I love this time of year!
School is one of my favorite things. Fresh pencils, crisp paper, smiling students and teachers, routines & structure, learning – all things I love!
I also really love Back to School sales. I can’t resist buying boxes of crayons, colored pencils and markers to add to my stash. But the best item to buy this time of year has to be notebooks and composition books. The prices are lower and there is a larger selection. I like to stock up.
Why my love for notebooks? Well, when I am working on something I like to use a notepad of some sort to jot things down. Those notebooks end up being filled with great gems. Some are used for interviews, others for tracking microfilm, sorting out complicated families and on and on. Because I am generally using several notebooks at one time, I like to try to buy notebooks that have some sort of design so I can easily tell them apart at a glance.
This year there happened to be a very large selection of designs for a nice, low price. So I stocked up!
What supplies do you consider essential when you are researching?
I wrote you a very lengthy comment. Did you get it?
Yes 🙂
CadyLuck Leedy August 25, 2014 at 10:58 am · · Reply →
Fantastic idea and excellent prompts! I had to look up “acrostic verse!” For over 20 years we have received an “acrostic verse” Christmas card and I never knew there was a term for that! Thanks!!!!! Also, I keep every receipt, map, schedule, advertisement etc from my vacation. I take the plastic sheets for business cards, the one that is a little larger and and a plain plastic sheet and put all my collected stuff in them for each city. When I get home I know exactly where I ate, played, shopped, toured and what transportation I took. Then I have everything so I know what I did on vacation and after my posts I put the plastic sheets plus journal entries in giant 3 ring binders that I keep. I have a travel closet!!!!!! But I am organized! I have every vacation and trip from the past 20 years!
I had to copy and paste this!!!!!!!
That is a great trip for traveling!
Chocolate!! *lol*
Definitely an essential for most activities! 🙂
Aw! Nothing like a good notebook and pen! Not sure I can ever take notes on my iPad! 🙂
I couldn’t agree more!
Now that my kids are grown, I don’t usually pay much attention to back-to-school sales–but maybe I’m missing some good buys.
I appreciate the sales but the big thing for me is the large selection this time of year. There are so many more choices right now. 🙂
Notebooks/binders, composition books, college rule loose leaf paper, dividers, pens, highlighters in different colors. I’ve been working on getting the most important information on the various people I’m researching down on paper (I admit, I do sometimes print that info out if I can – still goes in a notebook/binder), sometimes it just isn’t possible to be at your computer and there are power outages so with hardcopy I can keep working, or show someone info while sitting on the porch.
I am a paper copy girl as well. I do plenty of digital work but I think paper back-ups are important for sure!
Nothing like going to a family member’s house who doesn’t have (or won’t have) internet service but they want to see some of your research. Sometimes just printing up the indexed info is very helpful especially when entering it into my database.
Absolutely! I also like looking through paper items when I am trying to solve a tricky family history puzzle. I’m a visual girl, I have to jot down my thoughts in the margins and figure things out.
I love notepads. So does my husband. The other day he picked us up some Marvel comic notepads. I can’t wait to use mine! I always use notepads when I am researching, especially if I am trying to decipher a connection when there are several possibilities. I always like to try and use the same pen – start off really nice and neat and then it usually goes a bit scrawly after a while! Mixture of pen and pencil… I’d be lost without my notepads!
Oooh, Marvel comics notepads sound especially delightful. Once upon a time I had spiderman tennis shoes. 🙂
I have some Wonder Woman shoes. I just wish they didn’t rub so much!
Awesome!