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New blog

I have decided to close this blog and start a new one. If you are interested in following my new blog you can find it here.

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Planners: What am I using in 2019?

As much as I loved my Hobonichi I’ve used in 2018. I didn’t want to continue using it for 2019. The main reason was because of the price, at £40 I thought it was quite pricey to repurchase. Another reason was that I own two very beautiful Van der Spek planners, that I have not used at all this year. It was too much of a shame to leave them standing on the shelf. So I knew I wanted to go back to rings and use them.

Thinking over my Hobonichi I wanted to think what I liked about the planner and perhaps what I didn’t like. I decided that:

I loved:

  • The paper, Tomoe River Paper is divine.
  • I liked that everything was printed and bound, so it was there. I didn’t have to print anything out.
  • I liked the monthly layout.
  • The compact nature. Fit in some pockets, very simple to just take without a bag.
  • I loved the cover I had for it by Oberon Designs.

I didn’t like:

  • The lack of a weekly layout in the A6.
  • That I couldn’t use my VdS Planners.
  • The daily page, I tried to write every day as a journal. I liked that I could jot simple things and come back to it later, but the last two months or so I’ve ended up with a bit of a backlog. That’s more my fault. But I hated the waste of pages if I didn’t go back in and fill them. I also thought it was wasteful if I didn’t fill the page in.
  • Monthly overview at the start of each month, didn’t really use it.

So the solution. I went into a VdS. As much as I loved Tomoe River paper, I already had a6 paper cut so I used that. I designed my own inserts on Publisher, but they have a heavy influence from the Hobonichi. My pages include:

  • 2019 yearly overview. No real reason why I have this. I don’t really use it. But I thought it was better than a blank page, as I needed the other side of the page to be part of the monthly spread.
  • The monthly spread.
    This is very Hobonichi. 8 columns. One column for each of the days of the week and the final column is blank. I will probably use that for monthly tasks or tracking orders. These pages go until December 2019.
  • 2020 yearly overview. Again same reason as the 2019 yearly overview, just to fill in a page.
  • Dates for 2020. I needed again to fill in a front page which would have otherwise been blank. I merged the four columns into so it’s a grided page, with the border around it so it matches in with the other pages. It’s just got the heading and it’s very plain so I can just write dates in I need it.
  • Weekly layout.

    This is the same layout as the monthly spread. It has 8 columns. One for each day, the 8th column is to balance it out so it’s equal for the two pages. If I am honest I don’t know what I am going to use the 8th column for. Could be used meal ideas, tracking water or exercise. Maybe some crafting ideas. What I also like about my weekly layout is I didn’t put the 31st December on the first Monday. It probably seems weird to everyone else, but I don’t like putting last year into my planner, even if it is 2018. The solution would be to have the year start on a Monday, but that’s so rare. So my first column just says happy new year. What’s important for me is that they are already printed out. So I have the whole year done. That’s what I liked about the Hobonichi, it was already done. So having done it now makes it less of a chore next year. The last page goes up to Tuesday 31st December and merged the last two columns to make a section for reflection on the year. Although it doesn’t have a complete week, that will go into a new planner.

I’m excited for 2019 to start using this. Yet there is a problem with it. A VdS planner is very bulky and I know that there are going to be times I don’t want to carry it around. I also didn’t want to waste my beautiful Oberon Design cover, which once the Hobonichi is used up, it probably wouldn’t be used anymore. I decided to use blank paper, hole punched and glued to a cardboard back. This will slot into the cover and I’ll use that for journalling, writing notes to people so I can ripe them off and leave them. This can fit in my pocket, I can copy notes from my planner into this and then copy information back.

Please excuse the poor lighting in my photos. Autumn decided to come!

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Planning: Update on what I am currently using.

I’m still in a Hobonichi and I really like using it. I love the compact nature of it. I love that it is fountain pen friendly. I love the colour sheen I can get with some of my fountain pen inks. It’s not completely perfect and so I’ll be changing it in 2019, there will be another post on that soon.

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Life Update

This blog has really suffered of late. The truth is I was busy researching for an MRes. A lot of things suffered whilst writing my dissertation, a number of hobbies and in particular my blog suffered because I didn’t have the time to do any of it. Now I have completed my dissertation. My dissertation has been handed it and my academic journey has ended so hopefully I’ll be able to write on my blog a little bit more.

