Tales of a Shoebox Princess

This morning I went for a walk with Hayley. It was surprisingly easy to get her to come with me. All I had to do was yell down the stairs, "Who wants to go on a walk with me?" It wasn't a very vigorous walk since both of us had our electronic devices with us. I took flower pictures and Hayley looked up geeky meme funnies. She didn't complain once or whine in any way. The only disturbing thing she said on the whole walk was "Mom you have a bug on your back." She didn't even laugh as I flailed and shuddered while trying to remove it. Aside from the bug, it was a nice walk. Here are some of my flower pictures. And a shoe picture. You'll have to guess whose shoes are whose.

Why? Because I haven't posted about shoes in a long time.  Hayley has very particular taste in a lot of things, and I found out yesterday that one of those particular things is shoes. Not that I mind her having a very particular taste, and particularly in shoes, but it does make for somewhat of a frustrating shopping trip when her particular tastes don't mesh with mine. (Spoiler alert: it turns out fine in the end). There were lots of knitted brows and sighs and curled lips and grrrrrrrs. She wanted skater shoes for school and I guess I didn't mind what she had in mind (although secretly I had hoped she'd changed tastes in the nanosecond before we opened the doors to Kohls--the store for which I had a 30% off coupon--to something a little more teenager girly that maybe involved the color light blue or had pink stitching or something other than a black pair of Chucks)(whew, that was a long parenthetical remark. Are you still with me? I could live with her having blac...

I KNEW if I posted a complaint about my skirt that I would find it. I found it in a laundry basket. The strange thing is that I've LOOKED IN THAT BASKET NEARLY EVERY DAY SINCE I LOST THE SKIRT. Really! (Pay no attention to the fact that the basket of clean laundry had been sitting in my room for 3+ weeks) I SWEAR I looked in that basket for the skirt. I also looked in the basket for socks, shirts and exercise pants. I SWEAR it was not in that basket. I'm thinking that the skirt needed a break from being worn 3 times a week to seminary and it went invisible for a bit to get away from me. Or it's a ninja skirt and had to attend to a few assassinations and only recently returned. I should be glad I wasn't one of the targets. The only other explanation would be aliens. An alien race of black skirt like creatures thought that my skirt was one of their lost ones. It took them long enough to realize it was just a plain black skirt. I still can't find the black strappy sho...

'Nother race for Paul. Statistical information: New personal record for Paulie: 18:00 Improvement over last race: 30 seconds Improvement on last year's best time: 8 seconds 3rd Laker in Paul contemplates his choice of headband. The new spikes. I am blinded by the orange. Nearly halfway through the race. I got prime seating for picture taking. Then I had a few minutes to saunter over to the finish line (where all my pictures were blurry). Labeled picture for Jenni, who likes labeled pictures.

The computer has been acting up and not granting us access to the internet/world wide web (can anyone tell me what the difference is?). Two Saturdays ago, we had a service tech visit to diagnose the problem. He did, but he didn't quite know what he did. He fiddled and tapped and queried and messed around outside of Windows (on the little black screen with the old-looking font). Last Saturday, the internet was unreachable again. Jim stayed home from the offer of a full-spread breakfast at my mom's to fiddle with the computer. He was on the phone with our service provider, and somehow got it fixed. He wasn't quite sure what the solution was, except that it involved typing in a bunch of numbers. Today, the computer fussed at me again as I tried to get on the web to post some pictures of beans. In desperation, I unplugged the modem from its power source... ...and found my sandals that have been lost for a month, pushed way back in the lower cubby of the desk. I have tur...

