mlroseplant

8 hours ago, pebblesf said:

Doesn't seem like the insert method is going to help you much.  Are you sure you couldn't pull off some of the styles from "onlymaker" that are cowboy style with a higher block heel?  Seems like you spend most of your time behind the bar, so not many customers will have the chance to see what shoes you are wearing...

Yeah, I tried them inserts once, they suck rocks. @bambam, there is the cowboy boot thing or the wedge sneaker thing. I do not know if you wish to pursue either of these avenues.

12 hours ago, p1ng74 said:

I have long legs so there are basically no pants long enough for me to hide my heels.  But I did wear cowboy boots with 2.5" and 3" heels before wearing high heels so it wasn't a sudden thing for me either.  

I really can't empathize with you, as I have the opposite problem. I have to take every pair of pants to the tailor, and then my wife gets mad at me for that. Maybe I need to find a different tailor.

11 hours ago, pebblesf said:

I agree, a balance between comfort and style.  I get so frustrated when I have heels/boots that I can't master/walk very well in for any distance.  

This is sort of the reason that I'm trying to expand my skillset. I want to be able to wear the shoes I like whenever and wherever I want. I get it!

1 hour ago, Shyheels said:

As far as my prose output goes my MacBook is pretty much a glorified typewriter, but photo editing is another matter. Although I am no computer geek I have to have a general proficiency in Photoshop and Lightroom

Interestingly enough, my 22 year old son has gone the opposite direction in his interests, and has discovered actual film! Obviously, he doesn't make a living at it, but I thought you might get a kick out the following picture. He's taken it THAT far. He's drinking the hard stuff now.

2 hours ago, Puffer said:

I quite agree!   I find any detailed understanding or management of most computery a challenge, and one that regularly defeats me.   That is why I produced two sons who are skilled in such matters and invariably sort out the old man's problems for him.   In return, I spend many hours renovating and improving their properties.   Horses for courses ...

I made an impromptu deal with my older son last week. I would do his tax return (it is THAT time in the U.S. of A.), if I didn't have to deal with any of the computer stuff. Tax returns do not scare me for some reason. OK, I used to be a tax preparer 20-some-odd-years ago, of course, they don't scare me. I told him very calmly in advance, if this blankety-blank computer will not print out this tax return when I am done with it, I will throw the thing out the window. He took care of everything from that point on.

2 minutes ago, at9 said:

If you want to get an Apple but need to run Windows stuff that what Parallels and/or virtual machines are for.

If you run Linux (just about any variety) then a lot of Windows software will run using WINE. Otherwise a virtual machine. I've certainly run XP under Linux Mint using VIrtualbox. For that matter I've run XP under later versions of Windows when I 've had to use software that won't work on W7 or later.

The performance hit for using a VM on modern hardware is minimal.

It's funny to talk amongst ourselves like this, because our talents are so varied. When I turn on my computer, I just want the damn thing to work. I really don't know that much about it, in the same way that many people view cars. I personally drive old, crappy cars, so that I am free to spend my money on other things, like shoes! I can fix the cars when they break, but I can't tell you much about computer problems.

I finally succumbed to pressure, and got some high waisted jeans. Well, that's what the ad said. I think they are normal waist, but certainly the zipper is longer than most of my other jeans,although  the waistband is still a ways away from my belly button.  I have yet to get a picture, so I'll have to let you know, but my feeling is that they probably flatter me, because I have really short legs, and the higher waist brings things more into proportion.

I think that's how we all started off (except for 3). There are very few people, and this includes the most confident amongst us, who could suddenly decide, "I'm going to start wearing heels today, and I don't care what anyone else thinks or says." Yeah, that's nice in theory, but reality is somewhat different. You do have to get used to how you look in the mirror, and you have to get used to other people's reactions to you.

My parents were very accepting of me fairly quickly, first my father, and then later my mother, who is the more conservative of the two. It took my wife a few more years after that, and to tell the truth, I know she doesn't really like it, I think I've just worn her down, so she just throws up her hands anymore and doesn't say anything. I already know the circumstances she really doesn't like me to wear heels, and I anticipate and respect that.

