I’m leaving for Seattle later this morning so I’m running around like the proverbial chicken with its head cruelly cut off, and generally getting stressed out of my mind–a sport I’m a champion at, by the way.

And so it struck me that I *GOTS TO* find ways of de-stressing, and then, bam, the second revelation: what better means of de-stressing than beautiful shoes?

“Shoes?” my brain will say. “Shoes? THERE IS NO TIME FOR SHOES!”

Except, there is, especially when they induce you into an adoring stupor and switch gears from “hyperventilating” to “lovingly drooling”:

I loooooove these Chie Mihara simple flats, in all their crackly-silvery-goodness–and of course, the crucial detail, the cherry on the shiny cake, the double-colored nude strap at the back–so simple, so effective in textural and color contrast, so très, très chic! They’re almost $300 at Anthropologie, and I’m almost believing that’s worth the price of de-stressing.

(PS: On second thoughts, perhaps I should apply for a grant to study the effect of beautiful shoes on women’s psyche. Wouldn’t you all volunteer for that??)