A Year and a Half-ish of Fountain Pens

Back in July 2020 - with no real end in sight to COVID work from home and K and I's plans to continue adhering to fairly strict social distancing - I decided to try out fountain pens for the first time, after seeing Adina's Instagram stories about some of her favorite Pilot Iroshizuku inks. Almost immediately, I became completely obsessed. 

It didn't take long before I went from one pen to five and then far more than that, with an ink collection to match. And my pen and ink collection continued to grow somewhat in 2021 albeit at a much slower rate than before. (Which is good, because I was really a bit out of control with how quickly I jumped into the hobby and the acquisition of new pens, inks, and related accoutrements in 2020!)

Fountain pens and journaling were a perfect pandemic-era hobby for me while I was stuck at home at my desk in our one-bedroom NYC apartment all day long for months on end. It gave me all the time in the world to sit and write with the different ink, fountain pen nib, and paper combinations available to me, to marvel at and admire the various colors and properties of all my inks and ink samples, including some with shimmer, sheening, and shading. 

When I was home all the time, it was also easy to refill any fountain pen as soon as it ran out of ink. Some pens, or rather, their converters, have very limited ink capacity and are emptied after writing barely a few A5-sized pages worth of text; other pens might not be completely airtight so they dry out quickly. It was also easy to find 15 to 20 minutes to clean out a few of my pens each week, when I was in the mood to switch those pens to new ink colors. 

These days - now that I'm fully back in the office every weekday, save for a few recent weeks due to the Omicron surge in NYC, and not that I'm also close to billing normal amounts of hours by pre-pandemic standards - I find I'm not able to make as much use of my fountain pens as before. Back while social distancing, once I'd built that rather prodigious collection of pens so quickly, I generally kept around fifteen fountain pens inked at a time, and it was a simple matter to stay on top of refilling any that ran out of ink. I'd also switch up some of my chosen colors once a week or so. Nowadays, having eight pens inked at a time is more than enough. With just that many actively in use, I still have trouble keeping up with refilling the ones that run empty and almost never have the energy to clean any of them up to switch between inks. 

Reselling More with The RealReal

In late 2021, I had a bunch of like-new items - including my Equipment silk blouses, that Babaa sweater and a Babaa lounge set, and a bunch of Smythson notebooks (similar, affiliate link) I bought on sale (that turned out not to suit my subsequently developed interest in fountain pens and colorful inks because the pale blue Smythson paper obscured some ink colors) - which I decided to resell through The RealReal ("TRR"). It'd been two years since I last had anything suitable for sending to TRR, and this time, most of my items for consignment were a lot newer than the ones from last time. 

As in 2019, my main reason for deciding to resell with TRR was that I prioritized ease and convenience over total returns. Last time around, none of my items were particularly new or in-demand, and I thought it was pretty certain that if I tried to list them myself on eBay, Poshmark, etc., it'd take weeks or months and a few rounds of re-listing to successfully sell them. This time around, I did think a number of my items - particularly the Babaa clothing - should have been reasonably easy to resell directly to other individuals fairly quickly, and for a much better price than the TRR commission. But alas, between work stress and pandemic stress, I wasn't really up for handling the listing and shipment of my items myself. 

Once again, I was fairly satisfied with my TRR consignment experience. Like in 2019, my only real goal was to successfully resell these items after having spent as little of my time or effort as possible to accomplish that. Obviously, by using TRR, I knew I couldn't be too picky about the price they chose to sell my items for because I had absolutely no choice in the matter. I also knew I'd only get 40-50% of the TRR sale price as a commission. 

All my items sold incredibly quickly this time, often within a week of each listing going live. That does suggest I could have had far better returns fairly quickly if I resold the items myself, without using TRR as a middleman, but alas, I wasn't really in a position to do that. 

Things I Like Lately

via Goulet Pens

Somehow, I managed to strain my right elbow recently while whisking sugar and fully melted butter together to make chocolate chip cookies (specifically, with the Cook's Illustrated recipe, which is pretty good!). It's been a little over a week of resting that arm as best I can and I still feel a faint twinge in my elbow at times. Of all the silly and unlikely ways to get a mild injury... 

Today's post is a bit of a grab bag of some of the small things I've been enjoying recently while continuing to mostly work from home. With how quickly COVID vaccine access has expanded in the US, I suspect I'll be back in the office full-time very soon. 

Within a few hours of when my previous post went live, the CDC and the Biden administration even announced that - as far as they were concerned - face masks were now unnecessary for fully vaccinated individuals except when on airplanes, trains, and buses, and in transportation hubs! (Though people should continue to follow state and local government policies that may still dictate otherwise. But I guess the clear signal from federal authorities is that they probably expect state and local governments to fall in line with the new mask guidelines shortly.) My personal choice is to continue masking whenever I'm indoors around people from other households, except when having small gatherings with friends and family whom I know to be fully vaccinated. 

Curology Update, Seven Months: I'm now roughly seven months in to using my custom prescription topical treatment from Curology, and it's continued to be good so far. By around four months in, I would describe my skin as pretty much clear, I went nearly two months without any of those nastier, larger blemishes that generally take at least a week or more to flatten out and start to really heal. During that time, I also wasn't really getting any of those smaller blemishes that only take a day or two to go away. 

But last month, I unfortunately got a pretty bad breakout with two of those larger, nastier blemishes that take forever to flatten out - maybe due to a combination of maskne from needing to go to the office a bit more often that month and also stress from preparing for my job interview - so then my skin wasn't "clear" anymore. Oh well. My skin's gotten much better again, so I think that breakout was an aberration. 

On whole, my Curology formula (tretinoin 0.04%, azelaic acid 7%, and clindamycin 1%) is definitely much better for my skin than the 0.1% Retin-A Micro I was using before. I no longer get irritation-induced breakouts and my skin is generally a lot more clear as a result. 

Fountain Pens and Ink: So far in 2021, I've chilled out considerably when it comes to shopping for the fountain pen hobby I acquired last July. I've spent a little bit each month on things like washi tape, a new fountain pen-friendly journal, and yet more colors of ink, but I haven't bought any more pens. 

Most recently, I've purchased two sets of newly released ink from the Korean brand Colorverse. (Both sets are currently sold out. In the fountain pen world, new products from popular brands often sell out extremely quickly from the various small specialty retailers that stock them when they're first released. But the items often become easier to get later on, in subsequent months.) When it comes to fountain pen inks, I like to read reviews from the blogger Mountain of Ink. She reviewed both sets I just purchased, and I can confirm the inks are indeed that cool-looking in real life. 

