New shoes. Don't love. Must alter. Suggestions?

First, I have to admit. I am not a shoe person. I would walk barefoot all year if I could. My husband and daughter are the two that could fill the closet with shoes. I know, I know... It is some sort of betrayal to womankind to not drool over shoes or something like that. I can't help it. It is just really hard for me to spend money on shoes. I don't enjoy it. This might be hard for some people to understand, I know. Can we still be friends?

I was feeling lazy and wanted winter shoes I could just slip on, verses the hiking shoes I usually wear that require tying (gasp!). I also wear the hiking shoes while walking trails (duh) so they are often rather dirty on the bottoms. So I started to wear my slippers out and about in the world and did so a few too many times to really continue to count them as inside shoes. (We don't wear outside shoes in the house unless you are trying to pretend your slippers are shoes like me.) I figured it was time to look for something to fit my quirky shoe taste before I became known as the chick in Walmart in her slippers. I am sure there is a space for that on the Walmart bingo card, right?

First I went to our local shops because being a small business owner in a small town, I truly get the call to shop locally. So I do try to do it as much as possible. But honestly? I couldn't find anything for under $90. And I can't pay $90 just because I don't feel like tying my hikers.

So I had a coupon for free shipping/no minimum order for Lands End, and found these shoes on sale for $20. Not bad. Seemed cute enough for the price and fit what I was looking for. Well, I thought they did. When I received them today I was dismayed to see they weren't the autumn type orange that they appeared on the website, they were 'HELLO HUNTERS I AM NOT A DEER' orange*. Now, I am an orange loving girl, and this is a hunting kind of town, but I can still see a whole lot of trips to the store wearing my slippers in the future unless I do something to change up these shoes a bit.

So I was thinking I could decorate them, but don't have a clear vision. Maybe paint a design or picture on them? Or permanent markers? Should I do a few subtle designs or should I just make them look tattooed? I don't know. But I want to do something. I just don't think I'll wear them otherwise. So I am curious if anyone has any brilliant ideas. Suggestions?

*Maybe you are thinking that they don't look so bad in the photo. Don't be fooled. They are much more ORANGE in real life. Like Blogger logo orange. Or maybe you realized this immediately and wondered what in the heck I was thinking of in the first place to order such things? Yeah, my husband wondered too, but then again he would have just bought the $90 pair to begin with. Sigh... shoes are confusing. Bare is better.

Sleigh Bells Ring... Are You Listening?

I guess the holidays are officially here. I was at the store today and they had Christmas music playing. I always get a weird trapped feeling when I am in a store playing holiday music. Even more than I usually feel trapped when I am shopping. One winter during my college years I worked as a part-time night stocker/security for K-mart. It was a sort of soothing job since it all brawn/no brain, so I didn't mind it except for being a little freaked out by some of the janitorial crew I was locked in with.

Locked in. Yes, that is what I said. As in, once when I became really sick when I was working, we had to call the manager at 2am and he had to drive thirty miles from his home to unlock the store so I could leave. It was such an odd feeling being at someone else's mercy to let me leave my job, the whole work as a prison metaphor made too fitting. After that the music, dusty dark store room and the smell of the floor polishing machine all took on a sort of menacing twilight zone hue for me. A midnight in the bowels of K-mart, the Christmas episode, sort of thing. I don't need a therapist to explain my holiday shopping anxiety to me. Well, maybe to get over it...

It really surprised me to discover that the music is played on a continual loop, which didn't even stop at night. So from 10pm to 5am the same constant holiday soundtrack played over and over while I straightened shelves and restocked end caps. There are still a few songs I cannot listen to because I just overdosed on them that season. But I do like holiday music in general. I don't mean to come across as a scrooge, because I am the sappy holiday type and a bit of a seasonal music junky. I just put Christmas itunes playlists on the ipod yesterday, so I get it. It is time for the good cheer and Rudolph and Silent Night. But not one of the K-mart Christmas loop songs make the list. Nope.

Is there a point to this post? No. I don't really think so. It was mostly triggered by my trip to Meijer tonight with my husband and the holiday music playing there. We were shopping for last minute birthday gifts for my boy, and we both almost talked ourselves into leaving without everything on our list. We are forever talking ourselves out of the store once we go in, and the holiday music just adds an over the top element to our store phobias, but leaving just means that I end up going back and facing the crowds alone. Alone with the dazed faces, dangerous carts and stockers blocking aisles all accented with a frenzied holiday soundtrack. No way. So I dug in my heels and I do believe we are totally ready for the party this weekend. Yeehaw.

But I am not ready for Thanksgiving, and I am guessing I will be alone for that adventure. Maybe I'll just wear a Santa's hat and pretend my life is a musical. It always works in the holiday movies. Sigh...

Wordless Wednesday*

* Two posts tonight to make up for my lack of one yesterday. No swine flu here after all, but I am fighting off some sort of bug. Nothing too awful, but I am a tired girl, so another early night. I need my energy to keep up with the two young ones. Night all!

Oops!

Seems sort of foreboding, no? Some sick part of me wants to create some sort of macabre greeting card with this image. But I blame the Clariton D for that...

Hey, Critter (my sister) - See! Three year olds aren't the only ones who break heads off knick-knacks. Sometimes clumsy husbands do too. Glue is a good thing.