Monthly Archive

I’m still wearing my birthday shoes. Why not? The older you get the longer you should celebrate.

Yesterday it was U2…today Genesis and Alice in Wonderland. Again, why not? Trust me, I was alive when this Genesis song came out, but not quite aware of who Genesis and Peter Gabriel were. I thought this was really cool.

And Peter Gabriel…I saw this tour…MY FIRST CONCERT…you never forget your first. Oh man, I touched Peter Gabriel at SPAC in Saratoga Springs when he did the crowd surf (but a mere high-schooler was I, about sixteen). I saw one YouTube of the surf where he made it to about row two because nobody knew what to do with him. By the time he made it to SPAC he was travelling across the crowd. Here is a quote from a YouTube viewer on this: “I believe he was one of the first to do a crowd surf. My mom said it was great watching his body float around the arena.” Like I need to be reminded that Peter Gabriel is old and I’m old.

The crowd surf videos weren’t too impressive so here is a clip of Peter Gabriel on Italian TV doing the song Lay Your Hands on Me that made the crowd surf popular…oh, and he does Shock the Monkey too. Two for One!

What do I want for my birthday? Ummm wouldn’t it be cool if U2 had a new album and were expected to tour again…soon.

Oh, I might be able to have that? Cool. Never say never when it comes to U2 I always say.

It’s my birthday and I’m posting this beautiful happy birthday song that Bono and the Edge sang for Nelson Mandella at Friday’s Nelson Mandela at 90 concert in Hyde Park.

I was going to share All I Want Is You from U2’s Rattle and Hum with you but no YouTube does that recording justice so I found this cool music video made by partygirlvox of their Fast Cars from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb…Rock ON!

This is so sad and I thought I’d share this with you before it was too late. Victoria’s Secret model Karolina Kurkova is getting bad press in Brazil. Who knows when, but the revelation might mean her modeling career will soon be over (tongue in cheek guys).

Maybe it is just Brazil seeing this but rumor has it that Karolina Kurkova, one of the world’s biggest top models (she makes over $5 million a year), is FAT.

This video is a little old…November 2007. I saw her in a news video and honestly she doesn’t look much different than this…in fact I thought she looked great, wish I had that body. But you can be the judge…

Shame on Time and reporter Kathleen Kingsbury. Shame on principle Joseph Sullivan. Shame, shame, shame. Can anybody say remember a story Dan Rather once did?

I read this evening that Kathleen Kingsbury of Time has been caught telling two different tales of whether or not she talked to any of the pregnant teens. I’m not surprised and she should lose her job along with principle Joseph Sullivan. While we are at it, if I was the parent of any of those 17 girls I’d find it hard pressed to be as disappointed in them as I am in the school district and the media.

Are you kidding me? These are children, children that shouldn’t be having sex or getting pregnant maybe, but they are children. This story reeked of suspicion from the very start. Am I the only one who believes that something is amiss here with this story?

Remember school, can you tell me the biggest click in your school? Did it consist of 17 girls? Please. Do you know how many women try to get pregnant a year? It is actually harder than is purported. Even if what is being reported that eight or so had a pact, you’re telling me they could really all get prenant at the same time.

This is nothing other than a big coincidence. If it weren’t there would be about a handful of other girls or so that tried and were part of said pact that didn’t get pregnant. Talk to any doctor and I’ll bet you ten to one they’d agree with me. At least you’d think there’d be girls who decided not to try…and they’d be talking.

It is easy for Time’s Kathleen Kingsbury and principle Joseph Sullivan to say these things. Who’s going to believe a bunch of teenage girls that have already shamed their families enough? Who would think they would come forward?

While I believe there are teenage girls lacking maturity that think it is okay to get pregnant, there is no way I believe you can find 17 girls in one school who think it is okay to get pregnant. This is beyond belief. Remember the saying if it is too good to be true, then it probably isn’t.

And if it is true…I still stick by my shame on them, there is just a bit more shame and a bit more of them if there was a pact. The adults in this story are not out to help anybody, solve any problems, they all just get their names in the paper and denigrate the children in this story. Oops, maybe this is why this happened, I’m sure there’s more to this story than meets the eye, but we may never know and I hope that we don’t have to hear from Dr. Phil on this one.

