[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, and Megan.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm Sarah.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're two women in our 40s who live in different states and have a lot of different interests between us.
[SPEAKER_01]: On this show, we talk about all the mid-life lady leisure pursuits we're enjoying at the stage of life, like travel, hobbies, food, wellness, style, and more.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm excited today to chat about notebooks, paper, and pens, because I feel like Megan, this is a lifelong love affair for us both, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Sarah, we're going to have so much to say.
[SPEAKER_01]: Today's episode is brought to you by our exclusive season sponsor and a longtime partner of ours, Fionic Shoes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I absolutely adore the new Vionic Walk Slim Glides sneakers I just got.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're cute, they're so comfy and they come in a really fun pop of color.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And last time I was on the site, I noticed they were on sale too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Be sure to use the promo code midlife at vionicshues.com for 15% off.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is a one-time use only, and check out the special page we've set up where you can see our favorite vionic styles.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can look for that in the show notes for this episode.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, thanks to Vionic for sponsoring this episode.
[SPEAKER_03]: And let's dive in Megan because we have a lot to say about stationary.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't even think that's the right word, but I was thinking about like the stationary aisle in a store or a stationary store.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're not really talking about penning letters by hand, although that is a lovely leisure pursuit as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're more talking about
[SPEAKER_03]: the notebooks, pens, and paper that are a part of our everyday life, and how much joy they bring us, and I do think that falls into the category of stationary.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it may, and I think what I think instead of us talking about writing letters to other people, we're really talking about the writing that helps us manage our personal lives, whether it's like journals or to do lists or chicken scratched, grocery lists, whatever it is, we need paper, we need pens.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need the paper
[SPEAKER_03]: This is such a sidebar, but I just watched that movie Ham Knit, and I was realizing how complicated and messy just putting pen to paper was, and I'm going to say it's very grateful to be living in the year 2026 where we can nerd out about the exact type of paper and pen we like to use, and it's all available immediately, and it, yes, relatively nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well Sarah, that makes me curious, do you have, I mean, do I even need to ask this question, please tell us about your ideal notebook.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I would love to, I would love nothing more than to do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, okay, I have some specifications.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm gonna try to go through them quickly and then I know that you're gonna have lots to say in response.
[SPEAKER_03]: But here's my ideal notebook.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, here we go.
[SPEAKER_03]: I need it to be about the size of like a composition book, you know, like the old composition books to use in high school or whatever.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, that's a little bigger than than a lot of common notebooks sizes.
[SPEAKER_03]: I believe it's called a B5 in a lot of sizing systems or it's like around eight by 10 seven and a half by nine and a half.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's a little bigger.
[SPEAKER_03]: I needed to be softbound or at least.
[SPEAKER_03]: Kind of soft like a cardboard that can like flex a little bit.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just like that feel better plus it's lighter in my bag and it lays more flat because I am left handed.
[SPEAKER_03]: So a couple of my specifications are lefty specific a hard cover notebook.
[SPEAKER_03]: or a spiral bound notebook is going to create kind of a bump in the center.
[SPEAKER_03]: And as a lefty, we need to like move our hand across both, like, I don't know if I'm not explaining it well, but the lump in the middle or if you were to fold it over, then the bump would be on the left hand side and it's just always getting in the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there any such thing as a reverse?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just so curious, it feels like someone would have thought of this.
[SPEAKER_03]: There are, but I, like many lefties, I'm sure we have some listening.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think I've more assimilated into the right hand world for way too long that when I have encountered
[SPEAKER_03]: left-handed specific products with the exception of scissors.
[SPEAKER_03]: Left-handed scissors are very helpful, especially if you're doing real cutting like fabric scissors or something.
[SPEAKER_03]: But left-handed notebooks just look backward to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: It looks upside down and backwards.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't see that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It would be too weird.
[SPEAKER_03]: But if you have a soft cover and it lays flat, I have no issues.
[SPEAKER_03]: So no spiral and no hard cover.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then I like dotted like a bullet journal.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll get into this more later.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not like a traditional bullet journal but I realized a few years ago that the dotted pages give me a lot of flexibility and they help me be more neat and a little bit artistic.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we'll get into that a little later.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I love a dotted.
[SPEAKER_03]: If I can't have dotted, I would take lined over blank pages.
[SPEAKER_03]: I like pages thick enough that a fine marker won't bleed through.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we'll also talk about that when we get to pens.
[SPEAKER_03]: But just recently, I was on the hunt for a new notebook, and I actually learned some of the details around this.
[SPEAKER_03]: So standard paper weight is,
[SPEAKER_03]: 80 grams per square meter, GSM, but you can find notebooks that are like a hundred or 120, and the higher that number, the more the show-through is not going, you're not going to bleed through with like a nice gel pen or a marker.
