Did you all ever watch soap operas? I know there are very few left. For me it was All My Children. Began when I was 14, home with mononucleosis, picked back up during college, then again when I was home with my first born. And who doesn’t love that lugubrious soundbyte from Days of Our Lives?
But I’m digressing. In fact I want to show you something nifty I won in a blog giveaway, and offer you all something in turn. After all, if we’re going to have to participate in wholly new social platforms and modalities, we might as well get to make up the rules of good behavior. I propose that if you win something, you ought to give something else away.
So what was my prize? And to whom do I owe thanks?
These are Korres pomegranate makeup wipes. Why it’s psychologically daunting to wash one’s face upon returning home from work I do not know, but such is life. Wipes help you avoid that hostile sink. I have Lily Lemontree to thank for my newly smooth and more often clean face. Thank her I do, for her blog as well. If you like to vote on best-dressed celebrities (yes, I confess) and be entertained by images of the Beautiful Ones, please do visit.
So what am I giving away? These Beautifeel shoes.
Victoria is the model name. They are a size 37, roughly equivalent to a US size 7. Condition? Never been worn. Heel height? 4 cm.
Color? Greyer than they show here on the web, so I’d put them at a true taupe. How much greyer? I’d planned to wear them with a grey skirt, that’s how much. Materials? Stamped leather and a black patent strap.
I wear Beautifeel shoes almost every day on my 30 minute walk to and from work – happily. I loathe foot pain with the force of a thousand wailing demons and these shoes cause none. Ordered them in the December sale, a stupidly high instep make the patent strap cut too tightly. Anyone with more intelligently designed feet should find them heavenly.
They are yours, dear reader with a size 7 foot and a horror of foot pain, for the price of a comment indicating your interest. As always, a brief story would be appreciated. Let us say, this time, about a very comfortable or uncomfortable pair of shoes from your past. We do not expect soap operas, narratives of all types accepted.
And, so, in the end, we see that soap operas retain relevance. Although I suppose the point was already proven by the culture’s current fascination with undead of all sorts. Dark Shadows anyone?
55 Responses
The summer before college, I became addicted to All My Children, as did my future room mate. As freshman, and beyond, we scheduled our classes so that one of us would always back in our room to watch that day’s show, and give a blow by blow report at dinner. This was before recording devices were available for TV’s of course.
I have a very close friend from Brazil, and she records all the Brazilian soaps and watches them to relax when she gets home from work. She’s says they’re much sexier and more fun than the American ones.
Now, I love Downton Abbey – a soap opera of sorts?
Love the shoes, but my feet are way bigger than yours.
I was up until 2 this morning. I started cleaning my closets and trying to make a pile of stuff I need to get rid of, and I realized that everything I own is purchased because it is on sale and is the cornerstone for a costume which screams kook as I walk down the street. I have a problem. (Although it’s not as bad as the two years I was compelled to purchase orange shoes and orange boots which made me look like Foghorn Leghorn when I walked through the office). These shoes scream of sound mind & faculty and not, I’m here to make a statement. They also look as though I could walk more than 2 blocks in them. Receiving these shoes might start a new chapter in my life and get me out to meet more friends for lunch. Most of my friends work more than 4 blocks away from me and it is understood that I would never walk that far. Help me make my dream become a reality.
Size 7
Lisa,
Since they were never worn, why didn’t you send the shoes back for a refund or choose another pair of shoes?
Let me field this question for you Lisa. Kathy, we never return things, ESPECIALLY shoes. Once purchased – 60% of the time from a boutique with a no return policy – we immediately loose the receipt so trying to return them to a store would be humiliating and take time. Besides, even shoes you can’t wear are so beautiful they’re nice just to have around and look at and live in hope that you will some day run across a boiled wool aubergine suit that isn’t purple, grape or lilac that will match the two-toned aubergine and cream spectator pumps you just purchased.
Sabrina – Who is “we?”
I used to be so shy of salespeople that I couldn’t ask them for help and would make my sister do it. But this is simply a case of wanting to give my readers, at least those with size 7 feet, a present:).
Thanks Lisa – that’s very kind of you, and I appreciate the answer.
Sabrina, sorry for “baiting” you. Found your reply a bit offensive.
My first time to comment on your blog, but a long time reader (1 1/2 yrs!), not sure if it’s the shoes or the soap reminising that finally got me! As I’m a 6.5/7 please enter me in the drawing. I started with Dark Shadows at a girl friends house after school (my Mother wouldn’t let me watch it!), went to All My Children at lunch time and then a few years later to General Hospital with Luke and Laura (thanks to VCR technology. Staying away from them now, but Downtown Abbey sounds very tempting…..
