A Peek in my Purse

The lovely Darcie over at Such The Spot gave me this idea a few weeks ago, and now it’s time to cash in. However, reading my post just isn’t the same unless you’ve read hers first, so hop over and check it out here . Go ahead – I’ll wait.

All caught up now? Alright then, here we go.

Remember that lovely picture of organization Darcie gave you? Not so much the case in my world.

I have a cute bag, if I do say so myself:

But the contents are, ahem, slightly less organized:

Now I’m supposed to answer a few questions.

Describe the contents of your purse. Um, well…approximately 31 pieces if miscellaneous paper, including store receipts, vet receipts, tax donation form from Goodwill, doctor’s appointment card, Chris’s paystub, and a cry cleaning tag from 2006. Not joking. The we have two Shout wipes, sunscreen in a stick, lip gloss times two (if you haven’t tried Mark cosmetics yet you should!), bag of crayons, diaper cream, credit card checks I keep forgetting to shred, business card from a lady who I need to quilt something for me – I met her last year, diaper, wipes, cell phone (HATE the Razr, BTW), broken cover for cell phone, keys, a tupperware lid I need to take back to my mom, three Cheerios, two broken bits of the phone faceplate, and one googley eye from a craft project. And now I really must say that this is a pretty good day mess-wise in my bag. Scary huh?

What is the most important thing in your handbag? Well it’s not like I ever have money in my wallet, so I’ll go with car keys. I have remotes on there for my van and Chris’s car both, and those suckers are expensive to replace.

What’s the most embarrassing thing in your handbag? The almost-three-year-old dry cleaning tag. Seriously, at no time in the past few years could I have spared a moment to throw that away?

What’s the smallest thing in your handbag? The broken bits of faceplate. FYI, you get what you pay for when you shop at Dollar Tree.

Is there anything illegal in your handbag? Um…no.

I love Darcie, and we have a lot in common. I often feel I can look at her and not say anything because she just gets it, and that’s such a rare quality to find in a friend. Kindred spirits, Anne of Greene Gables might say. But tidiness is clearly an area where we part ways:

Poor Darcie is probably cringing as she sees this. (And if you are my friend, let me assure you that the rest of my life is in a similar state of disarray. Anytime you’d like to fly in and help me organize would be great!)

Would you like to play along? Here is the fine print:

Find a safe quiet place free of significant others, nosey meme makers, priests, nuns, all things religious and men in general. (If you’re a guy just reverse this process to male and tell us about your wallet, tool box, briefcase or metro sexual accessory.) Hello?!?! I believe that’s called a European carry-all!

1. Dump the contents of your handbag in a pile.

2. Take a photo of your handbag and the contents.

3. Be brave and explain to your fellow bloggers what lurks inside the handbag.

4. Tag others who might want to embarrass themselves.

5. Answer the above questions in your blog.

And leave a comment here to let me know if you’re playing along. I wanna see if your mess can top mine!

uncle, uncle!

So yeah, like 2 weeks later and I still haven’t gotten around to having a design done for this site. I’m throwing in the towel and blogging on ahead without a pretty design. Less is more – that’s my new pretend motto.

The house is kicking my butt. I still don’t have test results and I’m still feeling lousy, but sadly I can’t blame it all on that. I was a housekeeping schlub long before I got sick. Chris would be happy to tell you all about it, believe me.

So anyway, we rearranged the kids rooms. Annie and Catie used to have their own rooms, but they never used them. They like to sleep together, and by together I do not mean in the same room, I mean in the same bed. Twin size bed at that. How many kids have their own room but prefer to share? Well if they want to share, so be it. It just so happens, for those of you that haven’t seen it, that Annie’s room is huge. It’s a bonus room over our garage that she was lucky enough to claim to for her own. Well no longer! Her queen bed was picked up by charity and we made it into a playroom. I painted it the most lovely shade of lime green EVER, and we moved all the toys from the basement playroom up to the bonus room. (Added bonus for mommy – my sewing room in the basement is now HUGE, and I get an actual space for my treadmill instead of stuffed in a corner. Woo-hoo!) Now the playroom is all done except for the curtains (making them tomorrow) and the dry erase board (hanging it tomorrow).

Since I knew I’d have this stuff done this weekend, I thought I’d plan for the redo of their now-shared bedroom. Better get the ducks in a row today so I can get going on it next week, right? We bought Annie a very cute loft bed (not yet assembled) and I stopped today to order a new twin mattress for her. Maybe the rest of the world knew this, but I did not. Mom & Pop stores deliver free. And fast. Like within the hour. Not that I’m not grateful or anything, but sheesh!

So of course I have a toy mess, a clothes mess, a painting mess, and an unassembled bed mess all in the bedroom where the mattress is being delivered. I just had them leave it in the middle of the floor (“The more the merrier!” – that’s my mess’s motto) I don’t want to assemble the bed until I’ve painted the room (they chose lavender, if anyone is interested), so I ran out to buy the paint and then painted the dormer where her bed will be so that at least that will be done and I can assemble the bed tomorrow. Now if I can just keep my poor OCD husband downstairs for a couple of hours tomorrow, all will be well. Thankfully he’s going to a Derby party so that buys me some time too. Of course I begged off on the party, being the socially awkward nerd that I am.

WHY do I do this? Why do I never ever completely finish one project before moving on to the next? I have a room full of sewing projects staring back at me, reminding me of this character flaw. I never realized it until I had my third child, but I think I have ADD. Or else I have too many kids. Either way, I cry uncle!