”As the purse is emptied, the heart is filled.”
-Victor Hugo
The other day, I was chilling out on the front stoop of my house with my toddler and thought to myself, “I could be doing something productive while he’s out here running around.” So I got my overflowing purse out of the van and dumped the contents out onto the sidewalk just to see what had accumulated in there. This is what I found:
- A small, spiral notebook I use for writing down anything and everything
- 5 pens
- A book of selected poems by Christina Rossetti
- My son’s scorecard from his round at the Sandia golf club in Albuquerque, New Mexico at the beginning of August
- My wallet
- A bag of trail mix leftover from our family road trip several weeks earlier
- Receipts for Safeway (5!), Target, the dentist, the college bookstore, Children’s Place, and Ben and Jerry’s
- Coupons (which I get with my Safeway receipts and never use)
- Writer’s notebook (barely written in)
- An old grocery list
- A ticket stub to the Debbie Reynolds concert I attended at the Arvada Center at the end of July
- Appointment reminder cards to the dentist and oral surgeon
- 2 containers of breath mints
- My cell phone
- A $5 bill (a very rare find)
- My teenage daughter’s Jonas Brothers wristwatch
- A kid’s hairbrush
- A small tube of lotion (a free sample picked up in the pediatrician’s office)
- 5 matchbox cars
- A partially-made friendship bracelet (dumped in my purse by youngest daughter)
- A feminine hygeine product
- A Brio-train car
- A small hand mirror
- Girls’ small hair clips
- A blue Crayola marker
I’ve heard it said that you can tell a lot about a woman by the contents of her purse. So what do these items reveal about me?
#1 I spend far too much time and money at the grocery store.
#2 My life revolves around my kids.
#3 I secretly long to live the writer’s life.
#4 I’m too busy to get organized.
#5 I believe a matchbox car (or 2 or 5) can save the day.
#6 You can never have too many pens on hand.
#7 My life is often a tangled mess at times, a receptacle filled to the brim and spilling over.
What do the contents of your purse reveal about you?
I do not have a purse… however, I have a messenger bag that I use most every day. The contents are not near as diverse as yours but given that it is Saturday morning and we will not be doing anything today, here it is.
- notebook (anablog)
- book (The Plausibility of Life)
- the information end of 5 bills that I have paid this month
- receipt for a printer recently purchased
- ipod, headphones, ipod usb cable
- cell phone usb cable
- 3 pencils, 1 pen
- shirt (worn on the way to work yesterday but not on the way home)
- printout (Federalist Papers #’s 41-43)
- printout (Punctuated Equilibria, Gould)
- approx. 35-40 index cards (studying programming design patterns)
- lighter
- community credentials from Obama acceptance speech
- printed out coupon to Barnes and Noble
- print-out of source code from work-related code review
Forgot to explicate
#1 Tracey says that it means I am boring
#2 Reading takes up a large portion of my life (various and sundry are the topics)
#3 I use my messenger bag as a holding place for items before they are filed or trashed
#4 I have more than one shirt
Ha! Ha! Rick, you are far from boring! Thanks for sharing!
Rick, we have a name for the messenger bag … a man purse
Hi Lisa,
I discovered your blog through the Nie Recovery/CJaneRun site and the book that you helped write–”the mother in me.” I’m writing because I live in Larkspur, CO, about 45 minutes south of you. I was wondering if we could chat sometime. I too will be going back to school soon to fiinish my BYU degree in English–I’m 45 now and it’s about time I take care of this. I’d love to talk with you about your experience going back to school, and especially the writing that you do. I’ve wanted, for years, to do some “serious” writing–(journaling is where I’m at right now…), and would love to get some input from you on how to get started.
Sincerely,
Jenn Kambourian
Just imagine how much you will miss all of that crap in your handbag when your children are grown.
hey lisa that sounds awesome! thats so funny that sarah’s joe jonas watch is in there… im very ashamed of her for not wearing it and dumping it in the bottomless hole you call ur purse! just kidding! haha any ways, i love ur blog and just wanted to say hi!
Naomi <3
Hi sis! You have been tagged. See my blog for details!
Ahhhhhhhhh!!! Post something new!!!!