fear of the “bag lady”

I returned to work today after a fabulous few festive weeks and I must say that getting back into a routine is a mixed blessing… one that (at this stage) I am choosing to embrace. However, while sorting myself to get out the door this morning, I stopped in my tracks as I realised with horror  that “I’M ON MY WAY TO BECOMING A BAG LADY” aaargh. I need to get this under control before I end up becoming the little old lady with the pencil thin eyebrows that we met earlier in “The Meaning of Eyebrows”  loubale.wordpress.com/?p=129&preview=true  

By the time I had: packed my lunch in my gorgeous cooler tote bag (part of the decision to take lunch rather than buy it)… filled my lap-top bag with everything except a lap-top ( documents that I should have read over the break ,but didn’t)… grabbed my handbag with my personal bits and pieces (you never know when you will need make-up, panadol, glasses, sun-glasses, rewards cards, perfume and money), then collected the 2 bags of clothes for the charity bin (from yesterday’s ruthless draw cleanout)…. I could barely get out the door, let alone in the car.

I struggled and it’s only day one!

Over recent years I’ve started to notice that I carry stuff back and forth to work each day ‘just in case’, so I’ve decided it will stop…right here… right now;  I plan to take a minimalist approach to commuting and literally ‘lighten my load’.

That said, I’m not sure what it is about us women, but there is something bizarre about piling stuff into handbags, yet never stopping to fully empty them… (meaning that you then need a second bag to cope with the overflow). I’ve never been great at swapping bags to match outfits….it would mean actually decanting stuff back and forth with the ultimate worry that just when you need them, those 10 pens you have been carrying ‘just in case’…won’t be there.

Footnote:

Before putting fingers to keyboard tonight I emptied my handbag …lo and behold, I discovered a map tucked in one pocket, when I checked it out I found it was a relic from our trip to New York in Sept 2012, complete with our travels around the fabulous city marked in pen.

Sentimental? Maybe…

Necessary every day in Penrith? …Hardly.