mlroseplant

I have to admit at this point that in the past, I have actually gone so far as to tan my legs separately to get them to "catch up." There is a certain spot where I can sit a read a book while having my legs out in the sun, but my upper body in the shade. I avoided that problem this year by covering up head to toe while I am at work. It's easy this year because I'm outside. When I'm working mainly inside, I find the sun that I get from "incidental" exposure does add up after a while, i.e., going out to the port-a-john, standing around waiting for a delivery, walking to the parking lot. We won't even get into "sandal tan" or the dreaded "sock tan" that I used to get back when I played tennis a lot.

Inasmuch as we can see anything in this picture, I think everything looks great! Your shoes are very cute, I have a similar pair, though I don't often wear wedges. I do think it has to be pointed out that with this outfit, the first thing people are going to notice is your wildly uneven sun exposure, and not your pedicure/manicure. I get it. I tend to have the same problem myself.

I was up at Costco the other day, and I saw a teenaged girl in heels. Not heels as we tend to think of them in this group, but heels obvious to everyone else. I would estimate this girl to have been about 15 or 16, but it's so hard to say for sure these days. She was with her parents, who were dressed nicely, but casually. Mom was in a sort of flowy skirt with flat sandals, and Dad was in khaki shorts with deck shoes or something of that sort. Daughter was wearing what appeared to be a romper, quite short with 2 1/2 inch block heeled sandals. I did not look too carefully to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Daughter had the typical teenage expression of a combination of boredom and oh, I don't know, sulky perhaps, but not like how normal adults carry themselves. She had her face buried in the phone the entire time, even though she kept up with Mom and Dad. I know this because we happened to be shopping at about the same pace and in the same general direction, and Costco moves items around a lot, so you often have to walk around and look for it. The one time Daughter looked at something besides her phone was to check out my shoes for a few seconds. For those few seconds, the expression on her face softened just a bit. I can be thankful that my 15 year old walks around looking like a normal, well-adjusted person. That seems to be a rarity, so I am told.

It is at least interesting to know what sorts of activities involve actually walking a lot versus those that just seem like it. I've never worked in an office before, but I've built a lot of office buildings. With the job I'm at right now, I'm lucky to get in 5,000 steps by the end of the day, even though I'm on my feet 95% of the time. When I was foreman at a building which was 400 meters long and sometimes had crews at opposite ends of it, it was very difficult to NOT get at least 10,000 steps in a day. Outside of work, it is completely dependent on a) how lazy I am, or b) whether I have lawns to mow. That activity does add a lot of steps. I guess I should mention that we have only walk behind mowers. As far as walking in heels, I guess I've never personally known anyone who walks in heels as much as I do, so I can't really compare notes. I have a feeling that the secret to my heeling success is based on just sheer number of hours spent walking.

True, it has been very Hanoi-like here in Iowa lately--that is, rain alternating with extreme heat and humidity. Looks like we should finally come out of the heat tomorrow. I addressed your very question in my "Ruminations" thread about what I'm wearing in the rain these days. It's on page 87, close to the bottom, if you care to look it up sometime. Try and stay cool. I have no idea how my dad managed to survive growing up in Central Florida with no air conditioning.

This week I have given up the tie, maybe for the rest of the summer. Church does tend to be much more casual in the summer, although that doesn't tend to affect my decisions about what to wear. In other news, look for me on the internet. I was out walking this morning, and some dude in a car actually went around the block and came back for a second look with a phone hanging out the window. At 5;30 a.m. He must not be from around here. The best part was, he came within inches of hitting a parked car, and had to swerve at the last minute from not watching where he was going. I really wish he would have hit it. That would have made an interesting police report. "Let me tell you EXACTLY what happened here. . ."