I remember being a young middle school kid and a sixteen year old bus mate took me aside and told me how she would have to be leaving school and her life was about to change and she hoped the same thing never happened to me when I was older. I remember that. And I’ll tell you this, it was from the heart, and I really feel that there is no way there are 17 girls reveling in their predicament and shame on anybody who thinks otherwise. They are just trying to make lemonade out of lemons right now. Kudos to the couple that made an appearance on Good Morning America and explained the real pact of the matter.

So, I just wanted to say I’m tired of the blogs beating up on these girls. It serves no purpose. They are being painted as immature, selfish, witches who supposedly tricked a bunch of boys. Real nice. As usual the boys did no wrong, has anybody talked to any boys? I bet all involved are banking on them not coming forward too.

Come on, anybody having hindsight about this story? Anybody the least bit sorry for this kind of injustice? If it was your daughter? A little tough love? Or this?

Okay, after I just got through bashing Victoria’s Secret for their dangerous underwear someone is saved by a bra. Apparently it isn’t a Victoria’s Secret bra because I’m sure we would have seen a claim that they advertise that as one of their bra benefits…uplifting and lifesaving.

I love how the headlines read about this bra saving this young woman’s life, not her common sense to send a signal. Let’s give credit where credit is due, we know there is only one thing that will get a man’s attention, underwear. Victoria’s Secret doesn’t make those catalogs for women.

One story I read even makes it sound like it was a surprise that she gave up her bra and how it was a great thing she kept her shirt and coat for warmth. Either this person is a really bad journalist or just really sexist. She was in Germany though, maybe there is a problem with translation there. One would hope. It wasn’t too much of a problem for them to translate her DD bra size though in some other news stories.

I don’t know, should she have sent a sock instead?

Today I went in search of funny shoes. Unfortunately what many perceive as funny look extremely painful to me…if used for a shoe anyway. Here is the link to the funny shoe photos, and here is my commentary…

I found a pair of boxing shoes, nice if you are a clown. Definitely looking funny and red, the red works. I’ll skip the painful shoes in the next photo with the nails and the next pair of funny shoes after that made of black squares isn’t funny, not funny ha ha anyway.

The next pair of long shoes, which double as a pair of pants laced all the way to the top, make me want to go pee. That is right, even though my feet are the prisoners in these shoes; I think that I can’t get out of those pants to pee.

The gold pair with no toes or support for the front bottom of my feet would make my arches hurt. Who buys these things? These ladies are definitely lounging around all day in their funny shoes.

Metal shoes, really, as open as they are they make me want to pee to, as if I’m a prisoner of some sort with no bathroom facilities. Do you ever notice how when you don’t have a place to go, you think you have to go? These shoes say this to me.

The funny shoe art work with the man heel is cool. I do think it says something about the artist, but what it says depends on if the artist is a man or a woman. Wouldn’t you like to know?

Shoes and socks all in one…I’m not going to say it but you know what I’m thinking.

Now the peacock funny shoes, that is working, very novel, fun, not too painful.

But then the soccer player shoes, is that glued to his foot? I’d be scrunching my feet all the time trying to keep those babies on. You know how you do when you walk in sand and your sandals want to slip off?

Square shoes? Really? They make me think of calla lilies and an Asian wedding for some reason.

And the weird boots, just too weird. They look like too much work though for the amount of weirdness you are hoping to attract. What happens if you attract the wrong weirdness?

Do you think how we perceive shoes would be important to our therapists?

Sunday Inspiration…okay, maybe I’ll let you enjoy it Monday too. Here’s a YouTube that was nominated as Most Creative Video in the 2007 YouTube Awards. It comes to us from Philip Scott Johnson and is called 500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art.

The music playing in the background is Bach’s Sarabande from Suite for Solo Cello No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007 performed by Yo-Yo Ma.

A complete list of artists and paintings is posted at http://www.maysstuff.com/womenid.htm

Thank you for visiting BigShoes.

While Margaret from Nanny Goats in Panties is obsessing over not being able to eat lemons (she read my GMA post on doom and gloom tonight, I’m upset about the lemons too), I’m going to bring you some more bad news in the way of your underwear.

