Boat Shoes.

One of my favorite material take-aways from our Christmas Cruise are my new Sperry boat shoes.

As I was packing, my Mom very wisely said, "Be sure to pack comfy shoes!".  Unfortunately, I didn't listen.  Instead I thought to myself nonsensical things like, "Surely we won't be doing that much walking on this short vacation." (False!) And, "Surely we won't explore the entire ship." (Double False!)  And the highly problematic, "Surely my $8 shoes from H&M and my brand-new-not-broken-in $15 shoes from PayLess will be sufficient for the miles of walking I'm about to embark on." (FALSE x INFINITY).

The boat left at 4:00pm on Thursday and my feet were already aching by 7:00 that evening.  I had created a huge problem for myself.  Despite the fact that I have been taught this lesson over and over and over and over and over  again in places like Chicago and Paris (where my feet hurt so badly due to poor footwear choices I was seriously concerned that I had done permanent damage to them), I once again chose "cute" over comfort and common sense.

Fortunately, the ships first stop was in Key West on Friday morning where I discovered a little slice of heaven: Boat shoes.  I went to a local shop and started trying them on and immediately fell in love with them.  I have never had such luxury on my feet!  I was so excited that I bought them right away and wore them right out of the store. I wore them walking around the entire ship.  I wore them to the beach.  I wore them in our room. I wore them with my sparkly dress on Formal Night (After dinner, of course) I wore them.... sleeping? (ok just kidding on that one but you get the idea).  I still wear them running errands here in wintery Michigan . They are that amazing!  They were a bit of an investment, but definitely one that I am glad I made! 

Do you have any fashion/functional packing mistakes you make repeatedly or am I the only one who does this?  Poor shoe choices is definitely mine, but I am drawing a line in the sand and starting anew!