Heelairous? Not so much!

Two stay-at-home moms, Britta Bacon and Hayden Porter, created Heelarious, a soft high-heel shoe for baby girls, age 0 to 6 months.

The women, who live in Bellevue, Wa., describe the shoes as an "extremely funny, completely soft, fully functional high-heel crib shoes for babies.”

They sell for $35 a pair and come in a variety of colors, including hot pink and a leopard satin print. Each shoe is named, from Brooke to Sophie to Kate, whose style will retire soon. The ladies have received a ton of press about their collapsible high heels, including being featured on The Today Show to Good Morning America and in People magazine.

I know the shoes are a joke, but there's a decent size heel on every shoe. Most six-month-olds aren't walking yet, but there are exceptions, so can you imagine a baby trying to walk on a shoe with a collapsed heel on the bottom? It's as if the baby will be walking with a lump on the bottom of her foot.

The Heelarious shoes made me think of the thong underwear that was marketed to girls 10 to 16 years old by Abercombie and Fitch.

"It's cute and fun and sweet," said Hampton Carney, spokesman for the company based in New Albany, Ohio.

But one parent, quoted in a Milwaukee paper, said "It's Frederick's of Hollywood for preteens and teenagers."

Why does a 10-year-old need a thong? And why does a two-month-old need high-heeled shoes? They don't!

Let little girls be little girls. That 10-year-old has the rest of her life to wonder if her pantyline is showing through her skirt. And the two-month-old has the rest of her life to wear heels. Parents are allowing their children to grow up too fast. Young girls shouldn't be subjected to aspects of the lives of grown women.

It's too early for Halloween

I was running through my neighborhood yesterday and I passed a house with Halloween decorations up. These weren't Fall decorations, like a pumpkin on the porch or a scarecrow in the yard. They were legitimate Halloween decorations - skeletons and ghosts hanging from tree branches and a big witch slumped on the porch.

I immediately thought "It's too early for Halloween."

Yesterday was the last day of summer, so technically, this family brought out the decor before the calendar said Autumn. I shook my head after realizing that Halloween is 40 days away.

I'm sure we've all gone into stores, like Target and Wal-Mart, where the day after Christmas, they already have the Valentine's decorations up. Or the day after St. Patrick's Day, the employees are pulling out the Easter bunnies. I looked through the Sunday circulars to see if stores were already advertising Halloween stuff and they were. Target has one page of Fall decor, which includes a candy dish that reads "Cast a Spell" and a little tree with spiders and cats hanging from its branches. It's not overkill. CVS, on the other hand, is already selling Halloween costumes, tons of decorations and candy. And A.C. Moore's four-page ad is stocked with Halloween goodies.

Retail corporations have been pushing holidays on consumers for years, but we have control over how early we push them on ourselves. I wonder how early this family will have their Christmas tree or Hanukkah lights up.

Artful handwriting

I start an eight-week calligraphy course tonight and I'm super excited about it.

I've been interested in learning calligraphy for more than a year now and tried to take this "boot camp" course before. The last time I registered for it, the class was canceled because not enough people signed up. Hearing the disappointment in my voice when I told my older sister the course wasn't going to happen, she gave me a calligraphy pen set and a how-to book on the artful handwriting, but it was so hard to teach myself.

I've always been told I have a neat handwriting and I like the way I write. The calligraphy teacher said my penmanship was "expressive" after she saw my hand-written registration form. Hopefully, that's a good sign that I will easily pick up the talent.

When I mentioned the class to a friend, she said she's been looking for an "adult-handwriting class." She said her handwriting is horribly embarrassing and wants to improve it. I literally laughed out loud when she told me about her class search. I found a class in Pennsylvania that promises to: increase legibility of print or cursive styles, increase fluency and speed, reduce pain in fingers or hands when writing and improve pencil grasp for greatest efficiency of movement. Too bad my friend lives in D.C. She could have signed up for this class. She's yet to find a class in her area.

While admiring my new talent, I also hope to make some money by addressing envelopes, writing invitations, etc. The average calligrapher charges $2 an envelop and the average bride and groom invites 150 people to their wedding. That could be a quick $300 bucks. I'm a true believer that an invitation sets to the tone for an event and I love to receive invitations scribed by a calligrapher.

I'm looking forward to sculpting words into art.

Vaction spot is in the eye of the storm

My husband and I go on a big trip every year for our anniversary. The first year was Paris, second was Savannah, Ga., the third was South Africa and this October we're headed to Turks and Caicos. We hope.

Turks and Caicos (T&C) is a small island in the Caribbean. It's south of the Bahamas, east of Cuba and north of the Dominican Republic. And with the last two hurricanes - Gustav and Hanna - T&C has been in the eye of the storm. And weather forecasters are already talking about Ike.
September is the height of hurricane season and even though we're only eight days in, it's been very busy.

I frequent the forums on tripadvisor.com, a website for travelers. There's a forum for just about every place in the world, so lately, I've been on the T&C forum. There are tons of people posting messages about their travel plans - or trip reports - the best hotels, what to do and where the foodies should eat. When I logged onto trip advisor this morning, all of the talk was about Hanna and the damage she left in T&C. Some of the resorts are closed at least until Ike blows through. One traveler, who was scheduled to stay at The Sands in T&C this weekend, was told her reservation had been transferred to the The Sands in Jamaica. Wow!

Locals who work in the hotels, bars, restaurants and the airport, those who essentially who make the tourism industry happen, have packed up and gone home. Sometimes people forget that just because they have booked a vacation, that without the workers, there is no vacation.

I called the resort my husband and I will be staying for hopefully six glorious days and it's fine now and hopefully, that will be the case after Hurricane Ike.

I'm hoping things will settle down by October, but if they don't, I've put some safeguards in place: today, I bought trip insurance.

Where's the diversity?

I wasn't nearly excited about watching the Republican National Convention as I was the Democratic National Convention, but thought I'd tune in anyway.

The first thing I noticed about the crowd in Minnesota was the lack of diversity.

"This doesn't represent America," I said out loud.

The members of the GOP looked just as happy as the Dems did last week. They were cheering, clapping and wearing those silly hats. But what was missing from the GOP crowd was the beautiful diversity America offers. I admit, I only watched about 45 minutes, but in that time, I only noticed three blacks and one Hispanic, the rest were white men and women, many wearing cowboy hats. But the diversity during the Democratic convention was so apparent, that I didn't even notice it, if that makes sense. It took not seeing many black or brown faces to realize how diverse the Democratic party really is.

As someone who is extremely liberal, I don't understand how anyone can be a Republican, and I often feel sad for them. But last night, I felt especially sad for the GOP. I wondered if they noticed the lack of diversity. I can only guess probably not because their party doesn't mirror the real world.