The Black Hole! aka Day 22

When I first read through the 30 day blog challenge this one already had me laughing. "Day 22: What's in your purse?" My purse is just ridiculous! I blame diaper bags, and having to carry them around for 9 years. My purse is most definitely a glorified diaper bag. I never carried a real purse. I skipped right over it and started carrying a diaper bag when Connor was born. Actually, I didn't even own a diaper bag until they sent me home with the free one from the hospital. I quickly realized that if I ever really wanted to leave the house for more than 10 minutes with a baby, a fully stocked diaper bag was a must.  I was a pro at stocking a diaper bag, too. After a couple of trial and error runs I seemed to always have the exact amount of diapers, wipes bottles and whatever else to make the kid happy. Then came Aubrey, 2 kids in diapers, so 2x everything. Then came Alli and for just a few months 3 kids in diapers and 3x everything. As they got a little older I began to have a little something to keep each of them content for whatever stage we were in. 

I had a brief period of time when Connor was almost six and Alli was potty-trained where all of a sudden I didn't need a diaper bag anymore. A generic change of clothes kept in the car "just in case" was enough for most occasions. I toyed with the idea of carrying a bag just for myself, a real big girl purse! The thought of having something all to myself was such a novel idea, I just had to try it out. It didn't take long before I figured out that it was just plain impossible to have such a thing really all to myself. I kept a purse for a couple of years, never really loving the idea, in fact I can't even remember what they looked like. Before I knew it I was pregnant with Olivia anyway. That's when the real fun began, this was right about the same time that some genius figured out that even though we had babies that might love cutesy, cartoony, fluffy things, didn't mean us moms loved carrying a bag with all of that on it. They came up with modern, stylish attractive-to-the-adult-actually-purchasing-the-bag, bags. That's really when I fell in love with (diaper) bags. I had gotten a great one when Connor was little a sage green diaper bag from Land's End, it was awesome but not so stylish.

After going through a couple of decent, but not to love diaper bags I found a super cute mod, pink and brown dots bag on clearance at Target. It was a sweet deal and I loved it. Unfortunately the inside seam split and Olivia was potty trained early so I put up with it a few months and never got a replacement. I would probably still use it in rotation these days if not for that darn seam. Oh well!

 The first real purse I fell in love with was one my mom bought me for Christmas of 2009, yeah that's right I was 29 before I took carrying a purse seriously and actually fell in love a purse. I also got tons of compliments on my purse, which made it even better. I carried it for a full year! Which brings me to my current purse. The purse I have now is from Phillip and Connor, they went out and bought it together for Christmas last year. I love it because it's pretty and black and because it was something my boys got for me together. That said, it is such a collector of crap it's crazy! 

In this sense I am so much like my mother! In most things I don't know there would be much about me that I would claim to get from her. Well, there are a couple of things. We're loud, we both enjoy the company of others and we both keep things, that don't make much sense to anyone else, in our purses. Similarities end there, I'm pretty sure. Here is the list, to the best of my ability of things in my purse.

• My makeup bag (I prefer to do makeup while riding in the car)
• 1 wallet for money
• 1 wallet for medical cards, gift cards, rewards cards etc.
• A box of crayons
• A stack of mostly useless receipts
• 3 pens
• 1 large paper clip
• A hair brush 
• A twisty thing off the top of a bottle of some sort
• 1 mitten from a magnetic dress-up doll
• 1 magic wand
• A picture of Gir Connor drew for me

• A stack of mail which includes but not limited to: Insurance statements, a bill, a wedding invitation (from February), a bank statement and a letter from school
• WIC checks and shopping guide
• A spiral notebook
• A hackey-sack
• A tube of bubbles
• A Christmas ornament that I keep meaning to stick in a box at my in-laws
• 2 mis-matched socks (because a mis-match pair is better than none at all)
• Lotion
• Hand sanitizer
• Nail polish
• 1 eraser cap
• 3 coupons for mouth wash
• Keys that need to be returned because they don't fit
• A reminder card for a dentist appointment in March
• A Java Jump rewards card
• Valentines day Mickey Mouse stickers
• The skirt from a Snow White pocket doll
• A pack of gum with one stick left
• A Valentine's Day card to Olivia from Phillip and I
• 3 pennies
• 1 nickel
• A couple of crumpled blank pieces of paper

I think that's it. As you can see the insides of my purse became a game of show and tell. Olivia was on a treasure hunt and so excited to find her Valentine's Day card. I found it funny that the last thing I pulled out was a cookie fortune that read: "You discover treasures where others see nothing unusual".

please excuse the laundry, we are right in the middle of laundry day(s) it'll be done tomorrow, promise!

 Thanks for following!