Oh, Lisa, just another reason to love you more than I already do. ALL MY CHILDREN!!! One of my great guilty pleasures over the years. How thrilled I was in college to discover that one of my Am Civ professors included soaps in her course on American Popular Culture!
And with the fictitions Pine Valley being the creation of Agnes Nixon, of course it was set on Philadelphia’s Main Line. (If only that beach Erika Kane and co. were always heading to really existed here!) And working for some of the city’s great arts organizations over the years, I encountered more than a few “Phoebe Tyler Wallingfords.” I’m sure it’s all factored into my fascination with class and privilege. Thank God we now have Downton Abbey to fill that void. :-)
Alas, Low Prole that I am my humongous feet would never fit into a size 37. I believe a 37 is the equivalent of a 6 or a 6.5, for what it’s worth, so perhaps that’s why they’re too tight?
Great chart here: http://www.morganshoes.com/morganshoes/text_2.asp#beautifeel
Ha! Phoebe Tyler and the Countess do look a lot alike. But I was pretty sure that a 37 was a 7. Hmm. Must research.
I might second that size comment; I wear 8.5 US but 39 European . . .
I almost never watch daytime television and I don’t think I’ve ever watched an episode of a daytime soap. Perhaps I was so rigid about this because I know I have a slightly addictive personality and, being an at-home mom while my four were young, I was afraid of the seductive power of those shows. . . My feet are 37.5, so the shoes aren’t for me, but have fun with the giveaway.
I also have a high instep, not to mention a larger foot, but I just wanted to chime in about Beautifeel. The most comfortable shoes I have ever owned.
Oh I do wear a size 7!
Foe me it was General Hospital and I watched it every afternoon while my children napped and I folded the diapers!
I do have a rather embarrassing story, I was wearing high heels and walking past a construction site when a male wolf whistled at me and I glanced up only to take a turn on my ankle as I lost my footing….I hobbled away as fast as I could, red in the face, with a bruised ego.
Dark Shadows, that does take me back.
We used to watch that after school!
That should read “For me”….
typo’s are the bane of my existence…
Ah, once again I’m thwarted by my freakishly small feet.
And I’m not sure I’d want to go near my face with something described as a “grenade.”
Congrats on your win! Not my shoe size but they are lovely!
I love Korres products–I have all their lipsticks and glosses–so wonderful! As to your shoes my feet are much to big, but good luck to the winner!
xo Mary Jo
Oh, those shoes are beautiful! I’m a long-time Guiding Light fan myself… even managed to watch it some during my working life through the magic of a VCR. Even though I broke my habit years ago, I was still sad when it went off the air. I felt like I lost part of my childhood.
Re: shoes…I have no witty stories, just a trail of tears from trying to stuff my tootsies into trendy shoes. At 50, I finally have made peace with my feet and purchase fewer, but higher quality, shoes. No more Payless or Target for me.
I’ve been reading your blog for awhile (stumbled on over from one of your posts on A Practical Wedding) but I don’t think I’ve commented here before, which is sad because I find your writing beautiful and your topics intriguing.
I do, in fact, wear a size 6-7 and I think those shoes are beautiful.
My story for you is not about a pair of shoes, but rather a pair of skates. Hand-me-down skates from my college roommate’s childhood, that were loaned to me to go figure skating this new years past. Very sweet, perfectly broken in … should have been perfect for my first time on ice in a decade and a half.
We skated for almost an hour, I happily stayed on my feet the entire time. I had a nagging suspicion the whole time, however, that my right foot specifically just did not want to balance on the blade.
Turned out afterwards I’d been skating with a broken skate – the boot was 3/4 of the way broken off of the skate. Now the skates have officially been gifted to me and I am just waiting for the cobbler to work his magic.
No way! I was home with mono in the fourth grade, stuck on the couch watching endless game shows when…what’s this? Drama involving beautiful young people. So this is what I have to look forward to, my young self thought. Too funny, just had to comment on our shared AMC, sickly humble beginnings!
as she left her apartment for her morning walk to work noticing the beautiful blue sky, the sound of sprinklers sprinkling and the smiles of neighbors, she looked down at her feet and noticed they were not hurting. no, actually they felt wonderful. could it be her new shoes that she won in a contest? why yes, that was it! how lucky she was to wear a size 7 and have a freakishly high instep to boot!
shamelessly ripped off from seinfeld and the himalayan walking boot story.
xo
janet
As a college professor who “dresses” for class, but who must hobble across campus from my office to the building where my classes are held and then stand and lecture, these shoes look like heaven. I recently pitched two pair of taupe kitten heels which were well past their prime and have been wearing ballet flats. At 5’4″, I look like a tree stump in those flats! And I’m a 37…..
With regard to the soaps, I can remember it being SRO in our sorority house TV room during All My Children, and more than one ‘sister’ scheduled her classes around that show.
