Bling! Bling! Flowers

Last year, I ran in the Las Vegas Half Marathon. So they send me emails, trying to get me to participate again. On one of these emails, they showed the most gorgeous running shoe - it had a big swirly paisley on it, done in sparkley gems. I went, "OMG!!!! How did I never realise that I needed to pimp my shoes?!?!?! How can I possibly have survived till now, without sparkley shoes?!?"

Luckily, it was easy to remedy this travesty. At Wal-Mart, I purchased some Liquid Stitch and found product entitled 'Bling!Bling! Flowers', 'Bling! Bling! Butterflies' and 'Sparkley Gems'. I have NO idea how I possibly got to this stage in my life without this stuff!Obviously, I would share the wealth with my runpals, Susie Sunshine and Carol. Are these shoes things of beauty or what??

Now, there was some concern that problems could occur... what if we lost sparkles on the course? We were Pimping our Shoes for a run in a National Park, after all. What if a sparkle was lost, and we got busted for littering? Or worse, what if a squirrel ate that lost sparkle, got it stuck in its little rodent bowels, DIED, and we wound up in the hoosegow for Endangering Wildlife??? Those federal rangers don't have much sense of ha-ha when it comes to squirrels.

Or, here's a different scenario: what if our shoes were so sparkley and wonderful that we were attacked by magpies and ravens? Everyone knows they are mad over bling! Visions of Hitchcock's 'Birds' loomed...

And the final risk: what if our shoes were so gorgeous that WE were entranced by the gorgeous bejewelment (magpie-like, all 3 of us!), and could only stare at our shoes throughout the race? Surely, we could trip and get hurt?

Well, it all turned out fine. :) NO sparkles were lost during the running of this race. I thought it might be a problem that I cheaped out and got Liquid Stitch, rather than the more up-market Speed Sew, but the LS held! [In fact, a week has passed, and I've run 30 miles since pimping my shoes, and have only lost 2 sparkles per shoe. Pretty good. Have not noticed any squirrels in intestinal distress near my home, so looks like the coast is clear.]

No problems occured with magpies, ravens, or any other bird..... No doubt the laboured breathing of the runners scared them all away.

And, finally, I did stare at my shoes quite a lot during the race. They were just so pretty! Somehow managed not to trip over my bejeweled feet though. (Gives a whole new meaning to Tripping the Light Fantastic!)

who wouldn't enjoy this view? Really!

Susie Sunshine, Calamity Carol, and Terrible Tara: manic pre-race smiles