I Need Help: Blank Notebooks Edition

I have a confession, internet. I have an obsession with blank notebooks. I cannot resist their siren call. I stop at the notebooks aisle in Target just to flip through them. It's not just fancy notebooks, either! A simple one subject Mead can tempt me to plunk down my credit card. Not that I can say no to the thick-paged, leather journals either!

I don't know quite how to explain it. I haven't written anything significant in longhand since the first draft of novel 1 (about four years ago). I journal on a very sporadic basis. I could easily get by with one or two notebooks, but I have far, far more than that...

When I decided to write this post, I spent maybe 5 minutes collecting notebooks. This is what I found in that space of time (it's definitely not all of them):

A spiral of spiral bounds!

Do I use these notebooks? Ummmm...well...okay, there's maybe 50 pages in use between all of them. Whenever I buy a notebook I try to come up with a use for it. Sometimes I will actually use it for that. Usually that lasts about a week and then it is relegated to a dusty shelf or storage bin. Or the floor of my office, which I swear I am going to clean soon (probably when I move next month).

Let's take a quick tour of a few selected notebooks, shall we?

The red marker was the only one I had. Ugh. Clash.

This notebook, as it is so helpfully labeled, is part of my unofficial studies of philosophy. This is a subject that has always interested me—probably not surprising considering my father is a philosophy professor. He bought me Sophie's World when I was in 5th grade, and to this day it is one of my favorite books. I've probably read it at least five times. So anyway, this notebook was for my thoughts while reading Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkers, a 203-page book I bought five (?) years ago, of which I am on page 21. Similarly, I have used 20 pages of this 3-subject notebook. I swear, I am going to get back to this! Someday...

Oooh, another spiral!

This is a sketchbook. I bought it early in 2013 to create a record/motivation of my weight loss. At the time I was 155 lbs (up from a low of 149) and worried about the gain. I used 5 pages in the book and my weight is currently 160 lbs. Oops.

Told you I couldn't resist Meads.

This notebook was purchased over five years ago to be my at-work notebook. However, the tag did not come off the front very easily, as you can see. So it got relegated to scrap paper. Over half the pages have been torn out over the years, and I haven't used it in gods know how long, but I still keep it under my end table. Just in case.

I feel daydreamy just looking at it!

This is one of those notebooks that I bought solely because it was cute, while insisting that I was going to use it to jot down writing ideas. (I have a whole other writing notebook that isn't even in the stack above, by the way.) I have used exactly 1 page since I bought it over a year ago. But it's still damn cute!

Orange is my favorite color, if the blog theme doesn't give it away.

This is my hard copy journal. I have had this since the beginning of 2012, and well, that bookmark should tell you just how much I've used it. Although the times I have, it has been very therapeutic! Speaking of which, I really need to journal. Maybe tomorrow.

Hedgehogs!

This is an example of actually needing and using a notebook! I bought this cutie specifically for the purpose of doing problem sets/exams from my actuary textbooks. I used an entire other notebook and this one is 3/4 full. Of course I stopped studying for an actuary career (no jobs in my geographic location), but I can't get rid of the notebook. You never know when it'll come in handy again!

So, there we have it. A small sampling of my deep and abiding love for blank notebooks. You might think that, being aware of the problem, I would be able to resist the lure. HA. Just today I was flipping through some blanks at Target, and I think I know which one I'm going to get next!

And don't even get me started on pens...