Man On A Ledge

Just a really quick posting here today. Shot these pics on last Saturday with David. Going to be so busy this week between an event tonight, Tool concert Wednesday night, doctor's appointments on Thursday and Friday, plus I work a full-time job. I've got more posts coming up plus a little secret that I kinda let some know on twitter during Blog Trends Chat, so if you caught it you know. 

Sweater - via Marshalls

Minus the Leather Jacket - Express

Dress used as skirt - Old Navy ($6!!!) 

Leopard tights - Target 

Booties - Steve Madden 

Vintage Bag - Etienne Aigner (my favorite bag ever)

Aviators - Ray-ban 

my impersonation of being on a ledge or mile high platforms 

Army of Trees

sweater - knitted by my mom years ago
shorts - thrifted Levi's cutoffs
sock - Nordstrom Rack
boots - Steve Madden
locket - vintage gift from my mom

Oh do I absolutely wish I was in these woods right now. I feel the need to get away, I torn in the love department. I don't know if I could set out and search for new love and open my heart for it or keep to myself and continue to build the wall I started. I am also worried about my health issue and a few other life choices I have to make this year and soon.

I love these trees, so tall and perfectly spaced, like sentinels an army of brave souls to protect me. Keep me from harm and guide me down the right path. One day it will happen but until then I just pretend that these trees are my army.

How awesome is this sweater. Its got so much going on with it, checkers, tassels, sequins, chevrons and colors but yet they combine well. My mother designed and knitted this sweater back 20 years ago and yet it is still in great condition.

Finally Some Snow

This past Saturday NYC finally got its first snow fall for the season.  We got a little more than 4 inches here in Queens, so it left a pretty white blanket all around. So I braved the snow and headed a few blocks from my house to David's house. By the time I headed out the snow was down to a light flake here and there and most of the sidewalks were shoveled and salted. 

After a few movies, pizza and a puzzle I headed home. On my way home I saw a large electrical manhole fire with blue flames, my Father a retired firefighter told me it was when the salt mixes with water and the electrical lines and a short happens. There were about 5 fire trucks and 20 firefighters keeping an eye on it so all was well. But it was still pretty spectacular to see. 

Turtleneck and tech gloves - Target

Skirt - Thrifted 

Coat - Michael Kors

Bag - Rebecca Minkoff

Boots - Madden Girl

Socks - Urban Outfitters 

Scarf - Calvin Klein

Trapper hat and sunglasses - street vender

Something Personal

Ok so for those who follow me on Twitter or Facebook might have heard me say something about receiving bad news. Yes I did and it concerns my health.

It all started on Monday Jan 16th when I had a shocking pain in abdomen occur during my lunch hour at work. Since I never felt this pain before, I was concerned. I went through all the thoughts of gas, kidney stone, appendicitis or since I had a major operation back in September 2010 to remove a fibroid from my uterus, I thought it had to do with that. My boss seeing that I was in pain suggested that I go to the ER, but I refused. I refuse because I know I am going to wait 3 hours for them just to give me Advil. Being that it was also Martin Luther King day, I was unable to see a regular doctor or even my gyno. But I did make an appointment the next day to see my gynecologist in thinking that my pain had to do with something lady like. 

Tuesday I wake up 5am with the pain again, I called out of work. But I made it to my doctors appointment at noon with out another incident.  I tell my doctor about the pain and has me  have a sonogram, luckily it was done in the office. The girl doing the sono had some serious issues between finding my right ovary and realizing she found something on my left. My right ovary was so tiny she could not believe that the speck on her screen was it and told me that my left had large cyst on it. So after 30 min of internal sono, not pleasant at all, she leads me to my doctors personal office. My doctor chats with her in the sono room and comes back to me. She tells me that the mass on my left ovary is very large and that it is solid. She tells me that she wants to take blood samples and also she wants me to have a MRI scan to confirm what the sono picked up. She also continued to tell me about having to see an oncologist and more blood tests to which at that point my brain was detached from my head.

 I am not thinking the worst at this point because after reading magazine after magazine I know that if it is ovarian cancer its not serious, if caught in time and removed I will be free from cancer. The "C" word, yup I said it. My chance that it is ovarian cancer is small, I think.  Most of the time ovarian solid mass cyst are just that cysts. Ive read stories of them growing to grapefruits. So I am not worried, or should I be. Because according to my nurse Mom and Nurse-practicioner Sister I am not taking this serious enough. Yes I am putting off the MRI till next week, but I am still waiting on blood results to come up, they take two days to process. I am writing this almost at midnight Thursday so I will probably get the results of the blood test tomorrow. The blood test I am told is to check levels of something to be able to have an MRI not to check to see if I have cancer cells running in my blood. I am not a doctor, so details are way over my head. 