Please note that this post contains affiliate links that could result in my earning a small commission - at no extra cost to you - if you click and make a purchase. Thank you for your support!

I've also been thinking a bit about my next fountain pen purchase, and I'm leaning towards maybe a Pilot Decimo in pastel pink or purple (also available at Amazon from Japanese sellers, though without any real savings compared to US retailers, which is a bit unusual). I'm also somewhat tempted by a new teal-colored limited edition pen from Sailor, the Pro Gear Slim in Blue Green Nebula, but I think that one is a bit too pricey for me now that I'm trying not to spend so much on the hobby going forward. I already have well over a dozen pens - mostly more affordable ones than the Pilot Decimo or Sailor Pro Gear Slim - so I don't really need any more!

Things I Bought Recently

via Yoseka Stationery

Like I mentioned last month, I'm still feeling the pandemic and social distancing blues. But I'm also guardedly optimistic that - because COVID vaccine distribution has been quite robust in NYC and with the new availability of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine - there's a chance vaccine eligibility might open up to the general public here in New York somewhat sooner than the original projected date of late May or early June. 

Because Connecticut is opening vaccine eligibility up to different age groups step-by-step, K's parents were recently able to make their first-dose appointments as part of the age 55-plus group. That's a huge relief to us! California's vaccine rollout isn't quite there yet, so we are still waiting for my mom to be eligible to make her appointment. 

I'm still mostly compliant with my low-spending goals for these few months, as I continue to work on finishing my student loan repayment. But I still allow myself occasional indulgences. In particular, I buy myself stationery or food treats semi-regularly, because those tend to be more moderately priced than clothing or accessories. Today's post is about some of the things I've bought recently, two of them fun and one of them much less so. 

Midori Five Year Diary with Embroidered Cover: I was originally not going to buy this Midori journal because I already have another five-year "a few lines a day"-type Hobonichi, but when Jetpens got these back in stock, I ended up not being able to resist. The embroidered cover is just so pretty, and I know from using another, less fancy Midori notebook that their paper is high-quality and fountain pen-friendly. (I do slightly prefer Tomoe River paper over Midori paper, however. Some extra-fine nib and ink combinations end up too dry for the Midori paper, and Midori paper doesn't show quite as much sheen or shading with some fountain pen inks compared to Tomoe River.) This journal also comes with a clear plastic cover to protect the embroidered details and keep the fabric cover clean. 

Because I'm currently using my five-year Hobonichi Techo journal for daily memory-keeping, I'm going to set aside this Midori Five Year Diary and save it for some other use later.  

Hot Chocolate Balls: These aren't quite the highly Instagrammable hot chocolate bombs with pretty, decorated chocolate shells that have been trendy recently, but they make a tasty, rich, and not overly sweet cup of hot chocolate. I heard about this company from one of my undergraduate school's alum facebook groups because they're a small business that's local to where we went to school, so I decided to try them out. I really like these hot chocolate balls, though at ~$3/serving before factoring in tax and shipping, it's definitely a splurge compared to figuring out how to make a similar hot chocolate mix at home with cocoa powder and chocolate. 

We've almost finished using up the original set I bought, two sleeves with six servings each. All the flavors were pretty good, so I'd consider ordering another set again as a special treat once in a while. 

Turbotax: (affiliate link) Ah, and now for something substantially less fun. Longtime readers may recall that I complain about Turbotax almost every year around tax time. I've even said I wanted to "break up" with Turbotax, but I ultimately failed to do so because I just couldn't get used to using any of their competitors I've tried (mainly CreditKarma and H&R Block's website version). 

I've used Turbotax's desktop software to file my taxes basically every year of my adult life - it typically costs me ~$50/year to buy - because I've become completely dependent on them. Everything else's user interface - even Turbotax's website version - just confuses me too much. I'm definitely not a Turbotax shill or anything, in fact I really hate that I'm completely dependent on their "personal income tax for dummies"-type user interface and approach. You'd think a lawyer would be less intimidated by her taxes!

Pretty much every single year, I end up running into at least one weird Turbotax software glitch. Most years, I have trouble saving my filed tax forms as a PDF, the software often crashes while trying to save or print as a PDF. A few times, the reporting of my backdoor Roth IRA conversion has been glitchy or confusing. I always figure it out in the end, but it can cause quite a headache. 

This year's problem ended up being the most annoying of the lot. Many people who needed to report a IRA distribution - which I do as part of reporting my backdoor Roth IRA conversion - found their e-filed federal tax return was rejected by the IRS due to a purported error with a "FED_Taxable_Inherited_IRA," even though none of them actually reported an inherited IRA. It was quite nerve-wracking to get this error message, because it was clear I couldn't do anything myself to fix it, I was dependent on Intuit to fix the problem on their end. Thankfully, it seems the company fixed the issue causing the error by March 5, and I was able to file my taxes afterwards with no trouble. 

I hope that you and your loved ones are doing well. If you live in a country where COVID vaccine distribution is a high priority, I hope that at least some of your higher-risk friends and family members have been able to get their shot(s) by now, or at least to schedule their appointment(s)! I'm really hoping that vaccine supply will continue to increase faster than originally expected, so that K and I - and the rest of the general public - can hopefully become eligible by sometime in May. 

COVID-Era Spending Changes Revisited

Kate Spade Cardholder

That Vince boiled cashmere funnel neck sweater I like so much is finally on sale in pretty much all of this year's colors, including the medium blue color I'm somewhat tempted by. Many of their other sweaters from this fall/winter season are also on sale, including this cashmere donegal turtleneck. (Though alas, I don't think current sale prices are better than what was available during the most recent Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale period.) 

Back in August, I wrote about how COVID-19 social distancing and lockdowns changed my spending. Now that K and I have spent quite a few more months living a socially distanced lifestyle - it's been almost a full year now - I figured I should update my analysis to see if my main prediction - that "it's likely most of my spending changes from the [first] five months of COVID-19 lockdown could persist through the end of the [calendar] year" - turned out to be true. This post also serves as a sort of "spending year in review" for 2020. 

