This counts as spring cleaning, right?

I saw a soundbite last week about the average purse weighing in at 23 pounds. I didn’t read the article until just now, but the headline stuck in my head as a nagging reminder to clean out my purse.

Once I got home from my extra-long day (I had a dentist appointment after work), carrying a lot of extra stuff, I decided that it was finally time to clean it out.

Naturally I documented the event. (Click the images to take a closer look.)

I made Sean take this picture of me with my purse so you could get a sense of how big my purse is in relation to me. This is probably the biggest purse I’ve ever carried. I’ve been impressed at how well it’s held up in the last almost-year of daily use.

Holy crap indeed! Look at all the shit I was lugging around! (Note, no actual shit was carried around despite having a dog we have to pick up after and a kid in diapers.)

Highlights in that pile of stuff include:

• several wrapped cough drops/empty wrappers from my cold/pneumonia back in December/January
• Numerous pieces of paperwork, including the receipt from my last trip to the dentist three months ago, a massage receipt from July 2009, and a bloodwork requisition I was supposed to get after my physical last September
• A crapton of receipts, mostly for the drugstore, grocery store and restaurants near my work
• The magazine I bought today (I normally use one of the cloth bags I keep in my purpose to hold larger things, but it was the only larger thing and not worth getting the bag out for
• A Dominican Republic flag I promised to mail to my best friend for her classroom. (Remember that I went in January)
• One mitten belonging to Flora
• An umbrella
• Something beaded that I can’t remember, but broke and spilled when I dumped out my purse

Obviously there is lots of other stuff there too. I didn’t even touch the zippered pockets (inside and out), because I’m usually pretty good at keeping those under control.

After some pilemaking (keep in purse/keep in house/recycle/trash), I narrowed my purse contents to the following:

Wallet, sunglasses, iPhone cable, cloth bags, headphones, Flora’s immunization card, notebooks, flag (I promise I’ll mail it soon Stacey!), business cards, USB key and some other minor things.

Hopefully this lightens the load a little bit.