Another major issue when writing my blog was taking photos, the truth is I never really liked taking them on my phone and I thought they looked awful. So I would avoid taking them which would delay posts. Now. I have recently purchased a new camera, which hopefully will feature on a blog post soon. Now I am enjoying taking photos more and love using my camera so I am hoping this part of blogging will become much easier.

As part of, the relaunch? I guess that’s what it is. My blog has been given a bit of a makeover and a new cover photo. Hope you like and stay tuned for some more blog posts.

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My Return to Commerial Hair care

From my previous blog posts, I had documented my switch to No ‘Poo and trying natural alternatives to hair care, specifically ones that did not contain Sodium Laurel Sulfate which can be quite an irritant to the scalp and cause dryness and itching. I have experimented with Baking Soda and Apple Cider Vinegar but found it too harsh. I liked Rye Flour – I found it cleaned my hair very well but it was difficult to get out of the hair, made a terrible mess of the bath and found it to be very itchy after washing. I have also experimented with making my own soap and using that.

However, the whole experience left me disappointed. I would have often greasy, not very nice hair that would cause me to be self-conscious about. I got down to washing my hair once a week, which I liked the idea of and generally it did not look too bad if I put a little dry shampoo in and was religious about brushing my hair.

The biggest problem was, I missed the loveliness of my hair and how it feels when you wash with commercial shampoo. It feels softer and to be cleaner and healthier. I know there are people out there that will say it’s a lie and you have to use the conditioner to combat the damaging effects of the shampoo etc, but if traditional methods of washing things were so great, we’d still be washing our clothes with urine. So obviously some modern technology and washing methods are much more appealing to us than others.

I went back to commercial shampoo – I love the smells and the reliability of getting in the shower, having a comforting lather and KNOWING when I get out the shower I am going to have hair I feel confident with and not self-conscious about…

However, I am getting to the stage now where washing once a week is beginning to creep up to twice a week and soon that will go to every other day. I know the secret is to true and hold off washing it as long as possible, but there is no coming away from the fact that my scalp is now back to overproducing oils to compensate commercial haircare removing them.

I wish there was a happy medium between the two. The benefits of going no ‘poo but the luscious feeling of my hair when using commercial shampoo! But alas, as ever you can not have your cake and eat it.

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Selling Planners: To do or do not?

I have some Filofaxes I no longer use, some of them are not worth reselling if I am honest and I wouldn’t expect a lot of money for them but there are one or two which I think would be worth me selling and using the money for other things.

However, I am very much aware of the horror stories of selling things and I am reluctant to sell. I’ve written a blog post before about the topic: Buying and Selling Planners: What you need to know!

They are just sitting gathering dust on a bookshelf and I am eager to declutter a little. Do I attempt to sell them and take any negatives as par for the course and to be expected? Should I pack them up and send them to a local charity shop, where they just might throw them away? Should I just throw them away? Or shall they remain, forever on the shelf? Waiting for me to make some sort of decision at a later date.

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A6: The Rant

I love A6, measurements of 150mm x 105mm – half of A5 size. It’s my preferred writing size…well other than a5 for letters but for Filofax (even though they do not do it in that size, I actually use a widened VdS senior) it’s an A6, but…

What is up with retailers jumping to the A6 label and banjaxing it? If it’s not Filofax personal (171mm x 95mm) being labelled as A6 size, it’s places selling A6 pocket notebooks, like Leuchtturm or Moleskin, selling Pocket A6 (150mm x 90mm). Even Rhodia, paper which I very much like sells an A6, which is there no.13 which although true to size in it’s actually bought state, it is smaller when it is teared. Their oversized a6 pad, no. 14, is 110 x 170mm before it is teared but once teared leaves you with a 150mm height of a6, but it is too wide, at 110 mm. Now Steve at Philofaxy has suggested methods for cutting down, but that is effort. I don’t actually mind the extra half a cm, when I am using it in a ring-bound planner, because it helps to compensate for the paper that is taken over but the rings, but it is annoying to half different widths of paper in a planner.

I am still loving my Hobonichi and I have some great printed a6 pages (I should really do a review on the company I bought them from…)

I just wish it was easier to find true A6 paper sizes. Do you have any recommendations for a true A6 bound notebook? If so please leave your suggestions in the comments section.

Dictionary:

Banjax (verb) meaning to: ruin, incapacitate, or break. It is an Anglo-Irish saying, from around the 1930s, of unknown origin. I love the word and it is fairly common in my household to say it, but I come from an Irish family. I’ve used to word in the past and people are not always aware of it.