[SPEAKER_03]: And this is interesting because I looked at some very
[SPEAKER_03]: I must say fancy or high end bullet journal style notebooks that had very thin paper.
[SPEAKER_03]: So there must be a benefit to thin paper, maybe it's lighter or I'm not sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it's not that they were cheap.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's that they were, they just had the lighter, the ADGSM and I realized I need the 120.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, and then finally, I would like my notebook to be a pretty color, and this is, I was with moleskin, moleskin for years.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had a dotted bullet journal soft cover.
[SPEAKER_03]: Everything I just described for years.
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe eight or nine years.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, so you're going to say it was a long time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and one of the reasons I wanted to branch out recently is with all those other, I know I'm being fussy here, but with all those other specifications that I just mentioned, they have two colors, they have a forest green and black now most skin has beautiful colors and I love their products.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the dotted really limit things and the size, that's their extra large size and the soft cover.
[SPEAKER_03]: So everything I just mentioned is a little bit fussy, a little bit like a special like I have some special requests and so it limits the colors to
[SPEAKER_03]: for a screen which is really pretty or black and honestly it had been six or seven years of those except I did find this one dotted journal in a boutique in Cambridge that that was a little spark of novelty but then I went back to the others and I just wanted something new so I branched out which I'll talk about.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's my that's nice those are my specs.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the paper weight must be the, or maybe it's the dots because I've definitely, I'm looking around and I can see with my eyes, a forest green and navy blue, a turquoise blue, they all would have been the full size.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think it's the dots.
[SPEAKER_01]: but it wouldn't be the dot.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, the paperweight on Molskine I think is 90 or 100.
[SPEAKER_03]: It never gave me problems with bleed through.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was only when I started looking at others that I was like, oh my gosh, these pages are so thin.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think all the Molskine pages are good.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's the dots that just limit the, and the dots in the size combined, I think.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a brand called,
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I want you to say this because I cannot Term that I can't even Google it because I always forget what the letters are and it's got two T's and it for goodness sake And like yeah numbers like I'm looking at a brand is 1917 left tour in 1917 We carry those at the bookstore at North and it does look a lot like a moleskine and I don't know about the weight and that's not something I've looked into I love cheaper and the colors are great
[SPEAKER_03]: colors are great.
[SPEAKER_03]: I bought one in this recent quest, and that's when the the pages were really thin.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's probably West Cheaper, then.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but it didn't seem cheap cheap and the colors were great and their website was great.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'll probably use that for something, but it won't be my every day notebook because I do like to use different colored pens and I do like the pages to look nice and if you could see everything from the day before the week before it just is a bummer.
[SPEAKER_03]: So there you go.
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe there's a world.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know we're going to talk about how we use these, but maybe there's a
[SPEAKER_01]: you've got your heirloom quality, you know, you've got your like
[SPEAKER_01]: the real workhorse that you're using the markers or the fine liners and all that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then maybe a scratch pad that's lying around the, I don't know how you usually do these days.
[SPEAKER_01]: We haven't really talked about it recently.
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, no, I did keep that one and I will find a use for it for sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I want to know, I want to know your ideal, nope.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, my problem is I have too many ideals.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really love a spiral bound.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do not have the lefty issue, but they work really well in some circumstances.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I love a notebook to lay perfectly flat, especially if I'm like sitting at a desk or, um, I don't really get a flat surface at my table.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really like to be able to pull the page out if I want to be able to use the same notebook to make my to-do list that stays in the
[SPEAKER_01]: a grocery list or something, a spiral bound makes that really easy, but they're not so great for some things.
[SPEAKER_01]: The covers tend to tear away from the spiral if you're hard on them.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you are always putting them in and out of a bag, they can catch on things.
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't fit as easily, you know, and they can start to kind of pull, pull other stuff out of your bag with it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now the good side is they tend to be like a hair tie in six pens like coming out like attached to the spine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh-huh.
[SPEAKER_01]: I suppose he's like my wallet.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I put it in my purse, we'll get stuck on it and my wallet flies out.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the downside.
[SPEAKER_01]: The the upside is they tend to be pretty budget friendly.
[SPEAKER_01]: They come in a lot of different colors and fun patterns.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, floral pattern.
[SPEAKER_01]: It might take me a really long time to go through a mole skin.
[SPEAKER_01]: So sometimes that's like, it's now been six months and I'm still working out of the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, the color was right when I bought it, but now it feels wrong for the season.
[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes I like to have things seasonally reflected.
