Well, the big day has almost arrived. My kids are flower girls in a wedding on Saturday. I am probably almost as excited as the bride. We have the dresses, and now the head pieces (I just have to make them). I am looking forward to seeing them so dressed up in their pretty dresses.
We leave for the wedding which is in Ooooooklahoma, on Wednesday. It is also our family vacation, so that makes it all the more exciting.
It is going to be hot, hot, hot though and I am not looking forward to that though as I am not fond of humidity. Maybe it will be a cooler week. Wouldn't that be nice!!
I will post about how it went when we return.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
foot frustrations
I read a blog that a friend wrote about her frustrations with women's clothing department in contrast to ladies clothing departments.
My frustrations deal more with shoes. I have had this horrible condition of extra wide feet all my life. I have left stores in tears because I cannot find shoes to fit my feet. I have been pregnant twice and each time, my feet have been wider than the time before. Trust me, my feet cannot get much wider.
It all started when I was a kid and my parents were buying shoes for me. Because I was not personally forking over the money for the shoes, I did not realize how wide and hard to find they were. I only remember them saying that my feet were EE. How did I know that I was any different than about 3/4 of the world.
When I went to college and had to buy my own it occurred how hard it was to find affordable wide width shoes that actually looked good. I do think they were easier to find then than now, however.
I get so tired of going to discount stores and seeing only average sized shoes and knowing that I will never be able to fit into ANY of them. I get tired of all the discount stores catering to the majority of society. I think that wide width shoe people should unite and show the shoe makers and discount retailers that we need shoes too. Why can't stores be willing to carry extra wide shoes in more varieties than extra bland and boring at prices that the average person can afford. Just because we have the unfortunate curse of wide feet, does not mean that we are extra blessed and can afford expensive shoes.
I can think of only a couple things that are a blessing regarding wide feet. My husband does not have to worry about my always buying lots of shoes (this includes flip flops), and I can swim like a seal (I have been called that), though I don't know if that is a good thing or not.
If anyone has any shoe store suggestions, let me know, though I am sure that I have probably tried most of them.
My frustrations deal more with shoes. I have had this horrible condition of extra wide feet all my life. I have left stores in tears because I cannot find shoes to fit my feet. I have been pregnant twice and each time, my feet have been wider than the time before. Trust me, my feet cannot get much wider.
It all started when I was a kid and my parents were buying shoes for me. Because I was not personally forking over the money for the shoes, I did not realize how wide and hard to find they were. I only remember them saying that my feet were EE. How did I know that I was any different than about 3/4 of the world.
When I went to college and had to buy my own it occurred how hard it was to find affordable wide width shoes that actually looked good. I do think they were easier to find then than now, however.
I get so tired of going to discount stores and seeing only average sized shoes and knowing that I will never be able to fit into ANY of them. I get tired of all the discount stores catering to the majority of society. I think that wide width shoe people should unite and show the shoe makers and discount retailers that we need shoes too. Why can't stores be willing to carry extra wide shoes in more varieties than extra bland and boring at prices that the average person can afford. Just because we have the unfortunate curse of wide feet, does not mean that we are extra blessed and can afford expensive shoes.
I can think of only a couple things that are a blessing regarding wide feet. My husband does not have to worry about my always buying lots of shoes (this includes flip flops), and I can swim like a seal (I have been called that), though I don't know if that is a good thing or not.
If anyone has any shoe store suggestions, let me know, though I am sure that I have probably tried most of them.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
A bad apple
The depravity of the human race is interesting. I have thought (and still do) that we live in a pretty decent, safe neighborhood (though it gets interesting a few blocks to the West). It is made up of older houses dating from the late nineteens to 1940's (my house being built in 1924). Lately I have seen some interesting characters walking through the neighborhood. I don't know if they are just visiting or if they are moving in.
Here is one particular incident. Last fall, I was having a garage sale and a guy kept walking back and forth past us. Earlier in that week, a garage and a house had been broken into just up the block from me, among various other petty crimes (the guy met the description of the burglar, so I called the police). The guy is now serving 6 years.
Next incident happened just a little over a week ago. It was nearing 12:30am and I was just dozing off and I heard what I thought sounded like doors slamming out front. I looked outside in time to see a guy banging on the trunk of my husband's car (there were three guys total by the car). I woke my husband up and we watched them for a while. They went up to a house on the next block and hanged out there for a few minutes and then walked back toward his car and then up the other street (we are the second house in from the corner and his car was parked near the corner). Then they went and hanged out behind our neighbor's truck in his driveway. The next day, I took a walk and on the next street over, I saw a car with the back window knocked in. Coincidence?
Just this morning on my early morning walk I noticed a person running very very fast from a house. It was so fast that when the person disappeared instantly, I thought that maybe it was a figment of my early morning half asleep imagination. I saw it instantly and then looked down the street and the person was gone and I heard a noise, kind of like an alarm, but it did not sound like my home alarm or like a car alarm. I can't describe the noise. I approached the next street and I was approached by a Jeep Cherokee and a guy poked his head out (of course I am backing up as I am leary of strange men approaching me in cars). He asked me if I had seen a person of a particular description. I told him what I saw and he told me that he had caught a guy trying to break into cars and had called the police. I put two and two together and figured that what I heard was either a garage alarm or a car alarm and the person I saw running is the person who set it off and this was the guy that he was looking for.