Don’t laugh, I know you giggle before I even say what I’m about to say next, and maybe you’ve even heard it somewhere else already. My sister sent me the news since I missed it myself and it is so good that I have to share it with you.

There is a woman suing Victoria’s Secret…no, not that lawsuit…because while putting on a thong, I mean v-string or was it g-string, she suffered an eye injury. I said not to laugh. Okay, I don’t know which is worse, being Victoria’s Secret and getting sued, oh wait a minute that happens every day, or being this poor woman who has to go to court. Maybe she is banking on a settlement out of court.

Supposedly the victim was hit in the eye by a piece of decorative metal…underwear hardware? I checked VS’s v-strings and can’t find any with hardware so I’m supposing the culprit has been pulled post haste…and they themselves are looking to sue the original designer whom they may have stole the design from…

I’ll back track for just a second…that’s right I Googled the term Victoria’s Secret lawsuits and you wouldn’t believe the hits I get. Stealing numerous underwear designs, I mean really, allegedly receiving patent and design information from potential designers, cancelling meetings, and then low and behold a new Victoria’s Secret design hits the shelves.

Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t all about thievery, there have been other injury lawsuits as well. One of their models was cut by an underwire bra. Who knew underwear was so dangerous? I’m going to have to be more careful getting dressed in the morning and stop buying underwear with hardware attached to it.

Will you be changing your dressing habits now that you are more informed of the dangers of underwear? What about your buying habits?

That’s right rumors are surfacing about potential VP’s and I haven’t heard a vpeep about Hillary Clinton being a candidate for the vice presidency. Really Obama? She’s so close, but no cigar. Never mind.

What will the Democratic Party do? Do I have to wait until the end of August to find out? The 2008 Democratic National Convention is August 25-28 in Denver and I can’t make it. I’ll be coming back from vacation in beautiful upstate-NY; there will still be mud on my boots from a rainy day at the Altamont Fair. No time to change and catch up with the democratic dudes and dudettes.

If you weren’t scared about the effectiveness of the Democratic Party consider this, I just Googled “democratic convention” and their convention link comes in second after the Democratic Convention news…and the one and only sponsored link is the Official RNC Convention Site…hmmm.

I was complaining about Good Morning America yesterday and how it is basically an oxymoron to get good news from GMA. I wondered if I was the only one with feelings like this and low and behold Warrior Girl who also writes at DomesticGlamor stopped by and after telling me her morning coffee is after organizing the kids, she said “[I] stay far away from the news.”

Do you start to think moms are the most uninformed people on the earth? Think about it, have you seen the content that passes for news these days?

Pretty much she is right to stay away from the news. News is pretty much inappropriate for children. If you need weather there is the weather channel, if you need traffic you can get that on most cable weather channels, what do you need the news for? Local news is good but there is more fluff than news. Any report of accidents or crime is more for shock value than to warn anybody.

I think real warnings should probably be reported on the weather channel as well. How about a crime map that tells me how many criminals there are in the different regions near my home and what the real percentages are of danger to me personally. I think we’d find that all these crime news stories are really less informative and less relative to us than the weather and pollen map. There is more of a chance that I’ll sneeze at a dandelion or perhaps need an umbrella than a chance that I should pack a gun and some mace in my purse.

I checked out Warrior Girl’s other site, Wonderlanding, her blog about finding joy in the adventure of everyday living. She calls that blogspot her “happy pages” and rightfully so. We all need happy pages…happy pages to write, to read and to share with each other. Weather should be shared…even traffic and pollen should be shared…but more importantly happiness should be shared.

All comments today should be happy thoughts.

Emmy winning Good Morning America wins again for Outstanding Morning Broadcast. Every morning they are there to bring you some music, update you on the national weather forecast and to share with you all the things that should strike fear in your hearts before you leave the house. Don’t worry they have fear for those who stay home as well.

I was catching up on some news and read three stories at ABC. They all happened to come from GMA. Well GMA does a lot of testing and I’ve learned that I should have my whole family take off their shoes before walking around the house and that I can’t put lemons in my drinks anymore. Also, while the airport security is protecting my flight, someone is stealing my things from the containers.

