Sustainable Saturday - The Big Shoe Down - No Shoes Allowed!

As the Holiday Season is upon us and we just had our Annual Holiday gathering with friends last night, this article reminded me of something we have said that we will someday implement around here.  Several Christmas' ago I even purchased slippers in a variety of sizes on clearance after the holidays to in fact implement this very thing.  As with many things in our lives . . . we are still in the process of Getting to Green.  I'm thinking the "No Shoes Allowed" will be on the list for New Year's resolutions around here.  Some may think we're strange, but this is an important component in our quest to provide the healthiest environment for our kids . . . good indoor air quality and a home free of as many toxins and pesticides as possible . . . . I hope we can inspire you to be a little more Green.

Excerpt from The Big Shoe Down:

I love the environment as much as the next greenie; I'd just rather you leave it at the door. In other words, please lose the shoes before you cross my threshold. This policy elicits strong passions, both for and against. With holiday parties fast approaching, I decided to get to the bottom of the Great Shoe Debate.

The practice got its 15 minutes of fame in 2003, thanks to a memorable Sex & the City episode that, unfortunately, gave shoe-shucking a bad name. In order to enter the inner sanctum of a friend's baby shower, a horrified Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is ordered to add her Manolo Blahniks to a pile by the door. On the way out, she discovers her pricey footwear is missing, forcing her to head home in a ratty loaner pair of sneakers.

BTK -- Before the Kid -- my foot fetish only kicked in after the cleaning person did her magic, leaving us with a "go-ahead-and-eat-off-me" floor. On those occasions, I'd stop the DH at the door with an urgent "Take off your shoes!" Eventually, he got the hang of it.

But children really do change everything. Once I had a smiling, sweet-smelling babe scooting around on our wood floors, the thought of all the disgusting, uninvited debris visitors were tracking in made my skin crawl. Suddenly I was a lioness, willing to brave undarned socks and smelly feet -- not to mention nasty looks -- to protect my cub. Matthew's thumb-sucking only added to my anxiety. (On the other hand, some experts now say it's not a bad thing for kids to eat dirt -- that it might help build their immunities. I will try to remember this research when we're taking a second mortgage to cover his braces.) And so I embraced the shoes-off policy.