Shoe Psychology

It’s no secret that many women (and an increasing number of men) have obsessive compulsive relationships with their shoes, I certainly do. I have an alarming number of shoes, sandals and boots and everything in between. In fact, I’ve never counted them cause I’m a bit frightened to find out the exact number of shoes I own, what I can say is that more than likely I could change my shoes every single day and not wear the same pair twice in a year. Scary, I know.

I’m also an equal opportunity shoe owner; I don’t discriminate at all. I own very expensive designer shoes from my pre-kid, two-income, no-need-to-think-about-the-future days as well as crappy, cheap market shoes. Of course, all these shoes take up an inordinate amount of room and as my one, single, lonely new year’s resolution this year was to de-clutter my life I’ve lately hit upon the unfortunate realization that I need to get rid of some shoes. Today was the day I chose to do this.

Let me just say that today has been highly traumatic for me. I know, I know, most of you are thinking that after all we’ve been through lately, I can’t possibly be traumatized by having to part with some shoes. But the human mind is a mysterious thing and it creates strong attachments in surprising ways.

Let’s talk a bit about shoe psychology, shall we? As anyone with as many shoes as I have knows, shoes rarely get bought with a specific purpose or need in mind, shoes usually get bought for one of three reasons:

- A strong fatal attraction, wherein you’re walking along minding your own business and out of the corner of your eye you spy… something… an imperceptible flash of color, a vibration that tickles your stomach and you turn against your will and find yourself totally and completely smitten. These are the shoes that have the potential to change your life, when you find them you know, deep in your heart that you will suddenly become thinner, smarter, stronger, more confident and more beautiful. These are the shoes that love affairs are made of. You buy them, of course, despite the price, despite your actual need. In fact, you don’t even look at the price, these aren’t shoes you need cause you have to match them to an outfit or cause you have to wear them to cousin Myrtle’s wedding, no these are the shoes you need because once you have them your life will suddenly have meaning and purpose.

- Boredom and dissatisfaction. You’re unhappy with your life, your job sucks, your husband / boyfriend / partner is a dick, it’s been raining for three weeks straight and your bank account is anemic, basically your life looks like it’s going to collapse into itself creating a monstrous black hole that will finally finish sucking all of your joy, hope and dreams into the void. This is when you go out and buy a totally useless, moderately priced, uncomfortable pair of shoes in a funky color that you think you’ll be able to match to something. These shoes were bought simply for the fleeting high generated by the salesperson’s smile, the swish of your credit card and the crinkle of the store bag. These shoes will spend eternity on their shelf in your closet, covered in dust, unworn.

- Actual necessity. This reason for buying shoes boggles the mind. When you own as many shoes as I do it is unimaginable that you’d find yourself in a situation wherein you actually need to buy a pair of shoes for a specific reason. But this happens, with alarming frequency I might add.

So, these are the main reasons why shoes get bought. Guess which one happens to me most often? Anyway, back to the whole point of this post, today I got rid of some shoes. I didn’t count how many but I filled a large, large trash bag. I’m starting to get heart palpitations just thinking about it.

This little exercise was equally terrifying and liberating. Liberating because, seriously, who needs ten pairs of black shoes with the same heel height? Terrifying because who in their right mind gets rid of Blahniks? In any case, I feel quite good and my shoe cabinets look amazing and I’ve found shoes I had no memory of, oh and now all the shoes that are left actually fit. On a side note, for some inexplicable reason my feet have grown exactly one and a half sizes after the two pregnancies. I’m shocked and angry. In fact, this is why I managed to get rid of so many shoes, most of them didn’t fit anymore. It’s been a year and a half since I gave birth last so I’m thinking they’re not going back to their regular size, this happen to any of you, perchance?

Oh, just in case you were wondering, after I was done with what shall now be known as “the great shoe purge” I only went back to salvage two pairs of shoes, because, seriously, who in their right mind throws out a pair of Manolo Blahniks? So there you have it, a little psychology of the shoe.

Virtual Coffee {8}

Too bad Tuesday comes around but once a week cause I really enjoy this virtual coffee date. Well, actually maybe it’s not so bad as Tuesday is the Nanny’s day off and my life runs significantly less smoothly without her.  Anyway, now that I can finally sit down with my lovely Nespresso Coffee, I would tell you that my house looks like a train wreck (just without all the blood and gore of course).

You see spring is finally, officially here and I can no longer ignore my bi-yearly duty of the “seasonal closet rearrange” (about which I wrote extensively here, if you’re interested). This year I totally lucked out because my MIL and the husband’s aunt are visiting so not only do I have two extra sets of hands to move four people’s clothes, bags and shoes around, my MIL is also an organizational genius and she’s rearranging all my closets so I will never have to go throw this massive pain in the behind again. Ever. I am beyond thrilled. Also, I have someone with a very critical eye going through all my crap with me and constantly going “are you sure you want to keep that?”. Now, I realize I may sound sarcastic right now, but I swear I’m not. Most of my friends would want to kill their MILs for sticking their nose so far into their business, but I am genuinely, seriously relieved and happy to have someone help me put order in my life. I love order, I’m simply missing the gene necessary to achieve it independently.

