She Thinks

I like purses.

I have a lot of them.

Different shapes.  Different colors.  And…different sizes.

They make me happy.

But I must admit I tend to gravitate toward larger bags.

For me…size does matter (you knew it had to show up somewhere in this one).

I’m not sure why.  It’s not like I put more in a large bag than any other bag (the proverbial “evening” bag being the exception since you’re lucky to fit a lipstick and license in those).

I put the same stuff in every purse that I assume other women put in theirs.  Wallet, checkbook, phone, lip stick(s), Advil bottle (filled with a variety of pain relieving substances), pen, and reading glasses.

Oh…and tissues, card holder (with my She Thinks business cards), tic tacs and loose change of course.

And sometimes my e-reader.  (You never know when you’ll have the chance to finish a chapter.)

And a sweater or scarf.  (You never know when you might get chilled.)

I think a big purse makes me feel secure.  Like I have options.

Ya know…the option to carry more stuff should I have the need to pick stuff up and carry it somewhere.

Maybe it’s a girl thing.

Or a mom thing (God knows, we moms seem to carry a lot of stuff).

But there are women out there who use really small bags and seem to have everything they need in them.

I admire that.  I couldn’t do it.  But I admire them for it (it makes me think they must be VERY organized and efficient).

The other day someone (a guy) saw me with one of my big purses slung over my shoulder and asked me if I always carried my “luggage” around with me.

I wasn’t offended.  Guys don’t understand big purses.  They’re intimidated by them.  Like they’re scare of ‘em (or they’re scared of what they might find in them).

How many times have you heard a guy say “what do you carry in that thing?”

As if we carried a bunch of deep dark scary stuff like poisons or snakes or bags and bags of feminine hygiene products that we’re ready to whip out in public at any time.

But the bag in question wasn’t that big.  It was a hobo bag and it was just a bit stretched out from months of swinging it from my shoulder to the floor, or over into the backseat of the car, or onto the end of the banister where it lives when I’m at home.

But the comment did give me reason to take a good hard look at what had become my “go to bag”…and I was forced to admit that it did look BIG.

Or rather…long.   Months of daily use and abuse had caused it to look more like a woven laundry sack (albeit with a nice leather strap and matching leather bottom) than a stylish shoulder bag.

Not what I was going for.

Apparently I had become too lazy to change my bag and I had entered into a purse rut.

Normally, I love to change my purses to go with my outfits.   It’s part of the game of mixing and matching different colors and textures to make a full outfit, with purses adding another piece to the puzzle.

But over the course of the winter I seem to have ignored all the other bags lining the top shelves of my closet…and my one “go to bag” was obviously now showing the worse for wear.

I’m so embarrassed.

I guess I have no choice but to seek out one of the many big purses I have at the top of my closet, so I have the option to fill it with lots more stuff.

I need to preface this whole post with the disclaimer that I am not a big reader.  Ally is a voracious reader…but I’m not.  I love to read when I travel…or at the beach…or on a rainy/snowy Sunday with a hot cup of French vanilla coffee by my side.  But I don’t read every day.

It takes a really good story to get me hooked on a book, and then once I’m hooked, I don’t put it down.

So when I do think about reading a book…I’m totally drawn to fiction, as I love a good story.

Not that true life can’t be turned into a good story, but I guess I prefer the made-up version of life when I curl up with a book.

Interestingly – even though I’m a sporadic reader – I’m particularly drawn to novels in a series.  I guess I like to know that when I start a book, I’ll be able to follow the characters through different times, places and experiences…taking multiple books to complete the saga.

