And This Little Piggie Went To....

When I made the decision to leave the financial industry behind, (and the income that went along with it) many of my friends and former co-workers were extremely concerned.

"How would I survive in Vermont?" they asked. Its not like jobs at the higher end of the pay scale were growing on trees. After all, this was the world of hourly wages.

One very concerned friend wondered how on earth I would ever again afford a pair of Jimmy Choos.

For one thing I've never owned a pair. It wasn't because I couldn't afford them at the time, but rather because I had become particularly fond of my pinkie toes.

Like most women (and dare I say some men), I love high heels. This relationship has been the longest standing of my life and began when I was around 7 years old. Back then they sold plastic high heel sandals with a simple elastic strap made for little girls which could be counted on to crack in half around the second or third wearing.

As I grew older, the shoes I wore were no longer made of acrylic but of fine leather and of course the heels got higher. They gave me the extra 3 to 4 inches that my 5'2" frame desperately needed. Throughout my life my love affair with stilettos flourished but never did I buy Choos.

There is an ugly Urban legend that is probably based in some reality that women were so desperate to wear these unusually narrow shoes that they would part with their beloved pinkie toe in order to do so.

Not me. I'd become attached to my little piggies. As much as I would have loved to don a sexy pair of these shoes, somehow foot mutilation didn't sound appealing even if the shoes promised to give my legs the illusion of appearing longer.

My friend needn't have been concerned. Turns out I didn't miss out on much. There aren't a lot of reasons to be wearing 4" heels up here anyway and certainly not with over 4' of snow on the ground.

So the the next time I sit with my 4 year old niece and say that little nursery rhyme, I can rest assure that my little piggy won't be crying 'wee wee we...all the way home'.