Good morning Reader!

It's 9AM on a Sunday as I write this and I've been up for * checks watch * three and a half hours.

Sleep has always tormented me since becoming a mother. My oldest didn't sleep for more than 45 minutes to two hours for... years. And then somehow the second showed up (yes, I do know how). He slept better, but it's been some kind of sleep disturbance every few hours for years until lately. Always someone in the middle of the bed, asking for water or kicking his foot up and out over me. I can't sleep when someone is touching me.

I get a little yell-y when I have not rested, as I think we all do when we haven't rested AND there's two screaming Tasmanian Devils terrorizing your habitat. But I love them more than my own sanity, so there's that.

My sleep hygiene is exquisite now. Several kinds of magnesium, sleep gummies, ear plugs and eye mask. Spa music. Every night is a sensual celebration of losing consciousness. But there can still be periods of.... small body obstacles.

Once the large creature woke up (because if I let him sleep longer, he's nicer all day), I was able to throw bacon and pancakes at him and sequester myself in my Dragon Cave to do what I do best: get my pens ready for the week.

I'd like to share a few recent journal spreads that are varying levels of lovely and imperfect. And a rundown of my daily carry pens and inks that have been keeping me company through the end of the summer and into early fall.

This first spread features Rambuctious Raccoons washi by a local RVA artist Allison Stoiser Art and it's perfect in every way. I also sketched some of the youtubers I've been watching as some face practice. I find my faces never look right and have a peculiar character. I don't mind it. I also shared a tiny birthday present to myself, an astonishingly useless tiny fanny pack. It's just so precious.

Journal tip: Write down random words that tickle your brain. When a friend was visiting, we went to a (bad) improv show. But now I have the phrase "rat scientist" to enjoy the rest of my life. And after that, we went to dinner and the waitress described the dessert sorbet as rather potent. I love it.

Pens featured here include...

• (Blue) Yellow LAMY Safari M Nib with Birmingham Pen Company's Robin's Egg Blue. Again, very saturated. This color reminds me of how water looks in deep sea vs the shallow end.
• (Mauve) White (Oops, black one is shown) TWSBI Diamond 580 Stub ground into custom medium featuring Teranishi Opera Rose Ink. It's so saturateed and nostalgic to me, I just love it. I see it as a neutral at this point.

I brought in some pinks and sunny turqoise for this one. I was going back through to fill in space, just trying to think of visually interesting things to test out. I used some Strawberry and Lemon stickers from a washi roll I got at Jet Pens. Then practiced some leaves and lines. Stickers from Stickii. Did another funny face, a lady with attitude.

Pens featured here include...

• (Pink) Vintage Pilot E95S Windowpane Rare Bold Nib with Iroshizuku Kosu-mosu (now out of distribution).
• (Teal) Sailor King of Pen Winter Sky with Tom's Studio Sunny Teal. This one literally looks like sparkling water at the bottom of a vacation pool. It's crazy.

On this spread I documented my beverage situation down the side with a quick sketch. Then wanted to feature and remember these dragon stamp stickers forever. Those were placed first, then the drinks, then the journal entry.

Pens featured here include...

• (Pink) Black Pilot 823 M Nib with a Homemade ink mix featuring Kyo-Iro Cherry Blossom and Iroshizuky Kosu Mosu. Just wanted to see what would happen. I like it.
• (Blue) Black Ringless Sailor 1911L with Architect grind featuring Troublemaker Milky Ocean. It's coming off a brighter blue thanks to the saturation of this photograph. IRL it's more muted and shaded. It's a favorite.

Finally... well, I see a lot more pink and blue. I guess I have a type! For this one, I made a cloud of good and bad things. Life seems to have a lot of both basically all the time, shouting in my head. The washi Kuni Washi Tape, and it's a local one I got at the 2024 Yoseka Stationery Fest. I kept the artist's business card because it's so gorgeous, from Radhia Rahman.

Pens featured here include...

• (Pink) Silver Pilot Vanishing Point with Gold M Nib featuring Birmingham Pen Company Salt Water Taffy. An all-time ink for me. I got an obnoxiously huge bottle on a whim and I think I'll finish it faster than anything else besides De atramentis document black.
• (Dark Blue very bottom) Sailor Stormy Seas 1911L HM Nib with Noodler's Massachusetts 45. One of my first ink loves and first ink marriages with a pen. I can't find anything as lubricated and saturated, it's just the best in that pen.
• (Medium blue top right middle) Yellow LAMY Safari M Nib with Birmingham Pen Company's Robin's Egg Blue. Again, very saturated. This color reminds me of how water looks in deep sea vs the shallow end.
• (Lighter Blue) Black Ringless Sailor 1911L with Architect grind featuring Troublemaker Milky Ocean. It's coming off a brighter blue thanks to the saturation of this photograph. IRL it's more muted and shaded. It's a favorite.

(The paper throughout is a 2023 Hobonitchi Techo Cousin. I bought a big stack and re-date them because I prefer the paper.)

Pen Stasis (Or, addiction isn't a prerequisite)

The ongoing joke on Reddit and among enthusiasts is that pen collecting is addictive. I definitely get that and had phases of it, but I want to testify that after a period of figuring out my likes and hyperfixating on learning all there is to know, I have kept the same pens around for a very long time now!