Best choice or not, I have been an Apple Guy since the IIe, and that's been a while ago. I did stray from the herd for a short period, but you can hardly blame me, given the times. When I did stray, what I wound up with was a Windows '98 Box. That was not a good experience, either.

On the other hand, it was on that Windows 98 machine that I discovered Jenny's High Stiletto Heels website (on dial-up modem), and well.  .  . here I am today! I could not have predicted at the time that I would graduate from a high heel admirer into a high heel wearer.

On 4/12/2022 at 5:00 PM, bambam said:

Love these, been looking for some solid Oxfords for a while.

Those pictured are Nine West "Sizzle." However, that model was from more than 10 years ago, and it seems that they have recycled this silly name for another model now. If you're willing to go with a lower heel, there are a TON of oxford options out there.

Speaking of walking heels, this pair of shoes has proven to be my most durable thus far. I have 123 documented miles on these, and they're one of only 3 pairs I've ever owned that I've walked more than 5 continuous miles in. Sadly, they may be on their last legs cosmetically. I'll have to take them in to the cobbler to see if they can be saved.

I am wondering whether it's the stiletto heel that bothers her or whether it's the general style of the whole shoe. One of these things is not like the others, and it's not just the style of the heel.

On 4/12/2022 at 12:17 AM, SF said:

New sandals for spring and summer !!!…..  

I saw these sandals last February and had to have them (even tho I did not need them!).

The ankle wrap thong is “Popi” by Nine West, size 11.  The chunky-heeled sandal is Morel by VanEli from Marmi Shoes, size 12.  

I like both styles for totally different reasons.  

The Popi thong has a unique feminine “edgy” look to it with the semi clear upper and the ankle ties.  The kitten heel is 3 1/4 inches high, the highest heel I own.  All of my other heels are less than 3 inches.  That extra ¼ inch makes a difference too.  I have worn them out almost daily the past two weeks; they are comfy, to a point.  No long walks for these heels, but standing is fine.  They will be good for short errands or going out to dinner, coffee and such.  Nonetheless, I like them – a lot.  

The block heeled VanEli Morel sandals are from Marmi Shoes, my favorite shoe store.  They were on a one-day clearance sale for $22.22 on February 22!!  They had sold for $120 dollars, what a deal.  I call them my “frumpy” sandals and the wife agrees.  They aren’t the most stylish sandal I own but they sure are comfortable and versatile.  The heel is a stable 2 ½ inches and the uppers hold my foot securely.  I have worn them for many hours without any problems.  Even tho they be “frumpy” I like ‘em too!  

Both are pictured with my Vegas pedicure from the spa at Caesars Palace.  The gals there do a wonderful job on the nails.  

Have fun in your heels, I do.  Smile….   sf

I have to ask, how are you getting along with the PVC uppers of your Nine West sandals? I have vacillated on whether I should purchase sandals with a PVC upper. Do you have any problems with them "fogging up?"

I disagree that the second pictured pair of sandals is "frumpy." They are merely "frumpy-ish." I think what saves them from being truly frumpy is the crisscross design of the vamp. Also, I'm just trying to imagine a frumpy person who would wear such shoes, and I'm finding that my imagination evidently is not all that rich.

On 4/10/2022 at 8:54 PM, chesterx said:

I have a couple of hers as well, although they are straight leg & I prefer skinny jeans with heels, I still wear them on occasion. I started out by wearing boot cut or bell bottom jeans as I felt more secure hiding my heels but as my comfort level grew I never wore them again. I was going to toss them out or make cutoffs out of them when I realized they would be great for doing yard work in. They have lots of stretch & the flare helps keeps the debris out of my shoes. I am going to buy more of them when these ones wear out.

I did the same thing for the first few years, and I just got rid of several pairs of boot cut pants, both jeans and dressier items. However, I still keep a few pairs around because they appear to be coming back into style again, and while I do like to show my heels, there is a certain charm in taking a cloak and dagger approach, with nothing but little pins showing at the back/bottom of the pants. However, I will never again wear mules with this style. Big logistical problems there! I do not miss that.

