A Month of Shoes - Day Fifteen

I lied the other day about favourite shoes. Oh, the shoes on Day Seven of A Month of Shoes are my favourite flat shoes. I love them with a fiery passion. But these shoes will always and eternally be my favourites. They are just so good. Almost everyone who has seen them loves them, they're ridiculously comfortable and I got them really cheaply at K-mart in Chirnside Park a few years ago. If ever anything happens to them, I am going to find a cobbler who will be either able to repair them or remake them (and then make me about 20 pairs of them).

A Month of Shoes - Day Fourteen

Blue and green should never be seen blah blah. I love these shoes. Haven't had anything to really wear them with though. But now I have two green cardigans, so I think they might get some more use in Summer. Excellent...

A Month of Shoes - Day Thirteen

These are the shoes I mentioned on Day Five of A Month of Shoes.

I bought these gladiator-esque heels while staying with K and S when I was avoiding living in Warburton in the month following Black Saturday (due to the town being under threat for that time). They were about $70, I think. Even though I wasn't sure if I'd still have a home in that time, I really wanted these when I saw them. They were probably a comfort buy/retail therapy thing instead of being all that practical, but I still love them, even though they're associated with a really awful situation.

A Month of Shoes - Day Twelve

Hi-yo Silver, away! ^_^

Sarracenia flower bud

^ Went down to the nursery that sells carnivorous plants on a whim this afternoon. They actually didn't have much in stock. And their nepenthes were up high out of reach, which was a shame. There was a ventricosa x spathulata that looked kind of interesting. Still, really shouldn't get more of those. I'm actually hoping to get more sarracenias now. They are equally fascinating and I love the way the veins go all kinds of interesting colours.

Plus I should give more attention to the nepenthes I own. The tobaica x ampullaria isn't looking all that great - the leaves it's growing are really, really small. If anyone has any ideas of how to improve that situation, let me know! It's the only nepenthes I've bought that hasn't thrived, although I had wondered whether it would survive when I bought it because it was half dead then.

Anyway.

Back to the nursery. Not much stock, and what was there, I already own plants of. However, there were a fair few sarracenias with flower stalks and buds on them, which was pretty exciting. I bought one, although there were two others that really interested me (but I've already got those kind).

Really beginning to thing that carnivorous plants are an addiction >.>

A Month of Shoes - Day Eleven

^ Cheap kitten heels w/ fake jewels.

A Month of Shoes - Day Ten

Ahh, leopard print.

Shoes from Target from a few years ago. Since breaking my leg, I don't really find heels all that comfortable, which is really annoying because I generally loved wearing them. I should work on developing a collection of fascinating flat shoes, I guess, and there are some sites I've been eyeing off lately because of their nice shoes. But I still love my heels. And now days, if they have a good, relatively soft platform, I can still handle them - there are two pairs of heels with platforms from K-mart that I've bought this year that are the most comfortable heels I've ever worn in my entire life. Nice work, K-mart.

But I do miss wearing heels more regularly. I guess I could work on getting back into wearing them, but then it makes the ankle hurt a bit and the balls of my feet complain, so who knows. But flats never seem to look as dressy as heels. That's the dilemma.

A Month of Shoes - Day Nine

Bought these shoes years ago when first doing the DFO thing back in Melbourne. Love them, but they're really not comfortable. Still, they're shiny, red and strappy. I keep them because the look nice.

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A Month of Shoes - Day Eight

Favourite shoes. Would love to get more Threadz shoes, but they don't seem to sell online at the moment. Which is a shame. Hopefully they will start selling online sometime in the near future. I love that they look kind of mismatched, that they're amazingly comfortable and are bright/quirky.

A Month of Shoes - Day Seven

^ Turkish slippers that I saw in the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology in Oxford. Not my shoes, but I really liked them.

A Month of Shoes - Day Six

They're zebra-print, pointy, not the most practical. But I like them.

And they were only $10.

A Month of Shoes - Day Five

I think I got these from Payless or Spendless Shoes (something like that) when gladiator heels first became fashionable. I've not worn them all that often because they're kind of hard on the ball of the foot. Still, I like the buckles and the straps. I ended up buying another pair like this, except better in (almost) every way, in February 2009. Might post pix of that pair later.

Spring

Feeding the addiction

Went to the local Bunnings today on the way to a 70th birthday party. They sell the occasional venus flytrap and small sarracenias, but usually it's all the same sort of stock. So it was just curiousity today, I guess. Turns out they had a few different types of sarracenia. So I bought three of them. All small stock - about 7cms or so I think. But unfortunately, they're just under the Gobble Guts label. And Gobble Guts never seems to actually put names for the plants on there, which is kind of annoying.

Still, they're interesting small plants, and I'm wondering whether the one in the top photo will grow to be tall like some of the other sarracenias, or if it'll stay small but decorative as it is now. The middle one is some kind of sarracenia psittacina, I think. Not sure about the bottom one (which is only slightly opened), but it's probably another hybrid of some variety.

The lady at the counter had no idea what the plants did, and asked me loads of questions about them. It was kind of fun to talk about what they do and how they work to someone who was really interested in them. After finding out that they do just fine indoors, she said she would love to get some to keep on the kitchen windowsill. So hopefully if she does get some, they behave well for her! :)

In other thoughts, the ants have been going crazy for the really nice tall pitchers lately. Must be something they're secreting or something like that.

Nepenthes hirsuta x spathulata

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Jungle bells

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Morticia the pitcher plant

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Forget-me-not

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A Month of Shoes - Day Four

These ones are from Target from quite a while ago - think I got them in Ringwood. I didn't do that great a job of taking a photo of the heel of these, but they're a bit different. They're further under the foot than heels usually are, and I find that when I don't wear them for ages, it takes a while to get used to that and balance properly.

A Month of Shoes - Day Three

These are more K-mart wonders, also from a few years ago.

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Pictures of pitchers

Fang ^_^

Fang actually didn't hibernate over winter, although he didn't put much new growth on. But since the weather's been a bit warmer, he's starting to get some new leaves and traps. The moss in his pot is starting to grow up really nicely, too, so it kind of looks like a little garden in there or something. Looking at it like this kind of made me think of Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, which we watched once in primary school. Random, but amusing in a way.

Sarracenias and things

The sarracenia in the bottom pic has a nepenthes spathulata x hirsuta in the background. I accidentally bought two spathulata x hirsutas a while ago, and decided against trying to swap or return the smaller one because I'm hoping it's slightly different to the other, larger plant. Some genes might be more or less dominant in it, who knows. It'll be interesting to see.

Also, the spathulata x hirsuta both have grown pitchers on every single leaf they've produced. It's pretty impressive, because the only other nepenthes I have that has done that so far is the one I called Morticia (I think it's a nepenthes northiana x maxima). The other pitcher plants grow pitchers on most of their leaves, but not all. And the alata in particular seems to be temperamental about this, even though it's grown to about four times the size it was when I bought it.

Anyway, back to duplicates of plants. The same thing happened with two of the sarracenias I have planted in a pot with a drosera, venus fly trap and some other sarracenias - bought two of the same type, but don't really mind too much. They're quite pretty with the pink/purple veins through them when they get more sun exposure.

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Droseras

Three of the droseras are going to flower soon :D

Sarracenia purpurea

Apart from the obsession with shoes, I also have a thing for carnivorous plants. Put the sarracenia purpurea out full sun today to try to get it to colour up a little bit. I think it's had a bit much shade, although it's growing really well.