (127 mm) in order to have any hope of ever navigating So Kates. I'm not saying it could never happen, but I'd have to actually purchase decent heels of that height. I don't currently own anything that high that's not very poor quality.

Were they, in fact, fancy?

I really tried to get the angle of the photograph to be neutral, but it's very difficult without taking two separate photographs. Anyway, I like them both, but don't wear either very often. Suede and Iowa often don't mix very well. We've finally had an entire week without rain (and here we were talking about drought last year). Speaking of steepness and appearance, I can remember back in the early days of HHP, somebody told a woman not to be impressed when some dude said he could walk in 5 inch like they were carpet slippers. Said dude also took about a size 15, and his 5 inch were not really all that steep. I take and refer to the actual heel measurements as they are on my shoes, which are either 8.5 or 9 (39/40, something like that). You mentioned that your 12cm are the right proportion to your size. I am curious as to what the actual heel height is on your 12 cm?

Here is a comparison between the blue sandals I wore a few days ago, which actually measure 111 mm, and some D'Orsay pumps in the same color, which measure 117 mm. Is it just me, or does the shoe on the right appear to be significantly taller than the one on the left, even though there is only 6 mm difference (1/4")? I have no idea what they would be in USW size 7 or 8. I haven't practiced walking in either one this week. Bad for me.

It's kind of difficult to express dry humor through the printed word, but my comments were not intended to be critical. And anyway, I absolutely did NOT do as you have suggested I have done, and matched my heels to my top color. I matched my top to my heel color, as God intended.😆

I have used the Sharpie trick many times. It usually works well, as long as the damage is in a fairly small area.

I went and remeasured, and they're actually about 11.1 cm, and that's actual measurement in a size 39 equivalent, but now that I'm looking at them, they do not appear as steep as one might think, yet the tape measure says what it says. I have another similar pair from the same brand (Steve Madden) that measures 11.7 cm up the back of the heel, and yet this pair appears much steeper for some reason. When I get time, I'll have to snap some pictures so we can all geek out trying to figure out the differing high heel curved profiles. Got to run!

I did not go purposefully seeking AI, but I was sending somebody a DM with a picture of me in shorts and heels (I don't have time right now to look it up), and after I sent it, the phone suggested some AI alterations. There were categories like "Classic," "Futuristic," "Cartoon," and so forth. In over 50% of the cases, it lengthened my shorts to suburban dad length, and gave me ugly shoes, though it didn't always put me in 100% flat shoes. However, it did give me my hair back in all cases!

I have a whole lot of just shy of 12 cm heels, but very few actual truly 12 cm heels. Here is one pair that measures in at 11.5 cm (or 4 1/2"). Now that we have the challenge going, why do these look slightly stumpy to me? Wish they had another 1-2 cm on the heel.

Releasing pictures of my church OOTW for August 17. I chose to be blue, with my Steve Madden single band ankle strap sandals. Which feel really weird to me. And by weird, I mean they feel weird when I walk in them by their design. I don't know why this should be so, but it's probably because I have so few ankle strap shoes. I tend to stay away from them since my legs are so short, and I've heard that I should stick to mules to have a visually uninterrupted leg. I don't know if I believe that or not, but it's how I justify having so many mules. With the pants I chose, you can't really see the ankle straps anyway, so what's the difference?