creating a story

i've had a few inquires about how i came up with my purse story, so i thought i would share. i was born in California and lived in various areas of the state while growing up. we did use to go a place called Bass Lake, located near Yosemite National Park and Fresno (California). My mother lives there now. usually i go every summer to visit, but lately that hasn't worked out (boo hoo). When i was little we rented a house in Bass Lake. on the way there we had stopped at a gas station and at the time they use to give out little plastic toys when you filled up. It was my turn to get something special (there were 4 kids), so i got the toys, which were little animals, like a giraffe, a tiger and something else. anyway, i did indeed hide those little toys in the house where we were staying. and yes, i did forget about them when we were leaving. Also, there was a huge boulder on the side of the house that we use to play on. across the street from the house was the lake and there was a dock that belonged to the house we rented. so we would go to the dock and jump into the lake wearing our bright orange life vests. I found the water to be "creepy" and didn't like to jump off the dock. i always thought there were things under the dock and they would get me.

Another part of the story came from my stepmom, Angie, who had emailed me and told me she had a metal mesh purse like the one i picked up at the flea market when she was a little girl and that she liked putting the purse in her mouth. the "lost" part of the story came about because when i graduated from high school, my mom and stepfather moved to North Carolina. A bunch of my personal belongings were lost in that shipment; things like my beloved books and my yearbooks. So i've never gotten to look through my yearbooks again and it always really bums me out. i really wish i had them back. highschool is such an important time in your life when you are full of dreams and just enjoying life as a young teenager does. it would be fun to look at the old pictures, read all the things people "signed" in my yearbook, especially senior year. I often wonder what became of them. were they trashed? did they end up in a thrift store?

so those are the elements i combined to create my story of the lost purse.