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Now that I have all my 2020 You Need a Budget ("YNAB") data to work with, I've adjusted the methodology for this analysis. Last time, I compared my average monthly spend for the entirety of 2019 with my average monthly spend in the full months for which I had data available from after COVID shutdowns started, namely April through July 2020. This time, I feel like comparing my spending for each full year - 2019 versus 2020 - makes more sense, even if January through mid-March 2020 weren't affected by COVID shutdowns. When averaged out over the entire year, the extra non-COVID era-compatible spending - e.g., at restaurants - from January and February 2020 is fairly negligible. 

This time around, I've also modified the list of spending categories omitted from the analysis. Like last time, I'm still leaving out my student loan payments and charitable contributions. Unlike last time, I'm now including my taxes (which increased slightly in 2020, but by a relatively negligible amount when averaged out over the entire year) and gift-related spending for my friends and family, the building staff at my apartment, and the non-attorneys at my workplace (which stayed about the same between 2019 and 2020). 

With regards to my student loan payments, I've ratcheted up the amount I pay each month significantly over time - for instance, I was at $4,800/month last August and am now at $5,100/month - so it'd throw off the analysis to include them. It's also a spending category I could pull back on significantly, if needed, because my minimum monthly payment after refinancing is only ~$1,600/month. And if all goes well, by August or September of this year, I'll be completely done repaying my student loans for good and will never need to worry about them again! 

As for charitable giving, I omit it from this analysis because it's so discretionary. Before 2020, I was admittedly not great about making charitable giving a regular part of my monthly budgets. In earlier years, particularly when I still had a negative net worth of five or six figures - recall I only hit "net worth zero" for the first time in April 2019 - it was something I struggled with because the hours I spent on pro bono work were clearly so much more valuable than any amount of money I could hope to give at the time. Now that I'm in a much stronger financial position than before, however, I can give more regularly (~$2,630 total last year, all from after the COVID shutdowns began in March). 

When I calculated my COVID-driven spending changes last August, I found I was spending an average of ~$1,300/month less than usual. This time around, when comparing my full-year spending for 2019 and 2020, I saw I spent an average of ~$980/month less than in 2019. So that's approximately $320/month less in COVID-driven reduced spending than I originally calculated back in August. (Keep in mind, though, that charitable contributions were omitted each time, so both measures of my "savings" from COVID social distancing should arguably be reduced by the ~$200/month I donated last year.) 

So what changed? Where did that other $320/month in reduced COVID-era spending or "lost" COVID-driven savings go? 

Things I Like Lately: Stationery, Kitchen Goods, and Slippers

As I mentioned in my 2020 year-end shopping reflections, I'm currently trying to have a low-spending, low-shopping few months when it comes to clothes, shoes, and accessories. At the moment, I'm very focused on the impending end of my student loan repayment journey, which will hopefully be in mid-August if all goes according to plan. In the absence of being able to safely travel or go out to dine at restaurants, fashion-related shopping is my biggest discretionary expense, so that's why I'm so focused on trying to keep that spending category down for now! 

This doesn't mean I'll completely stop shopping for things that are fun or a bit indulgent, however. I also don't think I'll completely eliminate shopping for my closet until August. I'm satisfied as long as I'm just shopping noticeably less than usual in that area. Here are a few, mostly non-fashion things I've been looking at so far in the new year. 

Please note that this post contains affiliate links that could result in my earning a small commission - at no extra cost to you - if you click and make a purchase. Thank you for your support!

Stationery: I recently decided to order my first ever set of washi tapes and stickers from Yoseka Stationery (a small stationery shop local to me, though I've unfortunately never had a chance to visit in person due to COVID-19). I mainly want to use them to decorate my five-year Hobonichi Techo - ordered last September - which I've been using as a sort of hybrid memory book and "a line a day"-type journal. I'll probably also use the stickers and washi tape to add more color to my bullet journal-slash-planner, which I currently keep in a dot-grid Leuchtturm1917 notebook, handwriting in all the dates and weekly planner layouts myself. 

I've only just started playing around with my new washi tapes and stickers. One observation so far is that an A6-sized notebook - like my five-year Hobonichi - is maybe a little small to allow much room for showing off washi tapes wider than ~15 mm or so, at least for long-winded writers like me! I'm still able to use the ~15 mm tapes as small, colorful accents on the pages, but can't use full lines of them to separate off each one-year section on each page. 

Ooh, and the "print-on stickers" I bought are particularly fun! Here's a quick video clip from one of Yoseka Stationery's Instagram posts that shows you how to use them. I've tried a few of these stickers now, and they're really easy to use. 

Shopping Life Lately (and Curology Update)

I'm more than a bit surprised I've managed to not buy much for myself in this year's round of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. In fact, I haven't bought myself any clothing, shoes, or accessories this sale season. That is quite out of character for me: Just compare this year's Black Friday "haul" of zero things for my wardrobe with my 2018 and 2019 performance! 

Anyway, I definitely don't believe in Black Friday sales having special ethical or moral significance, whether one abstains or partakes. (Though my overall preference is generally to consume less, and to put what I do consume - particularly new items bought at retail - to the most rigorous, long-term use possible.) It's just another sale season and, frankly, there are many women's apparel and accessory sales all year round. In past years, particularly before I started this blog, I'd typically found that Black Friday and Cyber Monday weren't even a great time for discounts on women's fashion, though that's changed somewhat more recently. But, for the largest discounts on clothing and accessories this general time of year, it's still the post-Christmas sales one should really keep an eye out for. 

Black Friday Purchases (and a Return) 

I ordered that collared polo sweater from The Reset, and it arrived this week. Upon trying it on, I realized an important detail I overlooked when the design first caught my eye: The collar and v-neck design on most polo sweaters might not look quite right or proportional on me, as I'm busty enough that they won't look the way they do on the models. Plus, this sweater is a bit shorter in the body than my usual preference - it's not unusually short, and I definitely wouldn't call it cropped, but I personally prefer my tops on the longer side - and that combined with the neckline and the somewhat boxy fit made my torso look... stubby. I also found the sleeves puffed out a little too much just past the awkwardly-long-on-me cuffs. In other words, this sweater did not suit my body shape and proportions, and straight back into the mail it goes. 

Mostly because 2020 has been such a strange year, this return to The Reset is actually the first return of any kind I've done with any retailer this year. If you'd told me in 2019 that I'd spend 11 months of 2020 not making any shopping returns at all, I'd probably have laughed, it would just sound so outlandish given how much I typically rely on online shopping and my admitted propensity for ordering multiple sizes of a single item to try. 

