Candy For The Feet

It's no secret that I have a thing for shoes.  I even confessed to how much I love them here.  I feel it only appropriate that I share with your some shoes I have found on Pinterest.  Some may call it eye candy. I call them candy for the feet.  Enjoy!

Nice and Sparkly! I think I have a reader (cough cough Sarah) that will like these

Take a walk on the wild side with these!

Nice and lacy!

These have a great retro feel. I can see Grandma Mizell rocking these

So Steampunk!

How CUTE are these?

*Sigh* I wish I had small enough calves to pull off boots as cute as these...

I actually own these.  They are from the Justin Ladies Square Toe Gypsy Collection

 If you have some candy for the feet, please feel free to share.  As much as I love shoes, pictures of cute shoes are cheaper (and take up less closet space).

Until Tomorrow - Melissa

It's A Small World Afterall

We live on the third rock from the sun.  It is estimated that there are seven billion people inhabiting said rock.  It never ceases to amaze me how small the world has become because of the internet and social media.

Consider this: It used to take four weeks (best case scenario) to cross the Atlantic from Europe to the American colonies during colonial times.  The journey was by no means a snap.  Transatlantic crossings were a dangerous enterprise.  There was no guarantee that you would survive journey either because of disease or ship wreck.  While I watched the HBO John Adams miniseries a few months ago, I marveled at the courage Abigail Adams possessed when she let her eldest son travel with John to Europe during the Revolutionary War.  Can you imagine having to wait for eight weeks or more to receive word that your husband and son had arrived safely?

In the summer of 1994 I spent a month in Spain.  At that time it took 10 days to get a letter from upstate New York to Spain.  My mother started to write me letters before I even left the States!  We were to immerse ourselves in the culture and not call home.  When we arrived safely in Madrid my Spanish teacher placed a call home to the designated person (who was in charge of the parental phone tree) to let them know we had made it safely.  We spent three days touring Madrid before we were sent to our host families.  I was in country four days before I had a chance to write a letter home and let my family know how my trip was going.  Add to that the 10 day air mail (considerably faster than the majority of the alternatives at that point) time, and it was two weeks before my mother heard from me.

Here we are in 2012 and social media is not new.  However, I still marvel at the people I am instantly in touch with daily around the world.  I have tweeps (people I communicate with on Twitter) in England, Australia, and most recently Denmark.  Instant communication (140 characters or less in the case of Twitter) with people around the globe!  This is not to mention all the tweeps I tweet with from New York to California, plus a few Canadian neighbors to the north.  We tend to take this instant communication technology for granted.

Today as I was tweeting with my latest tweep from Denmark, I stopped to think about how incredible that feat truly is.  My mind was blown.  What we communicated in a matter of seconds would have taken at least eight weeks 250 years ago.  In the course of human history, 250 years is not a lot of time.  It makes me wonder where we will go in the next 250.

Until Tomorrow - Melissa

The Good Ol' Days

I don't know about you, but I miss being a kid.  Life was so simple then. No bills to pay, no job to work (you had school but you got summers off), and playing with toys was okay.  In fact, playing with toys and using your imagination was encouraged!

When I was a kid, this was a dream house.  Okay, it was techincally Barbie's, but I still wanted one.

As a kid, I had cool books to read that taught us great life lessons. Books like

And

Lets not forget who our role models were. I looked up to

And got to hang out with

TV "Stars" could see me

Fashion was a snap. Do you remember

You didn't have to worry about being politically correct.  As long as you shared your toys, it was all good.  Life was full of wonder and discovery.  Who didn't love capturing a lighting bug or two in a jar (with air holes punches in the lid of course). Yes, I miss being a kid.

What do you miss most from your childhood?

Until Tomorrow - Melissa

Sunday Superhero: Julia

Earlier this week I lamented on how our society rewards bad behavior with publicity while people who do good things go unrecognized (Catch up here).  At the end of that blog I challenged my readers to become the change they wanted to see.  I later realized I had a venue (this blog) to recognize people who do good things for others.  Therefore, going forward I am going to feature a "Superhero" each Sunday.  If you know someone who does good things for others, please let me know so I can feature him or her.

This week I decided to pick a "Superhero" from my own life.  This week's "Superhero" is named Julia.  I've known Julia for about 30 years now (and I'm 34).  Julia and my mother worked for the same factory many years ago.  As fate would have it, Julia and my mother had their boys on the same day.  Having boys that share a birthday has kept Julia and my mom connected over the years.  Even after we moved from Nebraska, I remember my mom checking in with Julia when we went back for visits.

