The many bags of Miser Mom

I  want to say a word about bags. I don't own a gazillion purses -- in fact, I have exactly one bag that other people call my "purse" but that I call my "planner bag".  I made it myself, and it functions almost like a briefcase, with pockets for my daily planner, my computer, my insulated coffee/water bottle, and a bunch of other essentials (spoon, reading glasses, dongle, cloth napkin, pencils . . . ).    If you're really into checking out other people's everyday carry bags, you can scope out mine in great detail in this old post.

But in spite of having only one purse-like bag, I realize that this semester I've been fortunate to be living my life out of a bunch of super-helpful, pre-packed bags.  Today's post is a tiny homage to bags that I seldom use, but that I'm glad exist in my life.  I'll do another post on the bags that are carrying me through this semester (so to speak) later.

When I was thinking of putting together my apocalypse bag (that is, my emergency Grab-N-Go bag), one of the things that initially held me back for a little while is that a bunch of contents that experts recommend for such a bag were already in my travel suitcase. 

Emergency Grab-N-Go bags for my kids.

Should I turn my travel suitcase into an emergency Grab-N-Go bag, thereby adding things that I'd seldom use (like a first aid kit) to take on ordinary trips to conferences?  Should I just have duplicates of items (like a toiletries bag) in both a travel suitcase and in my Grab-&-Go bag?   A similar quandary is that a bunch of recommended contents of a Grab-&-Go bag (like cell phone charger) are already part of my "everyday carry", in my planner bag.  Again:  do I duplicate, or what?

Just figuring out the answers to those questions made getting my apocalypse bag surprisingly mentally difficult to get started on.

The solution, obvious to me in retrospect, was to commit to having several bags.  In case of an emergency exodus from our home, I'd grab my planner bag, AND my suitcase, AND my Grab-N-Go bag.   That's not as difficult as it seems, because they're all fairly small bags, and I keep them all pretty accessible.

Since I'm baring all, here are the regular contents of my travel bag, aka my suitcase.

• Because I love thinking about math whenever I have quiet time --- and any time away from my children and my students counts as quiet time --- I have professional supplies (paper, colored pencils, and a name badge holder that sports various professional pins and insignia).
• I have a few sets of travel clothes: undergarments, math t-shirts that I only wear at conferences, and of course my travel scarf that sets the color-tone for pretty much all the rest of my wardrobe. 
• And I have toiletries in my homemade "travel snake".   
• And of course, food-stuff:  I keep a canning jar of trail mix in the suitcase, together with a bunch of cloth bags.  Often, when I get close to heading out, I swap out the glass canning jar for a cloth bag of trail mix, (which travels better but wouldn't store as well in between trips without going stale).   But the glass jar keeps well, and it reminds me to pack snacks.

And if having all those bags aren't enough . . . I have even more life-event bags.  Man, do I live a rich and wonderful life!   But that's a subject for another post.