I am thankful that he ran quite a ways from me or it could have been interesting. This just proves that there are bad apples in every neighborhood, no matter how great they seem.
Here is one particular incident. Last fall, I was having a garage sale and a guy kept walking back and forth past us. Earlier in that week, a garage and a house had been broken into just up the block from me, among various other petty crimes (the guy met the description of the burglar, so I called the police). The guy is now serving 6 years.
Next incident happened just a little over a week ago. It was nearing 12:30am and I was just dozing off and I heard what I thought sounded like doors slamming out front. I looked outside in time to see a guy banging on the trunk of my husband's car (there were three guys total by the car). I woke my husband up and we watched them for a while. They went up to a house on the next block and hanged out there for a few minutes and then walked back toward his car and then up the other street (we are the second house in from the corner and his car was parked near the corner). Then they went and hanged out behind our neighbor's truck in his driveway. The next day, I took a walk and on the next street over, I saw a car with the back window knocked in. Coincidence?
Just this morning on my early morning walk I noticed a person running very very fast from a house. It was so fast that when the person disappeared instantly, I thought that maybe it was a figment of my early morning half asleep imagination. I saw it instantly and then looked down the street and the person was gone and I heard a noise, kind of like an alarm, but it did not sound like my home alarm or like a car alarm. I can't describe the noise. I approached the next street and I was approached by a Jeep Cherokee and a guy poked his head out (of course I am backing up as I am leary of strange men approaching me in cars). He asked me if I had seen a person of a particular description. I told him what I saw and he told me that he had caught a guy trying to break into cars and had called the police. I put two and two together and figured that what I heard was either a garage alarm or a car alarm and the person I saw running is the person who set it off and this was the guy that he was looking for.
I am thankful that he ran quite a ways from me or it could have been interesting. This just proves that there are bad apples in every neighborhood, no matter how great they seem.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
God Bless America!!
One of my favorite holidays is Independence day. It is not a day where I get anything, or really do a whole lot of special stuff. I just love my country. I love that I was born in America and that I get the priviledge of being an American. I love most of what our country stands for and the freedoms that we get to enjoy just by the Providence of God.
I appreciate and applaud our service men and women who serve or served our country both at home and abroad. Thank you for your service. Our country would not be what it is without you (and the sovereignty of God, of course).
I have always loved fireworks. I remember as a kid in Washington State, my dad would buy fireworks galore (before they were illegal), and we would have a party lighting them. The neighbors would congregate in the street and we would all light off our fireworks long into the night. It was a wonderful time.
Then fireworks became illegal and we started going to the city's fireworks show. That was the best show around. People would come from across the state for the show, even from Seattle.
Now that I have my own family, I am trying to carry on that tradition, not with buying and lighting off fireworks, since they are illegal, but with grilling and going to the local fireworks show. We had a good time. We found a nice place where we could park our car and take our chairs a few hundred feet and plop down in them for a couple of hours and avoid the major crowds and traffic. Our kids even got to do a few sommersaults on the soft grass in front of us, while watching out for the many sparklers (why those aren't illegal, I don't know).
I also love to watch people. I was enjoying watching the people trying to park their cars in the margins of the roads between entrance ramps. They would back up on the entrance ramp so they could get the best seat without leaving their cars. All this while other cars were trying to get past them trying to get on the highway.
Our local fireworks show was great and did not disappoint. While watching the amazing artistry in the sky, I just thought how I would love to go to a fireworks factory to see how they measured the ingredients to get the right shapes to appear when the fireworks exploded in the ball of fire in the sky. It amazes me how many different shapes they can come up with.
Looking forward to what the manufacturers concoct for the fireworks next year.
I appreciate and applaud our service men and women who serve or served our country both at home and abroad. Thank you for your service. Our country would not be what it is without you (and the sovereignty of God, of course).
I have always loved fireworks. I remember as a kid in Washington State, my dad would buy fireworks galore (before they were illegal), and we would have a party lighting them. The neighbors would congregate in the street and we would all light off our fireworks long into the night. It was a wonderful time.
Then fireworks became illegal and we started going to the city's fireworks show. That was the best show around. People would come from across the state for the show, even from Seattle.
Now that I have my own family, I am trying to carry on that tradition, not with buying and lighting off fireworks, since they are illegal, but with grilling and going to the local fireworks show. We had a good time. We found a nice place where we could park our car and take our chairs a few hundred feet and plop down in them for a couple of hours and avoid the major crowds and traffic. Our kids even got to do a few sommersaults on the soft grass in front of us, while watching out for the many sparklers (why those aren't illegal, I don't know).
I also love to watch people. I was enjoying watching the people trying to park their cars in the margins of the roads between entrance ramps. They would back up on the entrance ramp so they could get the best seat without leaving their cars. All this while other cars were trying to get past them trying to get on the highway.
Our local fireworks show was great and did not disappoint. While watching the amazing artistry in the sky, I just thought how I would love to go to a fireworks factory to see how they measured the ingredients to get the right shapes to appear when the fireworks exploded in the ball of fire in the sky. It amazes me how many different shapes they can come up with.
Looking forward to what the manufacturers concoct for the fireworks next year.
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