My name is Sacha Chua and I’m an office supplies shopaholic. I find it
nearly impossible to pass a bookstore without checking out the index
cards and notebooks in stock.

Today I bought two small plastic cases.

[Plastic cases]

A good size for scrapbook material: photos, receipts, tickets… No
more digging around in my bag for things to scrapbook!

(Hmm. Thinking about it now, I could have also survived with a
Ziplock(tm) packet.)

Okay. Maybe I can store art materials in it. Or cards. Yeah, it’s a
good size for stationery. That’s it.

(You know you have it bad when you think of reasons _after_ you buy
the thing…)

On my way out of the school supplies stand, I found my fingers
inexplicably rifling through the notebooks on display. I picked up a
Stradmore notebook composed of eight thin notebooks held together with
pins. Here’s the side view:

Side view of notebook

A light bulb went off in my head. This is perfect for journal-writing!
I can keep a journal along with my work notes (eliminating the need
for a separate album) and then simply re-file them. If I use a
mini-notebook for letters to Dominique, I can mail the whole
mini-notebook to him when I’m done.

I had a hard time deciding between a small notebook that could fit in
my purse and a medium-size notebook that gave me more room to write,
but I eventually decided on the medium-size notebook.

Why?

Because it had “girl” written all over it.

Really.

Notebook

Of course, _after_ I bought it, I reasoned that larger mini-notebooks
would be more efficient to store and mail. (Right.)