All right, I’m sure that this has to do with me reading a Good Morning America story…and they think lets link her to some more articles of the same…like YouTube. What I really want is some good news…I mean you’re called GOOD MORNING America for Pete’s sake, by the way, who the heck is Pete anyway? I’m sorry I digress.

Now I know why I don’t watch news much…especially in the morning.

What do you do in the morning? Enjoying that great cup of coffee and reflecting on your own good news?

You have to see this. I need to direct you to the Gazette.Net to refer to the article Lawmakers get out their dancing shoes. Under the photo to the left click the link to watch the video.

Are you done? My gosh I don’t know about the rest of you but how old are your elected officials? Were any of these people over 40?

I could only think that if we got all elected officials to do things like this to raise money…or just to have fun, that perhaps they would get along better to get things done. I hope they didn’t misappropriate funds to pay for a choreographer. Can I hear it for the House? The Senate? Anyone?

Your thoughts?

Well my Silly Sunday video I selected for Father’s Day. It is just commentary about what the day is all about. Let the kids pick out the tie; it doesn’t really matter if dad has a closet full of odd ties. He’ll wear them anyway, whether to work, church or any special occasion…like the next school event just to embarrass you. Remember kiddos, those ties are the gift that keeps on giving.

Time to fess up readers, what is the goofiest tie you ever bought someone? What is the goofiest tie you ever received? Did either ever come back to haunt you?

Who cares about tie width when the tie is this cool? Trust me, nothing measures up to these ties from MoTwin Designs. Forget about buying one for dad or dear hubby for Father’s Day. I’m going to get a few of these for me! I think my hip tween would love them too. I think I saw a few that would go great with her fedora hat collection. To tell the truth if I bought one or two or three of these for dear hubby on Father’s Day, there is a good chance I’d get to wear them because I’m willing to bet he’s not going to try something this hip. I could be wrong…

Circle cut, diamond cut, square cut and oh, don’t forget regular cut if you just can’t break away from the traditional tie…no I didn’t measure the width but you better make sure you wear it with the right jacket.

Does your man like to try new things? Do you think he could become a MoTwin tie guy?

Macy’s wants to tell you that thin is in and to go with 3.5 inch ties for this Father’s Day. Of course I had just learned at the Tie Guide that 3.5 inches will never fall out of style. So, Macy’s isn’t really selling anything new. What are they trying to say, 3.5 inches is the new thin?

If you haven’t purchased that tie for Father’s Day yet I recommend that you should really check out the Tie Guide. It is filled with shopping tips and tie wearing tips.

Since I’m not a man, maybe I wasn’t supposed to know that the width of a tie should be quite similar to the width of the coat’s lapel…hmmm food for thought, why don’t they put this info in women’s magazines? You know, okay if you’re married you know, who is shopping for most of the men’s attire. Why is it I can get a study on how I might have spent my stimulus package but I haven’t seen one yet telling me who is buying men’s ties? I know, someone has a report out there somewhere.

And don’t think you’re the only one who would be happy to see a man in a tie let alone a tie and a jacket…but it won’t be on Father’s Day, at least not after church.

I love shopping for ties.

Are you a tie buyer? Tie wearer? A tacky tie collector?

I know my topic is Father’s Day…but remember Mother’s Day…remember the Nintendo Wii Fit that was selling for under $90 and wouldn’t be available till a week after Mother’s Day? Me too.

Well sometime after Mother’s Day, word got out about Wal-Mart’s HDTV Specials for Father’s Day. Supposedly prices have been cut on many High-Definition goodies for Father’s Day.

Let’s see, Play Station 3 for $399 with a $100 Wal-Mart Blu-ray gift card…well the $399 is not really a cut but giving you $100 to purchase movies is a deal…right?

Okay, I’m not even going to read the rest of the list. Essentially, there is nothing I’ve seen under $90 let alone under that $399. And excuse me but who do they think has to buy this…MOM. Can we get a class action law suit against Wal-Mart for discrimination of some sort…any sort?

