I love shoes...

I am now an owner of TOMS!

TOMS are a brand of shoes. When purchased, the company donates a pair of shoes to children in Third World countries. They are somewhat expensive, depending on your accounted budget to buy shoes. To me, the shoes are for tree-huggers. And over the past few years, I have come to consider myself one.

The first time that I saw the shoes, they were on the feet of my friend Carly Cahoon, aka Tangerine. I think that Tangerine is the coolest thing since sliced bread. I wish there were more people in the world like her. Since that is relatively impossible, I am more than content to be a friend of the original. Still, after my first sight of these particular brand of shoe, I wanted them. The cool kids wear TOMS, and I want to be a cool kid.

That first sighting was somewhere in January of 2009. (I may have forgotten the exact date, but it was around that time that we met.) For almost two years, they have been on my wish list. Not the sensible list, I categorized them instead on the “If Only…” list. I didn’t (think) that I would ever (be a cool kid). I kept seeing more and more people walking around in the blessed shoe. All that was accomplished was to increase my obsession. Due to my blog and the attitude that I can write whatever I want, the two lists combined somewhat a few weeks before my birthday. My dedicated reader of a sister, Maggie, saw them mentioned and made my dream come true! She let me pick the style and color, and since our schedules rarely mix for a shopping trip, I got them on Monday.

As I write this, I am wearing fuchsia pink corduroy TOMS. Like these: http://www.toms.com/womens/new-styles/pomegranate-corduroy-women-s-classics Every time I look down at my feet, it makes me smile. Ridiculously.