What's in your purse?

Back in April, Stacy Julian issued a What's in your purse? challenge. You were asked to take pictures of your purse and its contents. Yep, I did that - back in April. But I never did anything with the photos. Just snapped them and loaded them into Picasa.

So, fast forward to today. I'm in search of new blogs and decide to go through my list of followers on Twitter. I come to a blog "Peek at My Paper" and begin reading her posts. That's when I find her purse challenge posts except she goes on to talk about what the contents of her purse say about her. WOW! Why didn't I think of that?

Without further ado, here are my purse challenge photos and what I think the contents say about me.

1. I like pink! Purse, phone case, wallet, small spiral notebook, sticky notes, even my book!

2. I'm a paper person. I need to write my notes/lists on paper - no electronically stored lists. I have my grocery list in the notebook. Another list torn out of the notebook. A list of names and addresses for a wedding shower I was throwing. My Sunday School lesson plan.

3. I'm a bargain hunter! Several coupons and receipts are found in my purse.

4. I love Chic-fil-a! Their coupons are the best! Did you know that Chic-fil-a will accept expired coupons? Or that if the coupon is for a free grilled sandwich, you can trade it out for a different kind of sandwich? The Veggie Tales CD came in my kids meal from Chic.

5. I must have sunglasses & my cell phone! Those are my essentials!

6. My iPod, lip gloss, and book are just extras. I can do without them but must have sunglasses & cell phone!

7. I guess having my wallet and keys are pretty essential too.

8. The paw print shaped tag is from my cat's bed that I bought that day that he never sleeps in and the postcard is from the vet say that the cat was due for shots.

9. The ziploc bag is full of coins. I save my coins to feed my Starbucks habit. I try not to spend "crispy cash" as my favorite 2 year old twins call dollar bills on coffee.

10. The vial and nasal spray thing is my migraine medicine, Migranal. Works wonders!

11. Hissy Fit by Mary Kay Andrews is probably my favorite book ever! And that pink purse - probably my favorite purse ever too. I'd always wanted a colored, leather purse and this one fits my personality perfectly. I'm still carrying that same purse today and I rarely stick with one purse that long. My wallet is in my fav Vera Bradley pattern too, Mod Pink Floral. So sad that pattern's been discontinued.

12. That orange thing? It's a free sample of some magic cloth that I saw demo-d at the mall. It was pretty cool but not worth the $20 price tag to buy.


Here's a link to the blog post that inspired me to write this post: Peek At My Paper blog link

A few more photos just for fun:

The price you pay for FREE

I was lucky enough to receive a free Starbucks coupon. I decided I'd use it yesterday. It was hot outside, I felt a bit drab, and was hungry/thirsty.

I go to my Starbucks in Target and order a non-fat cafe vanilla frappuccino no whip. Here's where I should note that I normally order a non-fat vanilla bean frap with half coffee base no whip but lately that hasn't had enough of a coffee flavor.

I inhaled my frap as I browsed through every inch of Target. Ah, the joys of good coffee.

Fast forward 12 hours....yep, still wide awake at 1am. Why? I wonder as I lay in bed thinking of the upcoming fall season, plotting ways to obtain a career job, which Coach bag I'd buy if I had the money, thinking about my love of YellowBox flip flops, or how cute the tiny baby socks on the end cap at Target are that have the "3-6 months" label on the bottom in that non-skid stuff and trying to come up with a way to invite myself to a family-friend's mountain cabin again so I can sip coffee on the rocking chair porch overlooking the mountain view in my PJs each morning.

And that is when I realized it. COFFEE. My normal vanilla bean frap is only half coffee based...my new cafe vanilla frap = all coffee! Ugh. Thank you, my friend caffeine for keeping me up most of the night and thank you, my dear cat for waking me up 4 hours after I fell asleep.

I wonder if they can make my cafe vanilla decaf? Or half decaf-half regular?

So, the price for my free frappuccino  yesterday was about 4 hours of sleep.

Photo note: Taken in April of my favorite book, purse, and frapp at Starbucks.

Love-hate relationship with school supplies

I love school supplies...

...because there is something so fresh and new about starting a school year.
...because the notebooks and pens and organizers and planners are so colorful.
...because everything is empty - the notebooks are empty, the planners are empty, the pencil pouches are empty - all just waiting to be filled with possibility.
...because the hustle and bustle of the stores is fun - like Christmas except it's warm outside.
...because the deals are so good - 1 cent folders!


