The Lair of the Emerald Serpent

Izzie has a soft spot for stationery, journals and books of all sorts. This time of year is especially tempting with all those delightful diaries out there and the promise of a year of productivity with just the right diary proving to be the ultimate weapon against the demons of procrastination
Decided to learn the lessons from so many previous attempts at getting stuff done rather than just dreaming about it. One being that a to do list needs to be looked at if it has any hope at all of jumping off the page into reality.

The diary for doing such stuff which also serves as storage space for letters received, bills and such invariably became too cumbersome by April or so and would end up abandoned and gathering dust on some shelf.
But the one that always gets checked every day is the little black Scrooge book where every penny spent is recorded along with beginning totals, end totals for the day and bank withdrawals. This started as part of the “Your Money or Your Life” 9 steps to financial freedom program and ended up as a sort of religious ritual. It also serves as an amazing memory jogger for specific days from years past.

So had the inspired idea of getting a reasonably sized day to a page diary instead of the usual week to a view slimline diary. This would leave half the page for to do lists and on the very frequent buy nothing days - a whole page of blank space for squiggling. So got a cheapie Octavo journal from the Reject Shop which is actually quite good and looks identical to the Collins and Debden versions of the same with the little blue tabs and stuff for each month. That may well be because it is the same and for a quarter of the price
But lurking in the serpent mind was the lure of a certain cult. Had been eying up these diaries in Dymocks and New Edition book shops just before Christmas and could be severely tempted to snatch one in the post Christmas “20% off everything” sale as a belated nanowrimo winner’s prize. And even the reduced price would still be an unjustifiable decadent luxury for what is after all little more than a glorified almost blank notebook.

But for some inexplicable reason there was no end of year sale. Most likely to do with the fact that Angus and Robertson were not having their 20% off everything sale. Oh well thinks Izzie. Did not really need to indulge in a second diary. That was until today and seeing them at 50% off in the very yuppie Art Gallery shop. There was one A5 model left and not the A6 we were hoping for. Also Snoopy was on the cover so it was more expensive than the plain vanilla model.
It was very nice and elegant and all that but made in China just like everything else these days. But the proof of the pudding will be in the using. And the Izzie has got to use it this year because it will be another 28 years before it can be recycled. Even a serious hoarder is rather unlikely to have any unused 1984 diaries lying around that can be dragged out again for 2012. Easter and all the moon based holidays would be wrong but all the other the days and dates all perfectly correct including Wednesday 29th February

But in line with yet another attempt to use stuff the Izzie already has instead of adding more, decided to actually write in one of the very beautiful leather journals with hand made paper. The paper is quite coarse and looked rather unsuitable for our favorite emerald ink. The seller said that it was perfectly fine for fountain pens but she would say that wouldn’t she? But still it was too gorgeous to resist. It looks like the sort of book that would be found in the restricted section of the Hogwarts library, at least while it was still blank and full of potential

Did first write in it while sitting at the beach for the summer solstice sunset and sure enough it was far too scratchy for the fountain pen. Such a pity. It is so so hard to write decently with a biro and the paper is so thick and soft that it is like writing on quicksand.
But it is good to have gotten in the habit of using these beautiful journals instead of just saving them for a rainy day in some dark mysterious bottom drawer.
Must also resurrect the collection of wax seals and rubber stamps. 2012 is to be the year of gobbling up what we have got and using the savings to banish the mortgage goblins.