[SPEAKER_01]: So,
[SPEAKER_01]: It does allow me to change things up a little bit more to kind of use those inexpensive spiral bounds.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm also not always in the mood to drop what is it 30 or 35 dollars now for a moleskin?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a lot.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Mine last meet this last one lasted like a year and four months.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we'll get into how we're using it and so mine's more like a planner and I'm not going through pages and pages and pages but yes I would feel the same if I if I was going through them faster.
[SPEAKER_01]: And part of my problem might just be that I'm not really discerning between which one I'm using for what.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of like whatever is at my fingertips is what I tend to use.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I sometimes just don't feel like dropping that kind of money.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will say, if I am like going through an old drawer and I find an old mulsking, I feel this emotional draw to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a beautiful product.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is beautiful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't even really know how to describe it.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I've got a million like cheapy
[SPEAKER_01]: Spiral Bonds lying around.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have the same feeling about those.
[SPEAKER_01]: So sometimes it is worth the bucket, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: I have been using the fringe notebooks.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can find them at TGMAX.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can also pay full price for them at my store if you want.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I really like those.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like they're a little bit of a, they're a step down from the moleskin, but they operate similarly if you get the kind that's like the eight by ten and has the solid,
[SPEAKER_01]: lines, but it has a similar feel and a little ribbon.
[SPEAKER_01]: They also have spiral bound ones that are a little, like, I usually, if I'm going to do a spiral bound, I go down a size, such as that, like, that half size number, seven by nine.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I would use for a spiral bound.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those ones are nice too.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's kind of a little bit of a more budget-friendly alternative.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like I said, those are a TGMAx usually for six or seven dollars.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do like a date line at the top of the page.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you know the little line at the very top.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you could write the data.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wrote in all caps, no hard covers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I break my rule every now and then if I find a notebook where I'm like, oh, it's so pretty and I always regret it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's funny because I think I pictured you with a hard cut.
[SPEAKER_03]: I always picture you with the spiral and I think I thought it was a hard cover.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're like, I probably had one then, but you regretted it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I regretted it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just, yeah, like I said, like every now and then if it's the color I think I want or I see one and I'm out, they don't have what I think, you know, but they don't have all the other things perfect.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have bought the hard covers and I'm always like, why did I do this?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like how they feel in my hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like how they lay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Open.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like how the um, I just are sharp.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, the corners are sharp until they get dull because they bang into things and then they kind of like fold You know if you have me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, they're too heavy.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're too bulky like everything about it is a no, which is interesting because some people are die hard hard covers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will not know
[SPEAKER_01]: Never again, um, nothing too stylized like I will go outside of, I'll go off, you know, outside of this list every now and then and do something a little outside of what I think I want like I was saying I'll mess with the brands I'll, um, maybe I'll, I've tried dots before I don't hate dots.
[SPEAKER_01]: I won't do blank.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I try and dots and that's kind of fun if you're like wanting to doodle or things like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll go back and forth between spiral bound and non, but I can't do like tiny or like the thick textured artisan paper or like the kind where it's in like a leather sheath, and then you like wrap a quarter on it to tie it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm so...
[SPEAKER_01]: No, they're beautiful and I want to want to use them but I will never ever use them Don't you feel like we're the type of people who other people would give those as gifts to and that's why I have a draw full of them And they feel terrible because I'm like thanks Wow, but sometimes to like if it's like this and I love the idea of making a paper I would love to actually learn how to make paper I think that would be a very appropriate midlife lady leisure Brazil.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah for somebody likes paper
[SPEAKER_01]: But I would never journal on it, and often those notebooks are held together in some kind of odd way, like, they're on like a, on a ring.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or like, they're sewn together.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't feel like I can open it because it might just like, no, rip apart.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_03]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_03]: Or there's a snap a buckle with a snap.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Something like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_03]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then like you mentioned the 8x10 size.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will go back and forth between like the 8x10 size or the the half I just think of it as a half size.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not even sure that's I think the half size is like 5 and a half with an 8 tall.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know what it is a very standard size and I wish I would have a lot more options.
[SPEAKER_03]: if I did that.
[SPEAKER_03]: But when we get into how we use them, I'll tell you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just see a little bit of a bigger spread because I use mine like a planner.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think it's five and a half by eight.
[SPEAKER_03]: The five and a half is the width and the eight is tall.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I almost always have at least one of those floating around, but I do not use it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm actually caressing my full size right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, within reach, and I just reached, realized, I looked over, realized I was caressing the pages.
[SPEAKER_01]: The way I would use my full size is not the way I would use the half size.
[SPEAKER_01]: That would be very much more for like quick jadding.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jadding of, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like a quick and dirty clean the house list or something like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so anyway, I never ever go smaller than that five by eight or whenever and I never ever go bigger at the night by time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think we're the same there.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's a great segue.