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I was also briefly tempted by Vince's site-wide 30% off Black Friday sale, particularly by this year's medium blue version of that boiled cashmere funnel-neck sweater I liked so much from last year. But I already have a very similar-looking sweater from Brora in basically the same color, and I definitely do not need two different medium blue high-necked sweaters. (Though between the two designs, the Vince one is definitely more elegant-looking!) 

As for what I did buy during this year's Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale period, I did my Christmas shopping for K and his parents.* I decided on L.L. Bean Wicked Cozy blankets for his parents because I enjoy mine so much and had no better ideas for them while they're also stuck at home. (My Christmas gift for them last year was a set of nice, lightweight carry-on suitcases. For obvious reasons, those have gone unused.) For K, I pre-ordered a copy of the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 game for Playstation 4. 

Recent Small Joys

Part of me still feels the occasional flutter of stress about the recent US presidential election. Obviously, the outcome it abundantly clear, it's not a remotely close call. President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Harris will be inaugurated next January. But with all the undignified posturing and truly bonkers lies about election-related litigation coming from our outgoing President and his team, it's hard for me not to feel some momentary distress at times. 

All that "amateur hour" litigation work done on behalf of the Trump campaign by the time major news networks called the election results last Saturday has been followed only by maneuvers plumbing shocking new depths of incompetence. I cringe frequently from secondhand embarrassment when reading about their lawyers' statements during hearings and in some written filings, knowing these are the sort of things that'd likely earn a well-deserved scolding and withering retorts from basically all judges I've ever practiced before. And that's usually exactly what happens. 

Admittedly - at least in the SDNY, where I practice most frequently - judges regularly administer remonstrations and sharp words even when it actually isn't particularly warranted, something I've personally experienced more than a few times. So any tale of judicial exasperation or anger, no matter who it's directed to and how richly they deserve it, brings back bad memories. But I digress. Long story short, anyone as pleased as I was with the outcome of the US presidential election has nothing to fear at present from the courts. 

Ah, but let's move on, because this is meant to be a light-hearted post about things that have brought me some small bits of joy and levity in recent days! 

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Election Celebration: Following the widespread acknowledgement of the presidential election results last Saturday, K and I couldn't help but want to celebrate, just the two of us at home. I made the Cook's Illustrated "Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies" and K made us Instant Pot ribs. (His parents gave us their extra Instant Pot - not sure how they ended up with two - during a socially distanced and fully masked curbside exchange a few months ago, when we gave them some Asian groceries they requested from Southeast Asia Food Group's delivery service.) Both recipes are pretty good.

The Swan Rescue: I thought this was a sweet and very NYC story, about how an experienced wildlife rehabber rescued a sick swan from Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Queens. Getting the bird to the Wild Bird Fund in the Upper West Side of Manhattan was apparently an arduous journey that involved taking the swan on the subway, where apparently none of the other passengers had any real reaction. (It's definitely typical NYC behavior to ignore strange sights on the subway.) There's a video update in this Daily Show clip, among other places, and the swan seems to be on her way to recovery. 

Time's 100 Best Fantasy Books: I've read and enjoyed 27 books on Time's list of the "100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time". I thought it was a great list, with an expansive view of the genre, including works geared towards all age groups and books that aren't all shelved in the sci-fi/fantasy section of your average bookstore or library. My one small quibble is that maybe it's a little arbitrary to include two books from certain series but not others. (Though in each instance where I've read both books on the list from the same series - C.S. Lewis's The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; the Harry Potter books; and Ken Liu's The Grace of Kings and The Wall of Storms - I agree that both books are strong.) 

Standout favorites of mine include: The Ken Liu books, particularly The Wall of Storms, though you'll need to read The Grace of Kings first; N.K. Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, but the only reason I can't yet vouch for her other novels on the list is that I haven't been able to read them yet; Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana, though I'd personally recommend The Lions of Al-Rassan or Sailing to Sarantium instead to a first-time Kay reader; and David Mitchell's The Bone Clocks. But it's really hard to choose, because so many of the books I've read on this list are wonderful!

A Mostly Shopping-Related Miscellarny

Today's post is a bit of a random grab bag of smaller, more light-hearted things. I'm... currently still staying off Twitter and limiting my consumption of the news to protect my mental health. I made an additional modest contribution to the Biden/Harris campaign on Wednesday morning, after the debate (which I understand was awful because our current President behaved exactly as poorly as expected). 

First, the new season of The Great British Baking Show, a.k.a. The Great British Bake Off ("GBBO"), just started last week! Since last season, Netflix has been getting the new episodes almost in real time, on Fridays a few days after the episodes first air on Channel 4 in the UK. The first episode of this season is absolutely hilarious, I hadn't laughed so hard about anything in months. The showstopper challenge at the end of the episode contained some of the most hilarious moments in the entire history of the series. Fun fact: They filmed this season in a locked-down COVID "bubble," with all contestants, hosts, and staff living together in a hotel away from the public during filming. 

Speaking of GBBO, I also really enjoy season six winner Nadiya Hussain's BBC show Time to Eat, which is also on Netflix. Nadiya's also done a bunch of other BBC shows, but sadly, those are not on Netflix. A few recipe clips from her other shows are available on YouTube, though.

Second, now that I've become a bit of a stationery and fountain pen collector, I find myself in need of a little more storage space, particularly for notebooks and bottled inks. The fountain pens themselves don't take up as much space, however, as they currently all fit in a cup I keep on my desk.

Whenever K and I contemplate acquiring any new item of even moderately significant size, we always need to think carefully about where we're going to put the new thing. Our moderately sized one-bedroom apartment - cabinets and closets included - is already perilously close to being at maximum capacity! We probably do have room for something like a small bookshelf right next to my desk in our living room/dining room/kitchen space, though. (Keeping in mind that the room in question is already cluttered-looking, and there's no real helping that, given the furniture we already have.) For context about how cramped things are, anytime one of us wants to do a workout on a yoga mat in either the bedroom or living area, we need to move furniture around to make enough room. 