On 4/10/2022 at 9:01 PM, NrthEastHeel said:

Yes i would imagine so, if we had the same pair of shoes same heel height but different size foot, the arch would be a bit shallower on the larger shoe size. Therefore , theoretically, easier to walk in.

If you think of it from the perspective of the other variable, any given model of shoe/boots should increase in heel height as the size gets larger, in order to maintain the same look. Pictured below is a great example of this. On the left is a size 6 (U.S.) Michael Kors "Oksana" sandal. If memory serves, it has a heel height around 4 3/4 inches, with a 1 inch platform. On the right, the same model in size 9. Heel height is 5 1/2 inches. The owner of the size 6 shoes often wears pumps in the 4 inch range (no platform), and in her size, 4 inch heels look about right to me. In my size, 4 inch seems a little short of the mark.

23 hours ago, Shyheels said:

I like heels for their sense of style, and as with so many things - especially regarding style -  sometimes less is more. The heels on my boots are chunky and in the three inch range. I feel no need for anything else. To me chunky heels at that height are stylish and daring, suggestive, hinting at an edgy note of femininity but without being blatant about it.

 

While I do like the style choices offered to me when it comes to heels, I have to have a certain amount of elevation, or it seems to be missing something. Everybody is different.

17 hours ago, pebblesf said:

I just can't seem to get over the 4.5" heel hurdle.  I can walk comfortably in 4.5" stiletto boots all day, but just can't make the jump to 5".  Sure, I can walk in 5" boots, just not comfortably for any distance.

I am not so much concerned about the comfort factor, I'm way more concerned about the Looking Like an Idiot factor. "Walk" is a verb which is not particularly tightly defined.

16 hours ago, NrthEastHeel said:

As a suggestion, have you tried a 5 inch heel , with a 1 inch platform? That would guve u a foot arch of 4 inches. Also the foot doesnt arch any higher due to the platform. Personally i prefer concealed platforms as they tend to have a nicer look (in my opinion) and look more like a heel with no platform.

Excellent heels

About 5 inch heel non platform is my max height, any higher and i need a platform, then i can go up to about 6.5 inch and still walk naturally. I only have size 5 feet, so the arch is more pronounced on my feet with heels.

It just happens that I have a LOT of those! See example below. It used to be my preferred style, that is, 5 inch heel, 1 inch platform. What I'm after here, I believe, is the athletic challenge of going a little steeper than I have in the past.

21 hours ago, Jkrenzer said:

You look perfectly proportioned with 4.5" single soles, even 4.75".

My foot is larger and I rarely if ever wear less than 5". However, 5.24 is really my max everyday shoe height (single soles of course). Here are some of my more experienced heels by Pleaser although I really don't wear Pleaser all that much anymore.

 

I especially like the ones with the contrasting toe cap.

19 hours ago, spikesmike said:

mlroseplant : You have posed in front of your garage door in previous photos . Not a reflection from a mirror. So, Do you use a camera on a tri-pod, or doe's a family member take your photos ?                                                                                                           Keep your heels and standerds high.       Mike

Mike, I use a tripod with a phone holder attached to it. I no longer own a traditional camera. If I could stop buying shoes and musical instruments, I could probably afford a decent camera again. The phone holder came with a Bluetooth remote control, which tells the phone to "take" the picture. This has been handier than I thought at first.

Side note: I either need to fix that truck or junk it.

Every once in a while, I drag out this tired subject. Some people find this subject exciting, and some cannot figure out why it keeps being brought up. In the case of the latter, sf, bluejay, and Puffer would be the prime examples of "Why on earth do you care?" In reply to this, like the song says, "I Can't Tell You Why." I can already walk and live in heels way higher than anyone else that I personally know, why would I want to go higher? I could blame it on Instagram, which has the ability to create a fantasy world where many people, both men and women, wear 5 inch heels regularly, everywhere. We consciously know that this is not the case at all, but nevertheless, that aspiration remains, and all of these years later (I am within a month of celebrating 10 years of public heeling), I am stuck at essentially the same place--about 4 1/2", or in the neighborhood of 115 mm.

