Like a Fat Kid Loves Cake

So I was rolling down the main aisle of Target this morning, heading for the checkout with a handful of groceries, when this display stopped me dead in my tracks:

Wow. I don't have any strong feelings about gift wrap but I absolutely love these colors and patterns. My eyes quickly dropped down to the second level of the display, and this is what I saw. 

  

 

Uh oh. I have a serious weakness for little boxes with drawers and compartments. And those tiny white dots arranged in neat little rows and columns on the red background? Adorable. My head was spinning. I kept looking and here is what I saw next.

Well. Little cutesy notebooks and list pads, with adorable flaps to flip and formatted pages. I died.

Here is something you should know about me. Some women buy endless streams of handbags. Others collect vast numbers of shoes. Or new couches. Or sports cars. Or husbands.

My weakness is cute notebooks. I have an irrational fondness for sweet little organizers and portfolios like these, and a deep-seated need to buy them.

Which isn't too bad. I mean, they only cost a few dollars each. I can get myself a good fix for less than ten dollars, easily. As addictions go, this is not such a bad one to have.

But here comes the really ridiculous part: I don't use them. My life stays organized best if I keep my lists and to-dos in my brain, rather than writing them down.  I know that sounds weird, and trust me, I've tried to convert to a writing-based system. Because then I could use up all the little books I've already bought, and have a reasonable excuse to buy more. But I just can't make that happen. Alas, fate is sometimes very cruel.

So this morning, in the aisle of my Target store, I picked up each one of these notebook beauties and held them in my hands. I admired them inside and out, and as you can see, I took plenty of pics. But in the end, I put them all back and walked bravely on, proud of myself for resisting temptation and doing the right thing.

Curse you, Mara Mi, for your insanely cute organizational stationery products. You are an evil genius.