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The current front-runner storage item I'm thinking of is a three-tiered, wheeled storage cart from Target. They have a number of very similar-looking ones available, but this "Made by Design" one seems to be the most affordable and popular. There's a question of whether we should get a more traditional bookshelf with no wheels instead, but I think this storage cart is a bit more versatile because it's easier to move around when full. I arguably got the idea from Kathy recently, though I think this type of storage cart is fairly common in various settings. For example, the stylists at my current hair salon have been using these for their supplies since they opened last year, as the carts can easily be wheeled from chair to chair to work on different clients. 

One other possible sticking point is that my current stationery and fountain pen ink collection is actually not big enough to fill the entire cart. (See this video from a stationery YouTuber to see the sheer quantity of things that can fit in another very similar cart.) I might actually only need one tier if I'm really aggressive about trying to organize things into as small a space as possible. We do have other items we could put in the remaining tiers, though, possibly including some pantry items or packaged snacks... As you might be able to guess, our storage situation at home is generally a bit chaotic due to the small size of our apartment.

Getting Into Fountain Pens

Featuring the Sailor Pro Gear Slim, Yuki-tsubaki pen. I now have... a few more pens and inks now than I did back in July. Most of these inks are samples though, I don't own many full bottles.

I bought my first ever fountain pen - a Pilot Metropolitan - back in early July, after seeing Adina post about her favorite fountain pen inks. Since then, I've been completely enamored with writing and journaling with fountain pens. Though I've only been part of the fountain pen hobby for three months, the size of my collection is already formidable. And judging from various comments and posts in the many super-active online fountain pen communities out there, I'm far from the only person who started their participation in this hobby - and then escalated very quickly - during these recent months of COVID-19 social distancing! 

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Just the pens and bottled inks I mentioned in late July, including the ones sampled in the photograph - plus a converter for each pen that needs one, so I can actually use bottled inks - totals to a retail value of approximately $240 (including the dozen ink samples at ~$2 each). Everything discussed in that post was purchased at the US retail price. (Some Japanese pens and inks can also be readily obtained more cheaply from gray market sellers, including on Amazon, because they retail for significantly less in Japan.) And, ah, I now have... at least a few more pens and inks than in late July. In short, fountain pens can be a fairly expensive hobby. I'm even omitting the not-insignificant cost of fountain pen-friendly notebooks and paper! 

It's interesting to me to think about how this hobby and its associated online communities are similar to - but also different from - my fashion hobby and its relevant online communities. Though I can't exactly say I'm an expert in either hobby, of course. 

To tell the truth, I can barely even claim to be that knowledgeable about the relevant online communities either. Outside of keeping this blog and responding to comments here, I'm basically just a "lurker" or observer. I'm extremely shy - even when online and mostly anonymous - and only rarely interact directly with other people in any of these hobbies, whether on Instagram, Reddit, or otherwise. So my thoughts do need to be taken with that grain of salt.

Similarity: Lots of Small Businesses and Independent Creators to Support

Much like with fashion, there are many small businesses and individual creators and artists in the fountain pen space. Fountain pens are a fairly specialized, niche interest after all.

I mentioned in my recent money diary that I've been shopping online for some of my fountain pens, inks, and fountain pen-friendly notebooks from Yoseka Stationery, a small independent shop that's local to me. (They're great, and I highly recommend them!) From looking at Yelp, I understand there aren't many other brick and mortar stores in NYC that stock a wide range of fountain pens and inks. Fountain Pen Hospital may be the only dedicated fountain pen shop in the city. 

Super-large companies like Amazon do sell fountain pens and related supplies. Target even has a limited selection of slightly below-retail Pilot Metropolitan fountain pens and Pilot Iroshizuku fountain pen ink (only four colors, and only Take-Sumi and Asa-Gao are below retail at the time of this writing). Though it may generally be best to avoid such non-specialist retailers, at least for ink. When ink is not packed properly - as the specialized retailers generally all take special care to do - disaster can ensue. But I should note that most new fountain pens come in very secure packaging, generally in small padded boxes, so buying the pens themselves from a big-box retailer probably doesn't carry particular risk of damage in transit. I've read anecdotal comments about counterfeit Lamy pens on Amazon, however, so that's something to be aware of. 

There are also larger stationery or fountain pen online retailers that are still relatively small businesses, in the grand scheme of things. In addition to Yoseka Stationery, I've enjoyed shopping from Goulet Pens, Jetpens, and Goldspot. 

Money Diary: COVID-era Staycation, Part 2

And here's part two of the COVID-era staycation money diary I started last week! When I left off, a contractor was in the process of replacing a large swath of floorboards in our living room, and we'd relocated our coffee table and office chairs to our bedroom for the duration of the work. The repairs were going to take three days total, factoring in that certain things needed time to dry or set. 

Only day one of the work had been completed so far, and the contractor needed to come in at 9:00 AM the following two days. This meant we needed to set our alarms for 8:00 AM to have enough time to get dressed and eat before the contractor came by. That's a very early wake-up call by our standards, alas, but we'll be glad to have the repairs done before we're technically back to work next week. 

We wake up at 8:00 AM so we can cook and eat before the contractor arrives at 9:00. The easiest and fastest dishes we can make are either grilled cheese, like we had on Monday, or eggs and bacon, like on Tuesday. So it's grilled cheese with mozzarella (Trader Joe's pre-sliced fresh mozzarella log, to be exact) and prosciutto again! I cook and K cleans up after. 

We mask up when the contractor arrives, before letting him in, and then we stay masked if we're in the living room while the contractor is working. We have an ample supply of disposable surgery masks, because my mom and her friends in California participated in charity drives to order dramatically large quantities of surgical masks and other PPE to donate to local hospitals, senior centers, and the like. While doing those orders, they also bought enough surgical masks for their families, so my mom has kept my sister and I well-supplied. 

That being said, now that K and I know we need to settle in for the long haul when it comes to COVID precautions, we're trying out some reusable, washable fabric masks. A friend of a friend recommended "Happy Masks" a small company that sells masks with an extra filter layer sewn in, and that's what K and I use today. I find these Happy Masks very comfortable because the elastic ear loops are quite secure, yet also quite soft, causing no discomfort even after several hours of staying masked up. The front of the mask is shaped so there's some space under the mask (like with a N95 or a cone-shaped mask that's molded or sort of 3D in shape, so only the edges of the mask sit on the face) and the fabric isn't directly in contact with the nostrils and mouth (like with a standard disposable surgical mask that's fully touching the face). I like the Happy Masks a lot, but I don't have enough knowledge about the science to vouch for the relative merits of the extra filter layer they sew in. 