I am very pleased with my collection, and I have no plans to add right now. So, just in case you were worried about getting down the rabbit hole yourself, or worried about me... you can be at peace. I think at the height, my collection had close to 30 (?). And now I'm closer to 20, and use about 9 as daily drivers/always on me. I rotate 3-5 in and out each week, I'd say.

(OK... so, I bet that sounds pretty insane to a normal person, now that I think about it. But yes, the 9 pens do very different things!!!!)

I'll always have an eye out for a couple things...

(Looking at you Pilot x Usagiya 70th Capless Vanishing Point Oboroduki!!!)

... But in general, my focus right now is on using, loving, and experimenting with these beauties. I'll have to do a pen family update sometime to document the 2025 collection.

Little life updates

The rest of this month is looking very small, because I waited too long to write again. November is right there, everybody! But the next few weeks show a nice slow slug-crawl to the end of the year. Some things:

• Most of my life centers around my kids' new school. I thought by now we'd have our new normal, but every week is a huge effort, with no before-school or after-school for downtime and transition help. I have hopes we might get there eventually, but... it's not looking good for this year, frankly.
• Work is second chihuahua. I'm used to being a workaholic who's also the breadwinner, so I was "allowed" to prioritize work above all else. It's been a huge adjustment to push work into second or third place both emotionally but also temporally. My hours used to be a pretty solid 8-5. Now I am lucky to get 9-2, and a lot of my energy still goes to the kids and recovering from that. I can't say I love it.
• I do love mental space though. For all that the empty space was immediately filled by the kid's school stuff, it is really nice that my new work is less "for me" (solopreneur) and more "for a company," so my boundaries are more clear. I don't really think about work on the weekends anymore, or at night... there's immense freedom in that. It's really new and I'm not used to it at all, so it's very hard to adjust to.
• My office got another resident. Changing work priorities means changing home arrangement, too! We live in what could be considered a "cozy" townhouse for four people. The kids share a room, and now my husband and I share an office. Before, his desk was in a massive nook in the kitchen. Now that nook is a sturdy kitchen cart where all my tea goes. And a lunch-making station. But I think it's cute and interesting how the different seasons of our life's needs also change our physical space.
• Art is a bit slow. With so much energy going to the family, I've had a huge decline in time for art and most content creation like youtube. It's been easy to keep up with my Hobonitchi because it's so engrained in me as a pleasure I look forward to. But I haven't felt I had the bandwidth to take a mid-week art class or get out with my watercolors or anything. Maybe that will change soon!
• Glorious, glorious fall! Virginia is showing off! I am all about these icy mornings, fiery faded leaves, and lazy afternoons. We don't over-schedule the kids by intention, so I can see more after school walks and hangouts by the community firepit. Dog watching, running in the woods.
• But high alert for health traps. Fall is (surprisingly) often a hard season for me health-wise. I almost always have some kind of huge mold flare between now and December. I avoided the big waterpark this year, and didn't travel a lot, so I hope I can escape the worst of it. I've just been staying afloat (barely) for more than 6 months. I'd love to get my edge back and actually see progress again, like I was 2 years ago. But so much of it is unpredictable and out of my hands.

Day in the life

My schedule looks something like this most days...

6AM

• Alarm + Get kids dressed and fed (Sometimes they sleep as late as 7 lately, school is hard)
• Pack lunch if I didn't already (but I usually do)
• Pack water bottles and snacks
• Leave for school countdown begins and I am checking for uniforms, belt, hair, etc.
• Leave for school @730

815AM

• Return from school, have breakfast and tea
• Clean whatever horrendous mess took place, usually panic spiral for about 45 minutes, settle into work by 9/915 for calls or deadlines
• If I am exhausted, I'll nap til 10 during this window, but be stressed I should be working

2:20PM

• Alarm goes off to stop whatever I'm doing and get a snack ready for pickup
• Pick up with a snack so no one hits each other on the way home
• Return home and release them into the wild with walk-talkies if possible
• Continue tidying: hang up book bags, unpack and wash lunches, plan dinner

3:30-4:30PM

• Sometimes it's a Minecraft day (we've moved to more frequent but shorter game play and it's way less stressful for them to transition off), sometimes a show day, sometimes this is just a lego interlude.
• Often trying to have a homework session here too so it doesn't disturb our evening or morning

4:30PM

• Prep for dinner, finish by 6PM or so (I try to pack lunch while I'm prepping dinner), and then begin bath and bed routine.
• Kids asleep by 715 (when I'm in charge)
• I usually can have playtime in the office with pens 745-845, unless there's work I didn't get done (the other night I was on the computer til 10!)

Thanks for humoring me on this... writing out makes it easier to spot how I could save some time each week. Mainly:

• Prepack a week of lunches or lunch materials (Difficult level 8/10, there are fairly limited options of what they will enjoy and eat)
• Teach the boys a routine to be in charge of getting dressed, belts, snacks, and water (Difficult level 10/10, requires a lot of my energy to reinforce)
• Do more tasks during our together time (Difficult 6/10, as I already do a lot of tasks when they're around)

Thank you for reading

I guess I had a lot to say after all! Thank you for listening.

Sarah G.