Oh you think I forgot something, I never mentioned the ability to have children. This will be a damper on that, but since I have been very young I never had the want or need to have children of my own and it will never change, so I am not worried about that. And yes a woman at 32 years of age can know for sure.  

Wow this is more than I meant to write, but I can never word things shortly. But I just wanted to give you a heads up. Because it is affecting my blogging, I am absolutely exhausted, so much so I cancelled going to 3 events and can't even think about getting some outfit shots done. At this point really all I wanna wear are some sweat pants and tees, mainly because my abdomen area is swollen and painful and I wanna sleep all day.  I am still working full time but I will skip out on a few more events that I have been invited to and I am probably not participating in Fashion Week activities next month.

Otherwise I will try to keep you my readers posted on my on going situations. For those of you wishing me well and luck, Thank You, your thoughts and prayers are greatly appreciated. 

Colorful Shoes Diary

There is a bit of a story behind the title of my blog, Black Shoes Diary, a story that goes back to my childhood. When I was young the only shoes I had were patent leather Mary Jane's one in black and one in white, one pair of sneakers and a pair of cowboy boots. When it came to choosing shoes for play or school I never had the choice of choosing black shoes and I ended up having pink colored shoes. Yes I know I had the black MJ's but they were for church and what little girl didn't have patent leather MJ's? <---probably a lot of you

Fast forward to my early teens when I got to choose my own shoes, if you guess that I chose to buy only black shoes, you guessed right. Well it didn't help that I had gone through a grunge/goth moment when in the ages of 11 to 15. I had black converses, black Doc Martins and yet again black platform MJ's. But even when I grew out of those moments I still choose black for my shoes. I mean black goes with everything, right? I was continuing to choose black shoes throughout my 20's, although I had a sprinkle of colorful shoes here and there. I had so few color shoes that I could count them on one hand and I could name them off for what occasion I bought them for. But now that I am in my 30's I have decided to add more colors to my shoes and my goal with my blog was to do that. 

Since last year I managed to buy more shoes of color. I still managed to buy about 7 pairs of black ones. 

From L-T 

top row: Jeffery Campbell, Steve Madden, Dollhouse, Dolce Vita, Vera Wang for Kohls

middle row: Steve Madden, Madden Girl, Nine West, Forever 21, Charlotte Russe

bottom row: Aldo, Target, MIA, Fusion

I just got these babies this week and I cannot wait to wear them!

Jessica Simpson "Frenchi" platform in burnt red via Endless

Blue Collared Slacker

Hey all! Sorry for the lack of outfit posts, but Ive been a busy girl working on my other room. I was just chatting about how I consider my blog my other living space. I have designed both in basically the same way, I have used interior design pictures from magazines, books and magazines as inspiration. I love clean lines and simple pops of color. 

So this past weekend after draping myself in diamonds last friday.  I took a trip out to the island to pick up a new dresser at Ikea, since my old one just crapped out, I also picked up a larger floor mirror and few other things.  But with me I can't just do one thing so getting a new dresser involved me into moving my furniture around again. You can see on my other blog in this post how it was originally repainted and decorated. But my furniture has been rearranged to make it more outfit photo taking/Zumba friendly.

my old arrangement circa June 2010

So I still have a bit of hole patching, sanding, painting and furniture arranging to do. When  its done I promise some new pictures. Until then here are some inspirations I really love and that I used. 

As if you can't tell, I really do like the grey, black and white pallet and a modern-eclectic-traditional feel. 

***Update 1/14/11*** The pictures of my new arrangement aren't in this post, I may have confused people. My bestie has informed me that it seems that my room picture looks like what I was referring to in the new arrangement, its not,  I am yet to take pictures.


I really should not talk as much as I should in my post until I get a full time editor, I maybe confusing people a lot.

Conception to Reality

Sometimes I always wish I was styling someone else and doing the photography because I really have no modeling skills to pull off my idea of what I want. A lot of my looks require longer legs and very awkward posing which I have not grabbed the concept of quite yet. 

