The Great Shoe Cleanup of 2010

Forty-five pairs of shoes, two bags of trash, and one Sunday afternoon; dolls, my shoe closet is now clean. Upon completion, I updated my Facebook status to celebrate, only to hear "You have a shoe closet?? Jealous!!!" So, let me clarify: this "shoe closet" is at the expense of a spare linen closet. Not that I own linens. But whatever. My shoe storage situation is not as glamorous as I may have made it sound.

However. It. Is. Clean! Which is super-exciting, given where I'd started from. I've even taken to opening the door to the closet just to admire my work, and breathe in the sweet scent of organization (in my case, it smells like leather). But, believe it or not, this major cleanup was the easy part; the hard part will be to actually keep it that way. To successfully do this, I must remember the lessons I've learned:

1. Don't put anything away "for now." Because it's shameful to find fitness magazines from 2008 stuck in the back of your closet in 2010. Trust me.

2. Recycle your old running sneakers. Do this for two reasons. One, it's good karma for the planet. Two, old running sneakers smell like old running sneakers. You dig?

3. Stop buying flip flops. Just because they're as cheap as a latte doesn't mean you need 800,000 pairs of them. Not to mention, the cheap-cheap ones look like crap after one or two wearings. They're also reportedly bad for your feet. (Just another reason to love the 'Fingers?)

4. Know what you own. If you have a pretty good idea what's already in your closet, you'll be less likely to impulse-buy something similar to what you already have, thus saving your dough for only the truly fabulous finds. See also, number 3.

5. Beware of fast-fashion. In other words, don't buy cheap-o shoes. Now, I'm not going to get all smug like the fashion rags do and say that one must fork over hundreds of dollars for a decent pair of pumps, and that they're investments and such. They're not. They're shoes, and even the expensive ones pinch. But the fact is, the cheap ones don't last, don't look all that good, and leave us feeling guilty for buying them in the first place.