(Or maybe I’m just lazy and like the idea of having my next few books all laid out for me)

And I’m not at all particular about the genre of the books/series I choose.  In fact…I’ve read and totally enjoyed…

• “Young adult” fiction like The Hunger Games series and The Twilight books;
• Books that deal with espionage, terrorism and political intrigue like The Bourne series, Vince Flynn’s series featuring the super good guy assassin Mitch Rapp and anything by David Baldacci;
• Stories about prehistoric times like Jean Auel’s the Earth’s Children series (Ally and I just went to a book signing last week and heard the author talk about her latest book and each got a signed copy!);
• Quirky stories about weird people in Sweden (yep…I got hooked on the whole Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series);
• And most recently, a story about a woman who steps through a group of large rocks in the 1940’s only to get sent back in time to Scotland in the 1700’s where she falls in love with a hunk of a Scottish man who rescues her about 20 times from danger in the first two books alone (the Outlander series)!  LOVING IT!

I think I like historical novels a lot…but I can’t seem to get through a nonfiction book about a historical figure or event.   I’ve tried to read about several of our Presidents, various wars, and even the civil rights movement.  But honestly…I haven’t finished any of them.

I love to read stories about strong and interesting women, but when I’ve tried to read about real women (who I thought were role models) like Hillary Clinton or Jane Fonda, I found that I don’t really care all that much about their lives once I got into their books.  They’re still role models…but just not as authors.

I’ve tried to read about how to better my health, my mind and my body…but I lose interest quickly and end up sitting in front of the TV eating a big ham and cheese sandwich.

But oddly enough, I like to read cookbooks.   I know it sounds silly…but I can read through an entire cookbook, learning different techniques, food and spice combinations and serving ideas, and walk away feeling totally fulfilled…but not feeling like I just read a book.

Weird.

So I guess I do like some types of non-fiction.

And as I think about it…I think I read more than I think I read.

So I guess I’ll go finish up the 2^nd book in the Outlander series right now.  I’ve already got the next two in the series waiting for me.

I thrive on Change.

I initiate it.

I get bored without it and then if things get too quiet, I initiate it some more.

I guess that makes me a change junkie.

But…I also like routine.  A small amount of routine to balance out all of the changes I create in my life.  Like when the dogs get fed each day;  or the way I like to have a cup of coffee in bed every morning before getting up, but then have to be fully dressed with make-up and jewelry on and bed made, before going back downstairs to start my day.

You know…the OCD kind of routine stuff.

I’m not a maniac or anything.  I’m just a weird kind of change junkie who also happens to like having things orderly around me.

And everything needs to move quickly.

I like my changes to happen fast.

(Clearly, that whole patience thing is not my strong suit)

I think it has to do with the fact that my hair grows really really fast.

I never worry about getting my hair cut (apparently some women absolutely flip out over the idea of cutting their hair!).  But my hair grows freakishly fast.  So when I get bored with my hair style (which happens every few months or so) and decide I need to get a new haircut (as soon as possible) – I just do it.  And if it ends up not being something that I like (which is rare because I have an amazing hair stylist)…I don’t freak out because I know it won’t take more than a few days (ok…maybe a couple of  weeks) before it grows back to where it started, and then I’ll get to change it again.

So I started to try to figure out if someone was a “change agent” or “change adverse” by figuring out if their hair grew quickly or not.  Typically I found that people with fast growing hair would accept and/or initiate change much better than someone whose hair took forever to grow back.

So I labeled it the “Speedy Hair Growth Theory.”

It totally makes sense.  If someone with slow growing hair gets a bad haircut, they’re totally traumatized because they know they’ll have to live with the results of that bad haircut forever…so they extrapolate that feeling into everything else and they become afraid of change!!

It’s brilliant.

Maybe my Speedy Hair Growth Theory is also the reason why I make decisions quickly.

Really quickly.  And most of the time it’s a good thing.  Once in awhile…I can jump a bit too quickly.

But that’s probably why I also get shit done.

You kind of have to like change, and be able to make decisions, in order to get shit done.

And that’s why I liked running my business.  It was in a constant state of change that required a million decisions as our services changed, our people changed, our operational models changed and our level of quality and expertise grew and evolved.

And I knew…if we didn’t change, we wouldn’t grow.  But we did grow.  And the business evolved into an amazing and successful company.  And then it sold.  And I was lucky enough to get the chance to change my life again, starting a whole new chapter in my life.

Initiating more changes as I go…and feeding my change junkie habit.