Every so often I do something crazily extravagant and give myself a gift. I did that recently by splurging on a very nice leather journal cover. It wasn’t even my birthday.

Not that long ago I wrote about my journaling habit. You can read about that here. At that time I mentioned that for the past several years I used a cheap spiral bound journal that slipped into a vinyl cover, the type you can buy at just about any office supply store. My point was that you don’t necessarily need some expensive leather journal in order to journal. That’s still true, of course, but I can no longer say that from personal experience.

How did this happen? Some time back my youngest daughter and her husband began to mention to me how they were really getting into moleskines. Moleskines are notebooks made by a Italian firm who copyrighted the name of a defunct French manufacturer whose notebooks were said to have been used by generations of European artists, poets and literary figures. What’s known for sure is that this Italian firm has a fair bit of marketing genius. Recently, they have become very trendy here in the United States.

Amanda, a regular reader of this blog and a fine blogger in her own right, commented on her own fondness for moleskines. I was getting surrounded. So, what could it hurt to try one? I experimented using one as a trip journal last year. I still wasn’t convinced. Then, sometime in February, on impulse, I grabbed a large sized (5.25″X8.25″) ruled journal. Maybe it’s some chemical they put on the oilcloth-covered cardboard cover. The smell? The feel? The off-white color of the pages? I’m not sure what it was or how it happened, but I got hooked.

Soon, I discovered an entire community of moleskine freaks living in cyberspace. They speak with the same hushed tones and fanaticism as Mac computer people. Perusing some of their comments and hints, I came across this leather shop in Santa Fe, Renaissance Art, that makes leather covers specifically to fit moleskines. It’s really pretty neat and I am enjoying it very much. It has a loop to hold my pen and it keeps the journal from getting beat up banging around in my briefcase.

I was feeling a bit guilty spending the money to buy a leather journal cover. At least it takes refills and can be used over and over. Then, I thought of friends who have also bought presents for themselves — from exotic sports cars to high powered hunting rifles and fishing gear. That make me feel better and perhaps makes me somewhat of a hypocrite.

Do you ever do stuff like that? Buy yourself a gift? Are you goofy enough like me to tell other people what you have done? So, what are some of your favorite gifts to yourself?