I thought I had given up the deep seeded human need to look good, but apparently my wife, Diane, hit a nerve earlier today when she commented on the fact that my new tennis shoes actually make me look like I was wearing some pair of geriatric grandpa shoe. No offense to you grandpas, but I trust you all know what I mean and will not be offended by this assessment of my shoes. See the picture to the above.

Now, when Diane expressed her loving assessment of my shoes it dawned on me that I have a budding artist who loves to color and draw (still outside the lines at this age). I decided that I would let Raelin have a go at my shoes. What the heck I thought – I can only go up from here. And, they were only $40 shoes (on sale of course down from $70 or something like that) that I will wear out and throw away probably in the next 6 months provided I stay healthy and keep playing tennis.

So, Raelin and I sat down to start working on daddy’s shoes (see the action shot). We colored on my shoes for about 15 minutes until something else captured Raelin’s attention. I don’t think we’re done with this fun project, but for today we are. Here is a picture of the product in progress.

Diane’s assessment of these shoes has been modified to something like: “your shoes now look like they are a child’s art project.” Phew I said, I can now wear these with pride as I go about my tennis practices and matches here in sunny Chandler AZ. No more grandpa shoes for me. And, I hope this can provide some inspiration for those of you who have kids and want to spruce up an old pair of shoes. I’m sure Raelin will love to see daddy wear them. (I hadn’t worn them as of when Raelin went to bed – we wanted to make sure they were dry).

Oh, we just used the basic dry erase marker – the warnings on the back suggest to not use on porous material. My assumption about all that was that it was because they would not be so erasable. And they aren’t. Enjoy.