Leuchtturm1917 Red Dot Special Edition

One of my favourite new releases* from Leuchtturm (maybe ever??) are their special edition Red Dot notebooks, a version of their iconic, A5 hardcover notebooks. They're normally available in a rainbow of colours, with all sorts of rulings, but everyone once in a while, Leuchtturm releases a special edition, like their metallic covers last year. This Red Dot edition is available in three colour covers, Army Green, Blue and Grey. As you might guess based on the name, these notebooks have red dots, instead of the standard dark grey/black. They still come with all the standard details that regular Leuchtturms have - page numbers, a table of contents, a few sticker labels to help you ID your notebook when it's done and goes up on a shelf, pocket in the back. However, absolutely my favourite part of this notebook is the red page edges - a distinctive and vintage feel to the notebook. The paper is the same as in the standard Leuchtturms, which means it's going to be pretty good for fountain pens. What I like best about Leuchtturm paper is that it's a good balance between thickness of paper (it's decently thin), and steadfastness against feathering and bleeding. I love the crinkling that comes with thinner papers, and often thicker papers mean you get fewer sheets in a notebook, but sometimes thin papers don't handle fountain pen ink very well. Here are a few writing samples below, including the Aonibi with a pretty wet stub nib. I've kept a few of the grey ones for myself, after a long internal debate between the colours, and also some debate with Jon. I obviously wanted them all to match, which is a joke since I have so many different, unused notebooks on my shelf as is, but there's something really distinctive and old-timey about the red page edging that is hard for me to resist. As time goes on, I've been trying to be more active in using up my stationery (who isn't?) - instead of terrorizing myself with needing to find the perfect words, I'm just going for it, scribbling up here and there, but filling up the pages, and I've already partway into one.  

***

  In other news, summer is halfway over. It feels like just the other day I was picking up Caleb from preschool for the last time and making lists of things to do in the heat, but here we are on the cusp of one final, golden August. I'm having a bit of a hard time reconciling myself to the beginning of the school year. There's still enough time that I'm comfortable in my current stage of procrastination in buying clothes and a lunch box and sneakers and all those other things that make a kid a kindergartener, but how time marches on. In the meantime, I'm distracting myself with artificial goals, like completing a New York Times Sunday Crossword. I've sharpened all my pencils, prepared a corresponding number of erasers and I'm starting with the easier days of the week, mostly at the park in the shade while a baby or two crawls around. I've got a book of the NYT crosswords with the answers in the back, but I've been doing a lot of texting appropriate people to get answers - it's not cheating if you're asking a person you know. Jon and I used to do crosswords "together" when we were in school, but his recent contributions (for example clue: Garfield's dog - Jon's answer: Otis, actual answer: Odie) has brought back fond memories of dark looks while sitting in cafes, resulting in needing separate newspapers. I'll let you know how it goes.   Currently reading: Mom & Me & Mom by Maya Angelou Currently eating: leftover pizza Currently writing with: Lamy Vista with Diamine Ochre, Pilot Custom 92 with Sailor Souboku, Parker Sonnet Brown Rubber with J. Herbin Vert de gris Currently looking forward to: mid-week dim sum Latest baby milestone: climbing up stairs Current analogue project: Catching up on my TN insert with photos and stories about the babies     *These were actually released earlier this year, which is perfect, as I like to keep things running on my usual several-months-long time lag.