Sometimes I just can’t help it, I will be innocently browsing Staples for mailing boxes or pens and I find myself once again in the notebook aisle. I’ll convince myself it’s ok because they are only a couple bucks and everyone needs a new notebook sometimes. Then I’ll get my new little notebook home and open my special drawer for paper stuff like envelopes and notebooks and I tuck it in with about 10 other notebooks. This notebook hankering isn’t just when I’m in Staples I found out yesterday it can occur when I’m on Staples.com! I needed to spend some extra money to get free shipping so it was like getting the notebooks for free, I mean I was going to spend the $10 on shipping but now I get pretty blue notebooks and free shipping. Oh and yes you read that right, notebooks as in plural as in more then one and maybe more then two. I”m trying to not to think about it because I don’t have a problem, I don’t. But then I opened my special paper drawer and realized there is no room for more notebooks and I had to face reality in that maybe it’s true…..I am a notebook hoarder. There I said it.
I can’t help it I know we are in a digital world but there is something about writing things down that digital just can’t capture. It’s not as satisfying to hit the checkbox on my online to do list as it is to write my own big fat checkmark next to something on my handwritten to do list. Plus sometimes I get ideas or I attend workshops where I take notes and it might not apply to my business now but it might in a couple months. So I can’t throw away my notebooks, they are valuable! When I attended Katelyn’s workshop she gave us each our own notebook, yeah I knew I liked that girl ;). When I worked IT people would just come up to my desk needing something fixed so I had a legal size notebook that I would write down everything on and then check it off or transfer it to the next week. I do that still with my photography business but it means I go through a lot of notebooks. At least the task related ones I will throw away now. I used to keep them in my IT job in case someone ever walked up and said what did you do the week of XXXX, I could whip out my notebooks and tell them! Ahh the life of a contractor.
I’ve decided that it’s time to go through those old notebooks and pull whatever juicy info is hiding in them out and then into the bin they go! No more notebook hoarding, I will use up my stash before I can buy any new ones! So what secret thing do you hoard? I’m sure we all have something, I also hoard those crystal light single packets according to David. He put the ban on buying anymore!
Melissa Arlena is an award winning lifestyle newborn photographer in Charlottesville and Richmond, Virginia who has earned her Master Photographer Certification from NAPCP in maternity, newborn and family photography. Her natural and simple work has been featured in magazines and online blogs worldwide. She has been named Best Maternity and Newborn Photographer in Richmond and Charlottesville, VA in 2024.
