Shoe Shopping with Boys and Stunted Sadness

When Friday afternoon rolled around, and many people were thinking "cookout", "lake", or "remembering the thousands of people who have died for our country", my mind was on one thing.  One goal for the weekend: find.shoes.for.wedding.

I don't know how this snuck up on me.  I had to have them for the upcoming wedding dress fitting.  I think buying shoes online is sketchy unless it's a company you've bought tons of shoes from and you know the size you need.  Clearly not the case for wedding shoes for Steph.

I wasn't finding any shoes in stores that I really liked and fit my needs for the wedding.  Then the previous weekend we searched for shoes for the bridesmaids -- I thought that would be a good time to casually scope out the wedding shoe situation... not true.  So, by the time the next weekend rolled around, I was in Code Red.  I was pretty sure I wasn't going to find what I needed in a store, and that I would have to order five pairs of shoes online to ensure I had the right one for the wedding dress fitting.

I checked a couple of standby places here in Louisville, then resorted to picking the brand and styles I wanted to try online and calling a bunch of stores to ask if they have them.

All my girls were out of town on Saturday, so I ended up surfing websites with D by my side.  He showed an interest in helping me find what kind of shoe I was looking for, and I thought that was sweet, so I threw out the rule about him seeing wedding apparel before the wedding day JUST FOR THE SHOES.  Then I found a little bridal shoe shop here in Louisville called Mr. Louis Bridal Shoes.  It's been around for 30+ years, so off we went.

We walked into Mr. Louis Bridal Shoes, I started talking to the owner and noticed D walking around the store.  Before I know it, he'd done a full sweep of their merchandise and presented me with the three styles he thought I would like to try on from what he learned during our online shoe shopping.  So. cute!

AND, he was right!  Long story short: I found the shoes.  They are awesome.  And it was a great afternoon because D graciously helped, and the rest of my weekend was open.

Yay!

(light-hearted, flitty music suddenly segues into introspective, awkward chord progressions)

What else is going on, you ask?  Well, my BFF Ann is moving away.  Yeah, ANN.

Ann from Conversations About What It Means to be a Godly Woman.

Ann from all my awesome Bible studies.

Ann from This-Is-Important-Enough-to-MAKE-Time-For-Each-Other Friends.

Ann who dropped everything to be with me when I found out my cat was dying.

Ann who celebrated with me and Viv at the thought of the New Heavens and New Earth.

Ann from the Best, Most-Awesome Staycation ever, mostly because she was in it.

Road-ends-in-water Ann.

Stripper shoes Ann.

Ann who goes to see musicals with me.

Ann who tried to hook me up with a guy whose truck I'd just thrown up in.

Ann who wrangled me into the most awesome experience of working with the kiddos at church.

Ann who brings me magical Jersey Mike's sandwiches when I really, really sick.

Ann, the most famous opera singer in the world!

Yeah, you know the one.

She's moving.

Pretty soon.

It's becoming more and more real.  

And...I feel like I'm not giving it enough attention.  I feel like I haven't been still enough for it to hit me.

How terrible am I?  

There will be more on this later... mostly this post is a getting-ready-for-it post.

Getting ready for... saying goodbye to an amazing, beautiful, shimmering, glittering woman who has meant so much to me.

Oh, there WILL be more....

Standby....

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