Shoe-In

I used to fantasize wildly about the day when my living room didn't look like a Toys R' Us exploded in it. And now that my kids are older, the only toys strung around the house belong to the dogs (which is somehow more tolerable. I don't make the rules). 

But the toys have been replaced by other stuff. You know what happens when you live with five men? Not a clean and tidy house, I can tell you that. I don't know what I was thinking — that my kids would magically just not be messy? — but I was, well, a little off. 

... Or a lot.

One prime example: THE SHOES. I may no longer be stepping on Legos (thank you Jesus) but now I'm tripping on shoes. Shoes EVERYWHERE. It's like they just fall out of them wherever they happen to be walking and then leave them there. 

So while browsing Amazon one day, I came across a fantastic solution: an adorable shoe storage cabinet! It's small enough to fit perfectly in my kitchen, where the shoes end up when everyone comes in through the garage, yet it holds a bunch of shoes. I would no longer have the entire men's footwear inventory of a Dick's Sporting Goods in my entryway! Hallelujah!

So I ordered this:

(You too can order it by clicking THIS FIGHTING OFF FRUMPY AMAZON AFFILIATE LINK!)

When it came, it was just as I expected — aka, exactly what I ordered, not one of those things where the pictures is deceiving and you unbox the actual item and you're like "Uh ..." (Side note: There's a creator I follow on IG named Maggie McGaugh who literally buys things to see if the actual product matches up with what she ordered and some of them are HILARIOUS.) 

Anywho.

I assembled my cute little shoe cabinet, stuck it in my entryway as planned, filled it with wayward shoes, and reveled in all the neat and empty space ... for like five minutes. Until I realized it was apparently too much to ask to perform the extra task of strenuously opening the cabinet and hauling your shoes into it. (Insert side-eye here.) Because, despite the LITERAL SHOE STORAGE THAT IS IN MY ENTRYWAY, this is what it looks like currently (and always):

I had such high hopes that this little gem would be the magic-bullet solution to my entryway clutter, but alas, I think the only real solution is for my children to move out and I don't actually want that right now, so pile of shoes it is.

At least the shoe cabinet is also a cute place to store a bicycle helmet. 

... Sigh.