Shoe Shopping

I'm not a shoe person.

Besides the fact that I wear shoes, mostly out of necessity (and to cover up my gnarly runners feet) and spent some time in retail, shoe selling purgatory, shoes do nothing for me. The sight of Manolo Blahniks or Jimmy Choos don't render me a pile of squeeing, girly shoe-loving delight.

I wear flip flops. And any other shoe that is comfortable and costs less than $30.

I do devote a fair amount of time (and money!) to finding the right running shoe, however. But, again, that is more out of necessity than anything else.

I took Caroline back-to-school shoe shopping this morning. She's a lot like me and doesn't care too much about foot wear. To her, any shoe that slips on is good enough. We took our low footwear standards to Payless this morning. Hello BOGO 1/2 off. Payless speaks my language: cheap. And, let's face it, kids are brutal with their shoes. I have no interest in buying Caroline pricey shoes that she'll ruin and/or grow out of by Christmas.



Yep, you saw that correctly. Caroline needed a ladies size 7!



But, she also got a pair of kids size 5 1/2. Go figure.


Poor kid has no hope. We're a big footed family.


Thanks to the influence of Caroline's friends, she was interested in getting some Converse All Star type shoes. Thankfully, Payless has Airwalks, which she found to be just as acceptable. I'm glad she's not caught up on name brands. Yet. I'm sure it will come, but for now, she's pretty easy to please.

Except for the part where we spent way too much time and energy deliberating between two pairs of plaid shoes. Seriously, I left the store feeling energy depleted after all the back and forth. I felt like I needed an iced coffee and a nap. You can probably guess which one I got. :)

Anyway, Caroline liked dark purple/blue/black plaid shoes; I liked the lighter pink/purple/aqua plaid. The ones I liked matched her clothes better, but Caroline was hung up on those other ones.

"Which ones should I get?" she asked. "I like the lighter plaid," I replied.

"I like those, but I still don't know," she said. (which means "I like them, but I like the others more")

"Get the ones you like," I said. "But I don't know." She replied.

That went on for a long time.

After all the back and forth she said "I wish I could get both!" I told her no way, because she also needed P.E. shoes.

I knew she wanted the darker ones, but since she knew I liked the others, she was afraid to admit it. I finally told her to get the ones she really liked because if she got the ones I liked to please me, she'd never wear them. I was willing to let her get the dark plaid ones, the ones that would clash with the majority of her clothing, because parenting is about sacrifice, right?

And then we had a bit of divine shoe intervention.

Divine intervention in the form of gray shoes.





These shoes were practically heaven sent. I liked them. Caroline liked them. They're neutral and will go with many outfits.

Perfect.

Except, they were too small. 6 1/2 in ladies--too small!
And a size 7 was no where in sight.

Back to square one.

More deliberating. We weighed the merits of both plaid patterns. We were still at an impasse.

And then I bent down and there before my very eyes were those gray shoes in a size 7. Somehow I overlooked them during my first hasty search.

It was like God was smiling at us.

BOGO and divine shoe intervention. What a great day!!