Useful little notebooks

I've had a bit of a problem. When I'm walking around Prescott I find that I want to scribble down notes occasionally. Maybe about the location behind a particular photo, or just some random thought that crosses my mind. Up until today a satisfactory solution had note presented itself.

 

I use a Moleskine for my daily notebook/journal needs, but it really isn't great as a carry-around notebook. It is too big (5"x8") to comfortably fit in a pocket without causing holes (and my pants already have enough of those), and the hard cover is just that: hard, which makes walking around with it awkward at best.

 

I bought some Field Notes notebooks a few months back because they looked like the perfect solution. And they actually work REALLY well as a carry around notebook. The stapled binding does take a bit of a beating in the back pocket, but it doesn't fall apart.  The problem? Yeah, I forget them ALL the time. I keep one in my survival pack for the outdoors, but I rarely remember to actually put one in my pocket for my lunch hour travels around Prescott.

 

So imagine how thrilled I was when I found PocketMod. I can select what type of pages I want (ruled, grid, calendar, and on and on and on), then just print out the notebook on a standard piece of paper (or card stock) right out of my printer. A few scissor marks and some folding later, and I have a perfect little 8-page pocket notebook that I can take with me wherever, jot down anything that comes to mind, and discard without remorse when I'm done for it.

 

Great for grocery lists, jotting down people's names, or locations of photographs. I totally just made a small stack of them to stash in my drawer!

 

 

Other stationery goodies I've come upon:

Rite in the Rain notebooks. Yeah, the name kind of says it all. Space pens with fancy paper means you can write in the rain... that's neat, and this kit would be great for rough traveling.

 

Midori Traveler's Notebook - This will probably be my next journal, if I can figure out how to get one. The site is all Japanese...

 

Over at BlackCover.net they are dedicated to investigating moleskine alternatives.