Allow me to pose a few rhetorical questions:
(1) How does a single parent do it? I am one-half of a two-parent household. I just had four days "off" work. Guess what? Work, of the office variety, is substantially easier than being even one-half of a functioning parental unit. I feel like dropping a little plastic umbrella in my morning coffee now that I'm back at my desk.
(2) How do two parents, or three parents, or eight parents, handle twins? One child is plenty for us. I really can't even fathom having to deal with two fussy little poop machines all the time.
(3) How does a parent find time to drive out to his local Filofax emporium and purchase some personal size checkbook register pages, a task absolutely essential to his goal of converting his personal-size Filofax into his compendium of all things financial?
(4) Further to question (3), how does such a parent tell the other half of the parenting unit that he is about to disappear for a couple hours so that he can purchase some overpriced pieces of paper and further indulge a fetish that challenges accepted notions of rationality?
(5) How does a parent fit these items into the usual array of pockets found on usual pants: (1) a mini-Filofax; (2) a cell phone; (3) a wallet; (4) keys; (5) on occasion, an iPod; (6) on occasion, a pack of gum or box of Tic Tacs; (7) on occasion, change; (8) on occasion, receipts or other small scraps of paper; (9) on occasion, a burp cloth; and (10) on occasion, a 20%-off coupon for Buy Buy Baby that is forgotten and then disappears into the washing machine, emerging as a papier mache lump?
The answer to all of these questions, rhetorical though they may be, is: "I have no idea."
No idea is a good answer.
ReplyDeleteFollowed by a gentle suggestion: perhaps you could consider a half-or full-sized messenger bag that would leave your hands free to fend for you and yours, while still carrying all the bits?
They're a little more studly and masculine than a murse...
Love the blog!
Welcome, Cin! You may have already done this, but if you look back to the July archives, there are some posts about messenger and other cool bags.
ReplyDeleteGood to see you again, Neo! Thanks for the link! I've checked it out, and will give a little review in a future blog post.
ReplyDeleteHi, philofaxers. This Q is slightly off-topic, but filofax related.
ReplyDeleteI'm a planner junkie--always looking for the perfect fix. And while I like the clean lines of the Filofax pages (I'm currently testing the Personal-sized, Week on Two Pages), the thinness of the paper drives me crazy. The scheduling bleeds through, which is a pet peeve.
Have you guys solved this problem? Specific pens, better refills, etc.? Or am I really just waaaay too anal?
Thanks!
Tracy, the paper is thin. No doubt. My usual rollerballs (Uniballs) do tend to show through a bit. Two possible solutions:
ReplyDelete1. Use a pencil, as I usually do.
2. Revel in the visual chaos created by the bleeding through. Think of it as art.
Hi Tracy - I use Uniballs, too. They're not perfect, but they're less likely to show through than any I've tried. The ones that are a bronze color and say "Deluxe Micro" on the cap are the least likely to show through. They come in Black, Blue, and Red, and I keep all 3 on hand.
ReplyDeleteI think you have to look for very fine point pens that, on thicker paper would feel scratchy, as if they're not putting out enough ink. On Filofax paper, that's just the right amount of ink!
I also use pencil occasionally. I hate the way pencil smears, but I have found that well-made pencils smear much less that others. Check out Pencil Revolution (under Links) for tons of product reviews.
Thanks for the suggestions. I actually pulled a UniBall Deluxe out of my cache last night to test. It did seem to bleed the least of the group I tried. I like the idea of pencil, but I don't think the "contrast" is high enough--I need my items to jump out.
ReplyDeleteI also purchased my own Personal binder today, and I'll test for a few days with the paper I already own and see if this is a system that will work for me...or if it's time to make the Blackberry jump. *shudders*
Thanks for the input!
One suggestion for the ink bleed thru -- try the cotton cream diary. Other inserts are also available in cotton cream. The paper is higher in quality than the usual leaves and just a bit thicker to prevent this problem. I ordered the personal Eton a few months ago (love it by the way) that came complete with the cotton cream refill. The paper was a bit too thick for me, so I returned to the thinner white sheets.
ReplyDeleteHi, Anon -- Yeah, that cotton cream paper is the good stuff. Kind of like '76 Burgundy -- too thick for some blood, but greatly appreciated by those who've developed the taste.
ReplyDeleteTracy -- Here's the way I look at Blackberries and other electronica: The technology is constantly evolving, so the longer you wait, the greater your chances of getting a better device at a lower price. Blackberries will always be there. Or, if they go extinct, you'll avoid having wasted the money.
Full disclosure: I've owned three Palm handhelds, and at one point used one for email and word processing in place of a laptop. Instead of doing everything, I found it did nothing very well.