The elusive boot search...

I've never been one for boots.

Well, I take that back.

I like boots. Just... not on me.

Especially well-loved by my petite-bodied heart are booties.

Yes, booties. Ankle-high booties paired with superskinny jeans? Yes ma'am.

But alas, I have never found such booties to elicit much of a cuteness factor on me.

Until yesterday, that is.

While sitting in church one Sunday (yes, I know. But I definitely prayed harder for this thought to get out as soon as it got into my mind), I decided that I'm now a workin' woman, so I should be allowed to buy a pair of boots that I love at full price.

Naturally I shied away from that thought five hours later when I revisited it (me, pay full price for something? HA!), but I shopped around online and decided to order three pairs of booties from Piperlime.com, seduced by their free to-and-from shipping. Anyone who knows me knows I refuse to pay for shipping on near anything. Anyways.

After weeks (well, what felt like weeks in shoe-time; it was more like four days) of waiting and a faulty shipping label that almost kept my shoes from me (yikes!), hubby brought my shoes home from the UPS store.

I walked in the door, saw the green and white box sitting on the floor and tore it open. The lovelies in box numero uno looked a little (er, exactly) like this:

Designed by Jessica Simpson (yes, I'll admit, I do love her... despite the fact that she divorced Nick Lachey), these black booties are made of real leather, have a hidden platform in the footbed, and have a four-inch heel. Oh yeah, and I'm in love with them.

After liking the first pair so well, I actually secretly hoped I would despise the other two pair of boots that were waiting to be uncovered.

Anyway, I opened up the next trunk of goodness to find these:
Oh. My. Goodness. The leather on these babies is like buttah. You heard me. Amazing. And the boot itself is suuuuper comfy. And is SO cute with skinny jeans. Yes, puh-lease. I know, they are semi-cowgirlish. But in a good way; not a honkeytonk, badonkadonk (or however that country song goes... ack) way.

At this point, I realized I was in trouble. Big trouble. Did I get these boots on sale? Yes. But does that mean they were Dakota Boy's Ranch cheap? Uh, no.

So at that point, I decided to peek in my last box and see if I could put myself into deeper trouble. Here's the last treasure I found:
Cute? Yes. But luckily, there was one factor about them that made me have a strong dislike of them: they were near impossible to put on. No zipper, no elastic, no generous room to slide my foot in Cinderella-style. And luckily, that automatically rules them out (sort of. I'm wishy-washy like that).

So I've spent an ample amount of time assessing the options and trying to determine which pair of boots (or both?) to keep. I really can't justify two pair of ankle boots; I mean, really? Do I really need two pair? Not really. Granted, one is black and one is grey. But still.

Anyway, tonight was our first evening of parent-teacher conferences. [I promise, this is somehow tied-in to my shoe dilemma. Hear me out.] And as I was pulling out of the parking lot this evening, my mind wasn't on what Johnny's mom said about his math grade; nope, not one bit. It was instead on this boot dilemma, attempting to rationalize keeping both pair.

"You fool! Of course you can keep both pair. You just did conferences. Your paycheck will be bigger because you've been spending and will spend a number of extra evening hours working over the next week or so!" my mind thought.

Rats. I was double fooled by my own mind. Because, in reality, that is not the case at all. My paycheck stays the same... I am on SALARY! Whoops. No justification there.

Which I guess leads me back to square one: which boots to choose, which boots to choose.

Thoughts?