CrushedVamp

No American vehicle trend to me was more dumb than the Humvee craze of the early 2000's. Not only was it a gaz guzzler, it was not even a pickup and could carry anything other than people. And despite having a crazy ability to go off-road, those that bought them would never take them off-road anyway. It was all a status thing, which as all of you should know by now, I am polar opposite on. I could care less what other people think of my choices as long as I have thought things through and made a decision on what I feel is best for me. For now, I like my Honda CRV, but I also buy my used cars outright and try to stick with models that go for a long time. I literally drive my cars to the last mile. When I am done with one, they go to the crusher to be turned into scrap metal. Typically, I try to get 250,000 miles out of one before they ultimately die.

It makes sense to have different pairs of leggings, but who ever said I was intelligent? :-) All joking aside, I only have one type primarily, tight-fitting soft leggings, but I am not against getting different kinds. But of course what people call leggings is open to debate. I saw one woman in Walmart who kept mentioning her “leggings” to her girlfriend, but it was clear to me they were clearly black pantyhose and not all that high in denier number either. I would say perhaps 40-50 so not sheer, but not tights either! But I think she was mentioning it publicly just as a rouse to get an arise out of people as I swear, I have seen less camel in the Saraha. As for the lobster leggings, you may have a shot with your entrepreneurial endeavor as the people here are amazing accepting. There is a disproportionately high amount of gay people here as seen from businesses and pride flags flying from people’s houses. But the great thing about people here is… no one cares. The worst part is… no one cares. Last week a box went flying out of the dumpster from the wind and the wife chased after it. The neighbor saw it and said, “you didn’t have to chase that, no one cares what goes in the ocean”. She was not wrong. You would flood a dump if everyone here picked up their yards, or a business would employee half as many people if people showed up to work every day. As is there are no building codes and a few years ago they disbanded the state police barracks in this area. It is not wild west days here, but very much a live and let live kind of mentality.

Thanks for the compliment about the picture. Yet I can commiserate with you regarding high heel photography. I have tried doing some high heels still life’s and such, but as you mention, “what am I trying to convey” comes back to haunt me regarding them. It is a really hard subject matter because we have an interest in them and so for us that is enough, but for others it begs the question: why are high heels in the picture? I did this with my daughter when she was born. My wife loves her high heels, and I love her in them, and so it is natural for me to combine everything with a newborn that just bore out the proof of that love, but for anyone else looking at the photo it is like, “why are there high heels in a newborn picture of your daughter?” Even with other still life’s that did not employ a model of any sort, the question is there… “why are they there?” The answer for that I think is that for many people, high heels do NOT represent something functional or stylish to wear, or a lifestyle, or even a life-challenge of shoe-choice, but rather just being symbolism for s*x.

I am no photographer by any means, but have taken some classes on taking better photos and have toyed around with cameras on tripods with self-timers. What I have found is that I can get some nice photos if I really try, but it is a huge time-suck because it takes 4-5 tries before I get a worthy picture. Now, I take a lot of photos with my Iphone-14. Yeah… don’t laugh. But what I found is, I tend to take more good photos, but ONLY BECAUSE I ALWAYS HAVE IT ON ME. It is not so much that it is an excellent camera, but really the law of big numbers. Take a ton of pictures and a few will inevitably come out good. Here is one. I was just out on my daily morning walk where I pass by this peninsula off our island. I snapped a picture and thought nothing of it. It was not until I sent it to my wife (a skilled photographer) when she said we should print that on our plotter and put the picture in the living room. It was a 100% mistake on taking that. I paused in my hike, snapped the picture and kept walking not even realizing how the sky framed the island of trees, but it was just taken at the right time; a hit or miss thing when you live where we have the largest tidal swings in the world. (I think it came out good, but you better photographers can certainly be the judge. Just keep in mind it was JPEG optimized to get it on this site). For what little my opinion is worth @mlroseplant I think you take great pictures. But I also see things for what they are. It’s a chatroom about high heels where the heels only need to be shown, it is not like this is an improve-your-photography type of chatroom, or like you are using the photo to sell your heels to the highest bidder. Quality of the photo should match the reason for taking it and I think you do that quite well!