Money Diary: COVID-era Staycation, Part 1

Approximately once a year, I get inspired to write a money diary post in the Man Repeller format (focused on that week's spending only, without additional details about overall finances like at Refinery 29). I've done a 2018 "atypical week" money diary (part one, part two) and a 2019 "slightly more typical week" money diary (part one, part two). And now, with COVID-19 and everything else that's been going on, here's part one of a 2020 money diary! (I was definitely also inspired by Luxe's recent COVID-era weekend money diary.)

This year's money diary covers a six-day period. There's no point extending the diary to a full week, because the days immediately before and after this six-day period were both extremely boring, with no spending or outings further away than our apartment building's lobby. Heck, there are already two no-spending days in this diary, which was unthinkable for me in pre-COVID times! 

During the six days covered by this diary, both K and I were technically not working, and were instead enjoying a staycation. Though you'll see I still needed to do some work, some of it billable and some of it not. Until late August, I hadn't taken any vacation time in 2020. My supervisors at work encouraged me to take some time off, even if one can't go many places without potentially needing to do a two-week quarantine afterwards, pursuant to New York state law. 

For my part, I've always enjoyed staycations. I'm even known to take an extra vacation day after a trip is over, so I can relax at home a bit before returning to the office. (K prefers not to do this, as he doesn't think it's a great use of a vacation day. He'd rather head straight back to work!) 

But, well, I obviously also miss normal, pre-COVID times, when we'd have been able to freely use our vacation time to, say, go to Taiwan and Japan, as we were about to do in April. Maybe in late 2021? I can only hope...

Wow, a no-spending day! I didn't have a single one of those across my 2018 and 2019 money diaries... 

We sleep in a bit, as is typical for us on the weekends. I wake up around 10:00 AM, a bit ahead of K. Once K is up around 10:30, I start making brunch. I use the oven to cook Trader Joe's frozen hash browns and make an egg scramble on the stovetop with cheddar and chopped-up Trader Joe's "garlic herb" chicken sausage. (That's not my favorite flavor, the "spicy jalapeno" - which isn't actually spicy - is better, but they didn't have any in stock on our last Trader Joe's trip two weeks ago.) I cook and K cleans after the meal.  

Recent Small Joys

In no particular order, here are a few things that are bringing me some small amount of joy and levity these days, as my household looks ahead to the daunting prospect of continuing to observe fairly strict social distancing for the indefinite future. NYC's relatively favorable COVID-19 numbers are continuing to hold steady, so the mostly outdoors activities allowed to us do feel quite safe. (Though we should all continue to exercise caution by wearing masks while outside the home, of course.) But there remains a lot of uncertainty for everyone here about whether any significant new indoor activities - including in-person schooling - can safely resume in the foreseeable future.

1. // I've been working on a pro bono litigation project that's part of the larger fight against police violence and racially discriminatory policing in NYC. I'm very grateful to have the opportunity to contribute directly to these efforts. 

2. // I'm really enjoying the loose leaf tea I got from Blk & Bold. The passion fruit black tea is delicious, it smells lovely and the taste of passion fruit works perfectly with the black tea. Their jasmine green tea has a subtle jasmine fragrance and flavor that makes it a good "everyday" sort of green tea. (That's different from the dragon pearl jasmine and Yin Hao jasmine green teas I get from Harney & Sons, which have an extremely assertive jasmine taste that might be a bit more polarizing.) Sadly, both teas are currently sold out from Blk & Bold's website, so it may be a while before any new customers can try it.

3. // K and I binge-watched all four and a half currently available seasons of the Showtime show Billions in extremely short order in recent weeks. We really enjoy Billions, it's fast paced with highly creative storylines - to the extent where the legal and courtroom drama side of it is completely, absurdly unrealistic, which is typical for just about any legal drama on television, but Billions is just a bit wilder than most - and some really hilarious writing. While the various legal storylines are mostly quite absurd, there are occasionally some very on-point jokes about our experience of the legal profession in NYC that K and I really appreciate.

Though I should note that the main characters in Billions aren't very likable, and definitely aren't especially moral or ethical in their behavior. (Given that one of the main characters is a billionaire hedge-funder and the other is an increasingly corrupt prosecutor, this is not especially surprising.)

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4. // I'm still completely enamored with my new fountain pen hobby.  My current favorite inks are Pilot Iroshizuku Ku-Jaku (a gorgeous teal shade), Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo (a deep blue-gray color which looks particularly good on the pale blue paper contained in Smythson notebooks; this color is actually supposed to have a hint of teal, but not in my experience with any of the finer nibs I've tried with it), and Sailor Shikiori Oku-Yama (a nice, moody dark red with a surprising amount of complexity).

Keeping this post relatively light and brief today! Work has gotten a lot busier for me recently, which is a good thing - particularly as my pro bono work is a significant part of it - but I find that it's hard to feel like I have any work-life balance when there's so little separation between my "work" space and "home" space. 

A New Hobby

My current pen and ink collection, minus one ink. (I have the 15 ml bottles of each, not the full-size 50 ml bottles.) I don't have the neatest handwriting...

I haven't been shopping for clothes or accessories this month, but that doesn't mean I haven't been spending on discretionary things. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I was recently inspired to try writing with a fountain pen after seeing Adina's Instagram post about some of her favorite fountain pen inks... It did not take long before I was totally hooked.

Since early July, my pen collection has grown quite a bit: I started with just a Pilot Metropolitan medium nib, but have since acquired several other pens. (So far, the Pilot Metropolitan is still my favorite.) In addition to the pens I tested out in the above photo, I've also ordered a TWSBI Eco. My ink collection is also expanding at a similar rate: I got four 15 ml bottles of different Pilot Iroshizuku inks to start, then added two more, and I just ordered a dozen 2 ml sample vials of inks from different brands to try. 

With this new hobby, I'm going through a lot more paper than before. I used to write barely half an A5-sized page once every few days in the journal section of my primary bullet journal-ish notebook, but after starting to write with fountain pens, I've easily been writing two to three A5-sized pages per day. Half of what I write is just lengthy prattle about the differences between each of my pens, how pretty some of the ink is, and what additional pens and inks I might like to try. In other words, I keep writing even if I don't have much of substance to say, just so I can continue admiring the different inks and enjoying the way the pens glide over paper.

