Flip-Flopping

I may be about to cause someone to stroke out. And I am deeply sorry about that, but I still feel compelled to share this with you.

My writing is sometimes an unstoppable force, which by its very nature, cannot be stopped.

Quite the wordsmith I am.

Last summer, a friend of mine gave me a pair of sandals. They are high-end sandals…good for arch-support and such. And not at all the type of thing I ever concern myself with. I will still, on occasion, purchase the el cheapo flip flops for $1 at Old Navy when they have that amazing sale (should be coming up soon…usually around Fourth of July, if I remember correctly…so if you also throw caution to the wind and don’t worry about things such as arch support, be looking for that sale; if you do fall into the senior saint crowd, or simply just have feet that do, ignore that plug for Old Navy and keep moving on through this post.).

Anyway…these sandals were not quite a good fit for Goldilocks…she actually doesn’t have golden hair, but I digress.

She found these shoes to be a little uncomfortable (as did I, at first…remember the part about me buying shoes with little to no arch support…so when suddenly there is something actually supporting your foot, it does take some getting used to.) All that to say, she did not like them.

(You may be wondering why she did not return them…and I am still wondering the same. I think it was easier for her to find someone who would take them than it would have been to actually return them. I didn’t concern myself with those kinds of details.)

Now, back to our story: but I did kind of like them, once I got past the way they looked…I am getting up in years and figured that I probably should consider my feet a little bit more than I do.

And the shoes were free…to me anyway; she didn’t even take any money from me. And I actually tried to give her some. Not the full $90 she paid for them, mind you…that would be crazy.

However…and here’s where the stroke may come in:

I think these are some of the ugliest shoes on earth.

Actually….any other color besides this color would be been fine. I did some research on them, and these “beauties” come in an array of shades to choose from.

And yet, I got ones which are the same color as my skin. I know, I know…beggars can’t be choosers. But to be fair…I didn’t beg for them at all.

Anything would be better than this color. The photo doesn't do them justice. Well, maybe it does...if they actually were the color in the picture, they would have been fine. But, alas, they were MUCH lighter in color.

I’m sure the thinking was that they would be neutral and go with everything but WOW…they do not. In fact…they make my pasty, pale skin look even worse.

Yes, tis true…if I had a tan, they wouldn’t look so bad. But I don’t have a tan right now, and with the way this weather is going here in Indiana, who knows when I may have a hint of color, especially on my feet.

Besides…tanning is bad for you. Don’t you watch the news?

Actually, I don’t watch the news either. I get all my necessary information from Facebook. And if it is REALLY something important, I rely on Mr. Always Random to tell me about it.

And sometimes I inadvertently stumble onto Fox News in the car.

I may be an ostrich (you know...with my head in the sand?). I am much happier this way. Don’t judge.

Anyway, I was at lacrosse practice the other day, wearing my oh-so-lovely (did that come through in the sarcasm font?  Because it should have…I was laying it on pretty thick) and one of the other moms had on some super-cute sandals. They were Clarks.

Clarks, by nature, are not ALWAYS cute, but these were.

They looked like this:

Cute, right?

And, as any good fashionista (see that’s funny because I’m not…I try but am really not…so I will rephrase) as any good ASPIRING fashionista does, I commented on the cuteness of her shoes.

Which led to a several-minute long discussion on sandals…and we dared to delve into what was cute and what was not cute.

And before I pointed my shoes out, I assumed that she had probably already noticed and was trying, during the course of our conversation, to discern if she should be listening to what I had to say about cuteness of shoes based on what I, myself was wearing. In fact, she was probably, I would suppose, rethinking everything she had ever worn, based on my assessment that her sandals were cute, when what I had on were clearly not so.

But then I explained why I had them. I visibly saw her relax and a door opened for her to make a suggestion.

Actually, at this point, the Heavens opened up and a voice came down from above…ok, not really. It was just her, but I’m pretty sure it was God speaking through her. She said, “Why don’t you embellish them?”

Really? It was a light bulb moment if I have ever had one.

OK, I’ve had many light bulb moments in which a great idea came, or was revealed, to me. This was simply one of them.

Actually, I think it was more that she was giving me permission to embellish them. Her point? “If you’re probably not going to wear them much anyway, why not make them cute?”

Wow! Such wisdom. It had to be the voice of God.

I immediately began trying to figure out when I could get to a craft store.

Of course, my next possible moment was yesterday…several days later…I’m certain you assumed I was busy due to my lack of blogging. You know I’m uber-busy if I’m not writing for the masses!

Thank you for your patience, by the way.

We went to breakfast at Panera (we meaning the PBA, Mr. Always Random, and my parents…it’s our Saturday morning thing, when we don’t have sports and such). After breakfast, I made my pilgrimage to Hobby Lobby to find the necessary supplies.

Yes, I used the word pilgrimage…it kind of was a religious experience. I can’t imagine why the y-chromosomes in my party elected to remain in the car.

And yes, I did say necessary. Ribbon and “silk” flowers. And plastic gems. It all =necessary.

What is a cutesie sandal without plastic gems, I ask?

Don’t answer that…I know what some of you would say. Probably the same ones who have already had a stroke. And if they haven’t yet, they soon will.

Wait for it.

I already had my glue gun and an ample supply of glue sticks…lest you be concerned.

So…after about 15 minutes of laboring, I ended up with this:

Only I would take $90 sandals and reduce them to something looking like the $5 I spent on the craft supplies I used on them…which is really fine with me, because now I will actually wear them.

And my feet will thank me.

The moral of all this rambling is this: if someone gives you a free pair of high-end orthopedic sandals, accept them with a smile, but take up your glue guns and bedazzle the heck out of them!

Have a lovely week-end!