Pampering My Fetish

I have a thing about tote bags. This is not a purse thing: a cute little clutch for every outfit is definitely very fashion forward, but you just can’t put that much stuff in a teeny tiny purse. This is a love affair with tote bags. I have tote bags in all colors, shapes and sizes (Different bags work better for different stuff!) and my favorites are usually those that can be described as organizational powerhouses. So when my mother-in-law gave me a coupon for a super cute bag in a fabric of my choice for my birthday, I was completely excited. So we shopped, and we lunched, and then she sewed. Here are the marvelous results:



And check out the pockets inside!


These darling bags are organizationally excellent and absolutely adorable all at the same time. I think I’m in love!

Pack Rat

This morning I went to Bath and Body Works to take advantage of another one of their free tote bag with any purchase promotions. This was not the first time this promotion has come up, but every time I see it, I find myself running over there to buy a $3 lip balm so I can get a free tote bag. Some women have a thing for purses, cute little numbers that they can match to any outfit. I prefer tote bags. You see, I am fundamentally a pack rat. I hoard stuff. And as any good pack rat knows, not only do you need somewhere to put all your piles of stuff, you need a way to carry portions of it around. And if that mode of transport happens to be cute, so much the better. That is why my purse weighs about twenty pounds. I simply cannot part with the stuff inside because I might need it later. Don't get me wrong, I definitely throw away gum wrappers, used kleenexes, and other such stuff like that, but I almost always have a handful of tickets stubs from movies, plays, etc. hanging out in my wallet. And I can't throw them out because I might regret it later. I know it doesn't make any sense. To be honest, I don't really understand it either. But in spite for my love of tote bags, my pack rat tendencies have definitely diminished as I've gotten older. Don't believe me? I can prove it.

Last summer my parents had a small flood in their basement. It wasn't anything too major. It only really affected one room and at no point were hip waders required. However, that one room happened to be the one where my siblings and I have been storing the detritus of our childhood. so the Saturday after the indoor rain, we were all called home to clean up the mess. As I started digging through my treasures of youth, I was actually appalled at all the trash that I had collected. There were sheets of stickers that had no stickers left on them. There were scraps of very soggy paper left over from when I had cut things out. There were keys that unlocked nothing and pens that no longer worked. There were random paper clips and teeny tiny pompoms stored in itty bitty boxes that were stuffed into minuscule drawers. In short, there was an enormous amount of garbage very carefully packed in boxes. I filled bag after bag to go to the dump. The back of my Dad's pickup was piled high with my junk alone. It was an eye opening experience. When I was finished, I had whittled down my belongings by about three quarters.

So having a love affair with tote bags is nothing compared to where I began. Seriously, I improve all the time. I threw a bunch of stuff away just yesterday. Unfortunately, it seems that I have passed down the pack rat gene to my children.