Elastic's Got A Brand New Bag!

For the past 15 years I've lived, laughed, and loved per the bossy instructions on those cloying Mary Engelbreit magnets. I'm still working on fulfilling Mr. Spock's admonition to "Live Long And Prosper" but it's hard to obey the powerful messages broadcasted on cheesy merchandise all the time, you know?
A whole decade and a half. That's how long I've endured a bag lady evolution of sorts.
At 19 I carried a book bag to school that dazzled and amazed all who passed by with its brightly festooned cowboy boot motif.
My college career cut woefully short, I traded the Boot Scootin bag in at the age of 20 to make room for the plastic shopping mall bags that often held a recently purchased handbag or two like some sort of weird Bag O' Nesting Dolls thing.
It's ironic but those sets of bags were courtesy of my job which involves newspaper bags.
Later that same year bags symbolizing gluttonous spending were forever replaced by grocery bags brimming with the ingredients necessary to achieve a state of sublime marital utopia; bags from the maternity store soon followed.
By 21, I added a diaper bag to the mix which unexpectedly became my constant companion over the next 10 years and throughout 5 more mini-Infidel births.
There's a gym bag lost somewhere in the chronological order. It lived a short and uneventful life ferrying around a couple pounds of lethargic guilt at letting my fitness club membership lapse. Its remains lie somewhere alongside the Hello Kitty lunch bag purchased when I got on a kick to eat healthier.
The frightfully gray and puffy bags of weariness taking up residence under my eyes have traveled on this entire journey and cognitively recites the Tales Of The Tired to all who look upon me.
But now my bag lady life has come full circle for as of January 12, 2009 I am once again an Infidel chick who parades around the hallways of school, book bag swinging from my arm.

Papi's Christmas present to me looks similar to the model above. Is there anything sexier than a practical utilitarian bag stitched from more olive drab khakis than you'd find at a Gap store employee meeting? No, most assuredly there is not.
I'm also on a diet which means no more Buffets. I'm so sorry Jimmy......at least we'll always have Margaritaville. Golden Corral Buffet: Don't send out the search and rescue party, I'm just fine.........for now, anyway. But if you insist, can you make sure they bring me some of those delectably fluffy rolls and maybe a little steak filet or two....or three?
And as if the Infidel family couldn't get any more in the makeover phase, we're also fervently striving to budget better in 2009.
When I skimmed over the Top #10 New Year's resolutions list I realized that I'm personally attempting about 7 of them.
You should hear me belt out Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying"; it sounds more along the lines of "You Sing Like You're Dying" but at least I'm doing everything humanly possible outside of riding a bull named Fu-Manchu to bring some hope and change to the Infidel homestead in this upcoming year.
Man, hope and change. I went there and used that. Maybe I should just declare this the historic year of the cliche.
I'm a windbag/bag lady not yet sure what bag will be accesorizing my life in the near future. As long as I'm not being carted away in a body bag the possibilities are as limitless as the hairs on my chin.