The Splurge...but not really

I have never believed in expensive purses. I know they exist. I just don't believe in paying the price that is given these, unfortunately necessary, items. On the other hand, I don't like carrying a "cheap" purse either. Therein lies the quandry I have been in over purses throughout my adulthood. Keeping in mind, that as I approached adolescence, my mother pleaded with me to carry a purse, if for nothing more than to have the housekey someplace safe for when I got home from school and had to let myself in. I won't go into the guilt that I still, at the age of 39, put my mother through over the fact that I was a latch-key kid of the 80's. Anyway, so I won some prize money from doing a magazine survey...50 bucks-worth! I was determined to literally blow it. I wasn't going to spend it on something I or the kids needed, and I wasn't going to "stretch it" like I always do. You know. Try to see how many things you can buy for $50 and then feel so proud about how many clearance items you were able to buy for $50?! No. I was going to be frivolous. I had been wanting a new spring/summer purse for awhile. Still carrying my brown bag from fall/winter and it being June, I knew I needed to find something. So I decided to buy myself a nice, new purse. Those Vera Bradley purses have puzzled me for a few years now. They look an awful lot like purses I remember women carrying back in the 70's and they were homemade and sold at church bazaars and craft shows. So I was really not getting the whole craze, especially since I found most of them to be rather ugly. Then when I saw how much they were charging I thought they had to be out of their mind! You know...these Vera Bradley purses have kind of grown on me. And maybe I have even been "sucked into" the whole craze too. But there is a little sweetness to this purchase. The little beauty you see here is the Summer 2008 pattern and when I saw it a year ago, I thought it sure was pretty, having always been a sucker for blues and greens together. And I got it for 25% off since it was an 'old model.' Can you believe it?! I had money left over from my $50 prize money! Let's see...I wonder how many Starbuck's I can buy with the extra cash?!