I love your blog!
And now I can never be happy again after seeing those lovely shoes. No chance of finding anything similar ’round here…
Best regards from Chile
My Gawd, there are 2 Flo commenters!!!
How exciting!
This Flo got attached to The Young And The Restless wayyyy back, and she will even confess to reading the synopsis online as we speak in hopes that Victor and Nikki will get back together, pitiful but true.
I recall watching Days of our lives and all my children at some other stage in my life.
On footwear: I adore the grey ones above. What a nice giveaway. I wouldn’t be able to swan around Paris in these even if I wanted to – not my size;-)
I love those shoes and I wear a size 7!
In my early twenties my roommate and I both spent our rent money on over-the-knee tan suede boots. I’m not proud of it but that was the way we rolled back then. Fortunately her boyfriend was our apartment manager. We wore the boots out to lunch one day and during lunch it started raining outside. The restaurant owner took pity on us and found us some Hefty trash bags to wear over our boots so they wouldn’t get ruined in the rain. We were a sight – two twenty somethings walking down the street with trash bags on our feet – but it worked.
I’m 54 now and rarely wear heels. I love the way they look but hate the way they feel. Beautifeel shoes look stylish and I can walk in them – win, win.
I’m a 37 and have very sensitive feet, so would love to try them.
Size 7. Sounds like a Cinderella story for sure. I would be thrilled to take these beauties in for some TLC.
This is a vote for Sabrina’s story, because if she had these shoes, she might have lunch with me, and she sounds like a hoot.
Oh, oh, oh! It’s the Holy Trinity of shoe-dom:
1) a manageable heel height; 2) a gorgeous color that is both a neutral and offbeat; and 3) a Mary Jane, my absolute favorite style, and so hard to find! And of course, they are my size.
All My Children was great, but to my mind, nothing could beat General Hospital! The decades-long comas! The years-long amnesias! The doctors and nurses who never actually did any doctoring or nursing! I used to starve myself until 3:00 pm from my first post-college job so I could eat a late lunch (Braunschweiger, raw onion, and mustard on a toasted English muffin) and watch GH.
Thanks for the memories.
Well I just have to enter this lovely give away due to my tootsies being size 7/37.
The heel hight is perfect for my dilemma at present. I don’t want to be overly dramatic but…
I blogged in December about my latest foot catastrophe and now my recalcitrant left hoofer has assigned me to what I now lovingly refer to as ‘sensible’ footwear.
At the moment I’m in a state about whether to donate my shoe collection to charity or live in hope that one day I can once again wear a heel or strappy concoction which offers no support. Footwear prices in Australia are steep and I’m now in the category of paying dearly for craftsman made booties. At the moment I live in Birkenstocks while scouring my town for pretty yet ‘sensible’ clod hoppers.
So there is my little tale Lisa for entering your generous giveaway of these beautifeel shoes.
xx
Blast..I forgot to mention my soap of choice was Days of our lives’. I’ve not tuned in for ages but I’m sure Beau, Hope and the mob are still cheating death and major traumas. I got hooked when feeding my babies back in the day. I remember Aussie audiences always felt somewhat cheated and behind the eightball as Americans would be viewing the current series while our population lagged behind by three years!
xx
I was hooked on General Hospital and As the World Turns for years!! I love the shoes and I am a size 7 and LOVE comfortable shoes!
I used to catch glimpses of “The Young and The Restless” when I was very young and restless. My mom watched it. In college I had a brief affair with “Passions.” I am of the belief that when it comes to cute shoes, there is no such thing as too painful. I have even bled for fashionable shoe attire. One yellow pair that was recently loaned to me captured my heart but also cut into my foot. I will not be borrowing them again.
I am commenting not to compete — I’m a 39 — but because I want to know more about Beautifeel. Are they truly fantastic? I have difficult feet and am constantly challenged to find not-ugly, not-Ugly American shoes that are stylish and good for walking.
Maryn – yes, I think they are fantastic. Now, for context, my feet are narrow in the heel, wide in the ball, and I’ve got that ridiculous instep. For this foot configuration, most comfortable shoes ever. They are made in Israel, if you’re curious about the provenance.
I’m a 7! Yay!
My soap opera of choice some 35 years ago–OMGosh, did I say that out loud?—was the Young and the Restless. Sigh. Got hooked in middle school, watched through high school and college, then took a sabbatical until I was home with two babies in the early 90s. I understand it is still on, although I’ve not been able to watch (darned job teaching high school) for about 15 years……
But those shoes would ROCK for work!
