Fancy feets

You know that snowstorm that wallopped the Northeastern USA, Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime provinces on Monday? Yah, sorry about that. Mea culpa. You see, I bought some new spring shoes on the weekend, thus condemning us to at least six more weeks of winter (I'm far more reliable than Wiarton Willie or Punxsutawney Phil!)

I'm not really a shoe person. Mostly, I buy shoes because it's not socially acceptable to pad around in my socks all day. Not terribly comfortable in February, either. So shoes are a functional thing for me. I have some black ones, some brown ones. I have a couple of pairs for work, one of which is good for skirts. I have my winter boots (new and a steal from Globo this year) and a pair of Guess backless canvas tennis shoes that have come a long way from their original white. I have a pair of sandals for summer, of course, and a kicky little pair of cream coloured dress sandals with kitten heels I got last summer to wear to work. I have a pair of Timberland hikers that I have worn within an inch of their lives, and a pair of Saucony runners that I paid a comparatively small fortune for, but I love them. My single foray into the world of fashionable shoes has been this adorable pair of navy ballet flats with orange and cranberry and emerald embroidery and (gasp!) sequins that I bought last summer.

(Aren't they cute? And I paid a stunning TWELVE dollars for them.)

So I own probably ten pairs in all, maybe a dozen. It seems to me an excess of shoes, shoes for every occassion. They're all very nice, very functional, mostly comfortable and (with the exception of my fancy little ballet flats above) terribly uninteresting shoes.

My skirt shoes (I really have just one pair, a staid black pump with a two-inch heel and a square toe) had worn down considerably in the four years since I bought them to wear to work after my maternity leave with Tristan had ended. So this season, I found myself in need - okay, in want - of a new pair of skirt shoes.

I was in the mall on the weekend looking for new pants for Tristan (post for another day = what the holy hell do boys do to their pants that is so hard on the knees?) and I just happened to pop into Payless on my way by.

I started off looking for something in a staid black pump with a two-inch heel and a square toe. What I found was a sassy little patent leather(ish) slingback with kitten heels and a flirty little bow. LOVED them! I haven't worn patent leather shoes since I was six years old, but I immediately and deeply loved them. I had to have them.



You'll be shocked to hear that I was then mesmerized into buying a second pair by the buy-one-get-one-half-price devilry of Payless. As I mentioned, to date all my shoes have been variations on a safe neutral palette and conservative styling. But I've been studiously taking notes while watching Friday night episodes of What Not To Wear, and Clinton's exhortation to punch it up with a bold splash of colour was rattling through my brain when I set my sights on a gorgeous pair of (he says red, she says coral) strappy summer shoes with a skinny wedge heel.



Aren't they lovely? Red, strappy shoes. I feel so fancy! And so thrifty, too, because I paid only $40 for the lot, including tax.

(insert smug and fancy grin here)

But can I just take a minute to say that taking pictures of your own feet is not nearly so easy as it looks? Oh sure, the taking of the picture is easy enough, but the not making your legs look like sticks or amorphous blobs? Not so easy. Props to Marla, whose carefree feet photos seem as effortless as they are adorable. She is an unacknowledged master of the foot-photo, and of the foot family portrait.

So, bloggy friends, having just endured an entire post about my feet, do tell me about yours. Are you a shoe person? What are your favourite shoes?