Hi all,
Today's post is about stickers and notebooks. That's because many years ago, I read the Happiness Project. While I don't remember much of the book, two things stuck with me: Happiness is often associated with 1) dinner parties, which I can confirm, and also, 2) having a collection.
My take on having a collection, or being a collector, is that it probably meets the criteria for variable rewards. You never know what you might find, or when. And it gives you something to do. And when you find something, it's exciting!
I supposed you could collect spoons, or Lego minifig shields, or baseball cards, or shot glasses, or coffee mugs.
I like collecting stickers. I have a "sticker laptop," a "sticker water bottle," and now, I also put stickers and prints from rubber stamps in my notebook. (More on the notebook in a sec.)
The only rule is that the sticker has to be free. It's also very much within the rules and encouraged to ask if I can have a sticker.
Maybe one of my favorite stickers came from Costco, when I tapped on the window at the butcher and asked for two USDA prime beef stickers. One was for the notebook. The other was for me. (The chairperson of my executive advisory committee was of course de-LIGHT-ed to learn that she was married to some top-graded man beef.) (Bonus aside: after writing about Trader Joe's in my last post and Costco in this one, I've reflected that I've only ever had positive interactions with their store employees. I think they both pay well and hire well, which may be a topic for a post another day.)
Anyway... I have about 12 pages left in my notebook, which feels like a minor accomplishment to fill it up. It's not all stickers, I do use it for doodles and notes, too. Now that it's almost full, I thought I'd look back through it and share some of what's there.
I've been using a Leuchtturm1917 A5 sized White Lines dot gridded notebook. I like it because it has grey paper with faint white dots, which disappear into the background in a way that regular lines or dots don't.
Unfortunately, it's no longer sold anywhere, but I stocked up on about a 10 year supply (at least, at my current rate of notebook consumption). I'm finding myself wishing I had maybe a 20 or 30 year supply, but I'm not sure they're even available in secondary markets any more.
So, without further ado... some notebook stickers, stamps, sketches, and doodles.
best regards!
Sam Feller
aka THE Awkward Engineer