Pursed

Yesterday morning, Will stayed home with Emily and gave me a couple hours to myself, which was fantastic! I went to my favorite step class, did a mini-grocery shopping trip, and went to Starbucks with some ladies from my step class afterward. We're hoping to turn this into a weekly thing, which would be just fine by me, only I hope I can make the morning go smoother in the future. Over the course of the morning, I managed to lose my keys at the gym, finding them just in time to call Will and cancel my request for him to pack up Emily and drive 40 minutes round trip to rescue my sorry self. At the grocery store, I went through the self checkout and realized I'd forgotten my club card so I had to wait 5 minutes while they looked up my number at the customer service desk. I wouldn't have bothered, but on my little $30 shopping trip, having my club card saved me $6 so I think that's worth the hassle. Then I got out to my car and realized I had left a bag of groceries inside, and had to run back in and get it. Thank God I didn't have Emily with me, I probably would've left her somewhere too.

What is the lesson I've gathered from this experience? If you think it's "Slow down, try to be more organized and concentrate on keeping track of your belongings", then I have to say "Hi, my name is Sara, I don't think we've ever met before".

No, what I have gathered from this is that I need to buy a purse, preferably a really nice one.

I have a diaper bag, of course. When Emily was first born I tried carrying a diaper bag AND a purse AND the infant carrier, and it just felt like too much. Due to an unfortunate architectural oversight, you have to go through a million doors in quick succession in order to enter or exit our house through the garage, and I was constantly getting one strap or another caught on a doorknob and having to drop everything to get untangled. My solution was to carry a little wristlet (a pouch that came as part of a free Clinique gift), that way I could throw it into the diaper bag when I was going out with Emily, or just take it out and use it alone when I went out without her. This prevented me from being able to carry much of anything for myself though. My keys on the handle and a couple credit cards was all that would really fit. Recently, the handle gave out and now I can't just put my hand through the loop, I have to carry my keys and my pouch as two separate items, and that right there fills both my hands already. No good.

So now that I don't carry Emily in the infant carseat anymore, I think I may be ready for a purse again. I love purses and jackets, because even if I'm wearing my usual uniform of a stained shirt and jeans, I can look put-together if I have a nice jacket and purse covering it. I have been obsessing about the thought of a new purse since yesterday. Should I get one to match my diaper bag, or will that make me look like I am headed to the airport with a matching luggage set wherever I go. Is that necessarily a bad thing? People might think I am always headed somewhere fun and exotic. I want it to have some bright color so that it cheers me up when I pull it out of the closet each March after a long winter. I want it to be a decent enough brand that I CAN expect to be able to pull it out of the closet each March and it won't have ripped seams or broken buckles like all my other purses. If it has bright color, it should match my spring jacket (which I have yet to purchase because I am HOPEFULLY not the size right now that I will be for the rest of my springs). Should I go with orange, so that it will work for fall too? If I go with orange, will I be able to wear an orange jacket and purse with the new black shoes that I just fell in love with and will hereafter be wearing constantly?

I'm going out to Macys to take a look today, since I'll be doing a bit of grocery shopping nearby. As it so happens, my mom and sister will be shopping in the area too so we're going to meet up. I have been thinking of getting a Coach purse, but WOW, I don't know if I can justify spending that on a bag, no matter how fantastic it might be. Add to that the fact that now it turns out my mom will be with me and I don't know if I would be able to handle the "I am not going to say anything but how can you possibly do this" look she'd give me. Maybe a Dooney and Bourke will suffice...I've still never owned a purse even THAT expensive, so maybe that'll be a good first step for me. The one thing I'm determined not to do is to talk myself back down into a cheap purse that will fall apart.

As an update, my sister is currently lying on a lounge chair by the pool being piloted through the Caribbean on a Carnival oceanliner. I'm immensely relieved that she's ok and that if this had to happen to her, it at least happened JUST BARELY early enough that she could still make it onto her cruise. Bon Voyage Krista!