The pink boots

"Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world"
- Bette Midler

I used to have this whole other life.

Let me backtrack - whenever I have a hobby I love, I seem to throw my whole heart into it and in a short period of time, it becomes a job. Which is probably a bad idea, but at the time I'm so *in Luvvvvvv* with what I'm doing, that I want to make money at it too. Sadly what happens is that I go in barrels blazing, and in a few years I'm so burnt out I never want to see said job again.

One of these hobbies that turned into a job in the past, was scrapbooking.

Now let's be clear, I still love scrapbooking (I have a stack of pages I need to share), but in reality, how I scrapbook is changing. I sit down and create beautiful wedding albums for other couples - I'll design 40 page album in 4 hours, and wonder why I'm not doing that for myself.

Anyway, so I started out scrapbooking and within a year, I won the Creating Keepsakes Hall of Fame. That turned into a "job" of designing scrapbook pages and teaching all over the place. I was getting at times, 5-10 boxes of scrapbook supplies on my front porch regularly. *overwhelmed*

It was the heyday of scrapbooking and everyone and their dog had a business. I officially started a company making hand dyed tags, paper, envelopes, etc. It actually was doing pretty well for a little company just starting out.

Then toss in a divorce.

I decided that it was time that my little company tried to go bigtime and I wanted to make an attempt to be picked up by one of the big name companies. I knew I had a product that if marketed and packaged right, would be a hit. I just had to find the right company, and sell myself properly. I also wanted it to support myself and my kids financially. What better job could there be?

I decided that I'd go to a trade show in Atlanta and pitch my ideas right on the showroom floor. I wasn't leaving without a yes.

The thing was, I was trying to be frugal at the same time. I needed an outfit, and I wanted to spend exactly $3.00 in the process. Sadly I needed some shoes so that wasn't going to happen.

I stopped into the cheapest shoe place I know - Payless - and looked for the orange sale stickers. Retail was not going to cut it that day. It was very busy, and a woman was there trying on a cream colored pair of boots. I was feeling a little annoyed and dejected watching the process for some reason. I wanted a cute pair of boots, and I didn't want to spend much doing it. Actually, the word I'm looking for is I *couldn't* spend much doing it.

Then, I saw them. A hot pink pair of boots right next to the lady trying on the cream colored version. Maybe?

I slipped those $6.00 beauties on, and they fit like a glove. They looked expensive too. Sold.

I got them home and realized, that even tho pink is my favorite color, I didn't have much to wear them with, so it came down to a white shirt, black slacks and a pink scarf around my neck. Oh, and when I got there, my black leather jacket just pulled it all together. I dare say, I looked pretty damn hotsy.

We flew to Atlanta... wait, actually that's not true. We flew to Nashville and killed some time downtown seeing the sights. Rented a car and off to Atlanta to the show.

I walked in with my shoulders back, my head high, my show samples and my pink boots. One hour later, I was walking out with the promise of a contract of several of my designs. It was one of the happiest moments of my life. I was SO EXCITED for what was to come.

And my feet were KILLING ME.
I couldn't have walked that floor any longer if I wanted to.

Long story short, it really came at a bad time. It was one of the more stressful times in my life. I had a recent divorce, I was trying to make it on my own for the first time in my life, my dad was doing really badly, and the head designer at the new company was making my life a living hell.

The papers came out, I made some money, but not enough to live on... I moved on... and so did they.

I packed my shoes away and my life changed a lot in those 6 years since then. I got married, my dad died, I got a full time job working in KC, and then left it a couple years later, I started a photography company (which does alright!), Seth grew up and left the nest and so on and so on.

This weekend I was having flashbacks. Gene and I were spending the weekend in Kansas City (more on that later!), and again, I needed an outfit.

I was being frugal (do we see a theme?) and wanted to spend exactly $0.00 this time. We were going out to dinner to a fairly nice restaurant, and I wanted to wear something a little more dressy than usual - but not my work pants - I hate those pants. lol.

My necklace my husband had made for me has a hot pink topaz in the center. It's surrounded by tons of diamonds. I feel like I should be riding on the titanic when I'm wearing it, and scared to death I'll lose it, but I wanted to wear it anyway because when are you going to wear a 48 carat topaz to Walmart?

I picked out my favorite pink and purple blousey top that shows WAY too much cleavage but I wear it anyway and a cute little denim skirt.

Shoes!?

Shoes always kicking my ass (pun intended). I still have problems wearing some shoes because of my broken foot, but it's much better.

Then I suddenly remembered.... the pink boots!

I still have them. They are tucked carefully away in the original box at the bottom of the pile (most of my shoes are in clear shoeboxes - so I forget I have these).

It was a perfect solution to the "not too dressy, but dressed up outfit for $0.00".

Are the shoes life altering? No.
Does it really matter what I wore to a resturant? Not really.

But the shoes reminded me of the story of confidence and happiness from long ago, and I wanted to overshare.

Like usual.

{He didn't wear the purple shirt, he wore his pink one, because we're all Will and Jada like that}

Who woulda thought a simple pair of boots would have brought back so many memories?