I’ve been spending practically every day for the past week or so with my dad in hospital.
There’s this phenomena that when you most need journaling, the it will help you the most, you find yourself least able to do it.
Hospitals are journaling hostile environments. There are no tables to use, there’s constant noise and distractions, there’s zero privacy and you never know when the staff will pop into the room with something. Whether you yourself are hospitalized or you’re there with someone else, there’s very little opportunity to crack open your journal and start writing.
Hospitals are also where weird, interesting, scary and new things happen, so you generally do what to write about them, to process them on paper. Fo instance, today three policemen escorted a prisoner into the heart surgery department. It wasn’t something I ever expected to see, a sort of non-sequitur that took me a minute or two to process.
The solution is to take temporary notes on your phone, put a reminder for an appointment with your journal in the evening or when things quiet down around you.
If you’re the one hospitalized, try to journal two or three times a day, documenting what’s going on, how you’re feeling, what the staff said, who visited you, etc. The best time to journal is during the nursing staff shift changes, because that’s when nobody will bother you.
Journaling is like running – oftentimes it’s really hard to start, but I haven’t regretted a run or a journaling session yet.
At night you can escape to these empty spaces and write
When my brother and I visited The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando we bought a pack of postcards and some postage at Hogsmeade and posted some postcards home. They have a little “Owl Post” booth where you can get your postcard stamped with an owl post stamp, and it’s a charming experience. We ended up with a few postcards left over, so we posted them from our Disney hotel. A few weeks after we got home the postcards arrived and made out day.
I was just at a Shalom Sebba exhibition at the Tel-Aviv Museum of Art and after my visit I went to the museum store and bought some postcards there. Later that evening I spent some time writing postcards for my family, with little sketches inspired by Sebba’s work:
I had no idea where I would post them, as most of the post boxes in my area have been removed, but I wanted to at least try to post them before my dad’s surgery this week. With today’s postal service sending them would be a bit like tossing a message in a bottle into the sea and hoping it would eventually arrive at its destination. Yet there’s something about not just the wonderful experience of receiving snail mail which I wanted to give to my family, but something particular about postcards that made me want make the effort to post these cards that I could more easily hand deliver myself.
More than letter postcards evoke some things to me – a break from routine, a holiday, exotic places, better days. There’s something creative about the selection you make, and they make me want to sketch in them, write in their margins, be creative in the tiny space I’m given to work with. The limited space, zero privacy and the need to withstand the elements at least somewhat makes them a creative challenge we rarely encounter in days where everyone is an instant message away.
Yet that’s what made them appeal to me, because more than anything postcards speak of hope, and these days I need all the hope I can get.
January was a big month in terms of writing pens dry. For the first time ever I managed to write all of the Inkvent pens dry by the end of the month. That’s 12 fountain pens written dry, which is the most I’ve ever written dry in a month. The secret is not filling them more than 50% full, and making sure to journal and note-take consistently.
In terms of paper products I’ve journaled in my Stalogy 365 B5 journal and will be switching to a new journal next month (also a Stalogy 365 B5 because I like the paper and the format). I do have a little quirk with these notebooks – I use them upside down because I don’t like the header with the dates on it, so I flip the notebook around so that it’s at the bottom of the page. That way it doesn’t bother me as much.
Stalogy 365
I’ve also been using a Rhodia A5 dot pad to time block my day, and Kokuyo A4 KB which I cut in half (to get two A5 pieces of paper) and write my daily todo list on. At work I use a Maruman Mnemosyne horizontal A5 notebook (either squared or blank) to brainstorm on, track my tasks, take meeting notes, etc. My weekly plans and long term 12 week year goals are in a Leuchtturm1917 Bullet Journal that stays at home, on my desk. The rest (Stalogy B5 journal, two pieces of daily planning paper, and the Mnemosyne) travel with me when I go to the office.
I have a monthly calendar with some monthly reading, running, gym, swimming and blogging targets on it and I draw that on a Well Appointed Desk “Rebel Plans” notepad.
Earlier this month I used the wonderful Pelikan Hubs paper to do my daily planning, and it was amazing (cardstock thick and fountain pen friendly). I was running out of it quickly though, which is why I moved to the Kokuyo.
