Clogs, specifically Dansko.

Yes, I know I have already done a post about how much I LOVE the Sundance catalog .... I mostly just "window shop" and wish I could afford some of the outfits (they're seriously out of control expensive).  Truth be told - it isn't really all that tempting since I am SO far from the size of the catalog models. The outfits wouldn't look nearly as cute on me.

I do absolutely ADORE the cover of this last catalog I got.  The carnival setting, the cute girl - and everything she is wearing from head to toe.  Love, love, love.

As I flipped through the pages, I noticed another model's shoes (below), which are dansko clogs.  Have I mentioned that dansko clogs are pretty much my uniform shoes all winter long?  They are, truly.

I had to have them.

My sister, Spring, had a pair of clogs that she wore all the time - for years and years and years.  She used to say, "I know they look uncomfortable, but they are really SO comfortable!"  And I thought: How can walking (basically) on wood blocks in your bare feet (socks totally optional with clogs) possibly be comfortable?  She told me they cost about $120.00 but were soooooo worth the money.  Spring is a shoe girl.  She spends all kinds of money on shoes for herself, her husband and even her (little) kids.  I am so not a shoe girl.  (I gave birth to one, but I'm not one myself.)  I couldn't see spending that kind of money on a pair of clogs.

But theeeeeeen ..... a few years later, I was up in Deer Valley with a girlfriend.  We stopped into a really awesome, expensive boutique in town and they had dansko clogs on sale. Unheard of.  I tried on a pair in black and they were only $55.00.  How could I not get them?

I wore those darn clogs just about every day, all winter long for the next five years or so, before I decided it was time to get another pair in brown, which I did pay full price for because I came to agree with Spring - they are soooooo worth the money.  I have worn those brown clogs just about every other day (the other day being the black pair) during the winter months for another five years.  The brown pair still looks pretty good - the black pair, not so much.  But those puppies were so worth the money and I have certainly got my money's worth, and then some, out of them.

SO ... there they were.  Mustard yellow, floral dansko clogs. How cute are they?

$135.00 - plus tax - plus $17.95 shipping.
OUCH.

Last summer, when my sisters and I took our trip to New York to visit our parents, we were in a little shop in the village owned by a good family friend, Shirley.  Shirley has a shoe section with more dansko shoes than I have ever seen gathered in one location. Since we were offered the "friends and family" discount, my sister Leslie and I both decided to get a pair of dansko sandals.  (And then Leslie decided to buy two more - she had since been converted to the comfort and durability of the black dansko clog as well; our uniform shoe, or MOM shoe, as my girls call them - completely unattractive to the opposite sex, I'm sure, but hey, we're over 50 and it is so much more about comfort now anyway.)

I called Leslie and asked her if the store up at Sundance had clothes and shoes too.  I figured that way, if they did, I could just drive up there and save the shipping charges.  I described them to Leslie and she immediately said, "Shoot.  Maybe I have to get a pair too."

Leslie also had the idea to give our New York friend a call to see if she had them, assuming, of course, that we could get the same friends and family discount and we'd have our mom go pick them up and she could bring them out with her in the fall, thus saving us the shipping charges.  While Leslie was in the process of trying to negotiate the whole plan of attack with our mom and with one of the shop workers who didn't have a clue of who she was, I got a picture text message from my daughter, Sophie:

$80 Nordstrom Rack, they're your size, I have them in my hand!

(Better than friends and family discount.)

Such a sweet, sweet, happy little thing.