[SPEAKER_03]: So let's talk about both how many notebooks do you have going at any given time and then related to that?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like how are we, how are you using those?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: Right now, I probably have two or three going.
[SPEAKER_01]: I used to be, well, I toiled in vain for years, and I'm sure I talked about it in multiple podcast episodes that you and I were making at the time, about trying to come up with the perfect,
[SPEAKER_01]: uh, system.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: For how do you use my notebooks?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I think what I've realized is just having one doesn't quite work because it's not always where I am.
[SPEAKER_01]: And especially if I am like right now I'm using our guest room as an office.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if I have a notebook that's in my office, that's up the flight of stairs and I really quickly want to jot a shopping list, I just want a notebook that I can grab a job in shopping list and I have multiple places where I kind of hang out and do very different kinds of work.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, I sort of let that go.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I always do have one big one that is the one I will go to for anything that's more than a jot or a tear out.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anything where like, yeah, it's not exactly a planner, but it does have my to-do list.
[SPEAKER_01]: It does have like, right now I'm trying to figure out what my schedule's gonna look like for the next couple of months
[SPEAKER_01]: dates that are coming up and then I kind of make a list of priorities and they kind of reference back and forth.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's not like bullet journaling like you do, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a fair amount of like long form jotting and it's not like it's thinking it's thinking or then just checking your Google calendar or something.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's sort of like strategic planning.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to figure out and I might need to make notes in the margin or I need to add something else in later so I might need to leave a little space and so I don't find that the half size works for that so well.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I would always do that kind of thing in my bigger one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, anything I think I might want to look back on in a few months, I will put in my bigger notebook.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anything that feels like could be important or if it's like an idea, like I'm ideating something that maybe I'm not going to get around to for a while but I want to be able
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I have like one or two other smaller often spiral bound ones that are just kind of floating around.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right now, one of those is where I formulate my tea blends.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's always at my shop, so I made you a tea blend for Christmas.
[SPEAKER_03]: I literally have a mug of it sitting next to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is cool to as we've been chatting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cold tea, yummy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a gingery cinnamon one, so probably as pretty.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's totally fine-could, and a good flavor, I don't mind a cool or a room tempality.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that notebook contains that blend.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like all the experimenting I did to get to it is all contained in that notebook, and that notebook doesn't have anything else in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the other one I have floating around is more likely to be gross-relist and things like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what kind of one mean one right now, but it would be inaccurate to say I just have one.
[SPEAKER_01]: About you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's like, I'm gonna say one true notebook and then there's some other, like some asterisk asterisk asterisk.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so I use my bullet journal as I've basically DIYed a planner and this is over the last five years or so.
[SPEAKER_03]: I create a weekly spread just like if you bought a store bot planner.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why I never got into actual store bot planners?
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: They never,
[SPEAKER_03]: Did everything I wanted them to do, and once I realized I could take my cute markers each week, and yeah, it takes time and it is a duplication of what's in my Google Calendar.
[SPEAKER_03]: But back to leisure and what is leisure anyway, it's very satisfying to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: So every week I create basically a two page spread.
[SPEAKER_03]: just like you'd see in a planner where the bot there's kind of like rectangular boxes for each day and then every month I draw out little squares and I look at that month at a time.
[SPEAKER_03]: I, you know, a spread that shows the whole month on the monthly spread.
[SPEAKER_03]: I also have little boxes for the things that I like to track, like the books I read and how many times I move my body or work out and I, and there's a little, I make my own little one-line a day gratitude journal on the
[SPEAKER_03]: five years in the making.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I'm basically as I go, I'm creating my own paper planner.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then it's not that I would never use that notebook to jot notes.
[SPEAKER_03]: I usually make a little square that's kind of like a quick jot to do list for that week or something like, or let's say I did have a big project.
[SPEAKER_03]: I might just turn to the next
[SPEAKER_03]: blank page because it's not like I did all of 20, 26 at what's I'm doing this like week to week or month to month So if I had a big meeting with you or a big project to plan I would turn to the next blank page and take notes like a normal notebook But it's primarily The planner system kind of works for me and then the
[SPEAKER_03]: The other things you mentioned like a grocery list or a quick shot.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think I'm just a little more digitally inclined than you.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I use I have an app that I use for my tasks.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm very much in my Google calendar in my phone.
[SPEAKER_03]: I do use the Apple notes.
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't use to but I'm starting to use.
[SPEAKER_03]: Apple notes if needed for a quick jot or to capture something.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think we're your second and third notebooks come in.
