Make a New Years Resolution

Are you going to make a New Year's resolution? You may have some ideas already, perhaps to lose weight or to quit smoking. Perhaps you want to be more cultured and plan on listening to Wagner's Ring cycle.

One resolution you could make is to stop wearing shoes in your house and to ask family and friends to do the same.

Adopting a shoes-off rule might not be a great moral transformation, but it is a simple thing that will have a definite practical benefit.

Perhaps tomorrow you will be hosting a New Year's Eve party and the guests will damage the floor in their spike heels. Personally, I would recommend you to ask for shoes-off, but perhaps seeing the damage on New Years' day will add force to your resolution to go shoes-free.

If you adopt this resolution, your carpet will last longer and you can spend less money on carpet cleaning.

Perhaps you are expecting to have a baby in the next year. If so, having a shoes-off policy will create a safer and healthier environment for your family.

Life is full of small and simple decisions and this is one decision that could improve the quality of your life. Make that resolution.

A Plethora of Christmas Goodness

In lieu of stringing together some otherwise coherent words to make witty sentences I've decided to just post some pictures from this past week spent in Seattle with my family and one new addition.























Life and Death.


ACHILLES!!

A Really Daft Comment

If you don't want shoe-wearing people in your house, then why invite them to a party at your house to begin with?

This person is evidently under the impression that shoes are an integral part of the wearer's body.

Some Very Reasonable Thoughts

The Domestic Empress: Hospitality is not the same as Customer Service

A very nicely balanced post on the etiquette of the shoes-off rule. Good title too.

The Empress argues that while it is rude to demand that guests remove their shoes if they do not fee comfortable removing them, there is nothing inherently rude about asking guests politely to take off their shoes:

I was raised to know that when you are a guest in someone’s home you are to be on your very best behavior. People invite you into their home as a treat. It is a privilege to be asked into someone’s home and be treated as a guest – not a right. Of course you should make yourself comfortable, but that means relax and have fun being polite – not to walk all over them and expect to bend house rules just because you’re a guest. After all, this is someone’s home, it’s not a hotel. It is polite for them to make you feel comfortable, but it is not their job.

So if I am asked to someone else’s home and they politely request that I take my shoes off before I come inside then by all means I am going to take my shoes off. Most of the time I will leave my shoes at the door without being asked, just out of courtesy, especially if I walk in and see a pile of shoes by the door.

I don’t think it’s even a little bit rude to ask your guests to take their shoes off before they come in. After all, odds are high you’ve just cleaned the house and would like to keep it that way. Depending on the number of guests you’re having, there may be serious consequences for your floor if everyone keeps their shoes on – especially in this dismal winter weather.

Readers of this blog may disagree with the Empress when she rejects shoes-off signs and insists on allowing in refuseniks, but it is nice to see somebody recognising that a simpe request is perfectly reasonabe.

A Rather Extreme Reaction

Things I want to punch in the Face: Shoeless Households

Sidebar Comments Box

I am afraid I had to remove the sidebar comments box.

Somebody used some bad language and I could not see a way to delete the comment.

I hate to delete comments, but I do want this to be a family-friendly page.

Please feel free to leave comments on the posts; I do not mind if they are a little off-topic. However, please refrain from using bad language. This blog is all about showing respect.

Boxing Day

My parents had some relatives visit today; a couple with small children. They removed their shoes without being asked (though they did prompt their children to remove theirs) and came in with socks or bare feet.

For once, my parents did not urge them to keep their shoes on.