Jeez, forgot to comment about a pair of shoes! Ok, I’ll say it. The Cole Haan Nike Air shoes are not comfortable for me. :(. Oprah disagrees, I know, but I have several pairs, and NONE are comfy. I really wanted them to work, hence the reason I own numerous styles……but no. Maybe these will do!
General Hospital was my soap during my teen years. Your giveaway is like Cinderella. Alas, my clodhoppers are far too big.
Once, I wore a pair of high heeled pointy pumps to a conference. We had to walk a bit to lunch and back. It was icy and I was slipping a lot.
Skip two days into the future and I came down with Metatarsalgia. It was so painful on the ball of one of my feet, I couldn’t walk. I ended up having to get a padded foot brace and crutches.
My husband actually ended up proposing to me while I was still on crutches later that week.
Long time lurker, first time commenter :-). I couldn’t resist when I saw these shoes which not only are professional and (presumably) comfortable, but also my size!
A shoe story for you… I work in the ER and am almost always on my feet. I refuse to sacrifice comfort for looks, which has resulted in me wearing the most un-professional looking (but oh so comfortable) shoes everyday with my slacks or skirt. I justify it by saying that no one really pays attention to my feet, but oh how I would love a pair of shoes that combines professionalism & comfort.
Pretty! And my size – please count me in for the drawing.
Soaps – never really into them, but my jr hi years were defined by the Luke and Laura theme song..
My most recent pair of stupid shoes is a pair of Dansko clogs ordered online – factory 2nds – turns out that the right shoe is almost a full size smaller. They feel great at first but by the end of a shopping day, I can feel the bunion forming..0_o
Anybody remember Ryan’s Hope? Short-lived but so angsty!
My fet are way too big for the giveaway, but I too am devoted to Beautifeel. If I ever need to wear heels again, I know they’ll have something for me. I firmly believe they saved me from sprained and/or broken ankles numerous times – even when my notoriously weak ankles wanted to turn, the shoes wouldn’t let them!
I watched all of the soaps but my favorite was Dark Shadows.
I’m a size 8.5 C/D, oh well.
When I was a wee lass, I watched The Edge of Night and, when it was cancelled, Another World.
Your post hits home as I have, alas, foot pain or just arch-ache right now, resulting from new running shoes with a weird plastic iPod thingy under the inner sole. So no exercise today and, maybe, new running shoes again (size 8.5, so I’m not a contender for your generous giveaway).
Years ago (at least over 20) I was addicted to an English soap opera “Eastenders” watched all throughout my pregnancy and when DD was born she was soothed by the opening music, it would always calm her! Your giveaway is most generous – they are lovely shoesand how nice that the are comfortable too. Unfortunately I take size 40! X
I lived across the street from my elementary school back in the 70’s, and walked home every day to watch The Young and the Restless with my Nana. She lived with us and took care of us while my mother worked. And when I was home sick, I got to watch Days of Our Lives, too. I watched both soaps through college but finally kicked the habit. Funny how some of the characters are still on and look almost exactly the same. How do they do that?
Anyway, I love the shoes and I wear a size 7, so I’d love the chance to win these. I always enter these blogs give-a-ways, but I never win.
No entry, just to say, charming shoes, very “The Artist”. Someone will be lucky.
Did those pomegranate wipes work beautifully? I am on the hunt for some, and I’m on the verge of re-purchasing my dependable and cheap Cost-co wipes again.
They seem pretty nice, so far. Skin is very smooth, they smell great, and nothing toxic in them anywhere.
What lovely shoes and the option of comfort! I am also a professor with those three hour classes. Worst shoe story: hobbling except when in my clunker sketchers for three months, pain every day. Fortunately, off to Asia and the lands of foot message. Now back in “real” shoes. Want to celebrate that.
Happy New Year Lisa, Shoes are my very favourite accessory. I can love them so much that I’ve been known to take them off to protect them in the rain, or forced to take them off & go barefoot in (eeeks) a city because an ill-advised choice was shredding my feet. Recently I ended up having to be held upright by two friends for the evening outing (lovely men, so it wasn’t too bad..)because both of my knees have succumbed to the family curse & my gorgeous shoe heel was too high. I am realizing that I must abandon most of my shoe wardroom and the pair you so kindly offer is Perfect – my size & I have some of the same foot anatomy as you: narrow heel, wide ball-but my feet are also pretty flat. And I discovered Beautifeel in another city last year so know these are my size. At the moment, the only shoes I can wear & walk (a good combination) are the pair I bought there – which look like they are a variation of your Victorias. So I can guarantee they will be loved & worn should I be so lucky. Cheers All!
and ps: the Victoria shoes really look like they could be straight off the screen of my new favourite “soap”: Downton Abbey.
Adore these shoes, very generous Lisa. Unfortunately I am a 7 1/2 to 8 depending..
Xoxo
Karena
Art by Karena
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