I have reached another milestone in my shoe collection. I have a new "most durable shoe" since the death of my Nine West Sizzles, See directly above. I guess I never managed to write about that failure in this blog, but that's probably because nobody would have read about it anyway. The details are chronicled elsewhere. So. . . we'll try this thread again. I present my True Religion, model name unknown, mules with a sort of wooden composite heel. I have them in three colors, as pictured below. The black ones are the ones that have the big mileage on them. I have finally passed the 200 mile mark with a pair of heels. I must have other shoes (such as work boots and hiking boots) with more miles on them than that, but I haven't actually recorded the mileage, so I cannot say for sure. I know people like to refer to having walked "hundreds of miles" in heels, but I can tell you from experience, incidental mileage does not add up as quickly as one thinks it does. That huge parking lot at the shopping mall is, in the grand scheme of things, really not all that big. I don't even try to guess at "incidental" mileage anymore. The 200 miles I've walked in these shoes has been purposeful exercise which has either been tracked and recorded with GPS or walked on routes of a known and established distance. I have owned 5 pairs of this exact model in total. I still have 3. My story begins fairly early, and by "early," I mean in 2013 or 2014. I bought an orange pair of these within a year or two after I began heeling publicly. I bought them because I was drawn to the "Candies" style wooden heeled mules that I remember from my youth. As many of you know, I am still drawn toward wooden mules, and have around 20 pair in that general style. I would probably have even more than that if it weren't for the fact that most of the wooden heeled sandals you can get are rather on the low-ish side, and I have all the low heeled shoes I need. Before I get too far off the subject, I will tell you that the orange mules did not last long in my collection back then. I'm pretty sure I donated them or sold them. Yes, I actually used to try to sell my castoffs back then. There were three reasons for this: 1) They were too high for me at the time, 2) They were orange, and I was very self-conscious, 3) I was impatient when it came to breaking shoes in. I can remember walking around the block in them for the first time and thinking, "These things are terrible! They're super tight and uncomfortable, they're loud (in both color and walking sound), and they kinda ugly." They were gone. Fast forward about 5 years, and I ran across another pair on either ebay or Poshmark, I can't remember which one. This one was dark brown. Being more experienced by then, but still liking the general style, I decided to give them another try. The second time, it was a whole different experience. First, it was obvious that somebody had actually worn these a few times, because the break-in period was minimal. There was none of the squeezing in, little by little, that I had remembered from the first pair. Second, by then, I was used to the 4 inch effective height. And third, they were brown instead of orange. Love is evidently better the second time around. But all was not sweetness and light. Soon after I got the brown pair, I lost a top lift (top piece, heel tip) while on a walk, and I didn't notice it until I got home, by which time I had ground a full 3/4" of wooden composite material off of the heel. So those were trash. Shortly after that, I went on a search mission and found the featured pair, the black pair. Like the brown pair, it had been worn before, and fit snugly, but not super tightly like my original orange pair. Within 6 miles, I lost a top lift off of the black pair. Luckily, on that occasion, I noticed right away, and walked home barefoot. I am now on my third set of heels after that, each set lasting somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 miles. Fairly recently, I expanded my collection to re-include the brown and orange versions of this mule. Both pair have been worn not at all or very little, and have required patient break-in. My new brown pair is finally ready for regular use out in the wild, but wouldn't you know, the other day when I was out for a one-miler with them, I lost a top lift! This despite the fact that I stopped every quarter mile and checked to make sure they were still there. Sometime in the last quarter mile, one of them fell off without me noticing. You would think I would notice right away, but you really can't tell with these shoes until it's too late. Luckily, only a minimal amount of heel material got worn down, definitely not a hopeless cause. However, when I take them to the cobbler to get reheeled, I'm definitely taking the orange pair, despite the fact that the stock heels are practically brand new. The stock heels don't even wear all that badly, it just seems like they won't stay on for their entire service life! I'm not taking any chances. Do I love these shoes? Not really. They are kinda ugly. For one thing, they are peep toe, and I prefer sandals that show at least three toes. The vamp comes up very high, and the contrasting stitching to me makes them look less than elegant. I have no idea how they have come to be the most used shoe in my entire collection, probably because they're comfortable and durable, and I don't really wear them to be seen. I suppose I'd better put the stats. 4 3/4 inch heel, 3/4 platform, for an effective 4 inch heel height. 3/4" heel width where it touches the ground. I know this has been rather long winded, but it seems a shame to abandon the post since I've come this far.

It has been raining a lot lately. Not the violent storms of spring, but it seems like every other day we are getting some precipitation. I finally had to go walking in the rain or I wasn't going to get in my heeling exercise, and unlike Shirley Temple, I do NOT love to walk in the rain. It is a very important tenet of my life that I stay dry whenever possible. With a light rain, an umbrella will suffice, but what shoes to wear? I have quite a number that could be ruined by wearing them in the wet, so those are automatically out. As it turns out, I have found the perfect. . . ok, maybe not the perfect, but serviceable. . . shoes to wear in the rain, at least on pavement. You may think I'm crazy for wearing Prada in the rain, but hear me out. The entire base is made of lacquered wood, and the sole is actually rubber. I'm so glad they didn't stick a thin layer of leather on there like so many designer platform shoes have. The platform is 1 1/2 inches thick, so if one takes even the slightest amount of care, one's feet stay well above ordinary puddles. When I have to set up for say, a farmer's market in the wet, I wear actual rubber rain boots (mine have a slight wedge heel), but I hate every minute I have to wear those things. I am quite happy to walk down the street in the platform mules, though.

The original question seems to focus in on the fact that they were worn for nuptials, and worn just the one time. For me, what the previous owner did or did not do while wearing the shoes has no bearing on whether I'd want to buy them, unless the activity(ies) somehow compromised the integrity of the footwear. Just for the record, my ex-wife wore flats for the wedding. They were red, but that was our secret. You couldn't see the shoes because of the length of the dress anyhow, so what difference does it make? My current wife wore substantial heels at our wedding. She wore the traditional aó dài, so one could definitely see the heels, at least when moving.

