The other day, Anthropologie had a really huge sale.  It could have been in the stores as well, but for sure, they had a huge sale online.  Now, let me tell you: Anthropologie DOES NOT have sales very often.  This thing about slashing prices and selling things at a fraction of the cost is NOT Anthro’s style, but there I was browsing their website and looking at all of these lovely low prices (may I remind you, reader, that this is a relative term.  “Low” at Anthropologie is still not very “low”, if you catch my drift.  It’s just low for them).

Anyway, I got so excited looking at their website. Then I started laughing because I realized something.  I had skimmed the whole website, but I was spending a lot of time looking at the books. More specifically, I was looking at the journals.  Only a couple of them were on sale, but I was staring at those journals and salivating.  It didn’t matter that they were plain (beautifully leather-bound, but filled with unlined paper).  It didn’t matter that I didn’t need them.  It didn’t matter that I already had a plethora of journals already in my possession.  None of that mattered, because in that moment, I had found exactly what I wanted to buy.  The one I had really caught my attention was a recipe journal that had handmade crochet on it.  It was on sale for ten dollars less than the original price and it was calling my name.  I had planned on making a D.I.Y. recipe journal book thingy but I quickly threw that idea out of the window when I saw that this one was on sale.  Before long, the recipe journal was in my shopping bag along with three other journals.  I was all set to purchase when something happened. My mom came over to me with her Ipad to compare shopping bags.  She wanted to make sure that we didn’t have any of the same things (we have similar tastes, especially in jewelry). When I saw her shopping bag, I got annoyed because I wanted to know why she needed more tops and necklaces.  Obviously, when it comes to fashion, we don’t really need anything, but I believe (this mostly applies to clothing) that you should try to get rid of at least one thing, before buying out a store.  Not abiding by this rule leads to clutter and an almost hoarder lifestyle. A huge NO NO.  I hate clutter.  I hate mess.  I hate anything that reminds me of hoarding.  So this means that I hate my mother’s room.

But I digress.  The point is that while all these thoughts were running through my head, it brought me back to my shopping cart.  I was about to buy more journals without even knowing what I was planning on writing in them.  Was I finished with any of my journals? No.  Did I have the shelf space for anymore journals? No.  So why was I buying them? The answer: I wasn’t.  I won’t be a hypocrite.  I decided that night that I would not buy a journal without finding a purpose for it first.

Most of my journals, fortunately, have a purpose:

1) Main Journal- I use this one to practice writing. It is used for answering journal prompts.

2) Dream Journal- If I remember a dream, I jot it down here.

3) Food Journal- I read somewhere that if you write down what you eat, you are less likely to overeat/eat unhealthily; and this could no be more true.  You don’t realize how much goes into your body until you see it on paper.

4) Money Journal- My weak attempt to keep to a somewhat strict budget (me being “destitute” and whatnot.)

5) Healthy Journal- Once I learn about the various benefits of any fruit, vegetable, spice, oil, or supplement, I write it down. This particular journal has a table of contents.

6) Online Journal- So much happens online and with so many social media networks, it is hard to keep track.

7) Quote Journal- If I hear it and I like it, I will write it.

8) Book Journal-  I remember writing book reports when I was younger.  I do not remember liking them.  Now that I am older, I see the benefit: I can remember the books better if I jot down some notes about them (favorite character, favorite quotes, a new word to add to my vocabulary etc…)

This should be it.  I believe that I have named all of them.  However, I still have at least four that are just collecting dust.  And don’t even get me started on the various notebooks that I own that represent each language that I am trying to learn (or brush up on).

My mom thinks I am weird, but I refuse to believe that I am the only one like this (about the writing thing, not the hoarding journals thing).  In this age where our eyes are constantly looking at screens, I find that it is nice to take a break and look at paper.  I don’t know about everyone else, but too much screen time hurts my eyes and gives me a headache.  Maybe that is why it took me FOREVER to start blogging…