We made it! Plan “get the dog and us across the country with an RV and our friend who loves driving” was a total success. We were lucky to get a very nice agent at the border and didn’t even have to have the whole RV searched. It’s tempting to point at the past week of news to explain why I’m so happy to have made it out safely, but if I’m honest with myself I could have pointed at nearly any past week of news in the year or so since we started making more concrete plans to leave and it would have seemed just as urgent then as now. But yeah, I made it and I’m excited for J to have his turn to be the immigrant; hopefully it won’t be as demoralizing for him as it often was for me.

We’re kind of rattling around in a large empty house at the moment, and there’s some stress going on with the moving company and the internet setup, but at this point most of the scariest parts of this adventure are over. Unless you’re our anxiety-ridden pandemic dog, who now has to meet a lot of strangers who come into the house. Thankfully he’s got lots of other nice things to enjoy that make up for the stress. He particularly likes the kid’s new game that he calls “melt the dog” which involves turning on the fireplace next to the dog bed and watching Hatch slowly sprawl out. I’m not sure why the kid thinks this is hilarious but Hatch obviously doesn’t mind. We’re giving kid a few more days of vacation to sleep and adapt before getting him registered in school but that’ll be soon.

It took me a bit before I sat down and made some stationary choices for this month, mostly because cleaning up the remaining drywall dust and flooring sawdust and whatnot took precedence. Also sleeping. A lot of sleeping. And figuring out how things work and where to put stuff. And people stopping by (good for everyone but poor dog).

Stickers

• Japanese birds in costumes for all seasons (Mind Wave)
• Winter Dragons (Sara Capello Illustration for Stickii)

I’ll probably need another sticker sheet but I may just use up some leftover bits. We’ll see how much I write once I’m tired from work.

Fountain Pens & Ink

• Platinum Preppy Wa – Koi pattern <F>. This has the original black cartridge in it.
• Kaweco Liliput <BB> – KWZ Jurassic Treasure
• Pelikan Pina Colada <M> – Diamine Celestial Skies from Inkvent.
• Pilot E95S <M> – Pilot Iroshizuku fuyu-gaki

Two of these are new pens, both from Fountain Pen Day sales but I hadn’t gotten them inked with the chaos of December.

The Liliput has been on my wish list for a while as a shiny upgrade to my kaweco sport pens, which get regularly rotated in and out because I like writing with them but the aesthetics of them have never grabbed me. I’ve only written with it a bit but the nib is lovely and I suspect I’ll get used to having to screw the cap onto the back of the pen though that’s not my favourite. Still, I love the feel of it, so light and satisfying to hold. And the shiny blue looks just as good as I hoped it would. I wasn’t sure if the double-broad nib would be too much, but I rather like it, especially with this super smooth and shiny ink.

The Pelikan Pina Colada was more of an impulse buy because it was cheap and used the same converter I have for the Pelikan Twist. It feels light and maybe looks a bit unappealing because of the plastic, but it has a really nice clip and the grip is more comfortable for me than the one on the Twist. I’ll withhold final thoughts until I see if it handles a month of writing with sparkly Diamine ink. So far it’s not really bringing the sparkle as much as the Twist did, but I don’t think this ink itself is quite as sparkle heavy as the last thing I used in the Twist so who knows. We’ll see if it clogs.

KWZ Jurassic Treasure and Pilot Iroshizuku fuyu-gaki are both inks I’ve had a while but I’m not sure I’ve inked pens with them. I bought the rest the KWZ “all that glitters” line when it came in stock because it is my favourite sparkle ink that works in every pen and it only has 4 colours — I’ve used the blue/silver and orange/gold ones, this is gold/gold and there’s also a green/gold. I hope they make more. I’d love a purple/silver. Fuyu-gaki came in a little set of Pilot inks and I wish it was more red and less orange (the swatch is a bit darker than my writing with a non-dip pen) but it’s a fun colour even if I was really hoping for a good red.

Celestial Skies was possibly my favourite of this year’s Inkvent Teal calendar, so I figured I should ink it first. It’s nice that the gold sparkle goes well with Jurassic Treasure for a lightly matched ink palette.

