A reader from Texas has a great idea for his daughter’s upcoming wedding, and he’s looking for advice:
I want to give journals to both my daughter and her fiance to record their thoughts and feelings while their hearts and brains are still mushy and creative. To be read at their anniversaries and low points. Do you have any suggestions?
What kind of a journal would you recommend? Something with a bit of structure, like a daily diary, or a more free-form notebook like the Habana or the Webbie? Any other ideas?
It’s difficult to imagine that we had 20+ inches of snow last weekend, cause this weekend was beautiful: sunny, clear, with temperatures that had you peeling off gloves and scarves and even coats as you walked around.
I’ve been dreaming of spring ever since last summer, which seems to be something of an occupational hazard of gardening. This year, I’m prepared for it, too. I’ve already decided what I want to grow and ordered my seeds. I’ve also figured out exactly when I should start them, thanks to this nifty new Monthly 4 planner Karen gave me. In the past, I usually waited until the weather was warm, then scrambled to get my seeds started. Thanks to the Monthly 4, I’m already ahead of the game, and my tomatoes and brussels sprouts are sitting in peat planters on the windowsill.
Chet Chin recently tipped us off to a cool idea for setting and sticking to goals: a small, downloadable booklet that you fill out, fold up, and carry in your wallet to remind yourself of, say, your financial goals and educational goals and so on. There are six categories in all — including one blank one — and enough space to list five goals in each category.
Chet decided to paste the categories into the notes pages of her customized planner rather than carry the card in her wallet. That made plenty of sense to me, because really, who needs another piece of paper in their wallet, gathering lint and dust? It also turns her planner into a nifty goal-tracking tool, because she can flip to those pages whenever she needs some inspiration:
Besides writing down the goals, I plan to write down the progress of meeting those goals. Which would make the “Notes” section a log of sorts.
Karen sent me a few sheets of Clairefontaine DCP paper in the fall. DCP (which stands for “Digital Color Printing”) is a thick, white, glossy, A4 printer paper, and it’s apparently designed for printing photographs and other color graphics. It comes in ivory, too, and can also be used, Karen told me, for bookmaking.
I don’t have a color printer, and I haven’t tried to make a book since the 3rd or 4th grade. Frankly, I found the A4 size a little awkward at first, since it’s thinner and longer than standard American paper and didn’t really fit into any of my binders. So I stuck it in a folder and forgot about it until this weekend, when I needed to customize an old tea box for a present and didn’t have time to go out and get the proper supplies.
DCP, it turned out, was just the thing for the job. I wanted something I could write on (so decoupage was out), but I also needed paper that was thick enough to hide the images on the box I was reusing:
Proud as I am of my garden in the summer, the yard really never looks better than it does in the snow, with icicles hanging down from the old, rickety shed and white mounds covering the fence… And check out the wall that greeted me when I opened the door this morning!
Now that my Internet connection has finally been restored, here’s wishing everyone on the East Coast a happy last-blast-of-winter…
I just finished Janet Malcolm’s awesome work on the relationship between authors and their subjects, The Journalist and the Murderer, whose smart analysis of the story behind Fatal Vision is relevant to both fiction and non-fiction writers. Before that, Rebecca Goldstein’s Mind-Body Problem. I’m not sure what I’ll read next.
We have a sighting! Neither Karen nor I has made it to the theaters to see It’s Complicated, the romantic comedy starring Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, and Steve Martin. But several friends and readers have, and they’ve been able to confirm that one of our planners does indeed make an appearance. Writes a friend:
“The funny thing about Meryl Streep’s character (in the movie) is that she forgets appointments and meetings. Steve Martin’s character gives her the gift of the leather bound Quo Vadis planner to help her remember her appointments with him. When she opens the gift, the back of the planner is face up. The imprinted Quo Vadis label is displayed before she turns the planner over.”
Note that we did *not* pay for product placement, which is part of the reason we’re so excited about this! Director Nancy Meyers is apparently just a fan of Quo Vadis — as is Meryl Streep.
I’ve said it before, but everyone has their own idea of what makes a perfect planner. Most of us muddle through by selecting the company and format that best suits our needs, and perhaps a bit of customization.
Some dedicated souls, however, bust out their pens and their rulers and make the planner of their dreams. As a non-crafty person, I’m in awe of the patience this requires. But I can certainly see the appeal; after all, what other planning system can claim to be exactly tailored to the way you think and live?
If you’re curious about exploring homemade planners, check out Chet Chin’s posts about converting her large Habana notebook into a 2010 planner — then making sure it feels like her own.
Chet does her customization in advance and by hand, but reader Dave Terry uses a date stamp and stamps each new day as he goes. He also creates a detailed index so he can find things later. You can read more about Dave’s planning system on his blog and at D*I*Y Planner (which, incidentally, has a wonderful collection of ideas and templates for customized planners).
This morning’s post, from guest blogger Kate Marshall, reminds me of a quote that’s usually attributed to May West: “Too much of a good thing is wonderful.” Still, sometimes you’ve gotta pare things down…
I first started using fountain pens when I was a child but I didn’t start collecting or using them on a regular basis until about four years ago. Next thing I knew, I had about 20 fountain pens: Lamys, Bexleys, Sailors, Pelikans, etc. Eek. I had too many pens and I didn’t use them often enough to justify keeping them. It’s time to sell some pens. As I do this, I’ve been rethinking the focus of my pen collection. When all is said and done, I expect to have:
• four Pelikan M400s
• three Pelikan M620s
• one Pelikan M205
• two Aurora Optimas
• one Bexley Submariner SE
• one Namiki-Pilot Vanishing Point (also known as the Pilot Capless)
• one Sailor Professional Gear
• two Sailor Sapporos (Professional Gear Slim)
• one Levenger TrueWriter
In four years of pen collecting, I’ve learned that:
I really like Pelikans, especially when they or their nibs come from Richard Binder.
I favor piston-fillers and other filling methods over cartridge-converter filling systems.
Why didn’t I buy a Vanishing Point sooner? Despite the converter’s painfully tiny ink capacity, this is the best pen ever! And it comes in pink!
I’m really hoping that once my pen collection is slimmed down, I won’t snap up every new pen I see. By focusing on pens I really love, I hope to better appreciate their value and quality. I know there are others whose pen collections (or watch collections or misprinted calendar collections or what-have-you) number in the hundreds or even thousands. And that’s cool—Kate’s not here to judge. But I’ve decided that I just have too much darn stuff in my life and it’s time to pare it down.
Granted, the day that Pelikan announces a pink M400, all bets are off.
Brian Goulet, pen maker behind the Goulet Pen Company, has started a series of vlogs at InkNouveau.com wherein he reviews the notebooks, stationery, and inks that his company also carries, and performs various experiments.
For instance: the Triomphe Torture Test, which I’ve embedded above, and which subjects a few unlucky sheets of Clairefontaine Triomphe stationery to some awfully vigorous testing to demonstrate the lack of bleedthrough and feathering. Go Triomphe!
We have a sighting! Neither Karen nor I has made it to the theaters to see 
This morning’s post, from guest blogger 
