daily slice-of-life photo blog of a Gen-X dad
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!
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.
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!
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.
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.
As I get ready to start my very first Hobonichi Techo, I asked Mariko if she happened to have any stamps I could borrow. I was hoping to find an airplane stamp to use next to my travel plans. She casually told me she had a bunch of stamps, plus washi tape, highlighters, and a whole pile of other journaling goodies. Wow, she was not kidding. I hit the stationery jackpot!
Today my 2026 Hobonichi Techo finally arrived, and I am ridiculously excited about it. This is my very first Hobonichi, and I already have big ideas for how I want to use it. Of course, I have no idea how those plans will actually shake out, but that is part of the fun. I am really looking forward to discovering my own rhythm with it.
My goal is to use it more as a journal than a forward-looking planner. I want it to become a record of my days, a place for memories, thoughts, and little notes rather than just a list of future tasks.
To go along with it, I also picked up a Pilot Frixion pen with erasable ink. I have a feeling that is going to be a lifesaver while I am still figuring out how I like to use the Hobonichi. Now I just have to wait for 2026 to arrive. I cannot wait to begin.
