Time To Clean Out The Purse...

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So this morning I was looking for my bluetooth. I don't like to drive carpool without it. Not only do I have five children in my car who can - on occasion - be a little loud, but in Illinois it's illegal to talk on your cell phone while in a school zone. Our area has interpreted this to mean that handsfree is ok, and as much as I sometimes am the rebel, this is not one of those instances.

I didn't (duh!) have time for a major search before driving carpool, so I had to wait to search until I got home a little later in the day. I knew it was somewhere in my house, luckily. Even more luckily, it was charged, so I had proof of this. When I tried calling someone, my phone immediately hooked into my bluetooth, which it won't do if I am more than 35 feet from it or if it isn't charged and turned on.

Phew. I know I didn't lose it (which is my paranoia because it's a tiny little thing)! The trick was to find it. I drove my car around the block and saw that it still had a connection, so it had to be somewhere in my car. It, of course, doesn't belong in my car, but that doesn't stop it from falling out of my purse. And no, it wasn't in the zipped pocket of my purse where it does belong.

I searched high and low in my car, but I couldn't find it anywhere. I finally gave up and went inside.

As I thought more on it, I realized that it had to be somewhere within my cavernous purse (I'm still not used to carrying a large purse). It's possible that it's accumulated more than what it should have and that the bluetooth may have fallen somewhere inside there ... where it doesn't quite belong.

Thus commenced my purse cleaning.

I am still not used to carrying such a large, cavernous purse, and it's possible that things accumulate here that never used to in my old smaller purses. I'd like to note that my camera was also in my purse, but I never figured out how to take a picture of my camera in my purse with my camera.

Yes, my wallet is huge. I have a ton of loyalty and unused gift cards in my wallet, which makes up the majority of the girth. If only it were cash that made it impossible to close instead of a ummm Marshall Fields gift card, among others (yes, I still have a Marshall Fields gift card in my wallet that has money on it).

I have gum in there, and luckily, it wasn't just an empty container and there were zero empty gum papers anywhere in the purse - go me.  There were even seven pieces of gum left!

Ahhhh, my iGo.  How I love my iGo.  How it let me recharge my phone so that I could stream the Northwestern game while working at Little Miss's school carnival on Saturday.  Oh.  Yeah.  It's totally out of batteries and needs to be charged - tell me you're surprised.

Aren't these cute?  They have been living in my purse for over a year.  I'm not quite sure why I keep them in there if I'm not going to use them.  I always feel a little weird when I see people brushing their teeth in public places.  And hey, I've got the gum already.  And I have no more need to be somewhere sans my toothbrush overnight...

Ahhh, my collapsible hairbrush with its mirror.  Granted, I keep my hair curly 99% of the time, so I don't need to brush my hair.  The mirror is awfully handy though. Ok ok ok.  I keep it for Little Miss because of her rat's nest of a head of hair that looks like she slept in it two minutes after I brushed it.

Car keys.  'nuff said, no?

Ummm a random sample of body spray that I got this summer when I went to go see a movie?  Yeah, so I probably (ok, I really really really hope I) don't need that in my purse.

Lotion - always a good thing to keep on hand, especially as winter and dry, chapped hands season is settling into Chicago.

And hand sanitizer.  I'm really not a an of it actually.  But what kind of mom doesn't carry it with her?

Oooo look, a quarter!  I found money.  Then again, this isn't quite the same as when I find money in the washer that actually doesn't belong to me.  My balloon deflates.

Uhhhh five working pens.  Do I get credit for the fact that all five are working and I'm not carrying around any that are out of ink at least?

Yeah... now we get to the really useless stuff.  This would be a little jiggly snake thing that Mister Man got from the kids' area at our hotel in Florida for correctly guessing the trivia question.  Uhhh yes, that would be since the second week of August.  And it isn't even mine.  Oops.  I've since given it to him to play with.

Ahhh, I remember last Monday when I brought supplies to Mister Man's OT session so she could get it done while we waited.  Annnnnnnd they're still in my purse.

Along with crayons from some restaurant we've visited lately.  Or maybe multiple restaurants.  Wait, maybe having crayons in my purse makes me a good mom.  Hmmm....  Nah, only if I actually let the wee ones color with them, I suppose.

And apparently I'm also carrying around nail polish just in case I need a touch up while I'm out and about.  It might help if that were the color (or close to it) that I'm wearing now.

I also have a lovely selection of lip products from lipsticks to lip glosses to lip plumpers to healing balms.  You never know what mood you'll be in.  Yep, that's why I have twelve - count 'em, twelve - different ones in my purse.  Yikes!

Ooo look, it's a little ponytailer for Little Miss!  Because I would have been able to find it in my purse had I needed to put her hair up for gymnastics after forgetting to do so.  Yep, absolutely.  *sigh*

And then there's the assorted detrius - receipts, tickets, cards, and so forth.  The vast majority of it?  Garbage.

You'll note that you see no sunglasses in there. Unfortunately I actually did lose those, and I know exactly where. I traded out this purse for my normal small one earlier in the week and the sunglasses didn't fit in it. They fell off the top, and I forgot about them until it was too late. And by "too late" I mean the next day when it was sunny and I couldn't see a thing because my light blue overly sensitive eyes couldn't bear that harsh rays of the sun's light. And by "sunny" I mean it was daylight and there were white clouds all over the sky.

On the plus side, my bluetooth was in the bottom of my purse somewhere. Phew! I was so excited that I forgot to take a picture of it though.

Since I returned only selected items to my purse: my wallet, the gum, two pens, two lip glosses, my keys, my phone (which was also not pictured but was in there), a fully charged iGo (seriously, I go nowhere without this anymore), the hairbrush, lotion, and of course a new pair of sunglasses. It's amazing how light my purse is now - and I suppose it also explains why my shoulder had started to bother me.

I'm almost ready to move to a smaller purse. My iGo doesn't fit in my super small purses though (and my new phone doesn't fit so great either), so I'm stuck for the moment with this one. I think it's time to invest in some midsize purses....

So what do you find in your purses?