Day 17- Earthquakes, Hurricanes And Tornado’s Oh My!

I believe no matter how difficult a journey the destination is often worth the path. Sometimes it’s a tough path to a pair of cute boots!
These Harley Davison cuties came from my “Birthday Do-Over” in 2011. My birthday is August 26^th. I start stressing the possibility of sitting around doing nothing about 2 years in advance (not exaggerating much). In spite of the perfect plans, something inevitably goes wrong. Perhaps someone cancels, perhaps everyone is busy (work day, vacations ect.) regardless something goes wrong. Don’t get me wrong there are normally outings, gifties and/or cards but for some reason on THE day something will likely happen and the plans get cancelled. If I spend the day sitting home alone massive boohooing is something that will totally happen. In 2011 I was planning to go to see my grandfather and then to go to Seacrets in OC MD for lunch. This is how the day...make that the whole week unfolded: it started with an earthquake (I don’t live anywhere near CA), there were tornado watches, the media beat the wicked weather possibilities to death, a hurricane blew through on my actual Birthday, an out of town guest was stranded indefinitely, Grammy had no power and needed oxygen, the water on the sidewalk was halfway up my leg, while trees are landing on peoples houses and tornados were touching down in the next town over…well… birthday cancelled. "Noooooo!" and though I can “Nooooo” all I want to some things outweigh my day.  I am not above doing things by myself just to scratch them off the “list” and sometimes in inappropriate weather but even if I had not been needed at home I couldn't just traipse off to the beach mid hurricane since it had been evacuated. Family and their safety always come first and with out whining or complaints. It just is and as it should be but life getting in the way of my day, humbug! So I stayed home, battened down the hatches, helped all of the people with all of the things AND rescheduled my day :) . I still get a birthday, so I moved it to September. My dad took me to see Papa, then we headed over to OC MD, low and behold and neato it was Bike Fest time!  So in the end I got to spend a day with Daddy, see Papa, eat at Seacrets, see awesome bikes and amuse my Grammy because I do things like move my Birthday. While we were out Daddy bought these cute Harley boots for me from one of the vendors (and they came with free Harley flip flops). All that family time plus Biker Girl Stuff makes me really happy= Good Birthday (“Do-Over”).



Wear 3 *(Jan 2014)
August 2011
Cost Gift (and I don't remember)
Comfort 5
Pair #20

Day 00x4- I'm Back

It’s been many shoes and a long time since I attempted to keep up the shoe stories but the experiment continued. The best I could do was put it on life support ie. take pictures, make notes and hope that I would have time to put it all back together later. Of course after a while it all became over whelming and turned into a project much like I imagine cleaning out the attic would be...which may be why that’s not happening. Anyway, I managed to get this back on track (I think) so you never know about that attic.
If I had to turn this blog in somewhere and it counted for half my grade I would be in BIG trouble ;)
See you soon! (with Day 17)

Day 16-1992

Sometimes I just have to buy a pair of shoes because they look like a pair of shoes I once had…orrrrr more likely like a pair I still have some where but are soooo worn out they are just embarrassing. There is no concern about whether or not they are now or ever were in style, I like what I like and likely still like what I used to like, if they are selling it it must be currently acceptable and since when do I worry about those kind of details anyway.

Another tid bit… I can’t remember how many times I went to college, what I ate for dinner, or names of many people who’s names I should know BUT I can tell you with reasonable certainty I bought these in 2011 because they looked like a pair my grandmother gave me for Christmas in 1992 AND I am really hoping I find those in the attic too!!!

Second wear for these ( I believe I wore holes through their predecessor), the comfort rating is 5.

Here I go wearing boots in the summer again but they are light and more importantly it was raining and I loathe getting my feet wet in rain, not to mention boots are much easier on cuts and blisters (still recovering from hiking 15 miles in Crazy High Heels and some Silver Strappy Sandals)

Wear  2  *(July 2013)
Circa 2011

Cost  *30

Comfort 5

Pair 19

6-19-18 wrecked boot box in the basement dry rot

Random #2 Socks are awesome...

I wore a very matchy, very cute, little black outfit to the airport....and then the take off the shoes thing happened grin emotic

Random #1 Are you kidding me Woman! This is about a stolen dog...which takes all of the time I should be playing with shoes.

