Filling My Purse

My mother tells me that when I was a little girl, I never went ANYWHERE unless I had four things: my doll, a string of wooden beads around my neck, a pair of white gloves, and a purse (Imagine the ENORMOUS hit I was in Kindergarden!)  I don't remember a whole lot about that time, but I DO remember getting a new purse with Grandma Simmons once.  It was one of those shiny white patent leather numbers, VERY elegant!

A problem arose, however, when it came time to actually FILL said purse.  It's not like I had a wallet, I certainly didn't have any money.  So, Grandma Simmons gave me a big wad of Kleenex, an old empty compact, a used-up lipstick tube, and a key (no one was quite sure what the key opened, but it helped to add weight to my new purchase!).  Needless to say, I rarely opened that purse, unless the need for blowing my nose arose, of course.

I've been thinking a lot about that purse lately.  Let me tell you why...

When we recently moved into our new rented house here in Franklin, Tennessee, we quickly learned that there was WAY more room than we were used to in our former homes. Guests will be VERY comfortable when they visit, there's plenty of spare rooms and bathrooms for ALL!

But downstairs, in the finished basement, sat a nice big room overlooking the backyard, complete with it's own bathroom and huge walk-in closet.  I think it was initially intended to be a mother-in-law suite, but since both our mothers have very comfortable homes of their own, Alan suggested I use the room as my office/sewing room.  He encouraged me to decorate it however I'd like (although, since we're renting, painting the walls or changing the carpet is out of the question!).

The thought intrigued me.  You must know that throughout my whole childhood, I shared a room with my sister.  We slept in wooden bunk beds constructed by my dad, covered with simple blankets that my grandmother sewed.  None of us actually experienced the "girly" rooms our friends all seemed to have.  I decided this was my chance to create my very own "Girl Cave!"

Yellow has always been my favorite color, so I made sure everything reflected a yellow, lacy, flowery theme!  And since yellow is definitely not the "in" decorating color at the moment, I had to do a lot of creating on my own!  Like the two lamps in the picture above. I covered the shades with yellow fabric, added a ruffle on the bottom, and attached sweet pink ribbon roses around the ruffle!  (You can vomit now, I understand!).

I covered a bulletin board and the border of a dry erase board with yellow floral fabric, then attached all of my family photos to each of them to inspire my writing!  The dry erase board has future blog topic ideas scribbled on it.

Also, for my early readers, that's Tubsy sitting on the shelf, no Girl Cave would be complete without your favorite childhood doll!

To the right is a picture of another wall, which holds boxes containing my fabric, laces, ribbons, trims, yarn, patterns and such.  A framed photo of Dad, the original spouter of the phrase "Anything Fits a Naked Man," and subject of many of my blog entries, sits in a frame on the shelf, covered with my yellow floral fabric! Now, if I could JUST get better at actually SEWING things!

So, what do you think?  Kinda cool, huh?

Except, here's the only problem:  just like that empty purse Grandma Simmons bought me all those years ago, I look at my new pretty room and think, "Now, I have to fill this room with superlative blog entries!"  A room as grand as this can only be used properly if wonderful, thoughtful, high quality ideas are being created there!  Talk about PRESSURE!!

I'll be honest with you, as I write this post, I'm sitting in my living room with my computer on my lap.  I used the excuse that I wanted to be near the Christmas tree, and I really wanted to catch the Lawrence Welk Christmas special on PBS (oh, shut up!).  But the simple truth is, I'm a little bit afraid of my new room.  I've gone down there to read, work on crafts, fill out my Christmas cards, but so far, no writing!  Isn't that silly?

Has this ever happened to you?  Where do YOU write?  Any words of advice to get me down to my pretty girl cave?  I could REALLY use them!  Also,

Thanks for Reading!!