I know what you mean, I find what other wives allow interesting as well, albeit, just interesting in in no way judgmental on my side of things. Wearing leggings, or as I call them “soft pants” is fine by her, but as much as both of us love high heels, I doubt she would let me wear them. I do not wear dresses, but if I could and did, it would be sweater dresses for most of the winter. For now, I am content to just let her wear them. My wife unfortunately flip-flops though where your wives seem to be pretty consistent. Even with the leggings her and my daughters have long gotten used too, she flipped out when I bought “base layer pants” that were women’s. I had bought a pair of men’s base layer pants, liked them, but they had the front flap, and well, too much information here I know, but I am a haul-down-the-front-when-going-to-the-bathroom type of guy, not a use-the-flap sort of-guy. Her ex-husband did, so when I bought the women’s style because they lacked the front flap, she was incensed. For me it is how they look. If I wear the men’s style outside, the flap makes it look like I am wearing long-handled underwear outside. If I wear no flap women’s style without a front flap, it looks like I am wearing tight black pants. I really do not see what it matters, but she flip-flops on what she is agreeable with.

What surprises many where I live is that I do not drive a pickup. About 90% of the vehicles here are pickups of some kind. If there is a car, it typically is the fisherman’s wife that is driving here. We are atypical because we BOTH have Honda CRV’s. But I find them to be practical. They get a lot better gas mileage, pack other people into them better, and have four-wheel drive. It really is surprising what you can fit into one too when the seats are folded flat and not have to worry about rain, snow or the item blowing out of the back if it was in a truck. Sheet goods like plywood and sheet insulation cannot go in the back of my car, but I also tend to buy those things in bulk so the lumber companies deliver for free anyway. Usually, I can get what I order in a few hours' time so waiting for delivery is not a huge deal. Fishermen have offered me the use of their trucks, but I am not a borrower per se. I have the worst luck and might hit a deer or something while borrowing it. I should buy a trailer and tow it behind my car for plywood and bigger things, but atlas I just get by for now. But with my neighbors it is far more than us both driving cars that make them wonder who the heck moved in next door to them. We are not ones to assimilate well!

There is no way I could live without a car. We live down a peninsula that is 12 miles long, then must go over a big bridge, then cross an island, and then cross a causeway, then traverse most of that second island before we get to our house. We do have electricity, phone and internet, but it all ends a half-mile from our house. As isolated as we are we have to check Amazon or other outlets first to see if they will even deliver here because about 2/3 will not. For others we can get what we want shipped, but there is an extra cost to do so. For local services, its not too bad. We got a take-out place that is open Wednesday-Sunday so we can get food, but also a gas station, and building supply hardware store. So in building my house, it’s a three mile trip for most supplies, and they can deliver it within the hour if I cannot pick it up using my car. But they are expensive. A lot of times we just wait until we are “going into town” and hit the bigger box stores while there. I like to support local businesses, but hate being gouged. It is well known that the local grocer charges 25% more just because they can. But “going into town” whether it is to Lowes or Walmart is an hour and a half drive for us… ONE WAY. But much of this island is a preserve so there are lots of hiking trails here, and on other islands. Being winter, few people walk the roads but that picks up in the summer. There are plenty of signs warning motorists of bikers and walkers, but it really is not a huge deal. The roads along the island are treacherous anyway, but there is just a slower pace of life here. No one is in a rush for anything once you cross the bridge. Edited to say: Our island has about 500 people, but 2/3 are summer residents only. Some towns on the mainland though have as little as 60, 39 and even 6 people in them. So when I say we drive 1.5 hours, that is through forest so we are driving at 60 mph. These bigger towns are 80 miles away! Fun fact though: we live closer to Africa than anyone else in the United States. It is the same distance for us to go to Morocco as it would be for us to go to California (2,900 miles).

I was barely an adult and at a funeral of all places when I first saw a sweater dress and ever since then have appreciated the style of that particular dress. My wife has a few, but my favorite is because of how we got it. We were having lunch in the food court of a mall and beside us was a boutique store. Way up high was this garment and so the gently quarreling that my wife and I so began. I said it was a sweater dress and she said it was a long sweater and so we went back and forth during our meal. Afterwards I asked the clerk at the store which it was and she said it was a very short sweater dress then asked us quickly if we wanted it. Needless to say, that very short sweater dress came home with us. That one was gray in color, but I admire the boldness of red too, in both the Red Dress and Fire Engine Red manicure. Good for you though the color defies your username! (Just teasing you Bluejay) I saw a woman at the store the other day wearing a bold red dress with red beret… something else I love for no apparent reason except I have always liked berets, and wanted to compliment on her outfit as she was older, perhaps 65 or so and wore it stunningly well, but did not want to sound creepy so I stayed mum. But I thought she looked sharp.

Wow, that is quite the inventory system you have there. IF... and I am in no way saying you have too... but if you switched that to an Excel spreadsheet, and then added a few columns for dates, hours worn and miles treaded you could have a detailed list of your heel's life history. Of how many miles on them, what days they were worn and where. By akl means, add what is important information for you. Compile that date into a graph and you could see just which shoes were worn the most, or how many had the most miles, and even in actual miles or by percentages. I do this with my money and it has its uses. You could do it with shoes...