[SPEAKER_03]: I actually just have found digital solutions for those, which is why I don't have as much of a need for so much paper.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, and then I do have a separate notebook for my work with lights up the theater company that I chair the board for and that it's a skinny version of my same dotted Moleskin.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just like a little skinny one.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if I have those skinny.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, something about the skinny is it just feels so like consumable
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and it is kind of satisfying to know if I'm going to a board meeting, I grab that notebook.
[SPEAKER_03]: I only need it every couple weeks.
[SPEAKER_03]: If I'm going to a meeting or I have a Zoom for that project, when you and I used to go to conferences, I did have a separate notebook just for like mom bloggie type stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's not that I'm never into separate notebooks, but they're pretty rare and they're very projects.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're almost so projects specific that I forget about them.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I probably have no book right now that I'm like, ooh, I should probably go back over those things.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the danger.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the danger with having those.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's been times of my life where I've had so many different things going with a notebook for each.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in theory, that's wonderful because then you don't have to flip back through 30 pages to find out what your notes were for the last thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the danger is you put it in a drawer and forget about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or you write something in it and never look at it again until the next meeting.
[SPEAKER_03]: which is me.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is, and you didn't do the thing that you meant to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I was thinking about the fact that like in times of my life where I felt a lot of pressure to use my notebooks to sort of streamline my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: My life was just more complicated.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right now my life is just kind of a little simpler in general.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to say I don't have a lot going on, but it all feels like
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels like the organizational systems needed have sort of figured themselves out for each one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't need my, I don't need the notebooks to do that for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: The same way, maybe I did 10 years ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Make sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a sub question for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you always fill up a notebook before you add another?
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it depends how you're using them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know we've talked before about the satisfaction from, you know, using something up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you get that same satisfaction from using up a notebook as you would with, like,
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, bottle of shampoo or something.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, this is Gretchen Rubens, are you a starter or a finisher?
[SPEAKER_03]: And I do love to finish things.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would say most of the time I like to finish a notebook.
[SPEAKER_03]: When the ones that we've talked about that I use as a planner, I'll just keep going till the end.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it was so satisfying because I happened to be at the end of a notebook at the end of the calendar year 2025.
[SPEAKER_03]: Often that doesn't pull that out.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was just it was total coincidence because I had started it in the fall of 23 So it took it was like a year and a quarter's worth of stuff and it was not planned It was just lovely.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think there are a few pages left at the end, but it was perfect time to shop for a new one So in general, I like to fill them up but back to those separate projects based notebooks.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've definitely found
[SPEAKER_03]: Like let's say I find one in a drawer that has six pages used from some project that's long gone.
[SPEAKER_03]: I am not opposed to like tearing a few pages out and re-producing that for something else.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because I think I'm more of a finisher, I try to use what I have.
[SPEAKER_03]: If I have too many brand new notebooks that aren't used and right now I kind of do.
[SPEAKER_03]: And partly it's because it's the people who give you really nice notebooks and you're like, this is,
[SPEAKER_03]: This leather bound situation is not going to happen, but right now I feel like I have a lot of notebooks that I'm not sure if they'll make the cut, and maybe I should just, like, goodwill them or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is stress you out.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how I used to feel kind of stress.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: So my purchasing habits used to be for my spiral bounds that I would go to TGMAX like once every six months I don't go there very often.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'd hit that aisle and I'd find all the cute ones and be like, well, I'm not going to be back for six months.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I should buy all the cute ones.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'd buy like five and I'd get that little
[SPEAKER_01]: dopamine hit of buying them all and then I bring them home of you like do I use the butterflies first or the floral you know like yes which one and then sometimes I'd open one of you like this isn't it and anyway I have finally worked my way through I believe that whole stack
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, in my story, I sell the same brand, and I'm not getting them at that deep, deep, this, I mean, I'm getting them wholesale, but even my whole sale price is not as cheap as the DGMAX price.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, um, now it's like they're being sold in my store, so I wait till I need one, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't, I get all of the pleasure of like picking them out and possessing them and looking
[SPEAKER_01]: Feeling like I actually have to use them.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and you can time it right because what happened to me this time is I was like Oh, it's time for a new notebook and I was like scrambling a little bit because I knew because of my all of my fussy specifications and wanting to branch out of Moleskine I I had some trial and error.
[SPEAKER_03]: I ordered one that didn't work.
[SPEAKER_03]: I went to a stationary store locally
[SPEAKER_03]: and came close and then I finally kind of found.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's basically a mulsking dupe with more colors.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's basically what I landed on, but yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think this is an area where for me, like, if I get the satisfaction, yeah, I guess I do, it just takes a really, really, really long time and I think instead of me finishing one at a time, it's more like I tend to finish a couple at once or something and I wonder if it's because I'm kind of popping back and forth.