Pelikan Hubs paper pad
In terms of standard pens I’ve used the Pilot Hi-Tech-C in 0.4, my Spoke Design Spoke Pen in orange crush, and a Pilot Juice Up 04 in orange and light blue. As I will be spending a lot of time at hospitals next month, I will likely be using more standard pens then.
Pilot Hi Tec C and Spoke Design Pen
Pencils in use were the Tennessee Red, which is gorgeous and a treat to use, and Leuchtturm1917 Drehgriffel Nr.2 mechanical pencil in red and grey. I have better mechanical pencils that this one, and yet I keep returning to it. Something about the Drehgriffel design is simply appealing to me. You can read my review of it here.
Next month will likely see more use of standard pens and pocket or cheap fountain pens. I will be in the hospital a lot, so that means that my setup will change to reflect that.
Here are the fountain pens I filled for February:
Schon Design Pocket 6 pens.Kaweco Sports.
The new and challenging setting will mean that I’ll likely go back to my trusty Moleskine hardcover and Ti Arto for the duration of my dad’s stay in hospital.
What stationery products have you been using in January?
It’s 2024 and this time I’m doing neither yearly goals nor themes. I find themes to be too vague to be useful: they don’t provide enough structure or motivation for my needs. My old yearly goals worked perfectly before I got cancer, but now I can’t commit to a full year of goals (my brain just won’t let me). So I’m trying something new this time: the twelve week year. The idea is to treat each quarter as a new year, with all that entails.
I mapped out the first 13 weeks (from the 31st of December to the 30th of March) in my Leuchtturm1917 Bullet Journal, each week on two pages. On the left are the days of the week and on the right is my set of tasks for the week. The list of tasks is divided into two columns, and each column is divided into categories. The left column is for categories and tasks that vary widely from week to week: blogging, general tasks, various courses and challenges I’m taking. The right column is for my permanent categories that happen every week in the quarter: health, reading, connections, meditation and journaling.
The weekly layout
The health category tracks fitness and health related tasks (on a given week it will have checkboxes for running, swimming and gym sessions for example, as well as reminders to go to the dentist or get my blood pressure checked). The reading category is for where I want to be with my reading in a given week (halfway through book x, 30 pages into book y). Connections is something I added after reading Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism and it’s been well worth doing: I call or meet up with 2-4 friends every week. Messaging doesn’t count, only phone calls, zoom calls, or physical meetups. If there’s one habit I’d recommend picking up in 2024 it’s this one. Meditate and Journal are just tracking locations for my meditation and journaling sessions.
I then set out goals in various categories for the entire “12 week year”, as if it was a full year. Each of these will be evaluated at the end of the 13 weeks, and a complete new set of goals will be set for next quarter. The goals are all SMART goals: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound. Unlike themes there’s a possibility of not achieving all my goals, but that’s also something worth learning and carrying on to the next “year”.
So for instance under my health category for the next “year” is to get back to a 5k running base and an 8k long run (I’ve had a break in running for a few weeks due to illness and travel). If at the end of March I’m only at a 7k long run that’s not the end of the world, it just means that I need to take that into account when planning my next 12 weeks.
I then break down the goals into tasks that go into the weekly page. Each week I look at my goals, calculate where I am and where I want to be by the end of the week and fill out the weekly planning page accordingly. I use the calendar side of the page to block out time sensitive things or things that provide useful context (days of the week where I work from home and those where I work from the office, rainy days, holidays, etc).
To be clear: I don’t block the tasks for all the “year” in advance, but rather on a week by week basis. Only the goals for the entire 12 week period are planned in advance. The goals themselves are realistic, and many of them are broken into “base goals” and “stretch goals” much like in Kickstarter. At the last week of the quarter I set aside time to review and “shutdown” the quarter and plan and set up the new one coming up. If I end up not liking the weekly page setup, if there’s a goal that just didn’t work for me, if there’s something new in my life I can easily take it into account without feeling like I’ve “wasted” precious planning time or I’m bailing out on my plans.
So, if you’re unsure on how to plan your year, I suggest just planning the next 12 or 13 weeks. It may just work for you.