My only concern on August 2nd when I got out of my car and stepped in front of a moving vehicle to save a Chihuahua was for the dogs safety and after a failed attempt to find his home I handed him over to someone that claimed to work with rescue. While I was still on a mission to find his owner and/or get him medical attention the woman that claimed to work with rescue was telling me stories about the SPCA and the rescue having intention to put the dog to sleep. That was the last thing I wanted to see happen so I contacted the rescues that she mentioned and the SPCA and after finding they had no record of the dog and she never worked for any of them I elevated my efforts to find him and/or his owners. Did she kill him? Did she sell him? Did she take him to rescue? Has a vet seen him? After many shares of photos and Chapito’s story on Facebook, a Craig’s list add and a trip back to the area I found him to post signs I was able to find the owner of the dog but the lady claiming to work with rescue would not respond. Due to the owners inability to fight for the dog I purchased rights to him through a bill of sale so that I could continue to fight for his return and his life. Before you judge this man for being unable to fight the battle to get his dog back you should know my friends, family and I have now spent about $5000.00 in an effort to get him back. Most people are not in a position to go to those lengths especially given the fact that the figure is before an appeal date has even been set. I am not sure where it goes from here but I would like to thank all of the people that shared his picture on FB (from Florida to New England to Arizona to Saskatchewan and everywhere in between), who helped find his original owner, who called with tips as to his whereabouts, who offered rewards, helped finance expenses, tagged people in animal care, put me in touch with people who know the ins and outs of animal control in the state of Delaware, helped me find a lawyer and helped spread the word. The support for a little boys Chihuahua and myself was immense. As with any situation there were a few misguided people that wanted to make a bad situation worse. They claim to help animals but just did a lot of name calling, posted pictures of the dog in sunglasses and a scarf basically mocking the situation. They claimed I gave the dog away on August 2nd, they took cut comments from my page out of context and tried to use them to support their illegitimate point. On August 2nd the dog was not mine to “give’” away and if there were any truth in the claims they would not have needed to use information out of context. As of Aug. 2nd all I had done was get him out of the road, conduct a failed search for his owners then hand him to someone that I genuinely believed worked with a legitimate animal rescue. He was wearing a collar therefore he had an owner, that person deserved the opportunity to be reunited with his pet. Though the intentions of the people posting silly pictures and false statements were wrong, childish and pathetic at least seeing the picture they posted of Chapito in sunglasses and a scarf let me know he was still alive.
The JP court did rule in my favor and the Judge essentially stated that the defendant threatened to kill the dog in order to get me off of her trail and it back fired.
It appears that as of August 26th Chapito was still alive as that was the day the defendant got the dog licensed in her name and not so coincidentally it was also the day After the police took me to her house with my bill of sale and court documents in an attempt to recover the dog.
To the best of my knowledge the owners of the dog have purchased another puppy but as of last I spoke to them were still baffled by this situation and missing Chapito.
An appeal has been made by the defendant to the Court of Common Pleas and a stay of judgment has been issued… meaning we wait for another court date to be set.
Again thank you to everyone who has helped us in any way! Your support means a great deal. AND thank you to all of you who actually work with rescue and dedicate so much to saving our furry friends that can’t speak for themselves.
I have no shoe recommendation for a situation such as this...

Day 15- No idea…Event of Some Kind Maybe

I have no idea when or why I bought these but they worked with this outfit. They are just fine for a rarely worn, cheap, Payless kind of shoe. I really do prefer more shoe and less foot showing. That has been the preference all along but I think it is worse now because a few days ago I saw a picture of a pair of strappy (like one string around the ankle and one across the toe strappy) uncomfortable looking, can't possibly fit anyone properly, nothing to them, pathetic little, giant healed, shoes on ugly feet and now I am super aware. I'm not exactly a foot model, so now when I look at these shoes I think do my feet look like the feet in the ugly strappy shoes? BTW when I showed the picture of the super ugly shoes to my husband he said that they were somewhat like a seriously inappropriate use of a thong bikini! So it is not just me.

This may have been a 3rd or 4th wear and they got a 3 comfort rating which was actually generous just in case the were getting a bad rap partially due to the pre-existing horrific condition of my feet. I wore them just 4 days after wear number 3 of the Day-7 shoes which is right around the time I discovered it is possible to get a blister on top of a callus on the bottom of my foot.

Wear  *4 *(July 2013)
Circa *2007

Cost  *15

Comfort 4

Pair 18

Day 14- Stretching The Rules

My favorite " yes I wear these boots with shorts kind of often, boots" had to go in for an overhaul/restoration and possible transplants, given that I could not be without them but I had to be...well...I bought new boots. Sounds like cheating on the "rules" however as I mentioned previously there must be “reasonable” exceptions. I looked and searched for another pair of the same boots with no luck, which is OK because it was time to make a small expansion to that flat boot section of the attic anyway. This new pair is cute, a little pricey considering the blah cheesy materials from which they are constructed AND the total lack of trendy oddities but I was desperate. Day 14 was the second wear and they rate about a 7 for comfort.

As for the pink pants...I was playing dress up which is allowed as long as it it not in lieu of an actual shoe wear. :)

Wear  2 (June 2013)
June 2013

Cost  *40

Comfort 7

Pair 17