For what seems like ages, I have been on a quest for the perfect bag/purse. (I hate the word purse. It seems way too frilly for me or something.) Several months ago I bought a Jansport sling bag, thinking it would be perfect: no flopping off my shoulder when I'm lugging children around, big enough to carry plenty of necessities, and conveniently on my back and out of the way most of the time. It served me well for awhile, but now that Noah is a little older I don't need to carry around as much stuff, and it's seeming way too big and cumbersome. While trying to come up with something better, I realized that a fanny pack would actually be the ideal bag for me. However, I have a little too much self respect to go around sporting a fanny pack, so last night I sewed this.I carried it with me today on all our errands and I like it fine, for now. It's from Bend the Rules Sewing, but I changed the pattern around a little bit by extending the handles and adding a pocket on the inside.

We went to a birthday party yesterday for two sweet little girls, and brought them these appliqued totes (also from Bend the Rules), and matching crayon rolls.Last week I found out that Emma's dance teacher prefers that the parents only watch once a month, so tonight I just dropped Emma off at class. I think I'm going to use this time every week to do the grocery shopping, which will be nice with only one kid. Tonight, though, it didn't go very well. I got everything we needed in plenty of time, but all the checkout lines were super long. On top of that, I chose the line with the World's Slowest Checker. She was clearly new and had to keep calling the manager over for help, which took forever. By the time it was my turn, Emma's class was already over and I considered just leaving all my groceries sitting there and going to get her because I was worried that her teacher was going to be mad and Emma was going to be upset. The checker was fiddling (ever so slowly) with the bags, so I told her I'd bag the stuff up while she scanned everything, and then she couldn't find the number to type in for apples. I told her I was in a big hurry and to forget the apples, and she was like, "No, I'll find it...hmmm...I know it's here..." AHHH! Forget the freaking apples already! Anyway, I ended up being in that line for over 30 minutes, and I was 17 minutes late picking up Emma. When I finally got there, Emma was sitting on her teacher's lap "helping" her teach the big girl class, so I think I was really the only one worried about it. Her teacher is so incredibly nice, thank goodness.
Today at the thrift store I got a big bag of fabric. The grand total? Forty-nine cents!