To be sure, there is no way I could walk in >4" shoes in the early years, at least not up to my standards of today. But I worked my way up within a few years, and my favorite heels tend to be in that 4 - 4 1/2 inch range of steepness. I have a very few pairs of shoes that fall outside this range on the high end, and obviously more than just a few that fall outside this range on the low end, for reasons of practicality. Still, I am stuck at this point with 4 1/2 being my high end. You will see a picture of three different styles of heels that meet this standard that I can actually walk in and wear in normal situations. Also pictured is me in a pair of shoes that I cannot yet wear in normal situations, Pleaser heels that measure 5+ inches, or right at 130 mm. They are beyond my capability, ever-so-slightly. Obviously, I can stand in them just fine, I just can't walk in a manner that I find acceptable for public consumption.

My question to you folks is, "How do I get there from here?" I have been trying to wear my steepest heels more often, and I can tell right away when things get stretched out and it becomes easy. It usually takes about 5 to 10 minutes after I get home from work, when making the transition from relative flats to 4 1/2" heels, to feel somewhat natural walking in the high shoes. I get the feeling that 90% of it is ankle flexibility. If I could just get that extra few degrees of ankle mobility, I think I could walk in those 5" shoes. What are your thoughts?

17 hours ago, Pierre1961 said:

for sure no much activity going on here lately! 

On my side I am still wearing heels ( nearly) everyday. Still traveling in heels. Doing my own stuff! 

I would post much more often if my pics were not always rejected as too heavy. Even if I reduce the resolution and the size. Any tip?i notice some members are posting nice pictures. I am using an IPhone. 

No matter if it makes me feel a moron 

My wife also refers to large file size photos as being "heavy." It's quite charming!

I do the same thing that Krenzer does. I email the photo to myself, and it gives me a choice of file size. In this way, I am able to get it under the limit easily without having to worry about any editing, and there is very little reduction in quality, at least for the purposes of viewing on a normal computer screen.

Since there is nothing much going on here, it seems like a perfect time to share a not-so-great picture of me in my last Sunday's church outfit. I have the correct purple colored tie to fit the liturgical season, which is Lent. For those interested, we will switch to red for Holy Week, then white or gold for Easter up to Pentecost, red again for Pentecost, then green for the rest of the year up until Advent, known rather boringly as "Ordinary Time."

I would like to point out that the main item of interest in this picture is not my tie, but rather my silver sparkly mules, bought fairly recently on a whim. I wondered where I would ever wear them, but I guess I am less self-conscious than I used to be, so I wore them to church. I did not receive any comments on them one way or the other. I am not totally sure what was going on with my shirt in this picture, but I didn't notice until later, and I was not inclined to drag everything back outside to retake.

They look rather better than I had imagined!

6 hours ago, hoverfly said:

Hay is there any one left from the late 1990’s and early 2000’s that are still active here?  Let’s make some noise!

 

just checking….

I never signed up on this site until much later, but I'm an old Jenny guy.

Not that I care that much anymore, but it is interesting to note that I received my first ever compliment from a man on my shoes recently. It's a been quite a while, but I have received quite a few jabs from men about my shoes, and the most memorable of these jabs occurred at the same place that this recent compliment occurred--Costco. Coincidence? I'm not a big believer in fate.

8 minutes ago, NrthEastHeel said:

Ok .. So i couldnt help myself. Browsing through a local charity shop i found these , Asos Design 'Niki', in my size, brand new for £4.50. Originally £25, online sale price is 15£. They just spoke to me, something cute abiut them and figured a nice around the house mule, for a bargain price

Considering the price was less than a fiver, I might have done the same, but I am really doubtful about that squared off toe shape. How do they look on?

On 3/30/2022 at 9:03 PM, Jkrenzer said:

Their 11 is really a 10. 11 is impressed into the soles. The leather is amazing but I can only wear them early in the day before my feet grow due to being upright all day. 