[SPEAKER_03]: One, it sounds like the way you use, especially the spirals where you tear out pages for gross relists and stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: It sounds like those, those could have a future life like they could be chucked in a drawer or yeah, and they could come back.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're basically like useful scratch paper in a, yeah, and maybe I just get tired.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, that just happened to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but I usually the main one I have, it takes a long time, but when I get done with it, it does feel good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which brings me to another sub-question.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you do with your notebooks when they're done?
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you like throw them out?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you keep them what do you do?
[SPEAKER_03]: I have been keeping, since I've been on some version of the system I've described, I have been keeping them.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're on a shelf in my office.
[SPEAKER_03]: I really love calendars and planners as a way to like, like as an archive, as kind of like...
[SPEAKER_03]: that, because I'm not a big direist or journaler, I actually think if I were journaling, those I might throw out.
[SPEAKER_03]: In these days, I did keep all my journals from growing up, although I cannot bring myself to read them.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's so cringy, but the short answer is I do keep stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm not going through as many as it sounds like you are, so they're just on a shelf in my office.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have not referenced them, but I like the fact that I could.
[SPEAKER_03]: I like the fact that I could open up a little...
[SPEAKER_03]: to do list from like 2017.
[SPEAKER_03]: It wouldn't be hard to find, and it would be a snapshot of my life at that time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like that yours, it seems like they would be kind of easy to figure out where you were at, like what year or the dates, like the way you're using them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, even before I was from it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, even before I was drawing the actual calendar on the pages, I think I was dating and using kind of more of a to-do list mode, but I was definitely putting dates and stuff on.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would have to flip through a few pages, and then I think I could piece it together, either a random page might be dated.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, I've told you before that sometimes what I'll do is, like, if I have an idea that I'm not ready to move on yet, I'll flip forward, like, 50 pages in my notebook and write that.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you syncretic of you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Things come out very...
[SPEAKER_01]: just not in they're not really chronological.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not it wouldn't be a chronological record of my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: It would be more like a snapshot of a six-month period.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's very, it's so fun.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, of our personalities.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like it makes it a perfect sense and it would tell a story.
[SPEAKER_03]: It would in both cases it would tell a story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't ever throw out my main one, my big one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I love to like before I retire it for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going in a box or a drawer or my closet or something right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not displayed anywhere, but before that happens, um, I love to go read back through it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just to be like, what have I done the last?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, however many months.
[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes I'll be like, oh, wow, that was a really good idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or remember that thing I thought I was going to work on.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't, but here it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like still,
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the record is still there and at any time I can jog my memory and there are times sometimes before I retire a notebook that I'm reminded of something that I want to carry forward into the next one.
[SPEAKER_01]: So sometimes like the first thing I sort of detail out in the new notebook is an idea that's kind of buried in the old one.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that is really smart.
[SPEAKER_03]: I did a little bit of that when I was going from 2025 to 2026, it's such a naturally reflective time of the year.
[SPEAKER_03]: anything from this old one, just because we're going new.
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, I really like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, we have spent much time on the notebooks.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think we can be slightly more succinct about pens, but who knows, this might be a super charged episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have no idea how long it is at this place, so let's just keep going.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you're with us, you're with us because you love talking about notebooks and pens.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll just share that I was 40 something years old before I ever had, like, before I realized I could have a preference in writing instrument and like that I could actually buy enough of my favorite kind of pens to always have one on hand, whether it's in my purse.
[SPEAKER_03]: Talks into my notebook, and I now do.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll link to mine.
[SPEAKER_03]: The brand is moody.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think MUJ I.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's very thin point three eight ball point
[SPEAKER_03]: The thin really helps being a lefty too.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know everything's going back to leftiness, but it's smears less, but it always has enough ink.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I, it was a few years ago that I must have tried one and then was like, oh, I could buy these for myself and for myself and nobody takes my pens.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I'll, like, if the kids need a pen quickly, I'll say here, but like, give it back.
[SPEAKER_03]: And they are moms, pens, which feels very good.
[SPEAKER_03]: Life, like, I am claiming that I have a favorite pen.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, so if I just ask you quickly like what would you have been using before like hopefully not just like a big ball point maybe maybe a big ball point maybe from a big jar on the kitchen counter grabbing whatever was near I would probably pick up a chance to buy for them yeah like honestly remember when kids were little and you needed like
[SPEAKER_03]: Five black pens five blue pens for like the school supplies.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think I was buying you know I was probably buying some paper mates some bics some I was buying pens and they were around our house But I never was like, oh, I like this one for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I probably had some preferences I probably was like, oh, this is like I like these, but I didn't take the next step to be like Okay, dummy if you like these like get yourself a whole bunch of them and and don't let him out of your sight Which I didn't do till forty something
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so that's interesting because I think I've been very particular.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, what I will say is I don't buy like a lot of high end pens and I don't buy a lot of special tea pens, but I've been very specific about like essentially what pens I will allow in my house.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you should.