I do dearly love shoes. But this post isn't about me or my shoes. It's about Other Jim and his shoes. He bought shoe trees. !!!! Shoe trees! I haven't seen shoe trees in probably 30 years! I didn't know people still used them. OJ wants to keep his shoes nice-looking, which is understandable. It's just that I never envisioned him buying SHOE TREES. First a suit, then a tuxedo, now SHOE TREES! Ladies and gentlemen, I think a name change might be in order. Henceforth, OJ shall be called "Beau Brummel." (or not)

Spring is here, and that means it's time for all good senior boys to rent tuxes and buy flowers in unnatural colors for girls who want very badly to dress up like princesses and to go to a ball. And Other Jim, being a good senior boy, did just that. He took a girl from down south (all the way from Rochester, MN). He tends to go with out-of-school-district girls because he's a rebel (not. I don't know why he likes to take girls from not around here to dances). You want some pictures? Turn back now if you don't want to look at girls in pretty dresses and boys looking clean and dandy. Other Jim places the corsage on Edna's wrist. Going outside for pictures. The group is pretty large--13 couples--so it takes some time to wrangle them into place. OJ gets his boutonneire pinned on after his father arrives with a pin. Look at the rainbow of prom dresses! Boys. What a handsome lot they are. I have known four of them, besides OJ, since they were little boys (oh, one ...

While I know it's a very trivial subject, I feel I have strayed from one of the purposes of this blog, which was to publicly adore shoes. I just bought some sandals yesterday. I haven't had sandals in a few years and I wanted something that would be airy during those hot 'n humid days. These were waiting for me at Kohl's. They called my name, "Oh, Shoebox Princess! We know you're here! Come get us! We are sandals in need of feet to hug! You haven't bought new shoes in nearly a year! It's time! Get out your money and buy some sweet sweet love for your tootsies!" Most sandals look wretched on the sausages I call feet, and my toes are always grotesque, mostly because I can't bring myself to spend money on a pedicure when kids need braces (see tomorrow's post--tomorrow of course. You can't see it today) and partially because my toenails grow at odd angles and my pinkie toenails are all but nonexistent. It's true. Ask my family...

1. Katie has been going to her high school band class this week. And seminary. She has actually been on time for both, which I don't think ever happened when she was SUPPOSED to be going to both. The band director doesn't mind having her there I guess, although her little brother Paul minds somewhat because one of the other horn players says really loudly, "HEY PAUL, YOUR SISTER IS HERE!" And Paul doesn't "do" extraneous attention. 2. Speaking of Paul, he got into grades 9-10 regional honor band. He is still waiting to hear about state honor band. But I didn't hear this from him, oh no. Katie texted me from band class. I have a feeling that Paul will come home from school today and I will ask him about it and he will say, "What?" even though the band director announced it in class. And Paul will have no information about it and will say, after I explain it to him, "Um, I didn't really get what Mr. K was saying. I think I...

Once upon a time in another blog-iverse (on the blog-planet CGB), I wrote a blog post about New Year's resolutions in which I determined that I was just fine as I am and resolutions were stupid because they were guaranteed to fail. I won't repost it here, because I wrote it as a different person and it's a bit edgier (inasmuch as I get edgy--I'm as edgy as a glob of Silly Putty) than what I usually post here. I still roll my eyes at New Year's resolutions. I can't even keep to a schedule for more than three days; what makes anyone think I can keep a resolution for the whole year? I was pretty pleased with myself for keeping up the Halloween Decoration Special Feature for a whole month, but notice I didn't try anything similar for Christmas! But still, federal holiday law mandates that I must make some resolutions, otherwise I am subject to New Year's holiday penalties such as, but not limited to: severe restrictions in the amount of fun I am allowed t...

Welcome to the Shoebox Castle News blog. Fashion Corner Unfortunately, no pretty shoes were purchased today or yesterday. Big ugly boy boots (Princess had to borrow boots from whichever boy the boots currently fit) were worn by the princess as she took the fake child out to make snow angels in the yard (fake child made them. Shoebox Princess feared that if she fell back to make a snow angel that her pants would get all wet, and a princess simply cannot have wet jeans) Alerts for the Shoebox Castle area Another 16 year old has been given a driver's license. For your information, the teenager drives a white sedan, wears a blue fleece jacket, and looks like this: His parents were reported to be very proud, yet at the same time, "a bit worried about him driving by himself," to quote the mother. The young man replied that his mother's worries were groundless and he smiled as he drove off to his job in a neighboring town by himself. Health Chicken pox has been reported ...

