Carrie Bradshaw eat your heart out!!!

My new obsession, exercise, has given me the excuse to indulge my other obsession, shoes. I now have my "step-ups" for outdoor walking and the treadmill, cycling shoes for the Spin class and water shoes for Aqua Fit in the pool. (don't tell my husband!) Any excuse works for me. I love shoes. I think it all goes back to the tradition my Mom started. She bought me a pair of shoes every year on my birthday.

Compulsions aside, the right shoe does make a difference when exercising. In the Spin stationary bike class my feet, clad in Nike tennis shoes, began to hurt. The instructor told me I needed a shoe with a non-flexible sole. I decided to buy a real biking shoe since Harry and I bike quite a bit on the biking trail outside our condo door so the biking shoes would have a dual purpose. Last week my friend, Renee, and I took the the Aqua Fit class together for the first time. Halfway into the class, I noticed that everyone was wearing shoes, except Renee and I. I knew I was having real trouble doing the exercises, but I wrote it off to inexperience. After the class I asked a classmate about the shoes she was wearing in the pool and she said they were water shoes. Perfect! Another way to rationalize a new pair of shoes!

Yes, my retired life has pretty much become filled up with putting on my new shoes and attending my support group for compulsive shoe buyers. I told Harry if I was working there would be no way I could or would be doing all this exercise. I get so tired from all this that I require massive amounts of sleep. I do feel stronger and have lost some weight. I can now even lean over far enough to strap into a pair of the Clark's espadrilles I bought when I got back to Minnesota in April. At that time I could not bend over far enough to strap them on, but they were so cute I bought them anyway. Now I have no problem getting into them..for this I thank my personal trainer, Joe, and a special thanks to all my new exercise shoes. Well, I am off to bed so I can exercise tomorrow. I slumber knowing I will have the appropriate shoes for the cycle, the pool or the treadmill. Life is good.

*For those who wonder,"who the hell is Carrie Bradshaw?" she was the heroine of the HBO television series, Sex and the City. Carrie spent most of her paycheck on expensive shoes, such as Monolo Blahniks which cost hundreds of dollars a pair. When she moved in with Mr. Big, her boyfriend, he had a closet specially built in the apartment for her shoe collection.