Whatcha Lovin’ Wednesday

See? I told you I’d be back on Wednesday, and here I am! It’s a miracle.

For this ongoing weekly post, I’m going to talk about things not at all related to writing (probably). It might be a new recipe I tried and loved (Whatcha Cookin’ Wednesday), it might be a book I read and loved (Whatcha Readin’ Wednesday), it might be a mix of both or none of the above (Whatcha Lovin’ Wednesday). You’ll notice a theme here—it’s all about things I love. I’ll be honest…talking about only writing stuff all the time equals burnout. Major, unavoidable burnout. So I’m bringing my love of other things to the blog, because, hey, you might love them too.

So what am I loving today? My precious, precious bullet journal. I am a huge planner, and I switched to a paper planner last year (the EC ended up not working for me, but it might work great for you. Bonus? They’re 40% off right now, so if you’ve ever wanted to give them a try, now’s the time). I loved the idea of a paper planner versus digital because lots of studies show that actually writing something down cements it further into our brains.

Alas, come summertime, it sat unused, tossed in a corner somewhere gathering dust. And worse, I didn’t pick it up again after summer ended, the kids went back to school, and I dug back into work full time. That told me that particular planner wasn’t the right fit for me.

At some point in the fall of 2015, my friend showed me her Traveler’s Notebook, and I really loved the versatility of it. I could print whatever I wanted for inserts! If something wasn’t working, I could toss it out after a month or a quarter and do something different. And the covers! Tell me these aren’t the prettiest things you’ve ever seen…

I’ve been using the Inkwell Press A5 quarterly inserts for about a month in my TN, and I really like them. But for those of you who are planners, you know planner peace is elusive, and you’re always looking for something that might bring your productivity and organization to the next level.

Thus I started watching these videos and all bets were off. I was lured to the dark side by someone named Boho Berry. What did I love about this new-found Bullet Journal? There was something appealing about the fact that I could make and create this to be exactly what I wanted it to be. It was the same idea with the inserts for the Traveler’s Notebook, but with a bit more of an artistic flare.

While Boho Berry loves the Leuchtturm, I decided to go with the Rhodia journal because of the paper quality. My friend (the same one who lured me to the TN side has since switched to Bullet Journaling as well) brought samples of the three main players (Moleskine, Leuchtturm, Rhodia) to dinner last week, and I was sold.

Moleskine is probably the most readily available (Target sells them), but I found their books to be the least impressive. The paper was thin and scratchy. Leuchtturm was much nicer than the Moleskine, and if I didn’t have the Rhodia to feel, I probably would’ve gone with them. But when that buttery-smooth paper was put in front of me, the others didn’t stand a chance.

There are a couple of things that may sway someone to the Leuchtturm side, though. For one thing, they come in lots of pretty colors. Rhodia was only available in black or orange. *sad face* I’m going to combat this by adding some rub-on stickers to the front to give it a little pizazz, yes I said pizazz. The second and third things in the Leuchtturm’s favor are a built-in index and pre-numbered pages. The reason this wasn’t a deal breaker for me was because I can add those just fine myself. Yeah, it’ll take a bit of time, but I’ll take one for the team if it means I get this amazing paper.

The problem I’m facing now is fear of the blank page. See? It afflicts writers even on non-writing things. Right now, I’m basically planning to plan. I’m doing research to see what I want to include in my BuJo and one day soon, I’ll mark up those buttery soft pages with some of my fancy new pens.

Okay, so that was super long-winded, but I also wanted to throw a book rec in here. As I’ve been mesmerized with bullet journal videos, I haven’t been reading much, but my kids have! Oldest (boy, 11, with a love for fantasy, humor, and magic books) has been reading this series for the second time, but he declined to be interviewed. LOL His reading level is tenth grade, but these books would work for someone as young as third or fourth grade, I’d say. He gets through them in about two days, and while they look daunting with their number of pages, the print is larger.

Youngest (boy, 7, with a love for magic, humor, and superheroes) had absolutely no problem being interviewed about what we’re currently reading. We’re working our way through the Magic Treehouse series. His teacher is reading them to the class, too, but he liked them so much he wanted to read them again.

Vacation Under the Volcano verdict: “I thought it was very, very good.”

Three things you liked:
“I liked how Annie kept running and didn’t stop their mission.”
“I liked how exciting this mission was.”
“I liked learning about Roman times.”

Anything you didn’t like?
“Jack stopped to read too much and he should’ve just focused on the mission.”

So those are his thoughts on it. My thoughts? Holy crap, my mom senses go off like crazy when I’m reading these books. Morgan sent them to an active volcano on the day it was set to erupt. That’s a real dick move, Morgan. I guess that’s why these books are geared toward kids and not parents. LOL

That’s it for this week’s post! I’ll be back on Friday with a round-up of what I’ve saved on Facebook and in my Pocket account!

*This post contains affiliate links. In plain English, that means when you click on a link here, a small percentage of the sale comes back to me (at no cost to you!). It’s Amazon’s way of saying, hey, thanks for mentioning this product! Here’re some pennies. I promise I will never post about things I think suck. I’ll only ever recommend items I really, truly love!