In April 2022 I sat down and wrote the first part of what was supposed to be a long term writing project, the toughest one that I wrote yet. It was called “Hair Part 1” and it was part of something that I called “The Cancer Project”. The plan was to write a series of posts, all taken from my personal experience with cancer, and the point was to open a window into a very scary disease — humanizing it and the people who go through it, and arming the reader with information.
I didn’t post anything beyond that first snippet of a post, and I didn’t draft any more posts in the project. I was 4 months out of treatment when I wrote that post, and it was excruciatingly difficult to write. After I posted the post, I decided to focus on writing about other topics, easier topics. Topics that anyone else could write about, if I’m being honest. Sure, I could write a pen review from my own unique perspective, and of course people would read it because it’s useful and interesting to see different takes on the same thing, but then again… “so what, who cares?”
That challenge, “so what, who cares?” was something one of my professors used to say, and at the time it drove me mad. The point was that we didn’t have to make an argument, we had to make the reader care about the argument, we had to explain why it was meaningful and important, not just why we thought it was true. Pen and ink reviews are awesome, but every time I post one nowadays, I feel guilty. I know that I could be writing about other things, things that can maybe help people.
Last week this video popped into my YouTube feed, from the wonderful Struthless channel. Campbell Walker is starting a new community challenge meant to get people creating and posting their creations. It’s called Alphabet Superset, and the idea is to pick a theme, pick a creation medium and a publishing medium, make some aesthetic choices to limit yourself, and for 26 weeks create and post something that fits this framework — one piece a week, with the topic being tied to a letter of the alphabet. I looked at the schedule, and quickly realized that I won’t be able to follow it, but that didn’t matter. The challenge presented an opportunity, and more specifically a framework. I no longer had a giant abstract monster of a topic to maul, I could break it down to smaller chunks, albeit somewhat arbitrary ones.
Running through the 26 letters of the alphabet proved to me very quickly that my issue won’t be so much finding a topic that would fit the letter, but having too many things to cover per letter. “Ah!” my brain said, “an excellent reason not to start!” As you can see, it’s going to be a struggle between my need to write this project and my brain’s resistance to it. The odds aren’t in my favour: my brain, and specifically my PTSD, has shown itself to be a ruthless and tenacious opponent. It’s going nowhere, and it *will* fight me all the way through. However, I plan to dodge, feign and crawl my way through this one way or another. My PTSD may be persistent but I’m STUBBORN.
On to the practical side: I will be running through 26 letters of the alphabet. As the next three months are travel heavy, I won’t be able to stick to the “one post a week” schedule. Each letter will get at least one (maybe more?) blog post, and perhaps also a comic that I’ll create (no promises). I will clearly title all the posts in this project “The Cancer Project” so if you are one of those people who is absolutely terrified of cancer to the point of being incapable of hearing the word, you can avoid reading them. I do encourage you to grit your teeth and read them though. It may end up helping you, it may up end helping you help a loved one. The reality is that almost all of us will encounter cancer face to face at some point in our lives — whether as caregivers for a parent, sibling, spouse or child, or as cancer patients ourselves. So it’s useful to remember this:
I haven’t written an update in a long time, because my neuropathy has gotten much worse since I finished my treatments. It’s painful to type, to write or draw, and it gets worse in the cold. Of course we’ve been having a series of cold days here, which has meant that typing a blog post has been a considerable challenge.
Two Egyptian Geese are having a dip in a roadside “pond”.
Health
I went through a PET-CT, my third and hopefully my last, last Sunday. It’s a long and not very pleasant experience, but it’s not the worst thing in the world. This week I’ll get the results and discuss with my doctor what to expect over the coming months. Meanwhile, neuropathy is kicking my ass, so posts will be sporadic until things get a little better.
This contraption injected me with radioactive sugar before my PET-CT.
I also got my fourth Covid vaccine, in the hopes of staving off the dreaded Omicron variant. I’ve been constantly masked and hiding as much as possible at home, but I’ve got a series of hospital visits coming up, so I’m hoping that the vaccine (and mask) will help me avoid infection and stay safe.
