Take Me to the Laces Heel
ModCloth.com
$ 119.99

This is a shoe that you can wear year-round. In the fall and winter, pair it with tights. In the spring and summer, wear these shoes like you would any other sandals. And the color goes with everything.

I found this graphic on Une femme d'un certain age's website to be so perfect that I had to showcase it here:

I have some friends and family members who are too much about keeping an utterly clean house. I have often thought of the wonderful things they could be doing with their time besides cleaning. Over and over again. What could they have accomplished in their lives with the hours and days that were instead devoted to cleaning?

Elsewhere in the blogosphere and on Twitter, we have a raging debate going on over the merits of minivans. Girl's Gone Child is considering getting a minivan. The comments that are rolling in from all directions are funny. And interesting. And sympathetic. I too once owned a minivan. When my daughter was an infant I caved in and got one. It was comfortable and useful. It was great for traveling. It easily held all of her baby stuff and included a handy dvd player screen that dropped from the ceiling. But truthfully, it was not a "cool" vehicle to drive. It was such a "mom" vehicle. I got rid of it after only a few years. I was ready for a car again.  But I see both sides of the argument.

In other news I got these new Michael Kors shoes (except mine are red):

I wore these shoes today to take Toot to the doctor. She had an earache. And wouldn't you know it, she has a middle ear infection. We have to get this thing cleared up by next week because she is flying with me to NYC. And we all know that ear infections and plane rides don't mix.

I did not remember that the doctor's office had wooden floors. These turned out to be the loudest shoes in the history of all time. I could not walk quietly to save my life. Everyone kept looking as we walked down the hall to the examination room. And then when we walked back to the front of the office. And as we walked through Walgreen's. You get the picture. I really need to put some of the anti-skid things on the bottoms of these shoes to soften the noise.

And these shoes are fairly tall. I felt like an amazon because the little nurse's assistant at the clinic was only about 4 and a half feet tall. She was tiny. And there I was with these 4 inch heels (the website says 3.5 inches but I measured them at 4) added to my 5 feet 5 inch height. So I was towering over her and clomping around on the wooden floors. It was completely distracting.

But the shoes are fairly comfortable. And aren't they cute? That's what counts. Right?

I am probably way late to the game, but these have got to be some of the ugliest footwear I have ever seen. They've aparently been on the market for awhile now but I am only just now discovering their hideousness and getting to participate in the laughing and finger pointing. And God help us if I ever see someone actually wearing these in public. I'll have to run away as fast as possible to avoid making a spectacle of myself.

On that note, I give you: Tube Flops

Avoid the whole grandpa-black-socks-sandals disaster and walk around with your own foot disaster. These are tube socks built onto a pair of flip flops. For what purpose, I haven't the slightest idea. But you can get your own pair at Zappos.

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I just finished reading Moon Pies and Movie Stars by Amy Wallen. It is a tale strung between Texas and California and involves Winnebagos, Trans Ams, and lots of bowling accouterments. The principal character, Ruby Kincaid owns a bowling alley in Devine, Texas and is raising her grandchildren after her daughter runs away.

Oh, and one of the best parts is the dogged determination of Ruby's sister Loralva to get on the game show The Price Is Right. Loralva memorizes the Sears catalog for prices while charming every male they meet between Texas and California. She gets on the game show and does a stunning job at winning.

I like that this book was not merely about one character but has many interesting characters fleshed out in its chapters. And the references to all things 70's were spot on. And finally, Ms. Wallen includes the actual names of the cars! You see, most books just have generic cars. But in Moon Pies and Movie Stars we actually know that Ruby drives an El Camino, Loralva gets a real Smokey and the Bandit (one of the best movies ever!) Trans Am, and the motel owner drives a Gran Torino. Those are the kinds of details I like in a book! I am a bit of a car nut so I like to know what everyone drives.

It would be great if Ms. Wallen comes out with a sequel to this book. I would like to see where the characters end up.

Here are links to articles/blog posts I have found interesting over the past couple of weeks:

Une femme d'un certain age  shares with us the beginning of her landscaping project that will transform her yard. This should be fun to watch as it unfolds like an HGTV special.

Une Vie Chic sets some goals for the year. I like this. I am a list person and a goal-setting person. It is how I get through life. And I like to see what other people are setting as their goals.

METSCAN is a wonderful new blog written by a woman in Finland who lives in the countryside and rides her horses. She shows pictures of her 100 year old house and shares her clothing choices and aesthetics.

Did you miss the National Cornbread Festival? Don't worry. Jen at Fiddle Dee Dee will give you the inside scoop on the cornbread cook-off held in South Pittsburg, Tennessee.

And finally, because we love travel so much, we continue to follow the Trans World Expedition as it makes its way up the eastern coast of Africa.

I decided to make a few changes to my website recently. I am not done yet but it is still a work in progress. I am testing out a new font that I got from Cool-Fonts.com. I have placed it in the banner pane of my site.

I added a new blog for my dogs. They are so funny and cute and have been begging me for a blog of their own. So Max and Rocky now write their own blog on this site.

And I had a food blog called La Wooden Spoon that I kept as a Google blog. But I decided to move it over here to my website. I will slowly be moving some of the entries from the old blog over here in the next month or so. I love food and I love cooking so I always have something to write in that area, be it about my cooking or restaurants we have visited.

I recently ordered a part that we needed for our pool cleaner. It came in a remarkably short amount of time. It was in this box:

The amazing thing here is that the part was made in South Africa. Not China, like everything else we get here in the US.

I have been meaning to post this for some time now but kept forgetting. It is the Muppets singing Bohemian Rhapsody.

And here is the original, and still best version. By the best band of all time: Queen.

I love to have access to all sorts of random, but important information and trivia. Today I stumbled upon a world of information at Harper's Index. This is the index to Harper's magazine and to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Harper's Index, they have published their entire database online.

I put in the word "Texas" and here are some facts that popped up (the first numbers are the month and year of the data):

2/1987: price of 12 ounces of drug-free urine from Byrd Laboratories in Austin, Texas: $ 19.95
9/1988: percentage of Texas voters who say they do not consider George Bush a "real" Texan: 57 %
1/1994: chances that a member of the Hempstead, Texas high school cheerleading squad was pregnant last fall: 1 in 4
11/1998: price a Houston company charges for sending a DNA sample into outer space for possible cloning by aliens: $ 50
3/2003: Amount the U.S. Air Force will pay a Texas woman this year for mistakenly hitting her home with a dummy bomb: $12,000
5/2006: Minimum number of ranches in Texas where one can shoot a zebra: 56
10/2007: Number of different reasons for having sex, as identified this year in a University of Texas study: 237

Visit Harper's Index and see what you can find.