Multi-useful-notepad thing

 I love it when my brain functions and works like most other peoples brains do and I come up with a solution to a problem.  The past month or so ago I purchased some Rite in the Rain products from the discount inter-web location www.dvor.com and one was this 4x6 notepad kit that came with a notepad, cover, and pen.  I am probably the biggest fan of Rite in the Rain products and lost my last pen on my abominable snow journey from Oklahoma to Texas last Christmas day.  So I have been looking to replace it for a while with the exact same model, but they cost like 20 bucks.  Then if I purchased one of the "kits" the pen was almost thrown in for free.  Also I have been wanting to try out these fancy covers they have so this was a win (new pen), win (cover), and win (on sale) situation for me. 

 The kit arrived the other day and I pulled it out and noticed that the 4x6 notepad cover was quite a bit bigger than the notepad.  So like any good diabetic our mind starts to race with things we can stow in this extra space.  If diabetics ran NASA we could get so much crap to the moon and beyond it isn't funny.  We are like storage guru's and masters of multi purposing everything.  So the first thing that came to my mind was to see if my cell phone fit into the cover, and yes it did but I still had more space.  Then while at work I have been using a different meter than my pingy one that comes with the ping pump.  I have been using a FreeStyle Insulinx meter and was thinking that it might be thin enough to also fit in the cover case.  Sure enough it fit and I was on my way to figuring out if everything else would work with it.

The next thing was fitting a finger pricker and it slid in right next to the meter and the cover closed with ease and I still had space so I tried the last thing to fit and that was the Freestyle test strips and I was devastated that the bottle did not fit.  Then I started scrounging around my office looking for any sort of random zip lock bag I could find to put the test strips in so they would fit in the cover as well.  Like I said us diabetics reuse, re-porpose, and save everything that might come in handy later.  I found a gaggle of small zip lock bags I keep that seemed they could benefit me in the future and low and behold one of them was the perfect size to fit 50 test strips and they worked with the notepad cover.

Now the reason this is more than exciting to me is that I have been trying to find a way to go to places and not have to cary my gigantic diabetes man purse that looks like a makeup bag or a "that time of the month" bag and to do that I just put a meter, finger pricker, and test strips in my pocket but that is not practical or comfortable.  This is for situations where I am going to be out and about for like three hours or so and might be around snacks and finger foods and don't feel comfortable with just my CGM on.  Now I have what looks to be a Texas Instrument graphing calculator pouch in my back pocket when doing these type of events and also can keep everything posted in my notebook that I keep record of so much stuff for absolutely no reason at all.  People ask me why I write down stuff in my notepad and I do it just to do it.  I rarely ever go back and review it.  Most of it is food I eat and when I eat it.  I think having a food log helps me eat better and also is the easiest way to remember things I do on a certain day.  We can always put the past together if we know what we ate.