I'm Just Not Well Equipped for these Midwestern Winters

For those of you not well acquainted with the particulars of Sari, I feel compelled to let you know that I like shoes. A lot. I like buying shoes. I like wearing shoes. I like looking enviously at other people's shoes.

I also like good quality jeans. And, in an attempt to finally look like an adult at work, I've recently gotten into dress pants. However, I'm somewhat disproportionately sized, and regular-length jeans are anywhere from 2 to 4" too long, while the "short" inseamed jeans look weirdly short while I'm standing and make me look like I should be building an ark while I'm sitting.

And almost as much as I like shoes, I DISLIKE stepping on the backs of my good quality jeans or my nice dress pants. I also dislike getting road salt stains on them (add that one to shoes as well). I also dislike it when the bottoms of my pants get wet and then I fold my leg underneath me in my desk chair and the backs of my pants get wet.

I solve this by generally wearing tall shoes...2-4" shoes.

I also currently live in the greater Twin Cities metro area. And I commute to work by light rail which has a 15-minute walk on one side and an occasional 10-minute walk on the other side. And folks don't believe in shoveling the sidewalks here in the car-preferred metro. They DO believe in throwing a lot of salt (that will do no good because it's about as cold here in the winter as outer Siberia) at the sidewalks in hopes that whatever is coating them in 6" of packed-down snow and ice will eventually, possibly, maybe melt.

What does this mean for me?

I just bought a gorgeous new pair of boots that I adore. They look awesome with my dress pants, they look awesome with my jeans, they have a delightfully no-slip rubber sole that actually lets me maneuver on the ice. But........the salt is KILLING them. Even after I've lovingly coated them with so much mink oil that I'm pretty sure they're about an inch and a half thicker than they once were. So I try not to wear them every day. Which limits me to effectively 3 pairs of shoes that can be worn outside in winter (THREE out of a collection of,well, I'm not at liberty to say).....brown boots, black Docs, and brown Docs. Anyone who knows anything about Docs knows that they have zero traction....even when new. Mine are decidedly NOT new. They also decidedly don't go with dress pants. Or pants that are more than 1-2" too long.

So?

So in an effort to not wear my new boots out in what's supposed to be an impending ice storm, I spent an unnecessary amount of my morning trying to figure out what current pants/shoes combo to wear to minimize damage to pants, shoes, and myself.

These problems don't happen in the summer. In the summer I can wear ALL my shoes.

I hate you Minnesota winters.