A dinosaur in 2011

My new year isn’t really started until I have a brand new planner. And I was starting to think that 2011 was going to have to be postponed.

My daughters tagged along as I visited the two major bookstores (yes, I physically went into the brick & mortar). At the first store, the girls waved “see ya” as I wandered to the rows of calendars and they skipped off to children’s books. When they returned twenty minutes later, they were surprised that I had not picked a planner yet, so they thought they’d help me by pointing some out to me. Nope – don’t like wire or spiral bound books. Nope – don’t like 18-months. Nope – too big. Nope – the calendar spaces aren’t the right size. They thought they had found the one when they held up a pink and green, non-spiral bound book. Close, but it was too small. We left for the second store and it was like déjà vu all over again. They came home with a pile of books and magazines, I was empty-handed. After a late night, into the next morning internet search, I found it – one exactly like I had in 2010.

My husband considers me a dinosaur and is sure that I am one of the last remaining customers of the paper planner industry. But an electronic calendar app does not work for my daily calendar needs. This simple book - 5.5”x8.5”, book-bound, with a little page marker ribbon to mark the current week – is a calendar, journal, phone book, repository for receipts and postage stamps, and more. Its my own personal wiki-pedia.

For example, last January – notes from the speaker at the Martin Luther King memorial breakfast and my friends’ new address in New York (I know its in January because they moved at the end of last December). Where’d we go for Valentine’s brunch last year? Right there – Feb. 14, restaurant on the Harbor, the day after my friend’s 40th birthday in Delaware. How much have my children grown since last year and when was it that they got their last shots? Right next to their birthdays. In the Sunday boxes - notes from various sermons. How much does it cost to ship a case of Girl Scout cookies to Iraq and where is the bus depot for items lost on the school bus? You’d be surprised how often this information comes in handy. Recipes for Chicken Satay, Chocolate Loaf Cake & Margarita Cream, salmon, and a drink called a “Southside”. Names of my childrens’ friends, their parents’ names and phone numbers. Titles of books that look interesting, product recommendations, and places to go. Exercise and weight log (its true, Christmas week and sweet tea season get me every time). School calendar, sports schedules, orthodontist referrals.

I can’t even imagine how I would capture all of this on a phone app. And then what happens when some electronic wi-fi catastrophe happens? What will happen to the crochet pattern I had sketched in June? No, I can’t trust all my important information to the haphazardness of technology.

So for a few more days, my trusty, information-packed 2010 will stay with me into the new year. Then the mailman will bring my new planner and I can begin filling it up with all the plans, recipes, notes, books, and friends 2011 has to offer.