The Orange Purse Project

Feeling like the dog's dinner.  

Feeling like something the kitty brought home.

Even if you aren't familiar with those good old Southern expressions, you can still imagine it, can't you?

Smells nasty and looks worse. 

Been chewed and spit out.  

Leftover from the night before.  

That's exactly how I had been feeling, particularly so after meeting for a few months with a local quilt guild.  Who knew that quilters could be such a tough crowd?!   It was obvious that I couldn't measure up, and finally I decided that I never would care to do so anyway, at least not according to their standards.

So I needed something to make me feel better about myself and about the world in general.  That's how I came up with 

~*~  The Orange Purse Project ~*~  

If there's a color more hopeful than orange, I don't know what it is, and I was sick-sick-sick of the brown purse I had been carrying around for a donkey's years.  (Besides, I don't like brown; it's the color of you-know-what.)  I had the perfect purse in mind:  an orange leather shopper made by Fossil.   I knew what it would cost, too--they value at $150 and up (even for a used purse).  That price, of course, wasn't happening on my budget.  

But the orange leather Fossil was definitely what I wanted, and I was absolutely determined to find it.

Then I had a huge glowing orange vision!  I decided that I wanted absolutely everything (and then some) to go with a new purse, and that stuff just had to be orange, too.  I made a ridiculously huge list and I had a lot of fun thinking about it--wallet, make-up bag, eyeglass case, umbrella, a flashlight, and more.  It was crazy-impossible, and I loved the silly notion.  

The more I thought about it, the more it started to happen--almost magically, orange stuff seemed to turn up everywhere.  I found lots of little things that generally cost less than $2 each (most of it eBay, of course), so I began collecting.  

Surprisingly early on in the process, I found precisely the purse I was looking for.  It was a newly listed auction on eBay but with a seriously under-priced Buy It Now of only $25 so I grabbed it before anyone could bid because there were already six people watching it!  The purse had been used but was still amazingly perfect in every way.  When it arrived, I hung it on the bedroom doorknob for inspiration.  I was determined not to carry the purse until I had the stuff to go with it.  It wasn't just a purse--it was an event!

The item that gave me the toughest time was the wallet.  I looked for months at hundreds of less expensive wallets but the one I wanted was a plain leather ILU and nothing else would do, so I finally caved a couple of days before Christmas and paid $18.  Overall, I figure that everything added up to about $75 but that's the result of four months of happy and careful shopping.  I will be able to enjoy this for years.  Orange just doesn't get old!

It's a New Year, so I'm finally gonna put my new purse together (even though I haven't got an orange carabiner for my keychain yet, and I'm waiting for a make-up bag to arrive in the mail).  This is just so fun.  I even decided to go all-out and ordered new checks and business cards to color coordinate.  And guess what, I'm looking forward to a rainy day, too--when the new orange umbrella gets wet, it reveals a pattern that you can't see when it's dry.  Too cute!  

It's an ocean of orange!

This is my secret proof that I can accomplish what I set out to do, and it will remind me every day that success is possible.  It's important to have something to look forward to, something to strive for, and that can even be setting out to gather together a crazy-impossible orange purse and accessories.  

It's never a mistake to make an investment in hope.  

Now I'm planning my next project.  Life is good.
And I'm not the dog's dinner anymore.