Also, if we were really having coffee today I would tell you that the boy seems to have potty trained himself all on his own this week, with really minimal intervention from me. I’ll be dedicating a post to this (isn’t my content grand?!) but I don’t want to jinx it, so for now I’m just sharing the news with a sigh of relief and the rest of my thoughts on this thoroughly interesting subject shall be forthcoming. I’m sure you’re all on the edge of your seats in anticipation.

I would also tell you that I’m beyond thrilled (again) because the husband is showing signs of having GVHD (graft versus host disease) which sounds truly horrible and means that his immune system attacks certain cells on his body, in this case his skin, but is really, actually, wonderfully amazing news because it means that the immune system is starting to work and therefor should take care of the few random cancer cells that always remain after chemo. Basically, the husband has a rash that itches and stings and is a ginormous pain but we’re all thrilled to pieces cause it’s a sign the transplant worked and this time his immune system is doing it’s damn job. It doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods or anything but it’s a positive sign and frankly at this point we are happy to celebrate even the smallest victories.

Ok, finished my cup and hope you enjoyed yours! I’m off to stare in wonderment at my halfway finished closet and try to get the rest of the mess under control.

Oh, but one last thing, I have an extra special, super duper guest post tomorrow that you absolutely cannot miss because this girl’s writing is amazing. So please come back to check her out and say hello.

Now go say hi to our hostess Amy!

For my Italian readers: MIL sta per mother in law (suocera)

Clutter, be gone! Behold, Order.

I started the year with a massive hankering for some order. And not just your run of the mill, it’s a New Year so I need to clear out the old, type of hankering but more of a, I’m drowning under the weight of crap accumulated over the last ten years, throw out, throw out, THROW OUT!! So I made myself a list. I won’t share the list, because, frankly, it’s boring as hell, plus it’s four pages long, but I will share the method behind the list in the hopes that it turns out to be useful to someone else.

I’ve always had a hard time being organized (ok, I’m not organized at all) but I’m fatally attracted to orderly things. I love the Martha Stewart Living tips on organizing your life, or gaining control over clutter, or a meticulously orderly sock drawer, I’ve just always thought that these things were unattainable to me, I've always thought, "I wish we had a Container Store in Italy, but we don’t, so I’m doomed to clutter in my life". And then this year I had an epiphany of sorts… I have too much crap. That’s why my house is a mess, that’s why I create the infamous “black holes” all over the place, that’s why I never find a damn thing to wear in two closets full of clothes. I. Have. Too. Much. CRAP. And you know what the solution is? I’m throwing crap out. I’m serious, it’s that easy! What? So I just hadn’t thought of this before!

Of course me, being me (or is it I being I?? or possibly me, being I?? anyone have time to look it up?) I had to leave myself a few loopholes… Like Saturday I cleaned out my closet and the rule was if it doesn’t fit throw it out. Except I’ve been saving some things for years (remember two pregnancies in a row, two breastfed babies) that I may yet fit into… so I allowed myself to keep five items per category that don’t fit yet (but did fit right before the pregnancies, I threw out stuff from, say, college). This made it easier for me, and I have a goal to work towards, and I still filled two large garbage bags of clothes for charity. And I’m so thrilled with the result, I feel pounds lighter! You should totally check out my underwear drawer, it’s amazing, and I found some really nice bras I had completely forgotten about hidden under all the maternity and nursing crap. I would totally post a picture, but it’s my underwear, so that would be a little weird.

So basically I divided my house into areas of attack, not by rooms, but by items, like clothes, cds, books, documents etc. Last weekend I attacked my clothes, next weekend I’m attacking the baby clothes boxes. I don’t know if we’ll be having any more kids but one thing I learned between baby number one and two is that the seasons may not be just right, babies grow at different rates, if I didn’t use it with baby number 1, I probably won’t use it with baby number 2 and also, when a new baby comes you still get presents, and you still want to buy them stuff, so there’s no point in saving everything. Again, I get to keep five items, per kid, per size. So I won’t be torturing myself by trying to throw everything out, but I will get rid of a LOT of crap, and making room for new stuff in case another baby is in our future.

And lastly I’m investing in a couple of hard drives and a paper shredder. Hard drives because I have an insane amount of music on CDs that we no longer listen to what with the ipods and iphones and such that have taken over our lives. CDs are taking up useless space in the house, the cars and the attic, so we’re getting rid of them and just putting all the music on hard drives. This will take forever. But it will be sooooo worth it that I almost can’t wait to get started. Almost. But I’m going to do it, I’ve got a whole year to do it, so it will get done. And a paper shredder because I have piles of documents, bank statements, utilities statements, credit card statements… from the nineties… do I really need to keep all that crap? So I’m scanning what I may need, and I’m shredding the bejeezus out of everything apart from passports, birth certificates and car deeds, stuff I REALLY need to keep. The rest is CRAP, so out it goes. 

And so on and so forth all through the house. The bottom line is I’m only keeping stuff I actually use at least once a year. Every year. The rest? Crap. And you know where that goes!
Wish me luck, I’ll keep you updated, and please, hold me accountable, cause by the end of this year my life must be rid of useless crap. So I’ll have a beautiful, orderly, organized, de-cluttered house, with loads of room.

For me to fill with new crap.

Such is the cycle of life.