I Have Happy Feet

Some days I especially love being a girl! This afternoon, D, one of my favorite coworkers, invited me to join her on a shoe-shopping trip. Shoe shopping is one of my favorite activities, especially when there is a store the size of DSW nearby. I was in the market for some patent leather heels in red or black and some black sandals.

Now shoe shopping is one of those things that could really get out of hand for me without a few ground rules to narrow the selection:

1. Shoes must be attractive and classic.
2. No flip-flops, Uggs, crocs, jellies, high-top sneakers, wedge heels, metallic, extreme stilettos, high platforms, overly trendy colors or any other shoes that could be considered impossibly trendy.
3. No shoes designed by criminals (sorry, Steve Madden).
4. No shoes designed by dim-witted celebutantes (sorry, Jessica Simpson).

And, finally, the toughest rule of all:

5. No shoes made in China.

(I must admit, the China rule is occasionally broken when I'm in the market for shoes that don't seem to be made anywhere else, like tennis shoes. But, for the most part, it is an effective way to weed through 95% of the shoes available and zero in on that must-have pair.)

DSW is the mothership for women who love shoes, and we easily spent 2 hours in the store (and could have stayed longer, but for Mr. Y's irritation that I wasn't home for dinner. oops.).

I started in the sale section (the best place to start to avoid the frustration of shoes you like not being available in your size, as the sale shoes are all organized by size), while D roamed the aisles. We both got lucky!











D found 3 pairs she really liked, while I tried on 8 and finally settled on 4 that I wanted to buy. (Unfortunately, I went so crazy that I failed to notice the striking similarity between a pair I had to have and a pair I already owned. I might be taking one pair back)

So here's the damage:

I must admit, it's nice to finally own some patent leather pumps, and the patent leather peep toes were a nice surprise (only one pair left in my size!). Yay for shoes!