100 shoes in 100 days

Last of the bargain basement bargains. Dolce & Gabbana New Year’s Eve shoes from Century 21 the last time I was in New York.

Good for working on loooong report but also great for drinks with bestest co-workers!

Tired today. Last full week of work before heading on vacation and much, much more than a weeks worth of work that needs doing.

Confirmation from well meaning colleague that I look tired. Trying to camouflage by strategically looking to the side in shoe-pic. Not sure it worked.

Shoes of the day #1. Leopard print high heeled loafers. Not usually my thing but fun to add a little unexpected pattern to an otherwise rather plain outfit.

Shoes of the day #2. Last person at the office. Flats now. Falling apart Gucci ballerinas that were the number one reason I occasionally felt glamorous during pregnancy #2. They are remarkably bouncy and expanding.

 

 

I was at a beautiful winter wedding in the small Swedish town many years ago and needed a pair of black heels that were sturdy enough to stand/walk/dance in but still looked fancy. A friend of mine was wearing a pair of perfect suede platforms that looked effortless, timeless and super elegant.

I actually still remember feeling slightly uncomfortable in my own pointy heels. And when I saw almost the exact same shoe as my friend had worn some time later at LK Bennet I jumped. They weren’t massively expensive but really well made and still fit really well over 10 years later.

Today’s program included a couple of meetings, prepping for a sales pitch, brisk walk to lunch with an old friend and a few more meetings. Looking good my friends!

It’s perfectly normal for a 40 year-old mother of two to go grocery shopping in 9cm boots with sparkles, right? On a Sunday afternoon in June to boot (pun intended).

When I set myself the 100 days for my shoechallenge I based it on a quick counting through of my shoes. I also figured I’d give myself a nice round number with some extra days of padding for those days when something came in the way of using a new pair. What I forgot is that on the 3rd of July we are heading for our cottage on the west coast. The car will be crammed as it is and the house is tiny so bringing a whopping 25 pairs of shoes is pretty out of the question. This coming week will be my end all be all on heels and then I’ll pack as many as I can get away with. Which means that potentially anything I don’t manage to wear this week will have to go. Panicking a little and hence shopping in not the most appropriate footwear.

Midsummers day and 27 degrees hot in Stockholm. These are not words you often hear in the same sentence.

I quite regularly suffer from acute fear of wasting my life away paired with overachiever angst over the fact that everyone else seems to have a more perfect life/more successful career/better work-life balance. So pulled our collective couch potato out and booked a table for four at a very small and relaxed restaurant on a tiny island outside Lidingö where we live.

It doesn’t happen often for us but this afternoon everything just fell into place. The boys were well behaved, the taxi boat was charming, the weather was perfect and emergency use of Apple devices was down to 0%. And my glass of rose overlooking the water was – perfect!

 

 

It’s midsummers eve. This is a really big deal in Sweden, almost as big as Christmas and conveniently located exactly halfway between this Christmas Eve and next.

This is the day that we put flowers in our hair, dance around giant phallic symbols a.k.a May poles and we celebrate the short but magical Swedish summer. Children laugh and eat strawberries, adults laugh and get drunk and teenagers roam around in search of the perfect party. The weather becomes our dictator, dreams are shattered and all imaginable Nordic stereotypes are fulfilled.

Theres something about the word midsummer that has always given me a little pang of seasonal angst. Tonight is the shortest night of the year and that inevitably takes us on the journey  towards darker times. Before summer has even properly started.

Growing up abroad we didn’t have that much tradition around midsummer and I’ve had some pretty bad experiences since moving to Sweden when too many expectations blew up in my face. Also some really good ones though and hope to make some more in years to come.

Took some much needed time for myself after herring and salmon had been consumed and walked the dog in a nearly deserted woods. Hello sneakers!

The thing about walking in heels, even really high heels, is that it´s all about practice. For many years I wore heels all day, every day to work. I would run to the bus/tube, go out for lunch and possibly drinks after without even thinking about it. Admittedly there are more comfortable options out there and they are not for everyone but I´ve always liked that I carry myself in a different way with heels on. Also, Mr. K appreciates it as he usually towers over me at 195 cm. With a 10 cm heel we kind of meet half way!

Since I had a five year baby-break from office life when the kids were born, I got a little out of practice. Thanks to this experiment I have been “forcing myself” to walk in heels again. I´ve probably walked in heels more these past two months than I have in the past two years. Yay me!

Today, the heel of heels. 11 cm stilletoes with a 2cm plattform.

Important client meeting today together with some of the most senior consultants at our sister agency H&H. Prep for this meeting has been pretty gruelling but it went well so happy and more relaxed.

Chosing shoes today became tricky as all my usual go-to look professional staples have been used. Espadrilles are a safe bet in summer but these are maybe just a little over the top with gold sequins. Still they matched my top! 

Wise people say you can’t buy happiness and they are absolutely right. We all have our fair share of sorrow and anxiety that we need to deal with in whatever way we can. Friends and family are of course the biggest, and best pillow to land on.

But even if you are presently basically happy – have a solid family, good friends, a job that you like (or even better love) and a pretty decent outlook on life, things can get a little too much sometimes.  In situations like these I think things can certainly be alleviated by treating yourself to an emotional band-aid. In my case the mood elevator can most definitely be a new pretty bubblegum shoe. It’s not deep, it’s not going to make an impact on the world I live in but it works for me. Not ashamed to be shallow!

Rockstuds I love you!!!

 

 

I tried today, I really did. I’m working on a rather tedious report for a client today and I have an dear colleague and awesome UX ninja to help. Said ninja is a big fan of these leopard print boots from Tory Burch (another NK sale find) and I thought I’d wear them as a token of my appreciation (super corny I know).

All I can say is you kind of have to be in a special mood to wiggle around in 11 cm heels and I just wasn’t up for it. There are shoes for walking and there are shoes for sitting and these boots were not made for walking!

Thank you Converse for bailing me out after 1 hour of relative suffering.