{"id":1636,"date":"2012-09-26T22:46:23","date_gmt":"2012-09-27T02:46:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/?p=1636"},"modified":"2012-09-26T22:46:23","modified_gmt":"2012-09-27T02:46:23","slug":"schoolmarm-shoes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/?p=1636","title":{"rendered":"Schoolmarm Shoes"},"content":{"rendered":"

I believe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for a little reflection on the changes wrought by my return to teaching.<\/p>\n

I suppose I could write a helpful how-to post on successfully juggling multiple jobs, multiple small people, and one LCB with multiple issues.<\/p>\n

But that would make LCB laugh, long and hard, so we won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go there.<\/p>\n

I suppose I could write a post on the state of education today now that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m back in the trenches.<\/p>\n

But, frankly sometimes it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard write anything scholarly while sitting in a trench. Plus, most of my energy goes into ducking, covering, and wiping mud off my face, which doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really put me in a scholarly mood.<\/p>\n

I suppose I could write something at least somewhat meaningful, like One Teacher, One \u00c2\u00a0Child<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But, nothing really meaningful is coming to mind, so instead, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to discuss the elephant in my personal room.<\/p>\n

Because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time.<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time to discuss the footwear of a schoolmarm.<\/p>\n

Basically, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m shooting for a Pulitzer with this one. So, here I go.<\/p>\n

Before I returned to teaching, my regular footwear looked very much like this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>(This is a total lie; the truth is I rarely wore footwear, doing my part to maintain as much of the barefoot and pregnant descriptor as I reasonably could.)<\/p>\n

For social events, I often wore shoes like this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I purchased this particular pair several years ago, when LCB was in graduate school in Chicago. We were living on our island at this point, but LCB decided to add a whole new dimension of excitement to our lives by returning to school in Chicago for a weekend graduate program. Thus, we spent large parts of that year back in Chicago. One fall weekend, we had a cocktail party to attend at the Swissotel downtown, so I wore these shoes with black pants and a blouse. After picking up the babysitter near where we were staying in the suburbs, I walked a few blocks to catch a train that was headed downtown. Upon arriving in the city, I got off the train and boarded a watertaxi that took me down the Chicago River. I got off at a stop near the Swissotel and began walking. LCB met me halfway between my stop and the hotel, having just finished his classes that day. Naturally, I looked and felt spectacular, and had a wonderful time engaging in riveting conversations with everyone I met. Several people complimented me on my shoes, noting their strikingly red underside.<\/p>\n

(The last two sentences\u00c2\u00a0are total lies; by the time I reached LCB, I was trying not to visibly stagger, my back and feet screaming with pain. I spent the entire party trying not to look stricken, clutching the nearest wall with one hand and my wine glass with the other. No one noticed the red bottoms of my shoes because they weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t red, but I did leave the T.J. Maxx price tags on the bottoms for effect.)<\/p>\n

For date nights, I wore these:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>(I lie yet again. One, what exactly constitutes a date night once small people arrive on the scene? Because I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had one that would technically qualify, at least not since the initial small person<\/em> somehow morphed into small people<\/em> anyway. Two, if you look closely, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll notice a thick layer of dust on the shoes, the kind that takes years without disturbances to fully mature.)<\/p>\n

This summer, LCB even bought me these:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I get compliments every time I wear them. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re even cuter in person.<\/p>\n

(This part is true. However, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also true that a day of teaching in these brings me a family-style side dish of Sweet-Mercy-I-may-never-walk-again-or-experience-joy along with the compliments.)<\/p>\n

So it was with grim resignation then that I purchased these,<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>the most comfortable sandals I could find. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re wide (much wider than the picture indicates) with thick, cushy soles (a personal comfort must-have).<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m trying to tell myself that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m redefining sexy when I wear them.<\/p>\n

(This is yet another lie; the truth is they make my feet look like duck feet. Also, it almost feels as if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m developing a pseudo-waddle when I wear them.)<\/p>\n

Oh, yeah. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m bringing duck-feet sexy back.<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s coming back with a vengeance.<\/p>\n

(This is the biggest lie in this post and possibly the world.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I believe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for a little reflection on the changes wrought by my return to teaching. I suppose I could write a helpful how-to post on successfully juggling multiple jobs, multiple small people, and one LCB with multiple issues. But that would make LCB laugh, long and hard, so we won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go there. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1023,1],"tags":[1270,105,100,1266,1269,1267,1271,1268],"class_list":["post-1636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-islandlife","tag-how-teaching-affects-footwear","tag-island-life","tag-island-living","tag-professional-shoes-on-an-island","tag-sandals","tag-teaching-shoes","tag-truth-in-blogging","tag-work-shoes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}