100 shoes in 100 days

Workday in Madrid. Usually when I come “home” on business I try to fit in a little extra time to see old friends or at least get a few hours to walk around. This time around was very much of a fly in fly out affair but I still enjoy a stroll past the very familiar Bernabeu stadium on my way to a meeting. It’s strange when you come back to a city you lived in for so long. It’s so familiar and everything from the air to the actual tap water just feels – right.

Intense meetings as always and not a lot of luggage means planning and dressing for anything. Not fancy, but very comfortable and weather appropriate open platform heels. Bought two years ago between meetings in one of the many little shoe-shops in the Salamanca district.

Ala Madrid!!!

Halfway there!!!!

My mother asked me a very relevant question the other day; what’s the point of this shoe-thing? To be fair, although my mother is fantastic and a pillar, she has never quite gotten my shoe thing in general. Add to this a social media, blogging element and it’s all a little above and beyond.

Very simply put, the point is it’s a bit of fun. Going through my shoe-closet, forcing myself to wear stuff and use the shoes that after all I’ve paid a decent sum for. Writing about it and having something to chat about. Heads up to all the new people I’ve connected with through my diligent instagramming!

Point number two is cleaning out the closet. Making peace and dealing with my inner hoarder – the boxes of clothes that I’ve been lugging around for years and haven’t used and as a natural extension of this the piles of other stuff that we just don’t need anymore.

Point number three, and maybe the most important, is repurposing and rehousing and contributing to a good cause.

Consequently I have sold and donated, cleaned and evaluated. So far I have collected about 3500 SEK that will be making its way to a local charity on Lidingö. The downside is that I’ve actually downsized a bit. Not sure I have the 100 pairs of shoes anymore. Will continue to use a different pair every day until I run out though.

Today, travel shoes again. Worn previously but not as protagonists, my most comfortable, most versatile and most valuable camel Tory Burch Revas. They go with everything, always. Have been going through a sequence of these religiously for the past summers, wearing them till they are in tatters. Love!!!!!
Sent by carrier pigeon. Pardon the typos!

The thing about weekends and kids is that you end up having even less time to yourself than you do during a work-day.

After a morning of intense weeding and garden work aided by Thing 2, I barely had time to shower and get ready for an afternoon barbecue with lovely friends on Lidingö. No time to think about the outfit and pressed for time also no time to pick out the right shoes.

Pulled out a pair of black sandals from the bottom of a box. Sandals that I bought during the last leg of pregnancy #2 in blistering hot NYC when nothing else fit and flip-flops every day seemed a little too uncivilised. Don’t love even a little bit and although they have passed the shoe challenge, will be adding these to the next load for charity.

When I was a kid, my parents always insisted we dressed up for travel. Not to the extent that we were uncomfortable or impractical but there was a sense of festivity about getting ready for a trip.

As an adult I continue to feel like getting on a plane should see me at my something close to best, rather than my worst. Not only because it feels proper, but also because it helps if you want to have a shot at an elusive free upgrade, or extra service.

Picked up my mother at the airport today. And as I stood waiting for her observed the people around me. There’s something very special about the energy at an arrivals lounge and you can see that a lot of people have made an extra effort in getting ready; for themselves, for the trip, or for the person they are about to meet.

Last of the loafers and last of the Gucci. Pink suede with horsebit. Again a bargain from the basement outlet in London’s east end.

That interesting thing  that happens when a sneaker company teams up with a designer and makes…? Stella McCartned for Addidas!

I usually wear these mostly around the house/garden but took a daring step today as I headed off to all of Sweden’s favourite weekend pastime – IKEA.

Our current garden furniture has started to grow something green on the seats, and as we have friends from afar coming for dinner next week, we made an impulse decision. Don’t get me wrong, I like IKEA as much as the next Swede. I just don’t understand how it is I always end up there alone negotiating an overfull trolley with 20-odd flat packs which I then proceed to load into the car by myself. I swear, everywhere I look I see pairs or groups of people. Helping each other, lifting together. And the really ridiculous thing is I don’t even suggest Mr K should come along. Just jump into the car with a cheerful, “see you later!”.

Serves me damn right!

Something about silver shoes brighten just about any day. As previously recounted, The Kandimaa family had a bit of a rough night last night. Between time spent at the emergency room with Thing 2 and Thing 1 waking up and demanding iPad time at 4.30 a.m. I didn’t exactly wake up doing summersaults.

Because I felt like a mommy-wreck I wore fancy pyjama pants to work. Because there are limits to my dressing down, I paired them with silver ballerinas. Tory Burch again. Always perfect, always appropriate.

 

Got all shoed-up today in magical denim Jimmy Choos as I was going out for a rare dinner with ex-expat group of girlfriends tonight.

International life has its ups and downs and one of the slight downs is what happens when you move “back home” after several years of expat life. Nothing. Of course I don’t mean nothing happens at all but socially it’s a tricky situation. Living overseas means that every time you come home for a visit the social agenda is jam packed. Evening after evening is filled with dinners, drinks and hanging out with people who are genuinely thrilled to see you and excited to hear of your life in New York/London/Dubai/Khartoum or wherever. Time flies and everybody makes an effort.

Moving back you imagine you are going to slot right back into your old circles and back into your own life only to realise that everybody else has of course moved on and formed a life. Not that your friends aren’t still just as lovely and pleased to see you, as you are them, but naturally things just aren’t ever the same as they were you were all 25 and string free.

To avoid total emotional collapse;  it is a very good idea to arm yourself with a life of your own. This group of former New York City moms who have moved back to Stockholm are a very welcome and dear addition to that life of my own.

Things didn’t quite work out as I had planned. Had to take little boy K to the emergency room as a precaution due to an inflammation in the nether regions. So instead of drinking cava in Choos I’m drinking water out of a paper cup in white sneakers.

 

A real surprise in the process of my 100 day shoe and writing challenge is the real joy that I have found in the documenting part. As a teenager I used to write all the time as a way of sorting my thoughts; carrying around with me a pen and notepad at all times and pulling it out to capture ideas, images or moods. What happened to that? In a box in our storage room I still have material for what I though would be my first big novel and that I’ve started to work on half a dozen times before life, work and stuff kept getting in the way. And while I know I will never likely come up with a Catcher in the Rye it strikes me that somewhere deep inside I still harbour the dream to put my thoughts into print.

Shoes of the day are red Marc Jacobs heels bought on my very first trip to New York. A mass of very fake pearls from a flea market match the little pearl on the front of each shoe.

These days I carry my laptop with me more than I do a pad and pen but maybe my literary breakthrough is still not out of reach…