stationery addicts anonymous, meeting 3: Millie

Welcome to this week's meeting. I hope that as time goes by, you become more willing to accept your addiction and may even pluck up the courage to speak about it at one of these meetings :)

This week, we meet Millie. *collectively* Hello Millie. Without further ado, let's hear Millie's story :)

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Hi all!  I'm Millie, and I blog over at Planet Millie.  Whilst my blog is a lifestyle blog, I talk about stationery a lot, so I guess it's natural that Angela has asked me to take part in this series on stationery!

I don't really have favourite stationery items, so this list was hard to compile.  Over the years, I've recycled quite a few items (and bought a lot more!), but I guess I don't really have many stationery items that I get attached to these days.  In the end, I could only identify two items that I love and would be sad to lose in a fire.

1.  Red Plaisir fountain pen.  I seriously love this pen (more than my Lamys!).  The pen is lovely to hold, it's pretty and the nib is a pleasure to write with.  This pen is new to my collection - I only bought it this year, but it was an excellent purchase!  Red is my favourite colour (along with orange) and the pen is such a vibrant, shiny colour.  For bonus points, this pen is dead cheap and can use a converter.  After a bit of experimenting, I've inked it with orange.  It's a match made in heaven!  This is my go-to pen for writing!

2.  Harley Davidson Waterman ballpoint.  My second favourite stationery item is a pen too!  But this is a ballpoint.  I use it mostly for scribbling and throwing in my handbag (never throw a fountain pen in a handbag!).  I've had this pen since I was a teenager, and it is one of my favourites for a number of reasons.  Firstly, my Mutti bought it for me! :) Secondly, it's a Waterman and so writes really nicely.  I don't really use ballpoints (this is one of only a handful I own), but Waterman do make good ones.  Like my Plaisir, it has a lovely smooth finish and is satisfying to hold.  Lastly, it's a limited edition Harley Davidson tribute, with flames on the barrel.  It was a present when I was going through my teenage motorbike phase (everyone has one of those phases, right?).  Sadly, I never did get a motorbike, but this pen is definitely a pen I would consider saving in a fire.
 
And for those wondering, my heart belongs to the BMW touring bikes range, but I won't say no to a Harley!

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I love love love the Red Plaisir fountain pen - the colour and the design is just droolworthy. Millie's blog is definitely worth a gander for more things relating to stationery, notebooks and also some interesting posts about the environment. And the best bit? Not only is the blog really, really well-written, Millie also lives in Lincolnshire (only the best county ever to live in).

Thank you, Millie, for being this week's addict. Remember, you are not alone. Together, we can overcome (or carry on enabling) this addiction we all share. :)

compact osterley: blog planner

With my Slimline in use as my daily diary, I didn't really know what to do with the Compact Osterley in my possession. So, I decided to set it up as my blog planning binder for the time being. Surprisingly, I've managed to fill it - surprising because I know a lot of you out there only have a section dedicated to it in your binders/planners :) 

Here is the tour (more pictures than text, once again!):

At the front, the 365 'One Line A Day' prompts from Tami Taylor:

Then a section with notepaper. For random notes and whatever else...

A monthly planner I use for recording when blog posts are scheduled for:

A 'blog post ideas' insert section:

A more thorough blog post planning section (and an eBay insert on the left!):

Now, a section where there are different coloured inserts. Imy sent me these :) The green section is dedicated to custom inserts I want to make:

Blue notepaper is for planning a new blog layout, as and when I feel like it:

Orange is for a secret project ;)

Red is for another secret project ;)

More notepaper...

And then a random section where lists reside. The first list is my '101 things in 1,001 days' list:

A 'bucket list' on the left and a '30 before 30' list on the right.

I am happy keeping this binder as my blog planner for the time being until I find a better use for it :)

my filofax week #33

I've had a really exciting week. Some of you who may be active on Twitter may know that I've been in a bit of a 'purgatory' state with my life at the moment, post-graduation and during this period of surgery recovery. Instead of moping (I must confess, I did do that for a day or two after the surgery), I decided to make this time as productive as possible.