So far, my favorite ink colors are Pilot Iroshizuku Ku-Jaku (a teal shade that's a bit more blue and a touch brighter than the very similar Syo-Ro, which leans a bit more green) and Pilot Iroshizuku Momiji (a magenta shade that's more red-pink than purple).  Though some of the dozen ink samples that are on their way might potentially displace these colors as my top favorites!

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Out of the paper I currently have on hand, both the Leuchtturm1917 notebook paper and the 68 gsm Tomoe River paper (from a notebook I bought on Etsy, which is currently not available for purchase) are quite suitable for showing off different ink colors. Most colors look just a bit more complex and multidimensional on the Tomoe River paper, but the Leuchtturm notebooks are a lot more moderately priced. The featherweight paper in my Smythson notebook is also quite nice to write on with a fountain pen, but because the paper itself is light blue, ink colors aren't shown to their best advantage on it.

There do appear to be noticeable quality differences between the paper in my old Leuchtturm1917 A5 dot-grid notebook, which I originally purchased back in November 2017, and the paper in the brand-new one I just purchased. A few - but not all - of the pages I've tested out in the newer book seem to be thinner, with a significant amount of ink from my writing bleeding through to the back of the page with all the fountain pens and inks I have on hand. I had a few dozen blank pages of my old Leuchtturm left that I could test out my new pens on, and haven't had any issues with ink bleeding through there.

Are any of you fountain pen users? Do you have any favorite pens or inks or notebooks? So far, I've bought everything in my pen and ink collection at its full US retail price, so this is fast becoming a fairly expensive hobby. 

An Infatuation With Good ~50 GSM Paper

One of my old vices - small-ish in total cost, but unfortunately maybe not that small in resulting waste over many years - from before I started this blog and before I started examining my spending habits more carefully, was buying up notebooks and journals that I'd then proceed to write or sketch in for only a few pages at most before moving on to the next book. Happily, things have changed quite a bit since then. I've cut down significantly on that habit of overbuying notebooks and have started actually using up the ones I have in their entirety.

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My KonMari-style decluttering (including of my desk and bookshelf) back in early 2015 was enough to teach me (among many other sobering lessons) not to wastefully accumulate notebooks anymore, given my horrible track record with actually using them. And when I returned to the private sector in late 2017, I learned that I actually could stick with and use up a notebook after all, utilizing a somewhat bullet journal-like system for keeping track of my to-do lists and other notes. I spent approximately a year and a half filling up my A5-sized Leuchtturm notebook with dot-grid pages, writing in it just about every day. Through that, I trained myself to be a lot less "precious" or finicky about how I used my notebooks, learning to not feel a little anxious, like I'd permanently marred a once-clean and perfect notebook - making me want to pull out a new one instead - if I made spelling or other errors, or if my handwriting wasn't always neat, or if I needed to cross some things out.

Looking back, I'd actually mostly stopped with my bad habit of over-buying and under-using notebooks and journals while I was in law school, I suppose because school and internships were keeping me busy. At the time, there wasn't any appeal to the idea of doing any more writing for fun in addition to what I needed to do for school and work. Plus, relying on digital solutions like Google Calendar proved to be far more practical than keeping a hard-copy planner while I was in law school. Once at my first job, a combination of my work calendar in Outlook and my personal Google Calendar was more than enough for scheduling purposes. And for a time, I added on the Wunderlist app as a way of keeping track of both months-out long-term deadlines and also small, immediate things I wanted to remember day-to-day.

Though I eventually did buy some smaller Rifle Paper Co. notebooks later on at my first workplace, to keep a separate and more condensed list of upcoming deadlines and important tasks, when my note-taking system on the firm-provided legal pads grew a little too haphazard and voluminous to be a good system for that purpose. (I take super-wordy, stream-of-consciousness-style notes at meetings or when I'm researching and planning out how to write something work-related.)

Much more recently, I might be slightly finding my way back to my old weakness for collecting pretty stationery, now that I think I've finally learned how to be fully committed to actually using it all up. The resurrection of this quirk of mine likely began with my trip to Japan last September, as stores there really do have the most wonderful selection of stationery.

It was in Japan that I finally had the chance to handle one of those popular Hobonichi Techo planners. While I ultimately tore myself away from them because a pre-printed planner just wouldn't be functional for me, I had become quite taken with the texture of the 52 GSM Tomoe River Paper used in the Hobonichis. That paper was lovely and smooth (but not too smooth and almost slippery, the way the Clairefontaine-made paper in Rhodia notebooks feels to me), and also much lighter and thinner than that of any other notebook I'd ever used, while still being reputed to be a high-quality paper on which most inks and pens would not bleed through. People even color in pictures or paint with watercolors on the pages of their Hobonichi planners, and the paper's supposed to hold up!

Against my Better (Shopping) Judgment

One very small part of our recent trip to Japan was dropping by Loft (the fun Japanese stationery and home goods store, not the women's clothing retailer) no less than three times while exploring Tokyo and Kyoto. That first trip, my eyes zeroed in eagerly on their wide selection of Hobonichi Techo planners. There wasn't much real practical reason for my interest. I have absolutely no desire to use a structured, pre-printed, and dated planner, given that I've been happily using a blank notebook with dotted grid pages (from Leuchtturm) as a planner and bullet journal for nearly a year now. Yet, I was intrigued by the Hobonichis because of marketing. Some had hailed it as the best planner ever, and because I remembered reading that coverage, I was intrigued. 

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That first time at Loft, I took a quick look, ran my hands over the pages of the samples, and found that the Tomoe River paper they use in the Hobonichis really is quite delightful, and fairly unique when compared to anything I've laid hands on before (which admittedly isn't much because I'm not typically a stationery fanatic). The paper is smooth, practically silky to the touch and quite thin, but seemingly in a good way. The planners are well known for being less bulky than many of their competitors because they use this very thin paper, but I'm told that it is still high quality, that most pens and ink generally will not bleed through. Because that paper was so lovely to skim my fingers over, I started to want to buy one of the planners, though I didn't have enough time to think it through on that first trip. 

I didn't necessarily plan on going to Loft again, but we did, a second and then a third time, while doing other shopping. Each time, I dwelled an unusually long time over the Hobonichi Techo display, comparing the various ones on offer (each Loft stocked practically the entire product range, including some covers) and feeling an urge to buy one (the prices were great, much better than any available if I ordered from the US, if I was ever going to buy one, it would have been best to get it in Japan). This was despite how there wasn't a single design that was likely to be a suitable product. There's only one style available in English, and its A6 size is definitely too small for me. 