That's right, I've even framed my Halloween "art." I did not piece the background. The crafting queen friend of mine did it and I stitched the "Happy Halloween" and ironed on Mr. Happy Face. Then I stuck it in the frame and taped the project in with athletic tape. It's all I had at the time and I didn't care what I used because you can't SEE the athletic tape from the front. It's coming unstuck though, and I'll have to resecure it in the frame soon. Argh moment cleaning in the sewing room: While vacuuming the sewing room after we emptied it out, I got frustrated with the vacuum. It wasn't sucking anything up. I cleaned the rotating brush, but that didn't help. Jim suggested checking various hoses. I began to disassemble ("No disassemble Number 5!"*) the vacuum and discovered that someone (not me) had attempted to vacuum up a paper towel! RRR. It created a blockage of hair and dust several inches long (it sort of...

So, yesterday. Cross country running practice ends at 4:45 or so. We had planned on eating at 5. I told the lady who was bringing the salad to come at 5. I spent the afternoon making lasagnas. At 3:00, I put the lasagnas in the oven. I grated cheese, I started cleaning (there was a lot to clean). At 4:00, the timer beeped, signaling the need to put the cheese on the lasagna. Then the phone rang. It was Paul. "We are on our way." I flipped out. WHAT HAPPENED TO "PRACTICE ENDS AT 4:45???" He said, "Oh, practice gets over early on the day before the race." INFORMATION THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN USEFUL TO ME YESTERDAY!!!* The house was still in the advanced stages of wrecktitude and the lasagna--gasp!--was still MOSTLY NOT HOT, even after an hour of baking. I had only just started to boil the water for the spaghetti. Jim wasn't home, Jimmy was ignoring my request for help by SLEEPING, and Matt is still a beginner at the art of being a truly helpful...

Because I love shoes, I must pass this along: Craziest shoes from around the world I could look for hours. And I would love to sit for hours and try some on. I wonder what heel-less heels feel like to walk in? And the red patent ballet shoes with heels. When I was a kid, I would draw high heeled shoes for hours. Sadly none of them were as creatively weird as some of these shoes. But I did draw some REALLY stiletto-y shoes. And I liked drawing ballerina feet en pointe. Even now, when I go out in public, I would rather look at people's shoes than people's faces.

I had a fab post with pictures about shoes all lined up last night but my stupid phone and stupid computer aren't speaking to each other again . They are both being stubborn and no amount of cajoling and explaining will get them to talk. *shakes fist at computer* *shakes fist at cell phone* So because of that, you all get an explanation of one of the Evans family's favorite stock movie or TV phrases. (This might be a new series of posts). I recognize that explanation tends to remove all traces of humor from the funniest joke, but that's what you get when your phone and computer won't talk to each other. "Go Packers! Wooo Packers!" (must be said in somewhat of a stupified voice) The big boys and I say this to each other a lot. Anytime anyone mentions the Green Bay Packers or anything to do with Wisconsin (and being so NEAR to the cheesehead state, we are given many opportunities to hear WI mentioned). Or if anyone is excited about something we say it. W...

Sit tight, kiddos; it's going to be a long ride. Are you up for it? Warning: viewing the entire contents of this post might cause a stupor, and one serving size contains 1541 calories. The team sings Happy Birthday to Paul. He's in the middle, wearing the Skullcandy shirt. The official cake of the 14th annual celebration of Paul's birth: Paul wanted Reese's Mini cups and M&Ms on his cake. So that's what he got. Here we are, looking through the field of candy, with the forest of striped candles up ahead. I feel like Hansel or Gretel. Mostly Gretel. Watch out for evil witches! The blaze of light put out by 14 candles. The official portrait of Paul with his cake. And the official portrait of Paul with his new shoes. The Sauconny Kilkenny racing shoes and the Adidas Supernovas. I want a pair of Supernovas so I can tell people that I'm wearing a pair of major astronomical events on my feet. Paul shows us the device used to attach the spikes to the Kilken...