New Year's Revolution

I started 2008 like I started most years before it ... swearing upon the well-lit ball dropping to earth on Dick Clark's Rocking Eve New Year show that I would do better once January began.

My resolutions were pretty much like yours, I bet. I'd eat better, mother better, be a better wife, manage my office more efficiently, save more, iron like a pro, organize my silverware drawer. As I sit here tonight and look back on the last 365 days, I think I made some minor progress. But for 2009, I think something more monumental is called for.

I'm going to make a few New Year's Revolutions. I think that, every now and again, we're all in need of blowing up a project and starting from scratch. Every time I tackle a little garage organization, my husband stands staring, jaw dropped, at the mounds of junk I've littered the driveway with (behind the fence, away from the curious eyes of our neighbors). I always say to him, "Honey, don't worry ... you've got to drag it all out to see what you've got so you can make choices."

I think I'm there right now. Don't expect to see me striking out away from my life here, though. I'm in love with my family, I'm in pretty good "like" with my job, my friends sure make me laugh. But it's the insides I'm going to drag out into the open. Once I take a good hard look at me, I can decide what to purge and what to treasure ... and what needs a good makeover.

Stay tuned.

What the heck is a "purser" anyway?

When I was growing up and watching Love Boat, I always wondered about Gopher. I knew they called him the ship's purser, but what the heck is a purser, anyway?

I don't know about Gopher, but I'm pretty sure that I'm one. And it's got nothing to do with ships.

I've recently discovered that I just really dig purses. They make me happy. They do so much more than accessorize, you know. Sure, they add the "pop" of color to an ensemble, and they hold everything from your wads of chewed gum in wrappers to your business cards to your phone/iPod/Bluetooth/miscellaneous gadgets. But they also soothe a tired soul. They don't mind when you're carrying "water weight" (sure, let's call it that), and they'll never fit you too tightly or too loosely. They don't mind being slung under your desk or on the couch or in the backseat of the car. They provide a wealth of random bills and coins when you're organizing them and all of their siblings in your closet.

And they even serve as prey. My sister and I discovered on a stopover in Yuma, before heading to Las Vegas, that even the cutest and most awe-inspiring purses can pop up in the strangest of places. Say, a swap meet on a cement slab. Or a gift shop off the Strip. Or ...

Well, you get the picture.

I don't put my purses up on pedestals, or in velvet bags or in boxes. But I appreciate them for their beauty and their incredible ability to contain, conceal and camouflage my wadded-up receipts and array of pens. Sigh.