I made an Aperol Campari Spritz in one of the glasses we brought back from Mexico. I love the color combination so much. And then the pen is my beautiful new Zento Signature. Just for fun.

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I made a quick trip to Kinokuniya today on a bit of a long shot, hoping to track down the Zento Signature pen. I honestly wasn’t expecting to find it, so I asked one of the clerks behind the counter. Turns out they had a few in stock, just not out on the floor. I looked at the silver one and decided to just go for it. It’s a little spendy for a gel pen, but it feels like a genuine buy-it-for-life situation. No rubber parts to degrade over time, and refill cartridges are easy to find. I’m already thinking about swapping the stock .7 mm Zento ink for a .38 mm One cartridge, which is my go-to ink.

I also picked up a multi-pen Juice Up with red, blue, and black inks, which means I can finally retire two separate pens for one sleek little thing. It’s so pretty too! Really happy with today’s stationery haul.

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I finished another Morning Pages notebook, and honestly, it feels like a small victory!

One of my long-term goals is to actually use the notebooks I’ve collected over the years. If you’re a stationery lover, you know the struggle. Beautiful notebooks everywhere, and somehow they just accumulate. My daily morning journaling practice has been the perfect way to work through them, one page at a time. It’s actually fun to see how many blank pages are left (and see the amount getting smaller).

This particular Rollbahn notebook was a good one. It served me well through a lot of mornings, and I’m saving the cover as a keepsake. Do you do that? Save little artifacts from journals you’ve finished? I love looking back at them. This notebook is special because Mariko bought it for me when she was in Japan.

Now I’m moving right into the next one, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s another Rollbahn that Mariko gifted to me!

Let’s keep the streak alive.

What notebook are you currently writing in? I’d love to know.

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Today’s daily photo is a simple snapshot of my Sony headphones and my Hobonichi. That reflection coming off the Tomie illustration is pretty cool though, right?

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Three months into my Hobonichi Techo A6 and still really enjoying it.

Writing small has been a challenge, but I’ve slowed down and started paying more attention to how I form my letters. It’s a different kind of writing than my morning pages, which stay big and loose since that’s all about getting thoughts down fast.

The slow, deliberate approach has been a nice surprise. Turns out I like it a lot.

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I finally settled into a journaling layout that feels right. The left side tracks the day’s timeline, the right side gets a few short notes. Top left is for the day’s high and low temps, and top right has a checklist for tracking my language learning.

I keep tweaking things here and there, adding icons with a stencil or pasting in little bits of ephemera. I’m having a lot of fun with it!

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We spent the day shopping in Umeda, Osaka, and it was a really good time.

First stop was the Nintendo Store. We were in there for a while, just soaking it all in. I’m a big Splatoon fan, so I picked up a keychain and a notebook. I had my eye on a mini skateboard too, but no luck on that front.

From there we headed to Loft, where I found exactly what I was looking for: the Tomie A6 Hobonichi cover! Just the cover by itself, which was perfect since I can swap it right onto my current setup. Yatta! I also grabbed a Tomie Weeks (March start), which is super cool. I’ll use it for Japanese vocabulary notes. I still need a pencil board and an A5 cover to complete my Tomie Hobonichi collection, so the hunt continues.

The last stop was Tsutaya Books, and wow, what a place. The layout is circular, so you just browse in one direction and loop back to where you started. They had an amazing wall of fancy fountain pens, a solid selection of more affordable pens, and even a camera section where I checked out the latest Fujifilm and Sony gear. Highly recommend if you ever find yourself in Umeda.

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I picked up a pair of tiny tweezers that are specifically designed for applying stickers. And I have to admit, they work! Placement is so much easier and way more accurate. No more peeling, re-peeling, and trying to nudge a sticker one millimeter to the left.

Of course, none of that stopped me from carefully, meticulously, and confidently placing the sticker on my earbuds case completely upside-down. Doh!

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I have a serious love-hate relationship with printers. I’ve said before that one of the only times I drop the F-word is when I’m trying to print something and it goes wrong, which feels like about 80% of the time.

But my new Canon Selphy CP1500 has been all love so far. The print quality is impressive, and the smartphone app is actually fun to use. Even better, it has connected wirelessly every single time with minimal drama. I’m cautiously optimistic, but here’s hoping this honeymoon phase lasts forever.

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January finally started so I have officially begun my first Hobonichi Techo. As you may know, I went with the original A6 size because it is so compact. But maybe I should have gone with the A5 cousin since I naturally write kind of large. Oh well. I’ll give the smaller format a go!

I also bought a Canon SEPLHY CP1500 printer, which is really fun to use. I’m looking forward to see how my journal turns out.

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