If it weren’t for that stupid Nintendo Wii, I really wouldn’t be considering that 52-inch Sanyo 1080p LCD HDTV for $1,697…whatever that means.

Who wants to take bets I can find something else related to Father’s Day to rant about tomorrow?

Some thunderstorms left me inactive last night when I usually post but I’m back! And today I want to talk about napping. No jokes, let’s talk about a serious issue. Sleep. Well, I don’t know how serious but I certainly have it rated near the top of my list for daily remedies for ensured wellness. That sounds good, how about we take note to sleep every day.

Okay, I’m a night owl, you can’t see my timestamp but since I was a teenager I’ve been hyper focusing in areas of creativity throughout all hours of the night. Now that I’m a mom it is really the only time I have some peace and quiet let alone when I feel most creative. While I keep saying I will get up early before the kids awake and get loads of things done, hah, I find that is when I like to sleep.

So what do I do to make up for any lack of sleep? I nap. N-A-P, nap! Well I try to anyway. I’ve heard naps are making a come back and actually naps are quite popular in a few countries. I really should leave the states for a more sleep friendly country.

Surprisingly enough many people study sleep and in particular, taking naps. Did you know that the results of a NASA study show 24-minute naps improve pilot alertness on trans-Atlantic flights? Here is a great article from Science Times, New Respect for the Nap, a Pause That Refreshes, by Jane E. Brody. You can learn all you can about why power napping is safer than microsleeps there.

If you are truly into all the updates in the field of sleep, try subscribing to NAPS, the free weekly update of New Abstracts and Papers in Sleep (NAPS). Just don’t tell anybody you did…

How’s your relationship with sleep? Do you need to cheat and take naps during the day?

I have to share with you the premiere issue of A Distinctive Style Magazine that debuted this June.

This interactive digital magazine is set to bring you wonderful content and advertisements. It features eco-friendly products, creative works of art, topics on beauty and fitness, summer recipes and more…all in one easy to read format. I wish all magazines came in this clutter free format. For fun it is interspersed with video and audio clips. How cool is that?

We have to thank the editors and creators of this well thought out piece and hope they are successful in the future to bring us more.

Please check back and tell me what you think. One of our WAHM members actually wrote three articles for this magazine.

Another laid back Sunday. Here is a kitten on a carpet playing with some shoes in front of a mirror. The light music in the background is “Scherzo” from “The Spirit Within” CD by Sue Carney.

So for all the cat and kitten fans out there, this one’s for you.

So for all the cat and kitten fans out there, this one’s for you. It’s Kitten Mirror and Shoes – Kopy Kitten found at YouTube.

What’s your favorite baby animal that you could just watch for hours? I loved my pet parrot conure when we brought it home as a baby with no feathers. He was in a fish tank and I had to feed him a homemade mixture of protein goop through a syringe.

I can’t resist the reference to one of my favorite movies, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. My husband returns today after being gone more than three out of the last four weeks. It is not that he travels too much…yet; it is more that when he has to travel he really has to travel.

So after all this time away, I get my wake up call when he gets to the airport. I’ve been busy about my routines of rushing my fifth grader to school for her trip to Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom…her fate at the hands of the new Voodoo ride awaits her…that is if she is tall enough.

I get home with the other two youngsters, the really young ones and my husband calls to update me on his travel delay. The plane thinks the crapper is full basically, to which the pilot says it has been verified it is not but as such the facilities will cease operation during the cross country flight unless the glitch is fixed.

My van has a dome override button to ensure my dome light doesn’t activate if I don’t want it too, do you think the plane could have a switch to ignore the signals it is being sent about the toilet?

So, I was disconnected from my husband and hope that the plane took off shortly afterward because I’ve had enough quality time with my three girls if you know what I mean and I really hope he doesn’t get lost on the way home.

Any travel tidbits that tickle you’re funny bone?

I was visiting femalegamer today and there was a post about video game companies incorporating advertising into their games. Now I see an up and a down side to this.

Let’s start with the down side. A great deal of advertising would be aimed at children. For what purpose? To annoy the heck out of parents, really. You know I applaud daytime Disney TV for the very fact that they don’t have daytime commercials during their preschool programming. Why wouldn’t I expect the same of a video game? Why can’t I expect that my child will set down to a favorite game of theirs and not be inundated with advertisements? Never mind that everybody wants to spend my money. How much did you say that video game cost?