In these few photos I am not trying to pose for an outfit as much as I am trying to convey a feeling. I wanted to grasp the concept of old world innocence. I wanted to give something for my mom to base a painting on, while I don't need her to grab my face I wanted to give her the concept of a painting I want to commission from her. 

Wait did I tell you my Mom is an artist? Yeah she is talented in many ways, but one of her best attributes is her painting. Unfortunately she does not sell her pieces but you can check out her jewelry that she makes and sells from her own website Rosalia's Designs. 

Diamond Unique

Girl's like diamonds right? Yup, and this girl is no different. But I love the classics whether they are vintage or vintage inspired pieces. 

But if you are a baller or looking for something special you can head over to the heart of the diamond district of NYC on 47th and check out Rafaello & Co. This past Friday I was invited to check out their wonderfully constructed jewelry pieces. Run by third generation jewelers, the store is full beautiful and unique jewelry that would satisfy any persons taste. Perhaps if you don't find what you are looking for they can custom make something that you have in mind. 

Maybe while you are their you'll bump into a celeb picking up their custom made pieces. I actually saw a full Voltron figure and was told it was going to be replicated in diamonds in the coming year, Ill be going back to see that. 

  But Rafaello & Co is not all about the bling outside, they have diamonds fin their hearts. Ten percent of their sales from the Blackout collection goes to the charity All As One, a charity that provides for the needs of those in Sierra Leone. 

A special thanks to Rafaello & Co and Gabriel and his staff for showing us the pieces. 

Vintage pieces that I was drooling over. 

Diamond cocktail rings

Ive always wanted a diamond necklace like this

I need these or least the Autobot one (on right in red)

Ce-Lo Green's watch 

More pictures after the Jump

Prepped Up

Since my trip to North Carolina I am going to have a few left over outfit shots as I got a few new things through thrifting and raiding my mothers closet. I feel that I got some great things thanks to my eye for potentials and great finds. 

This outfit was a combo of seeing the potential in something blah and a great find. First, the skirt I found was once long and bulky and I just brought up the hem to the waist line and made my self a nice bubble skirt. Whats also great about this skirt is that it has pockets and its in a warm flannel so I can get great use out of it throughout the winter. I also found this exact skirt in another thrift shop in another grey and black plaid which I hemmed the same way. 

Plaid is almost everywhere this season brought back in dresses, coats and shoes, from McQueen to to the well know Burberry. Speaking of Burberry and McQueen I believe Emma Watson wore a McQueen plaid dress. I have been researching plaids lately and I a fun fact about the McQueen dress plaid, it actually called MacQueen Family or Clan Tartan. My skirt while similar in colors is called the Wallace Family or Clan Tartan. Learn more about plaids here.

Picture via Ooh La La Blog

I also manage to thrift the sweater which is part of a 1950's vintage set that includes a matching green pleated skirt and mock neck sweater. I pickup another set in blue and my mother picked up on in a beige, each set having a different layout to them. This set was my favorite, the green being a perfect shade and the Fleur-de-Lys patch incorporated in the cardigan. I cannot wait to show you the other pieces and according to the owner of the thrift shop I went to there were 25 sets of these all from an estate sale and the pieces looked barely worn like mine. 

Green card - Beggars and Choosers Antique store (Pittsboro NC)

Plaid skirt - Goodwill (Raleigh, NC)  

Black tank - H&M

Navy platforms - Steve Madden via a tremendous markdown at Marshalls

Thigh high socks - Nordstrom Rack

To The Next Twelve

Happy New Years all!

Like last year I spent New Years with my friend David and a few friends in the neighborhood. We had a nice ham dinner a bit of dessert and after watching the ball drop we watched the Twilight Zone. This year  David was on standby to leave at any moment because is his sister was about to give birth (her due date was New Years day) but luckily she didn't give birth till the following night on her due date! So congrats to Uncle David!

Sweater - Attention via Kmart

Leggings and spotted socks - Target

Shoes - Madden Girl

Silver cuffs - Forever 21

Nail polish - Anja by Zoya

I hope everyone had a great New Years and are going to fulfill their resolutions for the new year. Ive made a different resolution this year for myself. I want to be healthier in mind body and soul, I had a rough year last year dealing with health and mental issues. But this year I want to change my outlook on life, but while I may not accomplish it in the next year, I would like to start a new path of positivity.