Since May, I have been "living" between three or four bags. When we went to New York, I packed up a new bag ($8 at goodwill), that I could use for my HEAVY camera and everything else. But then, who wants to carry a HUGE bag around New York City, so I had a smaller purse for that too. When I got home, I was switching between those two bags (and a backpack that I use for camera equipment). Long story long, I have been needing to find ONE bag to suit my needs. Thankfully my needs have changed! I no longer have to carry wipes or diapers or any of that kind of stuff, so I can carry a dainty little bag right?
WRONG! Now I carry, hand sansistizer (as my 6 year old calls it), McDonald toys, balls, snacks, gum, pads of paper (for restaurants), pens, business cards and so on. So I need a big bag, but not a diaper bag. Time for a new purse, right? Wrong again! Due to budget constraints (and the fact that I just had to buy 2 new "bags" for the kiddos to go back to school- so that is where my bag money is going!!!), I cannot buy a new bag. So today, I did what any budget conscious mother of three would do. I went shopping in the crawl space. I have a plethora of bags and purses that I no-longer-needed-but-couldn't-get-rid-of hiding in the basement. Oh what fun I had!
However, in true busy woman fashion, many of those bags never made it to the cleaning stage. They were quickly thrown aside in haste when the new bag came and I just had time to transfer the necessities. I am sure none of you do this, but I am a big culprit.
Would you like to see what I found in said discarded purses? I thought you would never ask!
Most scientists use carbon dating to figure out how old something is. I have a different scale. The benedryl dating. We have A LOT of allergies at our house and therefore, I have become the benedryl hoarder. I always have some on hand. If you have an allergic reaction, just search for LISA LORD and I will hook you up! Of course it may be in the form of children's liquid benedryl, but it might just save your life. Chris had to resort to this once when he ate some pesto (with nuts) at his best friends rehearsal dinner. Think of the movie Hitch where Will Smith is drinking the medicine out of the straw. Yep, been there, done that.
That being said, there was benedryl in almost every purse. I could tell how old the purse was by the expiration date on the benedryl. The oldest one says 3/2008 (meaning that the purse was probably used in 2007). Before then, I usually carried liquid benedryl because my kids weren't big enough to chew the medicine. The bottle was much bigger to carry, so it usually made it to the trash can when it expired. These little guys like to hide in the deep recesses of the purse. Notice the one that has been used?
Also carried constantly in the purse is the epi-pen. Again, if you are in anaphylatic (by the way, spell check thought this word should be prophylactic...hahahahaha- no comments about the shape of the epi-pen) shock and need some epinephrine, I am your gal. These are also cumbersome and therefore also tend to get trashed when they expire. This one needs to go in the trash too, but that seems so wasteful (especially when they cost a FORTUNE, luckily never had to actually use one)
Further dating of the purse can be done using postage stamps.
Thanks to Google, I know that the 37 cent stamp was used from June of 2002- January of 2006. So the purse that this came out of could be upwards of 10 years old.
Ummmmm, apparently this purse was used when I was still a Coombs (over 13 years ago).
Foley's.....really? Apparently didn't use that very often. This card was pre-kids (almost 9 years). However, (again thanks Google) Foley's officially became Macy's in early 2006. I probably didn't even need to cover up the number on this one. Doubt the account even exists anymore. Wish I could say that about my other credit card!
Apparently Target receipts are not a very accurate date scale. The only thing you can see is their terrible return policy on the back, the front is totally blank. Hummmmm, interesting. Wonder what I bought that day?
Walmart, on the other hand, much better. I can see that I went through the self checkout on 5/9/2005 with 24 items. Who does that? Apparently me. I must have not wanted to wait in a long checkout line with a two year old and being 6 months pregnant!
Now, onto the treasures I found. Now that I know WHEN I was using the purse, I can find out what I was using the purse for. Before kids, there were a large quantity of feminine products. Girls hate to be caught without those, and plus it is a good way of keeping men out of your purse. They are always scared they are going to accidentally touch one! There were also a vast array of beauty products. Some....very interesting. My 6 year old niece is about to come into a gold mine of beauty! (really. Starburst lip smacker lip gloss. How old was I?)
Perhaps this one should have gone up into the "dating" section. For the life of me, I cannot figure out who's wedding this would have come from. If you recognize it, let me know and help me solve the mystery of WHY there was UNEATEN chocolate in one of my purses. This is highly unusual.
Really, a bouncy ball. Who carries this around? Perhaps it was a crazy woman who let her kids convince her to give them 25 cents at Old Navy while she was trying to shop and they HAD to have a bouncy ball from the big dispenser. Then said bouncy ball proceeded to bounce ALL over the store until the mom had enough and made the little boys give it to her. She then stuck it in her purse where she prayed that they would never find it or think of it ever again. I am just guessing. That wasn't me running all over Old Navy after 3 boys and a bouncy ball. Not me. Never. (at least not recently, I learned my lesson with this red ball). All you moms out there. Word of advise. Don't do it. Don't be lured in by the cute little people whining. It will just make it worse.
Who says stay-at-home mom's don't make any money? I made a huge haul today. There was so much change in all of those purses! There had to have been at least $2 in pennies! I also found a few gold dollar coins. Good thing. The tooth fairy has been on the prowl.
Are you ready for the sentimental part? Look what I found. Tons of wallets of my favorite little boys. It was so fun to walk down memory lane with these pictures. Sorry that it isn't a very good picture. Pictures of pictures are never very good. Aren't they so cute?
This one is each boy at 6 months old. Makai's face is hard to see, but they all look so much alike!
At the end of the night, all I am left with is a big bin of purses and a lot of memories (oh yeah, and a HUGE pile of junk on my kitchen table). Time to transfer all my "important" stuff into a new/old bag!
Anyone need to do some bag shopping? We could work out a deal!
Time for bed, this old bag is tired!
Haha I pulled out a pager from my really old job I thought to myself 1989 called and wants it's pager back Love it
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