In 2003, my Grandma Mizell was diagnosed with cancer.  While this diagnosis was hard for the entire family, it was really hard on my mother (Mary).  Mom was in New York and Grandma was in Nebraska.  Initially, Mom spent some time in Nebraska.  Then she got Grandma talked into going to New York.  Grandma spent the winter in New York, but wanted to return home in the spring.

During a visit to Nebraska, my mother and Julia had lunch.  Julia looked at my mom and asked if there was anything she could do to help with Grandma.  Julia volunteered to pick up grocery items and run them right over if Grandma ran out. She made Thursday night popcorn & movie night (Julia popped the corn and brought some movie selections; she also brought her DVD player and hooked it up to Grandma's TV. This was after she had already put in a full day at the office.)  This gave Grandma something to look forward to each week.  Julia also knew my grandma's fondness for sparkly objects and would bring her a pen or a decorative item that sparkled.

Julia drove Grandma to doctors' appointments and stayed with her during visits. Grandma needed more help getting around (she had a cane) so this meant extra work for Julia, as she would get a wheelchair for Grandma.  Julia never asked for a dime. She encouraged Grandma to have her cataracts removed. Grandma was very concerned, as she had experienced a hip surgery that did not go well.  Julia was with Grandma every step of the way and Grandma could see much better after the surgery.

Julia was so much help to my grandmother that it was a running joke in the family that she was Grandma's "other Mary".  In fact, it was with Julia's help we were able to pull off a surprise 88th birthday party for my grandmother.  Julia told Grandma that she was going to take her out to eat for her birthday.  Julia just didn't tell her it was out to the common room in her apartments.  It was the best surprise ever!  We could hear Grandma tell Julia there must be something going on out in the common room.  Grandma kept walking by until she realized that all the people sitting there were people she knew!  She had the best look on her face!  Julia also arranged to have the surprise party filmed so we could enjoy the party again and again!

Grandma's Surprised Look with Julia by Her Side

During Grandma's last week on earth, it was Julia that stayed with Mom.  Julia slept in the small room with my mom a night or two.  Julia didn't want Mom to be alone in case Grandma went home (Heaven for those of you who may not use that term) during the night. Julia slept in a recliner which was no easy task when you consider it was after a full day's work.  Julia was standing by my grandma's bed, with the family, as Grandma went home.

Julia, Grandma, and Mary (Mom)

My family can never repay the kindness Julia showed my grandmother during her last few years on earth.  Julia adopted Grandma and treated her like she was her own mother.  Julia is one of our country's unsung "Superheros".  Julia, thank you for being the change we want to see!

Until Tomorrow - Melissa

Panic!!

Today was not my typical day.  It started with a doctor appointment (which went well and I will tell you more about it in a future blog).  On my way home, I planned on stopping at my favorite antique store in downtown Garland.  It's my favorite because the owner, Karen, find the best antiques.  Karen and I are kindred spirits and our relationship has evolved a small business owner and client relationship to friends.

As I walked in the front door, I heard Karen yell from the back of the store "Hey Melissa, I need your help!"  I quickly stashed my purse and headed her direction.  This was shortly after 12:00.  Thursday is typically a slow day for Karen.  However, this was not the case today.  I'm not sure if there was something in the water or if everyone in the Metroplex decided they needed antiques today.  Karen was slammed (which yea for her, I like seeing a small business do well).  Before we knew it, it was 5:00 and time to close.

I don't know about you, but my small business depends on word of mouth and social media (insert shameless plug click here for AWESOME Jewelry ).  This means I spend a lot of my day checking Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other sites.  By the time I had dinner and discussed the day with my husband, it was 7:30.  Horror of horrors! I hadn't been on social media since 9:00 AM. And that is when the panic set in.

10 hours had passed!  That's like 1000 years in social media time.  What had I missed?  I could have gone from obscurity to "It Girl" and back to obscurity without even knowing it (okay, that's a wee bit of an exaggeration, but you get my point).  Think of all the awesome pins I had missed in those 10 hours (please, contain your gasps of shock and horror).

In my "panic" I realized I just may spend to much time on the internet.  This will require more thought and further investigation.  I may need to run an experiment in the near future and see if I can stay off Twitter and Facebook for a full 24 hours. Will my world come crashing down on me or will I survive to blog about it?  This could prove to be interesting...

While I ponder my experiment, let me share with you the coolest pin I've seen today:

I just KNEW Texas was God's country! Even the clouds agree!