The A5 "Cousin" size (available as either one or two volumes) is better, but it's only available in Japanese (which, to be fair, doesn't dissuade most international fans) and I still wasn't likely to get use out of a pre-dated planner. Also, the A6 and A5 ones are primarily a-page-a-day planners, which isn't useful to me, I simply don't need that much space per day, every single day. I prefer more flexibility. Also, much of the appeal of the Hobonichi-related content I'd seen on social media, which helped fuel my interest, came from the colorful pictures or pretty writing some people put in theirs. It's all lovely, but I'm hardly going to be producing that on a regular basis, or maybe ever! I don't even know how to draw! Oh, and I don't use a fountain pen (many Tomoe River paper enthusiasts are fountain pen users). I use fairly boring pens (Muji 0.38mm pens, to be exact, decent prices also on Amazon). The Leuchtturm paper is perfectly adequate for that, and I'm not sure I'd get anything special out of the experience of writing on fancy paper. 

So I was at Loft that second and third time, and each time I spent quite a while standing there, researching the Hobonichi product line on my phone, thinking about whether to buy something. Each time, it was a bit difficult to tear myself away. I was so very tempted to buy this thing even though I knew it wouldn't be of much use to me. I didn't end up getting one, which was the right choice, but I came very close. I'd ultimately decided that, if I were to get one, it'd be a Hobonichi Cousin and I'd need a cover. But Loft didn't stock covers for that size, so I might as well order it online directly from the company, even if there'd be a markup. I was even researching their product pages online in the days right after we returned from our trip. In the end, I decided to get a dot grid A5 notebook with Tomoe River paper instead. 

That's an extremely long and rambling introduction to what is ultimately a post about a fairly simple little thing I do somewhat often, even though I should know better by now. I sometimes develop a strange preoccupation with certain items that I know, with 95%-plus certainty, will not suit my needs or preferences and so probably won't get much, if any, real use. Except that I don't stop thinking about the item, I'll keep getting pulled back to admiring it and thinking about how nice or pretty it is, several times over weeks or months. It's not a thing that takes up that much of my mental energy in the end, it's just something in the back of my mind that rears its head every so often.

It rarely actually results in an unwise and impractical purchase. If and when I end up giving in to temptation and ordering the item online, actually trying on the item is usually enough to remind me why it won't, in fact, work for me. So I usually send it back. Still, I'll sometimes keep going back to window-shopping for the item, even, sometimes, when I've returned it before. 

Please follow the link below to read about some of the fashion-related items that have had such a hold over me, and the thought process behind each. 

On Notebooks, Organization Tools, etc.

Back when I was barely a few months in to life as a practicing biglaw attorney, I wrote about picking up a set of Rifle Paper Co. notebooks, in part because I thought a separate, dedicated notebook for keeping track of my to-do list would work better than my previous haphazard system (in which case, the notebook might as well be pretty) and maybe also a teensy bit in part because I used to have an addiction to buying pretty journals and notebooks that would totally actually get used this time, unlike the last ones, and then would only ever be used once or twice at most. I put my new notebooks to their intended use for the rest of my time at my first firm. Since then, however, they've fallen to the wayside, as my workflow and typical number of simultaneous projects has changed dramatically with each of my two job transitions since.

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Today's post is about two of the different organization strategies I've used since that last post. The reasons why I switched between each method are fairly idiosyncratic, very specific to the nature of the jobs I've held, and I've gotten to try both digital and hard copy methods. 

Digital Solutions: Workflowy and Wunderlist

While I was clerking, and was responsible for a third of the judge's caseload (technically more than a hundred active cases at a time in my portion, rather than six or seven on the high end while at the firm, with only two to three active matters most typical weeks), I quickly realized that keeping my to-do list on paper wasn't going to work. My schedule, and the due dates associated with each to-do list item, were constantly in flux, as court matters get rescheduled quite often to accommodate the needs of parties, the attorneys, and the court. Also, my to-do list, in terms of case names, case numbers, and hearing dates, were now all a matter of public record, which isn't the case at all in the private sector, so using external apps, rather than limiting myself to the software installed on my work computer, became a real option. 

With that quantity of cases, each with its own schedule and slate of ever-changing due dates, I found a combination of two free apps was best: Workflowy and Wunderlist, both of which I primarily used in their website versions, through my web browser. Also, after starting to track my to-do lists in the cloud, it felt natural to also keep track of my personal, non-work to-do lists the same way, all in one place (primarily Wunderlist for the non-work items), rather than keeping my personal to-do list on Google Calendar. 

Analog Solutions: Bullet Journal

Now that I'm back in the private sector, it's no longer wise to rely on external apps due to confidentiality concerns, and I'm not fond of using the tools in Outlook to keep track of anything but final due dates (which isn't detailed enough a system  to keep track of my day to day workflow). So I'm back to using pen and paper, and thought that it was natural to adopt at least some bullet journaling techniques.

I could have gone back to the Rifle Paper Co. notebooks, but those are thin and fairly flimsy, with paper covers. Now that I was used to keeping my personal and work to-do lists together, I wanted to be able to take my notebook back and forth from home to the office, rather than just keeping it at my desk at work. (Also I don't think the small total page count and lined pages on the Rifle Paper ones are particularly suitable for bullet journal-style use.) So, of course, I indulged in a new notebook, this time a Leuchtturm1917 medium (A5) hardcover with dotted pages. I wanted a change from Moleskines, and the Leuchtturm feels a little sturdier and heftier than a similar-sized Moleskine notebook I used to own. Note that with the Leuchtturm, there is some "ghosting" or writing showing on the other side of the page with most pens, which I also found to be true with Moleskine.

For my weekly layouts, I currently use something most like type three here. I have a few sections of front and back pages for different things, including what is essentially a diary section (that I write in maybe three to four times a month) on a couple dozen pages in the back and a few single-page lists for myself (books I've read, a clothing shopping list, a makeup and skincare shopping list) in the front. I'm still adjusting and tweaking my bullet journal methods, but I've stuck to it for approximately two months of near-daily use, which is better than most of my previous records with using my journals and notebooks!

How do you track your personal and/or work to-do lists? Are you a bullet journal user? Any favorite notebooks? Alternately, are there any apps you like to use for to-do list keeping?