The concept of this blog seems very simple, but how to begin? At least I managed to come up with a wacky title. I have been meaning to feature the following shoes for a long time because they are among the first heels I ever purchased with a serious intent to wear them in public. They have also turned out to be, thus far, my most durable pair of heels. Though I have mentioned them many times in passing over the years, let me formally introduce you to my Nine West “Sizzle” oxfords in plain black leather. I purchased them on January 4, 2013. Going back through my records, I evidently paid $99 for them from Amazon. This was probably pretty close to full price, which is something I never do anymore. However, in retrospect, I can’t say that I didn’t get my money’s worth. My motivation for buying these particular shoes has been lost to the sands of time, but I can tell you that this was my second pair of this model. The first pair I had was black patent, rather than just plain black, and was U.S. Women’s size 9. I always thought that they were a bit too tight, and so I got rid of them and got the instant shoes in a size 9 1/2. I did that often in those days, that is, bought stuff in 9 1/2 or even 10. I am not sure why, but I would never make that mistake today. I am pretty clearly and solidly a size 9. As a result, I have to wear thick socks with these oxfords. This is simultaneously a plus and a minus. I hate how the shoes are really too big, but on the other hand, the cushioning provided by thick socks may be the secret to why they are an any occasion, all-the-time shoe--in the winter, anyway. Just so you know, just so you do not doubt my proclivities, I never wear these, ever, from about mid-May to mid-October. What would a Melrose expository post be without statistics? Here are the numbers: 4 3/4” heel, 3/4” platform, for an effective steepness of right at 4 inches. Diameter of the heels is about 3/4”. I have had them reheeled three times, and am very, very close to needing No. 4. I have walked 191 documented miles in these, plus any number of undocumented/incidental miles. I feel like they are going to fail sometime on the next reheel, and I will be sad when they do. I think I have worn these in every situation that I normally encounter in life, and some that I don’t normally encounter. I have worn these with men’s suits to church, and I have worn them with jeans for my neighborhood constitutionals. I know I have worn them on at least one occasion to work the “big” farmer’s market, which involves standing for five hours. I have worn them on a walk that exceeded 5 miles, 6.1 to be exact. I have only ever done this with 3 pairs of shoes over the past 11 years. After all this use, they still shine up pretty well!

I know that we've discussed this subject before, perhaps a number of times, but I'm bringing it up again for two reasons: 1) We might have some new folks here who have never thought about this before, and, more importantly, 2) I am a victim of not following my own advice. I have said many times that in order to gain stamina in high heels, one must walk in them. A lot. To the point where you're on a first name basis with your cobbler because you're in there so often. Once you've achieved the ability to walk a couple of miles without thinking too much of it, then we can talk about standing. For many people, the thought of walking a couple of miles in heels just doesn't compute. To them, it's foolish talk, practically impossible, and if they were forced to do it, severe damage or at least severe temporary pain would occur. And they're right. It would. I can now sort of understand this thinking, because it has happened to me. For a number of reasons, December was a non-heel-wearing month for me. I walked on December the 1st, and I walked on December the 31st, and that was pretty much it. Other than that, I wore heels to church for an hour a week, and that was pretty much that. I was a little bit disappointed that when I showed up to choir rehearsal in flat boots, nobody seemed to notice. That hasn't happened in years. The point is, when I took my walk on December 31st, I could definitely feel it, even though I only walked a scant mile. So yeah, I can understand why somebody would be ready to get out of their 4 inch heels after an hour. That's me right now. Hopefully not me in a couple of weeks.

Hello all, I have been considering starting a "jaunts" type thread for some time, but I don't really "do" jaunts. In other words, I don't ever dress up for the sole purpose of going out dressed up. I just simply go about my everyday life wearing heels and usually close-fitting women's jeans. So, in light of that, I thought I would start a thread which will feature probably rather random thoughts about high heels and perhaps other traditionally women's fashion that I might like to incorporate into my wardrobe. I have decided to start this thread with an introduction, or re-introduction, rather than jumping right in with thoughts and insights into the world of a male who likes to wear high heels. My name is not actually Melrose Plant, that is a work nickname which has fallen into disuse over the years. However, it persists on the Internet, as I prefer it to my current work nickname, Squirrel. I am married and I have two sons, aged 6 and 16. The boys are fine with my choice of footwear, even the teenager. My wife tolerates it, but I am sure she wouldn't mind a bit if I decided one day to throw all my heels away. That ain't gonna happen. As I said, I plan to share random thoughts about wearing high heels and perhaps other traditionally women's clothing from time to time, and I hope it becomes an interesting thread. I welcome all comments and opinions.