Purse Karma, We Haz It

Hello there. Yeah, it's me, the Prodigal Blogger. I found my way back to the blog, and believe me, I'm thrilled to be back. What's kept me? Mostly it was those allergies from someplace-even-hotter-than-Tucson-in-July that kicked my behind for a few weeks. I was at the point where I just wanted to lock myself in a hermetically sealed room with quadruple HEPA filtration and not come out until everything in the world had ceased pollinating. I even cried. It has been an unbelievably nasty allergy season here in the SW. Then M found this homeopathic allergy spray, Southwest formula, and I've been a changed woman ever since.

And there has been knitting -- lots and lots of knitting to keep me busy and/or feeling guilty while I've been "sick", and I can't share it -- sorry. In time perhaps some will be revealed.

But I did want to reveal the lucky score we made last Friday on a crawl through secondhand stores. First we found a pair of brand new Birkenstocks -- in my size -- in black -- for $8.

Next, we found two bowls by a Tucson artist whose work we have been drooling over since we moved here. [In fact, if anyone needs a gift suggestion, the 16" platter in her Tree of Life pattern would look fabulous on the lazy susan in the middle of our dining room table.]

But the best? The best came at our favorite second hand haunt when I did what I always do and headed for the place where they keep "the good stuff". Only this wasn't with the good stuff. There in a shopping cart, where it was waiting for someone to put it away, was the unmistakable pebbled leather of a Dooney & Bourke handbag. I pulled it out to reveal, well, what you see above there, priced at $4. That wasn't to be all, though. Digging through the cart revealed yet another D&B handbag, this one priced at $6 -- and brand new -- with the plastic still on the shoulder strap.

But that wasn't even the end. After we had snatched up these two bags and headed to the checkout with them before someone could change their mind about the prices, we found yet ANOTHER D&B handbag. This time an Essex -- in bone -- in very good condition -- for $8. I don't have a picture of that last one because it has already gone to a friend with a love of Dooney & Bourke and no budget to match. She was thrilled -- or perhaps stunned is a better word for it. And researching her new handbag has given her a bit of a passion for vintage handbags -- we may have created a monster.

We're guessing that someone either died or had to be moved into a nursing home, and the family just donated all her stuff. Then someone priced it without really knowing what it was (side note: in the same cart was a like new leather Prada handbag for $10 which we didn't buy). The Essex was clearly its previous owner's everyday bag for a while. Among the things I cleaned out of it: two Advil, one Alleve, one Imitrex, two Zoloft (who carries loose anti-depressant pills around with them?), a fortune cookie fortune, 12 cents, and a grocery receipt from 2003.

So, M has a new everyday bag (the drawstring bag); I have a new (and it's green!) fun handbag; and Lorraine is tickled pink with her new baby.

Oh, my everyday handbag? Another fantastic secondhand find. A vintage Coach we got for a buck (yes $1) at a rummage sale.

And since I finished all the stealth knitting I can't share, I have been working on a couple of fun projects which I can share, and I promise I will, let's hope tomorrow.