Notebooks and Bags

This setup hasn’t really changed since I last posted, I think, but here’s a picture since it’s been a little while:

My current notebook setup: Lihit labs pen case with fountain pens, washi, stamps and scissors above, Lochby Field Folio case with a Campus free monthly calendar on one side and a Leuchtturm notebook on the other. There’s a wooden pencil in the pen slot and a sticker sheet barely visible on one side.

All of this is working well for me: I used one of the calendars in the back of the campus diary for swatching inkvent and was impressed at how well it handled even some of the wetter swatches. The Leuchtterm is about half full from my start in October and it also handled some paintbrush swatches of ink. I won’t say I’ve completely gotten used to how much more ghosting it has than some of the other notebooks I’ve tried, but it’s usable and I could see myself using it again if I wanted a higher page count. Mostly I want less page count so I don’t have to carry as much with me, though. The pen case and A5 Field Folio are both great. I’m tempted to try some of Lochby’s other offerings, but they’re a bit thick for what I want out of a purse notebook so this bigger journal setup may be the only place they fit in my life. Oh, also I’m using a little midori calendar stencil instead of calendar stickers this year for the little monthly calendar I put at the start of each month for a quick “what day is it again?” check.

Commuter Stationary Planning

I’m going to be commuting to my new job on the bus several days per week, and I decided that rather than just transferring my existing little purse-backpack notebook back and forth, my commuter backpack should get its own notebook. Not sure yet if I’ll use that for work or it’ll just be for doodles on the bus.

Right now I’ve put together a TN-sized notebook from Lochby and my TN zipper case and stuck them together so the zipper case serves as a notebook cover (I used to use this zipper case stuck to the back of my calendar to hold stickers). I’ll probably fill up my TWSBI Eco with something non-sparkly so I don’t have to worry about clogging. Maybe pull out the bottle of Nitrogen for a bit of sheen, not sure yet.

In practice, the only stationary I really used in my last job was my running todo list notebook. I’ve yet to find a digital to do list that works as well for me as a little paper notebook does. Not sure if that will still be the case but I threw it in the picture with the commuter notebook because there was space. I’ll see if I wind up using it for work or if it will be only for personal lists. Mostly I stick two or three pens and the notebook into the pouch and then into my pocket and use it around the house on days when I will absolutely forget to do things if I don’t write them down, or when I need a little boost of checkboxes to keep me on track.

Stationary Shopping in Canada

Shipping even small stuff from the US seems to cost about $25 minimum so I’m unlikely to do many orders from the US in the future, stationary or not. That’s definitely not a surprise, since before I left it was pretty common for people to put together big group buys of stuff to defray shipping costs. And with the political situation in the US, Canadians are kind of aggressively refusing to shop American and support the whole war machine, which rather makes sense. Thankfully it’s not much of a concern if I can’t shop where I used to: I’ve got a comfortable amount of supplies after my enthusiastic shopping since I started using fountain pens again in 2024, and I could probably write happily without buying anything new for a year or two. Still, I’m intending to find some Canadian stationary/pen stores to shop at, online and maybe offline (I know there’s one near my old apartment that has a small selection). If you know if great stores in Canada that carry fountain pens and ink, let me know!

I don’t have a big wishlist at the moment: maybe some standard inks to balance out my collection which is very dominated by inkvent holiday inks? No pens on my radar right now, since the Liliput was the last one. A friend may be storing his pen lathe in our garage so maybe I’ll get a kit and try turning a pen or two if we get that set up. I’ve got paper and stickers enough to last for probably over a year at my current journalling rate, though I’m always open to stickers when I find new artists I want to support.

New Job

New job starts next week and I’m excited! This was the best team I interviewed with and I’m looking forwards to getting to know them. I’m also very much looking forwards to having income again as we deal with the last moving bills and no doubt new expenses as we figure out what we need in the new house. I’m less looking forwards to a long commute to the office three days a week, but I also have no furniture for my office and for some reason the flooring guys forgot that room so I also have to wait for a new floor… which is all to say that I’m going to be glad to have a desk and proper chair!

Mom, I’m bored

I feel like I should wrap this up somehow but my kid is telling me he is BORED so I guess that’s that. Happy new year!