What’s in Your Purse?

I admit it.

I am a purse-aholic.

Actually, I’m such a purse-aholic I’m surprised I’ve never done a purse-focused post before.

It’s not as bad as it used to be… before kids I had over 100 purses. All of them nice, good quality purses.

Now, I have less than a quarter of that.  I’ve consciously pared down my stash over the last ten years.

Before kids, my purses were cute little things with lots of leather and stylish lines.  They were on the smallish side.  I only needed my wallet, keys, lipstick and maybe a few other little things. (way back before we carried all these electronic gizmos with us everywhere we went)

Now, my handbags now tend to really hover somewhere between tote bag, ginormous sack, and the “shopper’s tote” genres. Rather than being made of leather (which would be really heavy in a bigger bag) they tend to be made of lightweight fabric or some fabric/leather concoction. 

Vera Bradley has held my heart for a while now, although I am growing tired of the eye-popping patterns and longing for more solid-color, sedate bags these days (am I getting old?!?)

The VB Bucket Tote is one of my favorites… but they have discontinued it, I think. (sigh)

I loved the fact that it had an outside pocket (which zipped) and four inside pockets (one zip, three open) that I could stash things in. It leaves the entire middle of the purse for your wallet and other goodies that the kids drop in – and yet you have easy access to glasses, pens, keys, phone, etc.

And the list of what I carry inside the bag has grown exponentially, too.

Now, on my list of absolute must-haves in the handbag:

• two or three tubes of lipstick (one neutral, one red, one more coppery)
• chapstick
• asthma inhaler
• powder compact (this one sometimes gets left out)
• wallet
• cell phone
• iPod touch (if we’re going to be in the car for a long time)
• Nook (ditto)
• earphones
• my badge for work (only because I was actually IN an office last week, not a normal thing)
• eyeglasses, sunglasses
• fingernail files
• lotion (two, apparently)
• Kleenex
• Splenda (since I am picky about my sweeteners nowadays)
• Moleskine notebook & pen
• hand sanitizer (at least one)
• hairbrush & a few barrettes or pony tail holders
• various mail, receipts, and pieces of paper with lists on them
• and whatever other garbage the kids drop in – today it’s an MP3 player and a couple Polly Pockets

For a lot of my bigger bags I use a cute little purse organizer I bought a long time ago. I like it because it has a lot of pockets (which is one of the things I like about the Vera Bradley purses) and I can drop it into any bag and everything stays organized.

My latest purse I bought at Cracker Barrel, of all places. My shopping snobbishness has certainly gone downhill these days.  Although, I haven’t really seen any nice purses in the department stores that I liked and I was thrilled to find one that I thought was cute even if it was at Cracker Barrel.

But it’s so cute, isn’t it?

(sorry for the crooked shot – just realized it as I pasted it into the post) 

I like it because it will hold everything (and then some) and it looks nice and somewhat put-together even though I’m carrying everything except the kitchen sink inside.

So, spill it… what do you carry in your purse?

Oh, and here's a link to another fellow blogger Lipglossed Mom, with her 8 essential items for her purse.