From Envy, to Greed, to Pride, to.... Green?

When I saw my dear sister a couple of weekends ago, I eyed her new shoulder bag with cool envy. It was bright and springy, and the perfect size to carry all my essentials without being big enough to double duty as an overnight bag. I ran my hand over it's smooth fabric. My sister helpfully chimed in "Isn't it great? The fabric is made from recycled water bottles!" Now, of course, I had to have one. You know, to support the economics of the recycling life cycle.

Robyn got her Lilly Bloom bag, made with Karma Bloom fabric, from good old Marshall's - a favorite of ours for "I would never buy this full price, but since it's such a bargain..." retail therapy. To sweeten the deal, I also had a gift card for Marshall's, thanks to the recent return of a gift that didn't fit. 

So, despite the fact that I need another purse like I need a hole in the head, I gleefully came home from Marshall's last weekend with this lovely shoulder tote for a mere $7 of my own money:

It goes with everything!



It's got the perfect sleeve pocket in the back to hold my goes-everywhere-with-me notebook!

For the first couple of days, I was wearing the buzz of an awesome new purchase on my face. This bag made me smile. It was pretty, it looked cute with all my coats, and it was the perfect size.  Better yet, the pleather was just decorative, so I didn't need to worry about the pervasive purse-dooming pleather fraying that has sent more than a few of my fave purses to the heap. Or so I thought.

Wouldn't you know it, 4 days into my Fabulous New Life With My New Purse, the pleather on the sort of helpful/sort of bewildering top handle came unstitched:

Of course it did.

Now I'm debating about taking it back or just snipping the handle off all together. I don't particularly like bags with multiple handle options, but this bag is so light and soft, the top handle was actually kind of helpful for picking the bag up from the floor. Plus it added to its "I'm a tiny satchel bag! Look at how cute I am!" appeal.

The handle failure also serves as an excellent reminder that stuff is just stuff, and it will all end up being discarded eventually. I certainly didn't NEED this purse. I am enjoying it, though, broken handle and all. This whole experience is prompting me to be more structured and methodical about the new leaf of "not buying stuff" that I am supposedly turning over. I'm going to stew over this a bit more and get back to you with a more goal-oriented approach to STOP the madness of my stuff buying.

Cold-turkey has worked pretty well so far with the Diet Coke and the hair dye. Could I dare try to detox from buying things in a similar fashion? Gasp! Man, I'm glad I got this purse before I made that kind of deal with myself.