There are also differences in clothing and shapes from region of the world to region of the world. I only know this because I once watched a real-life crime show where skeletonized human remains were found in an extremely remote area. One of the few clues they found was the metal button on a pair of jeans. It had a special insignia similar to how Wrangler puts the W on its button, but it was one none of the detectives ever seen before. Finally, a friend of one of the detectives, an importer of goods recognized it. It came from a denim jeans manufacturer operating only in Asia. Ultimately from that they found a missing Asia woman (a mail order bride murdered by her husband who had ties to that remote area) who only liked the special cut of the jeans this manufacturer used. So she imported jeans from Vietnam to wear. It was because the curve of an Asia person’s bottom is different and that particular manufacture made the seat of the pants for that region of the world. I did not realize the European sizes of shoes were unisex though. Thanks for teaching me something new!

I think my wife is around that number as well. I do not do the high heel inventory that you guys do but knew we had a lot of shoes in the house a few years ago... so I started counting. Between me, my wife and our four daughters living at the house at the time, I counted 404 pairs of shoes between us all. The wife had the most, including having a walk-in closet just for her shoes. It was not big by any means, 4x8 feet that we endearing called "the shoe barn".

Myself, I would like to see the whole shoe size thing change so there is no longer any "women's size/men's size" just a single sizing method that is adhered to by all manufactures. I guess it is no big deal, once you know you wear say a size 10 women's, well... you just know that is what to buy, but it seems just easier to me to have one set size for the same physical dimensions of a shoe. But it is that way with other clothes too. I bought some men's leggings and they fit me perfect, but they had a front flap I disliked, so I bought some women's since they lacked that. From the same company, same style and everything... and the same size hung off me like elephant skin. It is kind of annoying since I like them tight so they fit better under my jeans when out in the cold. In that, I just wished there was one size for clothing too, and not just shoes. But honestly, I think the dress sizes for women work pretty good, but even on that they sort of mess up because the sizes only go in even increments. I often lease my wife saying I cannot find her size... size five. That is because a size six dress hangs loosely off her, but a size four dress is too tight. But I often thought for a lot of things a sizing numbers would work much better for men's clothes then the small, medium, large, extra large sizes that are quite hit or miss.

Yes, you are indeed right, but it is far more than that. A person in high heels has an air of sophistication about them, and when worn well, they look confident, brazen and dominant. But look at any high school prom where the ones wearing high heels often look uncomfortable, unsteady and vulnerable, and the same pair of shoes can give an entirely different look. It is all about how well the shoes are worn and not so much about the shoes (although I do understand quality has a lot to do with high heel wearing confidence). It is why I have so much respect for everyone on here that wears high heels so often, as well as my wife who embraces them. There is a huge commitment to wearing them well. Everyone on here should take pride… in their pride… on that!

I will try and keep that in mind. By the way, fun fact here: did you know it is impossible to tickle yourself? Leggings work really well for me because I am strange in that if my legs are warm, I can tolerate a lot of cold elsewhere. To some degree, not so much my feet as that can be another weak spot, but people are often surprised how little I wear on my top half. Like I almost never wear a jacket instead just wearing a sweatshirt over a T-shirt, and I am fine down to 0 degrees (F). But this is because other people don’t know my legs are protected by leggings, I look like I am wearing just jeans and a sweatshirt, but in reality, my legs are really warm so I’m fine. It is why I never saw the purpose of a vest. ‘It warms your core’, they say, but for me it would serve no purpose except paying for a garment that is half-useful with its sleeves lobbed off. I am surprised that someone has not come up with reflective leggings or a base layer as a way to retain more heat though. I use radiant barrier underneath all my floors; it is basically tin foil on both sides of bubble wrap. It is only a quarter inch thick (6 mm) but retains 95% of heat by breaking the reflective heat loss. I use it as insoles on my boots to keep my feet warmer in the winter. Sadly, it has an R-factor of only 1, but that is a misnomer because of the way the R-factor calculation does not account for various factors of heat loss. (Kind of like how horsepower is a poor way of calculating true power of something). I would think having a reflective base layer would retain even more body heat making a person warmer with no extra weight or bulk being added?

Awwwwww, don't be too hard on yourself. I have found EVERYTHING slows down in the winter. Yes, that might be in wearing high heels, but other things as well. It's not a bad thing. I learned that growing up on a farm. With no field work to do, we could slow down in the winter and enjoy other aspects of life more. Like playing pond hockey or going snowshoeing. I normally go for my walks daily, but with temps below zero and high winds, I have been putting it off. But that is okay, we are on the other side of the equinox and so the days are getting longer, the sun is higher in the sky, in another month things will be vastly different, and February is a very short month.