You know you're a Stationery Addict when.....

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Next week is National Stationery week – a week where a Stationery addict like me rejoices at the celebration of all things pen and paper – and with extra discounts making new stationery purchases somewhat compulsory.

Ever since I was a child, I have had a bit of an unnatural obsession with stationery. As a child, I would start counting down to September in pretty much the third week of the school holidays. Not because I was excited to see my friends again, or because I wanted to wear my uniform, but because I got to buy new stationery ready for the start of term. Mum would take me to my local Early Years, and I would rush to get measured for the latest shirts and dresses, before being given free reign to go and explore the stationery ailses, with a new pencil case and pens being absolutely fundamental for ensuring the quality of my school work (naturally).

Fast forward 25 years, and the title of stationery addict has never left me.

You know you’re a stationery addict when….

1) You have an entire drawer in your bedroom full of blank planners, notebooks or journals – some of which are too nice to write in, and some of which you are saving for ‘something special’. Despite having around 20 notebooks completely untouched in your home, you will always find room for another.
2) You look forward to New Year’s Eve – not for the parties, the night’s out or the drunken dancing in a new sparkly frock (no way), but because it means there is just one day to go until you can officially christen your new diary, copying over the very important dates from the year before, and filling in that crucial contact information at the front (in your neatest handwriting of course).
3) You get excited about being responsible for your office stationery order, working hard to get the best price for office stationery by doing a price audit whilst thriving on having responsibility for ‘the cupboard’.

4) You own one special pen that NO ONE else is allowed to use in case they screw it up and change your handwriting forever. You find yourself staring back awkwardly at anyone who asks to borrow it.
5) You actually feel like crying and spend a few days grieving when your favourite single use pen eventually runs out of ink. You wonder if you could buy another one the same, but decide that doing so would be as inappropriate buying another dog just a few days after your beloved pet has passed away.
6) No matter what the occasion, or how small your bag may be, you can always answer a resounding over enthusiastic YES to the question “Does anyone have a pen?” – Nine times out of ten, you can even offer a variety of options to chose from.
7) You owned (and probably still have in a neatly labelled pencil case in the loft) a magic eraser pen that enabled you to rub out mistakes you made in fountain pen. Whilst you loved the smell of the white end, the way the replacement pen ink always ran and smudged made you shudder a little inside.
8) You want to cry when you daughter finds your adult colouring in book, colours outside of the lines and completely messes with your ‘chi’.

9) You’ve been known to rewrite your to do list multiple times during the day so it doesn’t look messy, wasting valuable time which could have (and most likely should have) been spent removing an item from said list.
10) Despite owning the latest iPhone and downloading a multitude of time management apps, you still prefer the feel of a physical planner, and find it hugely therapeutic to write things down.
11) One of the highlights of attending a seminar or careers fair it the wealth of free pens you come back with – and you feel peeved and slightly hard done by if any of the exhibitors offer you a stress ball or packet of mints instead.
12) You feel a little part of your soul die inside every time you observe someone chewing a pencil.
13) Watching your child put crayons back in the packet in an order anything other than a perfectly blended rainbow, causes you physical pain.
14) Whilst many girls dream of a walk in wardrobe, you dream of a walk in stationery cupboard, with labelled drawers and containers for everything you might need ‘just in case’.
15) You went into Paperchase just to ‘have a look’, and came out two hours later with three notepads, a journal, a packet of mini erasers and a cup in the shape of a pineapple.