Oh, the upside, thought you’d never ask, and while I’m guessing it is not a given, I’d like to ask why not. My why not question is with all this extra money being spilled into the video game industry will that equate to cheaper video games for my family? Ummm, I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you? How much did you say that video game cost?

See, why do I pay money to see a movie and watch commercials? Why do I want to play a video game and watch commercials? Anyone?

It has been a fun filled week and I’ve been handling some auto business on and off while my husband is out of town. You know the kinds of things we ladies just love to deal with. Lucky for me my husband is a handy guy and chooses to do a lot of auto work himself, except when I remind him how busy he is and suggest the splurge of some other dude putting in parts and suffering through the labor that they get paid so well to do.

Well the salesman, I mean mechanic calls me the first day and gives me a rundown of all the parts and labor I need (and I compare this to the list my husband gave me of all the parts and labor he needs and expects…yes, very smart man, that one).

In a very clever way the salesman is listing off the things I need done now, or things he is recommending, then a list of the parts and labor that can wait…how thoughtful I think…NOT. So I instruct him to do nothing until I consult with my husband on the $650 worth of work he wants done now and the X amount for later. Aw, I’m sure he didn’t see that answer coming.

Needless to say my husband knocked a few items off that list and added items from the mechanics wish list for future work that did need to be done anyway and we walked away with the same price. He bought better tires online to ship to the mechanic for the same price the guy was going to charge for a cheaper style set of tires and said he would change his own car battery, I know, I think even I could do that. The salesman, I mean mechanic, did voice his concern over us losing our radio if we didn’t do it correctly, um, thanks for the tip. He has no idea who he is dealing with…my husband made me hold a muffler while he installed it once. Now I know I am capable of claustrophobia. It is good to know these things.

I might add here that this guy is potentially our new mechanic as our previous mechanic retired…or perhaps he disappeared so he didn’t have to bring my husband’s 66 BelAir back to life.

So do you feel like you’re buying a car when you get your car serviced these days? The itemization is great, and I’m sure it helps individuals who really need all this work done to split up the non-essentials or things that can wait a little longer to wear out but please, please people…maybe he wasn’t trying to rip me off per say, but he seemed to have such a snazzy way for doing what he was trying to do.

Okay, someone used the word Spam and Velveeta on my site and now I have links to gastric bypass and a large size skirtini…there’s an oxymoron…lets move on to DICK Cheney…

Yes, I know I pooh-poohed all the to-do about Sharon Stone and her comments in China. Well Dick Cheney has inserted both feet. While many may think that old Byrd is being too politically correct, let’s say that again…politically correct, I would think that perhaps the Vice President would have it in is job description to automatically be politically correct. Even if he isn’t up for reelection, or running for President exercise some common sense. Even if he was ragging on himself, it was still in poor taste.

And my gosh Byrd, thou dost protest too much. If I was West Virginia, I would have wished that you were the one to let it slide. Do you think they care what Dick Cheney says?

Chato visited the other day with some crazy talk about Spam and today I figured out what he was talking about.

I was disturbed today to read at the Preparedness blog the news that Spam was making some kind of a comeback…I know, you have that lump in your throat now too.

It is really disconcerting how low people will sink to survive. I’m on it if it will fuel my car, there must be a way to generate fuel from that block of putrid fat. So let’s work on that because surprisingly per pound it is cheaper than gas, but not cheaper than other things.

So to ensure I don’t suffer a fate worse than Spam, or Spam itself, I’m counting my pennies…at Counting Pennies of course. I found a great link to a USDA document to prepare nutritional meals at minimal cost there…note to self, remember to spend stimulus package money on toys from China and not food. Plus if I start commenting now I might win a few eBooks over there during her June contest.

Act now before you need Spam.

So what is your favorite worst food?

Here is a slideshow of Alexei Butirisky paintings with the music, Night Calls by Joe Cocker. You’ll note the snowy nature of some of them, please know it is June now and we are starting to feel the heat… Have a great Sunday and rest of your week.