Until Tomorrow - Melissa

PS - If you are a social media addict like me, feel free to follow me on Facebook
or on Pinterest or on Twitter @melissacreamer

Think On These Things...

I received a text tonight from my mother who was flipping through channels and ran across a story of a 32 year old young "man" (and I use the term loosely. dog and/or man whore I think is more apt) who had already fathered 30 children with 11 different women.  A number of thoughts came to mind based on this information.  I have to wonder how this "man" is still alive.  You know with 11 women, there has to be some lying and or cheating going on, which I would be lead to believe at least one woman has been wronged.  You know the saying "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned".

After one thinks through the freak show nature of this "news", I think about the current state of TV and the so called "news".  Admittedly, I don't watch a lot of TV.  I find most of it is not worth watching and therefore does no deserve my precious time (and time is precious, you can never make more).  I am disgusted by the train wrecks known as reality TV.  I don't know about you, but I live in reality.  I don't need to watch it on TV.  If I want reality, I live my life.  If I watch TV, I need it to be entertaining.  Entertainment to me is something funny (Big Bang Theory), something fantastic ( Star Trek) or a good drama (NCIS, Downton Abbey).  I will also watch if the show is uplifting (Undercover Boss).  You don't even want to get me started on the sad state of affairs the "news" is.

I don't understand why we give our time to the freak shows, to trash , to people behaving badly (the proceeding statement is rhetorical, I know it's about ratings).  We don't get time back, why are we squandering it on the lowest common denominator?  Why do we allow network executives to convince us this is entertaining?  You have control over what's on TV.  If no one watches, the network executives will put something else on.

Why isn't the hard working mom or dad who works all day and then comes home to actually parent (spend time with, read to, etc.) their children on TV?  Why isn't the young neighbor who helps the elderly neighbor on TV?  Why isn't the person who aids a stranger in a moment of distress on TV?  I will tell you why.  These activities are "boring" and "normal" (although I'm not so sure about the normal anymore).  I wonder what would happen if our society started to give attention to every day heroes instead of societal fringe.  Why do we reward bad behavior with attention?

Let me share with you piece of information I learned as a child.  "And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise." That is Philippians 4:8 (NLT)  Regardless of you religious stance, I do not believe Philippians 4:8 is anything but good advice.  What would this world be like if everyone of us focused on the positive?  What would happen if we encouraged each other and praised the every day heroes?  I believe this world would be a much better place.  

Mahatma Gandhi said “Be the change you want to see in the world.”  Gandhi is right, I have to be the change I want to see.  Will you join me?  Think on these things...

Until Tomorrow - Melissa

The Good Life

Dearest Reader, I must confess I am home sick.  Do not get me wrong, I love my adopted state of Texas. I've lived in Texas for over 12 years and I can't imagine living anywhere else.  Despite my love for Texas, my heart yearns for The Good Life, life in Nebraska.  Before you think I'm crazy, Nebraska is indeed the good life, it says so right on the sign.

In all seriousness, I do miss it.  No matter where life takes me, in my heart and soul, Nebraska is home. I miss the people.  Do you know what the finger wave is?  If you travel the back roads of Nebraska you do.  Imagine yourself on a two lane country road, much like the picture below.

When you come upon another vehicle, you life one of your index fingers at the other driver (index, not middle, we are talking about Nebraska, not New York).  This lifting of your index finger tells the other driver hello.  How nice is that?  Telling a complete stranger hello as you pass each other.

When you think of Nebraska, you may think of long boring stretches of road, maybe with a field of corn on either side.  If you have passed through Nebraska on I-80, yeah, it's pretty boring.  Nebraska can be breath taking, you just have to look for the beauty.

Nebraska Landscape

Scottbluff, NE

Chimney Rock

 

Another great thing about Nebraska is they aren't afraid to be different, to be pioneers. Did you know they are the only state in the Unicameral?  No need for two houses for this state, they can get legislation done with just one.  Did you know that Car-henge is in Nebraska?

 

Alliance, Nebraska

 In addition to Nebraska independent spirit, it is also home to amazing things like:

The Runza Sandwihch

Dorthy Lynch Salad dressing

Invented in Hastings, Nebraska by Edwin Perkins in 1927.

Now that you know a few awesome things about Nebraska, I know you can hardly wait to get there!  In all seriousness, it is a great place with wonderful museums (Like Pioneer Village in Minden and Stuhr Museum in Grand Island).  If you do go, make sure to also check out the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha. You can see breath taking exhibits like

Until tomorrow  - Melissa

So that's what my heart looks like!