Shopping List

There is a shopping list pad that stays on the table in the kitchen.  The family knows that if they want me to pick up something for them, they'd best not trust to my memory:  put it on the list.

At some point yesterday evening, someone mentioned Nutella.  I don't remember how it came up, but Em immediately said how much she loved the stuff.  I didn't know that.  I told her that if she wanted some from the grocery store today, to put it on the list.  Several minutes later, she was still working on my list.

Now I can see why:

As you may have guessed, I added the pork roast and box of stock after she left for school this morning.

I'll be adding other items as well, but there will definitely NOT be a pineapple in the buggy at check out.

Pretty vs. Practical

There is a product at my house that my husband will never use, at least not for its intended purpose:  double-sided fashion tape.  I feel sure that he could possibly encounter some situation when it would provide the perfect solution, but that situation would not involve what he was wearing at the time.

It's made to attach women's clothes to their bodies.  We first purchased it to make a prom dress behave.  Recently, I've discovered a shirt that I really like has a misbehaving shoulder.  A little double-sided tape keeps the shoulder of the shirt where it belongs, arresting its attempt to slide down onto my arm.

That got me to thinking:  Would a man put up with clothing that had to be coaxed or constrained into place?  With the possible exception of belts and suspenders (which are not uncomfortable), I'm guessing No, they would not. 

So why are women willing to go to such great lengths to get one shirt to perform?  Why will we tape it to our shoulder?  Why will we wear a spandex undergarment that hampers our breathing to get that shirt smooth around the middle?  Why will we wear shoes that require us to install additional comfort zones in the soles?

Why?

Because it's pretty, that's why.

Hand-painted Toms

El had a pair of Toms shoes that she really liked.  In fact, she wore them so much (and consequently washed them so much) that the design faded completely away.

When they were new, they had small neon symbols stamped all over them.  Wear and washing over a couple of years rendered them basically white.  She had heard of people painting new designs on their shoes and decided to investigate.

I'm not sure what website she eventually discovered her design of choice on, but she showed it to me and asked if I could do something like it.

Well, if my children are willing to risk their property to my creative attempts, I'm willing to try it.

And here's the final product:

She didn't want them uniformly colored and she didn't want the colors mixed, so we taped off sections along seam lines with masking tape. We also stuffed them with newspaper so as not to paint the insides.  To keep the background color from being too thick and uniform, I put acrylic paint in a spray bottle with a bit of water and sprayed it on.  The tree was started with a small brush and finished with a toothpick dipped in paint.  The flowers were dabbed on with a stiffer brush and the white spots were added by dipping the wooden end of the brush with paint and dotting it on.

Right before we painted them, the shoes were freshly washed.  That's why they seem rather oddly shaped and wrinkled.  Once she got them on her feet, they resumed their customary fit.

All in all, I think they turned out nicely.  Now I'm trying to decide if I want to paint something on my pair.  I'll have to come up with something special for the hole in the left toe.