I hate school supplies...

...because this is the beginning of the first school year since I graduated from college and I should be stocking up on my supplies for my own elementary classroom - but I'm jobless.
...because my husband is stocking up on school supplies for his classroom and sometimes I'm just plain jealous. Please forgive me.
...because if I had lots of money I'd still stock up on school supplies for when I do get a classroom.
...because it's hard to justify spending $20 on a cute planner that won't get used because I'm jobless.


The rest of my story

The rest of my story would probably be beneficial to know and might explain more as to why I'm in such a love-hate limbo over school supplies but I feel it's best not shared right now. Maybe soon. Maybe not.

As a side note: I visited every school-supply-selling-store in my immediate area this afternoon to entertain myself. Found lots of great stuff. Should have snapped cellphone pics to share but I didn't. (I've been doing that a lot lately...taking cell pics of anything that I want to buy but can't justify the cost of)

So, I went into Staples then Target and then Office Max (went to Walmart a few days ago) and I was shocked. I've always been a loyal Staples fan but Office Max blew me away. Lots of cool stuff. Lots of neat planners. Lots of just pretty colors. Ugh. I did not need to find a new store.

Singing to my Heart

Our church is running their revival services every morning and evening this week. Last night, this lovely young man sang this song. I was so moved! After getting home with a yucky headache I was so of disappointed that I didn't know if I could find a version of the song online to listen to again.

Well, the headache was gone this morning and I set off to googling and found the song. "God's Been Good" sung by the Legacy Five. I've downloaded this and a few others from iTunes already. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.  

Off to get ready for tonight's service now. Busy busy around here. Will be back with more blog soon.

Random-ish Rumblings

{Don't ask where the post title came from. I don't know. It just sounded like fun.}

1. Tucker is really wanting to go play on the front porch but it's too stormy.

2. We booked a trip to Pigeon Forge today. Super duper excited about Dixie Stampede and Dollywood. Hopefully, this trip won't get snowed out the like the last time we planned to go to Pigeon Forge. Here's a look at what we were doing the last time we'd planned to be in Pigeon Forge. Yep, snowed in at home with 5 inches of snow!

3. Speaking of travels, I really want to make a "Travels Together" scrapbook off all the places we've been. But I need some inspiration. Please share clean and simple, cohesive scrapbook ideas preferably with travel themes. I have lots of photos to get busy with!

4. I need a J-O-B. I'm getting to the point of not being picky. I just want to start getting a career-sized-paycheck. But ideally, I'd love to teach 4th grade at an elementary school within 20 miles of my house. I realize now's not the time to be picky so I'm applying to every public school district, day care, pre-k, Starbucks, Target, and other place of employment withing the metro-area.

5. I think every weekend between now and the end of summer is booked up. Just got a call asking us to bring a salad to a picnic in two weeks. I felt silly but I had to ask "Do you mean a lettuce-salad? Or some other kind of salad?" The response...lettuce salad or macaroni salad or potato salad. Any of them would be fine. Every time I've typed salad in this post, I've typed "salada". I think I like that word better. I'll probably try to make a homemade version of this. (I think I blogged about this heavenly pasta-in-a-box before!)

6. If I could be any famous person, I think I'd want to be Reba McEntire. I love her red hair!

7. I finally let Tucker go out on the front porch since it has quit raining. We're both happier now. He's not crying and I can actually think and type this post that has taken me entirely too long to write out.

8. I have a dishwasher full of clean dishes to unload. YUCK!

9. Went to Chickfila for lunch today with the hubby. We didn't realize it was Cow Appreciation Day! We totally would have dressed in our cow outfits for the free food.

10. I have about 4 Mary Kay Andrews books that I want to read, a camera book to read, and an Eagle scout photo slide show to put together, and a closet to clean out. But writing silly blogs like this really is more fun.

One more random photo....In honor of today being, the 9th day of the month, I'm going to open the 9th folder in my photo organization system until I get to a single photo and I'm including it here.

Making homemade biscuits.

New Blog Look!

I made this blog banner months ago and have just now learned how to add it to my blog. I'm so proud of my accomplishments on the blog. Now, maybe I'll blog more frequently.