[SPEAKER_01]: For me, I'm very long time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I don't even want to like, I don't, so even moving into this house that I live in with my spouse, there's a lot of evidence of his
[SPEAKER_01]: previous pen life in this house, and it makes me sad, honestly.
[SPEAKER_01]: It makes me sad.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't ever want to reach out my hand, and the pen I pick up is bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a bad pen.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't ever want that to happen.
[SPEAKER_03]: Good life goal, and I'm so the opposite.
[SPEAKER_03]: Our pen jars are a disaster, and I've allowed it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the thing that I think is so fixable about this is that there's endless options of decent pens that you can just buy at anywhere you are at Walgreens that are fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I use the Pilot G2.
[SPEAKER_01]: the the most baseline pen okay and they're not expensive I mean they're like more expensive than a big ballpoint but like they're not you can buy a pack especially if it's like during a sale or something like that you can buy a pack pretty cheap and they even have like fun designs they make some of them like white with little golden gray polka dots on them and like so they have them in different looks and like some have like little
[SPEAKER_01]: So I like a clicky ballpoint.
[SPEAKER_01]: I almost never like a capped ballpoint, but I do like felt tips that are capped.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got kind of a lot of the Sharpie pens around.
[SPEAKER_03]: And as you always had a lot of Sharpies, and I admire that about you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think I was so focused on keeping them at a kid's hands for so long that I forget that I'm not in that phase anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, and, I mean, I'm not, I do always have lots of Sharpies, like legit Sharpies, but also Sharpie Pen.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's like Sharpie Pen, and then there's Sharpie Pen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, different, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I like them all.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fine liners are, they do bleed and maybe if I started getting better paper quality, I wouldn't suffer from that, but I just don't reach for those for anything that I'm gonna, you know, be putting into a notebook, usually, but the Sharpie Pen has the same nice feeling.
[SPEAKER_01]: of a Sharpie, but it's in pen form.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: As of right now, I am not using any fancy pens.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I feel like I'm often disappointed by them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And by fancy pen, I just mean, like something that would cost real money that you'd maybe get an art supply store or a stationary store.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I often just find the juice is not worth the squeeze as they say on those.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I am always willing to be, um, I guess convinced otherwise, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And there is a brand of pen, and I'm like trying to find it right now, because I've picked them up, you brands.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are felt-tip pens.
[SPEAKER_01]: They come in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Packs of three and they're always three really pretty Colors but then the pen itself is just black or blue.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, um, and you can get those at Target or Meyer and I really like those as a felt tip pen goes It just feels a little more special.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I like that feeling of writing with those too
[SPEAKER_01]: And they feel kind of soft, you know, like, they have that soft, you know, like they have that soft, you know, like they have that soft, you know, like they have that soft, you know, like they have that soft, you know, like they have that soft, you know, like they have that soft, you know, like they have that soft, you know, like they have that soft, you know, like they have that soft, you know, like they have that soft, you know, like they have that soft, you know, like they have that soft, you know, like they have that soft, you know, like they have that soft, you know, like they have that soft, you know, like they have that soft, you know, like they have that soft, you know, like they have that soft, you know, like they have that soft, you know, like they have that soft, you know, like they have that soft, you know, like they have that soft, you know, like they have that soft
[SPEAKER_01]: felt tippens I got at a museum that I now cannot figure out like I don't know where they all went but they were a bunch of different really interesting colors and I like to kind of mixed things up that way sometimes and just have like oh like one teal pen that I sort of incorporate I don't like that lots of different colors I wanted to have like one or two pops of color
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, that's a great segue because I did want to talk about the fine liners that I used to make my calendar spreads every week and every month.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just ordered a new pack.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had to order them from an art supply store.
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't see them locally.
[SPEAKER_03]: But anyway, it's the stabula, stabula brand.
[SPEAKER_03]: You've probably seen them.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not, it's and it's the point 88 fine liners.
[SPEAKER_03]: They look like very skinny
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, like in fact, the probably when I discovered them, they probably belonged to one of my kids, honestly, and they were kind of like, I think Claire uses for arts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_03]: So they're, and they are at art stores.
[SPEAKER_03]: And they're pricey, but I, my last set of like, it was like a 24 pack or whatever, and I just keep them in a little.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, little container all together.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it lasted me like four years or something.
