A Tour of My Handbag

*Ahem*  
  Rainey, this post is for you.  To prove that I do, sometimes, have a neat (well, ok, that's open to interpretation) handbag.  
  Ok. So.  Saturday afternoon I decided to clean Everything out of my handbag because the handbag itself was in need of a good scrubbing, and therefore the following photo.  Yup, Everything.*

 
 I also decided to catalogue the detritus. Be warned; it's boring and gruesome. Also tedious. You may want to leave and find a different blog to peruse. 

 Here goes.  
Alright folks, moving from left to right, and starting from the handbag's strap which is poking into the left-hand side of the frame.  Directly beneath it, you will notice two small round objects.
  The first being a button which popped off the cuff of a very pretty white jacket, and which I stuck into an inward pocket for safe-keeping until I finally get around to mending. Please note the thread still attached and the very pretty rhinestone.  Thank you.  
  The next 'small round object' is of a peculiar orangey-brown hue with veins of dark brown, and was picked up by yours truly on the bank of the North Branch of the Susquehanna River. It is a rock. ('Pebble' would possibly be a more accurate word.) It is very smooth and I carried it around for a while just to feel it. It's a very nice rock.  I'm not sure what Sort of rock it is. (Besides being smooth and nice.)
  To the right of the button and pebble are my keys and two packs of gum. Spearmint and Polar Ice, in fact.  I won't get to chew all of it, as my siblings always occasionally raid my purse for gum.
  Above the keys there is a stack of assorted papers which are as follows:

• a scrap containing computer screen info, in my brother's handwriting, because my daddy's monitor quit and we two were researching what Walmart had in stock. Well, he was, and I provided the paper and pen.
• Bible verses I was memorizing.Luke 10:25-37
• my daily planner. Which I don't use on a daily basis.
• my "To Read" booklist, which I keep on hand in case I happen to be going through a library.  I think there's about 70 books on it.  
• quote from a poem entitled "Shipwrecked", which I didn't really like as a whole, just this phrase. "Here lie the bones of twenty trees,"
•  a plastic sandwich bag containing more bible verses, poem or two, and my personal pics.
• two different lists of stuff that I either needed to accomplish, or purchase, before I left for a girl's seminar weekend.

And there you have the first photo explained. The black cord belongs in the next section.

   Proceeding from left to right, as usual.  The aforementioned gum, and papers.
  Next is a plastic sandwich bag of tealights and matches. I keep them for emergencies. Such as a picnic with no candles. (You know what I mean. Atmosphere-less picnincs? How dreadful.)  It has come to my attention however, that the matchbox's strike area has become wax-covered, so I may have to rethink the matches bit. A lighter, perhaps?
  Hm. To the right of the candles is a small mountain of used tissues and empty gum wrappers. I think I need a trashcan in my handbag.
  Below that is an empty plastic sandwich bag which usually contains my tech accessories. They are tangled en masse to the left of the bag.  It appears that the black cord from the previous frame would be my mp3 charger but I'm not certain about that, since there is also my cellphone charger and earbuds in that maze somewhere.
  In the bottom righthand corner of the photo, you will see my sunglasses, chapstick, and two handy dandy little notebooks. I use them for:

• a journal
• a collection of observations
• thoughts
• opinions
• leaves
• and sometimes they even come in useful for holding the attention of small children. 
• (Drawing material.)

  Last but not least, a small bottle of hand lotion. Japanese Cherry Blossom.  Oooo, I like. :)

 Moving on.   Recognize those books? 
  The yellow bottle is sunscreen. I'm fair-skinned and sensitive to the sun's radiance. However, I detest sunscreen. That means the yellow bottle is still full.
  The blue bottle is bubbles.  Great fun. :) 
  The small brown bottle is hand sanitizer. Brown Sugar and Vanilla-scented.  Usually I forget I have it.
  The white bottle is tylenol. For the amount I use I really wouldn't have to carry it around in my purse, but if you don't have it and you Need it, then it's not good. See?
  The purple cylindrical shape is a moody flashlight.
  The green cylindrical shape is a pen. Thank goodness it's not moody. 

If you don't know what a penny is...

   The hot pink piece of paper must've escaped the sandwich bag. It's the holiday hours of our public library from last Christmas, and it's holding a pin captive, otherwise I would've thrown it away by now.
   And last BUT NOT LEAST!  a mint tea bag.  For whenever.   There used to be an English Breakfast tea bag in there (for at least a month), but I just drank it on a certain stormy Thursday. (happiness)

  Oh, and those are my keys. Guess which one is my favorite?

 
Aaaaaand there you have it. Of course, the contents vary from time to time, but these are the general essentials.  I don't have a pic of the cleaned-out, neatly arranged, finished product, but that's because it doesn't exist yet. The handbag is waiting to be washed. Still.







*well, not quite everything. I realized later that my wallet (the size of those handy dandy little notebooks) wasn't in the pile and a black plastic comb, and a long scissors, and the only reason there wasn't a pinecone too, was that I was wearing a sweatshirt with big pockets at the time.