So what you're saying is, that should I ever buy any Casadei shoes, which I may end up doing someday, I should buy a 10? They are not marked in Euro sizes? I learned a long time ago that 9 ≠ 39, unlike what many charts will tell you.

First of all, nice looking shoes you have there! I have actually started this answer 2 or 3 times now, and I hesitate to reply because I don't know how.

Coming up next month is my 10th anniversary of public heeling, which is when I was first exposed to the conditions relevant to your question. It is true that in the early days, I experienced feelings much like you described in your post above, this giddy, almost frantic sense of anticipation until the moment it was revealed whether these new shoes were going to work out or not. I'm not quite that way anymore, now it's kind of like, "Oh, I've gotten new shoes today. Cool!" I briefly went through all the pictures that I have ever posted to HHP, and I was trying to recall the feelings I had when I took them, and I have come to the conclusion that my tempered reaction comes not from being jaded about purchasing and wearing high heels, but rather from a complete change in the last 10 years about how I view life in general.

I can tell you that one of the things that makes a great deal of difference in how I react is the reason I bought the shoes in the first place. Here's an example. The first photo shows my plane Jane, patent leather pumps I bought fairly recently. I bought them because the shoes I would normally wear with my "men's" suits are getting tired, and they aren't going to last forever, so I decided I would try wearing pumps with a suit, instead of oxfords. As it turns out, it's going to work out just fine. The shoes are high quality enough to look great in that setting (and perhaps others, as well). I just wore these particular shoes a couple of days ago. They look nice, they fit great, and with a slightly lower heel than I'm usually wont to wear, I don't have to think about them every second I'm walking. The problem is, I just can't get excited about them in the way that I am about the shoes in the second photo. In a perfect world, I would wear shoes in that classification most of the time. However, in the real world, that's not practical, so I spend a lot more time wearing shoes more like the ones in the first photo.

I know, I still really haven't answered the question yet. I'm getting to that. When I got a new pair of shoes 10 years ago, I would drop everything to unbox them at the earliest possible minute and try them on. I don't do that anymore. I now have the ability to actually let them sit there for a day or two if I have other things I really should be doing. When I do unbox them, I examine them for defects or damage, then I take out my tape measure and measure heel height, heel width, platform height (if applicable), that sort of thing. I do this for several reasons. One is geekiness. Two is to make sure each shoe is reasonably identical to the other. I've run into a few situations where they haven't been! The third reason is so that I know approximately where to put the shoes on the storage shelving, which is arranged, in addition to other features, by heel height. And the final reason I measure up is so that I can give you the numbers when and if I share them in the New Shoes thread on this forum!

After all that, it's time to try them on. I have learned over the years to be somewhat detached during this process. I have discovered it's rare that you immediately know whether a pair of shoes is going to work out. Sometimes, a pair of shoes that is damn near impossible to get on the first time can work out in the future. Conversely, a pair of shoes that fits perfectly on the first try may stretch out in a few weeks and end up being significantly too big. More than that, there is a big difference between house comfort and real world comfort. For instance, those shoes that are so great in your kitchen may gnaw a hole in the side of your foot just 1/2 mile down the road. Or, they may not want to stay on your feet at all, due to the bigger steps one normally takes in the real world vs. inside the house. It's bad news when you wind up skating across the floor of your local supermarket in front of all your acquaintances and friends because the coefficient of friction of your heel tips is rather lower than you anticipated. It's very disappointing when stuff breaks on you, again mostly heel tips, but sometimes other things too, when you're not close to home. These are only four examples of why one's initial enthusiasm should be tempered if possible, and rash actions should be avoided.

Anyway, I'm not saying it's right, it's just what I do. You did ask.

I get you on that one. It is easier to adjust the foot, and in many cases more comfortable to wear pumps with hosiery. However, the flip side of that is, it is also much easier to walk right out of the shoe, usually at the most embarrassing moment possible. Don't ask me how I know.