Favorite fruit meets favorite foot-wear. Inspired my Michelle’s sock and sandal look, this will be me breaking in my flats. Missing Morocco…

This week has been about little victories.

An endless hunt for black flats started with a failed cyber-search, climaxed at a customer-service-inept Aldo store and ended in the clearance section at DSW with a Calvin Klein pair just my size.

Another cyber-search for the perfect lamp – nothing too grandma’s-couch but also not light-suspended-by-oh-so-chic-contrasting-cord-minimalist either, please. I hop off muni to find not one, but two beautiful (read: heavy) lamps that match the Parisian flair of my room, each with an extending, industrial arm and a beautiful layered base.

I carried these heavy beasts, one in each hand like a human vintage scale walking in my to-still-be-broken-in black flats. Okay so, half-winning. Half in complete pain.

I realize that I often expect things to go right the first time. I expect too often that the black flats will fit perfectly end of story. That even though I found two gorgeous lamps on the corner for free, am bummed that they were missing lampshades. I instead get flustered that this only adds to my to-do list: #127: wear socks with flats around the house to break in shoes and #128 buy/make lampshades #129 figure out how to make a lampshade

The big picture, however, is lost. One of my greatest qualities is that I focus on the details. One of my biggest faults is that I get lost in the details. Very much like my strategic 2-block walk with two lamps and hurting shoes, it’s all about balance. Balancing the joy of discoveries, the happy coincidences, the happenstance events and bringing their downfalls to light with patience and even a bit of humor. I’ll tackle to-do list items #127-129 soon enough. And when I do, it’ll feel great.

The pressure and expectation I put on myself for these things to be as close as perfect as soon as possible take all the pleasure out of the luck of the size 8.5 sale section and the miraculous corner of a beautiful neighborhood. Instead, I’ll dabble on Etsy or meander into a Target in socks-with-flats. It’ll be on my own time, when it feels right and most of all, it’ll be fun.