Reading
I started a new reading challenge, but I’m taking my time with it. I just finished the fabulous “The Trees” by Percival Everett, and the pretty terrible “All’s Well” by Mona Awad (lots of good intentions, terrible delivery). If you enjoyed “My Sister, Serial Killer,” you’ll love “The Trees”. It is a darkly funny, fast and very clever detective/revenge story that is just a joy to read, despite the very difficult topic.
I’m not sure what’s next on my reading list, but it may just be a non-fiction book before I delve into the next Tournament of Books pairing.
Writing
My hands are making writing problematic, but I did manage to write a pretty long post on the blog this week. It’s a taste of a project that I’ve been wanting to work on even since I got sick, and I look forward to be able to actually sit down and type for longer periods of time to get it done.
Currently Inked
I finished my Diamine Inkvent 2021 reviews with 32 pens inked, and I promised myself that I will write them all dry. That’s the most pens I’ve ever had inked at one time, and it’s turning out to be quite a challenge, but a fun and interesting one. This week I’ve written four pens dry (a Lamy Safari, two Monteverde Giant Sequoias and a Sailor Pro Gear Graphite Lighthouse), bringing the count of inked pens down to 22. It’s slow going because I have trouble using my pens, but I am making an effort to journal each day with them, so I do hope to write them all dry by the end of next month. I’ve been using them in my Moleskine, because I love their format the best, and just writing on one side of the page since I have enough notebooks to afford to do that. That way I can use the pens I like in the notebook I like and not worry about avoiding bleedthrough.
Other Things
I got back to running, which is major. I’ve been a runner since November 2011, until the 7 month break in running that I was forced to take last year due to my cancer and treatments. It was very hard for me to stop running, and it is difficult to get back into it now for various reasons, but I’m lacing up and getting out there and that’s what matters at this point. The most important thing I’m having to learn is to be kind and patient with my body after all it’s been through.
I’ve also watched the charity broadcast of the Mischief Theatre group (of “The Play that Goes Wrong” fame), “Mischief Movie Night In: The Wizard of Paddington Station” . You have until the 31st of January to purchase a ticket to see the broadcast and all the profit goes to charity. It’s a fun, family friendly way to pass an evening and do some good at the same time.
We’re still not getting a real winter yet, but I did get some new Rumpl blankets in this week and that was enough to get my cats into full winter mode. Hopefully there will be some rain next week to justify their need for winter cuddles.
The gentleman.The lady.
I dared to venture out on the day before my Chemo session, because I really wanted to see the Yayoi Kusama retrospective in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. I arrived when the place was relatively empty, and wore a mask the entire time (as did almost all of the other visitors). The curation of the exhibit was phenomenal, and I enjoyed it very much. I loved seeing Kusama’s early sketches in her sketchbook, as well as her later sculptors and rooms. There was a new room, created specifically for this exhibit, the “Galaxy” room, which was my favourite:
Inside the Galaxy room.
Walking through the museum became a very colourful and oftentimes surreal experience. There’s nothing like being dwarfed by pink tentacles:
Pink tentacles in the atrium.
The penultimate room was phenomenal, with a steel ball exhibit on the floor that toyed with people’s need to view themselves (so many people lay down on the floor to take selfies), and two mosaics of Kusama’s paintings: one colourful and one in black and white, on opposite walls. It was very striking.
With my treatments getting progressively harder, flu season (yes, I’m vaccinated, but that doesn’t necessarily guarantee that I won’t get sick), and a new Covid variant on the rise I doubt that I’ll be going out much for the next few months. That just makes my visit to this colourful, interesting and joyful exhibition even more precious to me.
Health
I had my 10th Chemo treatment (the second treatment of the fifth cycle) on Tuesday, and this time I asked to get less steroids. So instead of a really, really, really, really, really large amount of steroids, I was given a really, really large amount of steroids. It was a risk (the steroids serve as anti-emetics and general boosters to help me get through the treatment), but so far it has paid off. I could sleep better and longer after the treatment, which helped me feel a little better. The treatments are getting harder, and as I suspected I now no longer have a break in my neuropathy. As I’m typing this, I feel about four out of ten fingers. The secret to typing like this is to be like Wile E. Coyote and not look down or think about typing as I type 🙂
Reading
I got less reading done than I expected this week, and I’m only about a third of the way through James S.A. Corey’s “Cibola Burn” (the Expanse #4). I also need to dedicate some time to update my Goodreads reviews. I have a few notes on books that I’ve read that I’ve yet to publish there. Luckily my reading journal is still around to help me keep track of things.