[SPEAKER_03]: They that's not like they were running out or drying out, but I used those in my bullet journal to kind of create the boxes that become that week's spread and I get so much joy out of So if I'm doing a weekly spread, I might choose three colors and I'll just like truly go with a color combo that feels
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, where my eye is drawn on that particular Sunday that I'm planning my week and I'll do, you know, maybe one color is the boxes containing the days and maybe another color is the where it says Tuesday the 12th and then another color, I don't know, I just play that's the part that feels like Like when I was a kid and I would doodle and draw things and it's it's funny because it's on the one hand very constrained I'm making rectangular boxes and I'm writing my schedule them like it could not be more
[SPEAKER_03]: kind of like square but there's an element of color and design that brings me so much joy and then the same thing once a month I create the monthly spread and so those are my go-to for the color and the pack I ordered I want to say is like I don't remember if it was like 28 or 36 but it was a lot of colors and I'm excited I'm just gonna I'm just gonna lovingly throw away the ones because they're getting a little a lot of them don't make quite as nice clean lines they're getting a little low on ink so I'm gonna
[SPEAKER_03]: I think they're like arriving like today.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I have a fresh pack of those to be low 88 and they make me so happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I now kind of want something like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've had sometimes I'll end up buying like a big package of like like an almost two big package of fine liners that has colors and it like banana yellow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which I'm never gonna...
[SPEAKER_03]: This does right there are some colors that don't get a lot of love for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but I just remember the name of the pens.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was trying to think of that I got at the art museum and that it's cognitive surplus.
[SPEAKER_01]: They might only sell them like in art museums and stuff because they're very, but they had really funny collections of colors.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like one was organ donor or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was like heart, spleen, lungs, the other one I think was the solar system.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's the one that had the blues and the green.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they used a lot and there is something.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, if you can make it come together, pleasingly on the page, there's something so satisfying.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are you saying?
[SPEAKER_01]: Color.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and you and I both dabble in graphic design and I think that's another place where if you just choose three to five colors, it's not that you can't go wrong.
[SPEAKER_03]: You definitely, there's, there's a lot of stuff, but there's something really powerful about a palette and like sticking within a palette and it makes you feel maybe more artistic than you think you are.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I do think playing with color.
[SPEAKER_03]: has been really fun for me in in my notebooks and it's also helped to have one type of fine liner marker.
[SPEAKER_03]: I really was out for a while I was like grabbing whatever the kids had and some are thicker, some bleed through the page, some don't.
[SPEAKER_03]: So having those that might go to and always knowing where they are, it's like so fun for me to be like, what will, what colors will I choose this week?
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to end this episode by talking about your tragic pens and to see if we can just help you with that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: What would it take?
[SPEAKER_03]: It would take not have tragic pens.
[SPEAKER_03]: It would take throwing away everything that's bad and I have, you know, I have like weird hangups about waste and using things, but this is such an example where it's like not worth it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I'm not making.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one's reaching for those pens.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the other thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and there's pencils in there with no a racer that aren't sharpened, like it's bad.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think it would take radical calling of the, and then just, yeah, like finding, like you said, an inexpensive go to household pen, like this, like the lazy genius as we decide once, our household pen is these, and then just having them on hand.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know that's what Brian does for his office, and I now do it for my personal use.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's the family pen situation.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the other thing I noticed because I actually went let Owen shape my pen buying in this way.
[SPEAKER_01]: He developed, I could have really gone toward a lot of different pens, maybe five to seven years ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would have bought whatever I thought looked pretty good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he developed a real, a real preference for the pilot G2s.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're available everywhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not very expensive.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I started buying those and then what I realized is, if that's what I supply everyone, no one takes off with my pens.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's true.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, it's just like, this is the, this is the family family brand.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, I think it's really smart.
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't know I was going to come out of this with more pen goals.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can still have your fancy pens that you hide in a drawer, but no one is going to want them because they're just going to have a perfectly fine pen.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and note like you said, you never, I think you said I never want my hand to reach out and grab a pen that isn't good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like no, it's so depressing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like if you just want to jot something down really quick and you're just like scribbling and like there's no ink coming out.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just scratchy and terrible.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I'm inspired.
[SPEAKER_03]: He've inspired me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my gosh.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is live like a huge smile on my face at a piece of deck of notebooks next to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is this is our happy place.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sure it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, everyone.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just a reminder that you can find our expanded episode story with photos and links on Substack.
[SPEAKER_03]: at midlifeladyleisurepersuits.substack.com and that's also where you'll find the special page we've set up with some of our favorite vionic styles.
[SPEAKER_03]: Use the promo code midlife at vionicsshoes.com for 15% off.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for being here everyone.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll talk to you soon.