One of my favorite people, one of the warmest souls out there, Amy Turn Sharp from doobleh-vay shares her purse with us this week. She’s also the proprietor/propriet-ess? of the Organic Wood Toy store Little Alouette.
{I’m a dingbat for forgetting today was the day to share purses, getting the post up after 5:00 p.m. That’s just the kind of week it’s been.} Here’s this week’s What’s in Your Purse Series.

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My handbag is a nightmare. Anyone who knows me is well aware of my managed chaos. I had my good bag (Louis from back in the day – BC- before children) out with me recently and the poor thing got drug around all week as a catch all bag.
Here is what is in my purse today!


Everything form Pokemon cards to earplugs:
- -Momku biz card bc I still want to remind myself to get in touch with her again and tell her how divine she is, my own biz cards.
- -Wallet, tissues, receipts, reward cards that never make it on my key chain
- -Flip camera
- -mini moleskin journal (life saver)
- -Badger sunscreen, Mac make-up, Nars The Multiple , tweezers, The Best everyday lipstick EVER Bobbi Brown #4, Angel lotion, the best MAC tool ever for eyebrows
- -books, golden Thomas the tank Engine, sunglasses, 10 cents
- -sanitizer, crayons, pens and old food bits
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If you want to play, send me your purse photos {two please} with a listing of the contents to: allisonATpetitelefantDOTcom
This month, over my birthday weekend in fact, I’m going to attend the Mighty Summit in the Russian River Valley, outside of San Francisco. To say I’m excited doesn’t cover it. A small, hand selected group of some of the smartest women in social media for a weekend of brain trusting and pampering? Yes, please.

Part of the deal with the Mighty Summit is coming up with a Life List. You know, like a bucket list only less grim. I have lists covering every aspect of my life, including a pretty basic list of places I want to travel before I die. But things I want to experience, talents I want to acquire? Nope. I have nothing of the sort.
So here, in front of everyone, is my Life List.

100 things I want to do before I die
- Live in Europe
- Learn to properly fishtail french braid my daughter’s hair
- Ride my horse bareback
- Swim in bio-luminescence
- Learn to surf. On a long board.
- Visit Hawaii. Stay in a hotel close enough to the ocean to hear the waves crash.
- Make crescent dinner rolls that rival those of my mother
- Have a dress custom made for me by a designer I love
- Ride a bike across the Golden Gate Bridge
- Publish articles for well known magazines
- Write a book. A good one.
- See aurora borealis from Alaska
- Attend a World Cup soccer game
- Go to fashion week. As a fashion reporter.
- Spend time in Greece
- Collect sea glass from 50 beaches
- Design a line of clothing for women sizes 10-14. Cute, stylish clothes.
- Attend the Tomatina food fight in Spain
- Finish a sprint triathlon
- Own a sports car
- Stay on a Caribbean island with my family
- Commission a painting of my children from an artist I love
- Own an original painting by Brian Kershisnik
- Get a tattoo {sorry mom!}
- Name an O.P.I. nail polish color
- Have sex with my husband on a beach
- Be in better shape at 40 than I am at 32
- See both of my children married
- Take a sleeper train across Europe
- Become fluent in Spanish. Again.
- Trace my husbands’ Eastern European genealogy
- Visit my grandmother’s childhood town in Iowa
- Ride a street car in San Francisco
- Attend an honest-to-goodness movie premiere
- Earn enough money to sustain my family on my own
- Read every book in my home library
- Go behind-the-scenes at the Monterey Bay Aquarium
- Have one massage a month for an entire year
- Visit every one of the bridges my grandfather designed
- Stay in Martha’s Vineyard
- Visit Cape Cod
- Own a pair of obscenely expensive shoes
- Drive a race car around a track, un-throttled
- Attend a Christmas Mass in Poland
- Meet David Sedaris
- Go on a cruise
- Fly Virgin Atlantic and sleep in a horizontal bed while flying across the Atlantic
- Become a talented photographer
- Spend an entire day at a spa, get every treatment available
- Eat lunch at a Parisian cafe
- Be an instrument in raising awareness of, and finding a cure for Lupus
- Renovate my kitchen
- Travel to every state in America
- See the ruins in Guatemala
- Visit the rain-forest in Belize
- See an elephant in the wilds of Africa
- Graduate from college
- Wear a ball gown. To an event of importance.
- Drive down PCH with my husband and kids
- Sleep in a castle
- Knit a sweater
- Own a stock portfolio
- Buy a house
- Learn to hip hop dance. Properly.
- Spend a day in a fashion house
- Own a horse
- Meet the Dixie Chicks
- Sleep on a warm beach
- Stay for the weekend on Ree Drummond’s ranch. No pressure Ree, I swear!
- Get 50 stamps on my passport
- Hear Cat Stevens perform live
- Take an art class
- Sleep naked
- Marry my soul mate
- Overcome my fear of open water
- Visit the Louvre
- Understand math. Specifically calculus.
- Become a mother
- Go running in Central Park
- Make a documentary
- Follow a sewing pattern all the way through, make something I’d actually deem wearable
- Learn to play the guitar
- Go scuba diving in warm ocean water
- Visit New England in the fall
- Take piano lessons
- Dance at a European discotheque
- Take professional makeup lessons at a M.A.C. store
- Run through the alps
- Canoe down the Amazon river
- Launch a cosmetics line
- Have lunch with Meg Cabot
- Teach my children how to serve
- Visit Stonehenge
- See a flying fish {Catalina Island Summer 2009}
- Feed a whole chicken to an alligator
- Take a boat tour of Venice, Italy
- Have an enormous, blow-out 40th birthday party
- Scuba dive to the ruins of a sunken ship
- Dye my hair Blond
- Go whale watching in a kayak
- R.V. across the United States with my kids
Do you have a Life List? I’m not kidding, this one took me five days to come up with. I didn’t take it lightly, I really pondered things I want to get accomplished in this life of mine. There’s really something to writing something down, committing it to memory and promising yourself you’ll get it done. 100 things really affords you the indulgence of dreaming big.
Do it, do it now. And tell me, what would you put on your life list?
One of the reasons I was thrilled to work with Avery for SocialLuxe Lounge, aside from the fact that they’re the best kind of company out there, is the fact that I’m obsessed with organization. I can’t get enough of their sticky note tabs.

When I was getting ready to head to New York, I mapped out my plan of attack and note tabbed and organized it all. See, I’m not so hot with directions. I thought I was for a long time, but as it turns out? I only know how to navigate when I have the Wasatch Mountains to guide me north/south. In Manhattan? Fugghedaboutit.

I laid out the best plans for all my favorite things to do in New York City. I Google mapped directions from the hotel, printed them all out, and note tabbed them to within an inch of their lives.
I had all the basics: thrift stores, Ghandi’s Cafe, Pinkberry, H&M. Do you see an emerging theme? Food & shopping? Hmmmmmm.

These note tabs saved my life. I have a little stack of them in my desk drawer right now and I have major plans for them. Organizing Christmas shopping lists, school projects for the kids, extracurricular activities, carpool schedules.
Man, oh man, the places we’ll go.