I got the shoe gene. 

I don’t know where it came from, but it is the one inherited girlie trait I really have.  I must stay away from any store that has a sign with the words “shoe” and “sale” anywhere in near congruence, or my financial future will come under serious threat from my irresistable compunction to buy shoes. 

I lost over 100 pairs of shoes and boots in Katrina.

And they are among some of the top things that I miss.

My books.  My grandmother’s hope chest.  My pastel portrait of me at four years old.  And my shoes.

After losing so much in Katrina, I decided to try, against all odds, to resist the rampant accumulation of consumer goods that preceded the catastrophe.  If I didn’t view the whole incident as a material lesson (pardon the pun), in how we should not over-consume, then there was no lesson at all, and nothing in life makes any sense.  And that, in my world, is unacceptable.

But the shoes.  Man.  That’s been hard. 

I have taken to cloaking my shoe-buying compulsion in maternal rectitude.  My son only has TWO pairs of shoes that fit him  Two.  Is that enough, I ask you, for an active child?  Of COURSE not.  Harry needs shoes.

So, I broke down and spent way, way too much money buying things that my son will wear for, well, maybe six months.

These:

And these:

 Are on their way to my son.  Because Harry needs shoes. 

I need professional help.