I opted to 'plan' out my life. I know that life is unpredictable and things don't always go to plan but I've always felt lost with regards to my future. Possessing a rough idea of what I would like to do on a daily basis, I put this down onto paper and have come to three career paths I could follow.

This led to some really exciting news this week - in fact, I received three excellent pieces of news, two of which, I wasn't expecting at all! I've blurred out most of this as I don't want to jinx things by announcing anything too early. However, I should be able to reveal more in a few months time, providing things go well!

Again, I have attempted to make my week as cute and appealing to the eye as possible :) Week two of recovery has just finished; only ten more to go! Though, I'm hoping to be 100% at maybe nine weeks, as opposed to twelve, due to my age.

How was your week? And how is your upcoming week looking?

november review!

November has been a mixed month of doing a lot (seeing friends, cramming as much activity in pre-op as possible) and doing very little (post-op recovery which involved a lot of sleeping, resting and eating). However, I still managed to cram in a few things that I could not have lived without this month - things that kept me sane through the few days where I was incapable of doing anything.

1) Comfy PJs and Knitted Socks

These two sets of flannel PJs from Primark (where else? Cheap and cute PJs for £7 a set, bargain!) have seen so much use this month. From being in hospital for two nights and having been housebound for about a week after, I have been living in PJs, loungewear and tunic t-shirts and dresses. These two are my cutest ones so I thought I'd merge them into one image to double the cuteness!

2) My Journal and Notebook

Having this time off and to myself allowed for a lot of self-reflection. Like a lot of people my age and so fresh out of university, I think that feeling lost is quite a natural feeling. Where do I go from here? I don't think further study is for me at this moment in time, and although I'd quite like to be a doctor, I'd equally quite like to work within the creative (i.e. marketing/advertising/PR) industry too. 

So, I took this time off to keep a better journal and to also plan out my life. I'd been thinking for the whole summer about where I wanted to go and I think I know what direction I should be going in now. The world is my oyster and I even have contingency plans for each stage if they don't go as intended too! 

An organised life is a better one, right? 

3) Mandarin Dictionary!

As most of you know by now, I've been self-teaching myself Mandarin Chinese. Having a Cantonese Chinese background certainly helps, and with my Dad speaking a Chinese dialect called Hakka (which sounds very similar to Mandarin), I've found the learning pretty simple. My listening, reading and writing have all improved (previously, I could only write colloquial things in Cantonese, but now, I've made a lot of progress in recent months) but the speaking part is the hardest part to practice.

Neither of my parents can speak Mandarin so I've taken to just speaking to myself. Lucky my family already know I'm weird, eh?

4) NaNoWriMo

This November, I took part in National Novel Writing Month. One of my '101 things in 1,001 days' was to 'write a novel' and now, I can tick that off - two years ahead of schedule! It was hard - writing 50,000 words in 30 days is no small challenge but although I had a few days where nothing was written, I also had many days where a lot was written. In the end, I finished it early on the 27th of November and so, I thought I'd show off my badge of honour :)

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So, this was my November! It involved a lot of writing - something I'm always trying to improve and something that I think would help my blogging! I've also been trying to improve my own set of skills (though self-teaching of Mandarin Chinese and also through Coursera). Sadly, earlier this month, four and a half years of volunteering came to end due to this operation. I'm in no fit state to go back and help out as it sometimes involves heavy lifting of donated bags of goods and I can't quite do that yet so I'm currently on the look-out for new opportunities and just taking my time to learn more about myself and improve who I am, as a person :)

How was your November? Did you find yourself reliant on Starbucks or Costa Coffee Christmas cups? If so, I wouldn't blame you as they are so pretty! With December officially starting today and Christmas drawing ever closer, I wish you all an organised month with minimal stress :)