I’m enjoying the way that the Expanse novels unfold, with 3-4 viewpoints in each one, and large systems of government, military and industry are made human without being overly simplified.
Writing
I journaled a lot this week, but other than that I didn’t get any writing done. My neuropathy meant that holding a pen has become virtually impossible since Thursday evening. I really miss holding and using my pens.
Currently Inked
I’ve been focusing on my standard pens this week (while I could still hold them). The Retro 51 Typewriters have Monteverde gel ink refills installed, and I’m really enjoying them (I don’t like the standard Schmitt refill). The Karas Kustoms Periwinkle Bolt V2 has a dragonskin grip and a cerakote finish and is gorgeous. The other Bolt is the steampunk one, which I love and use regularly. The Tactile Turn Nautilus is the most unique and gorgeous of my standard pens, and the click mechanism is a lot of fun to fidget with. The Uni Jetstream Edge was a pen that I wasn’t expecting to enjoy very much, but I ended up writing the most journal pages with it this week. I can’t explain why I love writing with this pen so much, but I just do. The same can be said of the Pilot Hi-Tec-C next to it, which I’m about to run dry (a pen achievement, if ever there was one). The barrel is cracked, of course, but somehow the tip has remained intact and the gel ink refill hasn’t yet inexplicably stopped flowing.
From left to right: Pilot Hi-Tec-C, Uni Jetstream Edge, Tactile Turn Nautilus, Karas Kustoms Steampunk Bolt V2, Karas Kustoms Periwinkle Bolt V2, Retro 51 Typewriter green, Retro 51 Typewriter copper.
Other Things
I’m hoping that my neuropathy improves next week, so that I can get back to journalling. I’ve started working on some long term projects and with the encouragement of my therapist I may actually get back to planning more than two weeks ahead.
The seeds in my garden have started germinating, which is always a joy to see. Monday is going to be very dry and warm so I’ll have to keep a look out for their health and mine then.
As is usual for a Chemo week, a lot of my time was spent trying to fall asleep and failing, so productivity wise it’s not the best. Hopefully next week will be better.
The weather started to improve this week, and with it my health. The winds from the East stopped blowing dust in, and the terrible heat and dryness broke, hopefully until summer next year. It finally started raining on Thursday, and as the weather cooled off I could start to clear out and replant my container garden.
Health
This week was the “good” week (i.e. the no Chemo week, where my body gets to recover), even though Sunday and Monday had super hot and dry conditions that made breathing miserable and made my nose bleed (a problem when you’re on blood thinners, as I am). But the weather improved and I started feeling better as I made up for lost sleep and the neuropathy started to gradually subside. I also got a pneumonia vaccine (I’m eligible because of my Chemo trashed immune system), and another shot to keep my blood count where it should be. I used to be afraid of shots and blood tests when I was little, and leery of them as an adult, but now they’re nothing to me. I’ve been pricked and prodded so many times that I’ve gotten inured to the procedure.
Next week is Chemo 10 of 12, and also when I start scheduling my post Chemo tests.
Reading
I finished Hilary Mantel’s “Bring Up the Bodies”. I couldn’t put it down, so I ended up reading it during Chemo instead of starting on something lighter. She really makes Henry the VIII’s court come to life, and Thomas Cromwell is such a fascinating character in a book filled to the brim with fascinating characters. I’m a bit wary about reading the last book in the trilogy, “The Mirror and the Light,” as I’ve been warned that it’s not as good, but I will probably read it eventually. I started reading James S. A. Corey’s “Cibola Burn” and so far it looks like a fun and engrossing read. They really know how to write entertaining epic science fiction that highlights how the various modern “tribes” of humanity work and how individuals interact with them.
Writing
My neuropathy started improving on Wednesday, and so I could backlog the journalling days that I missed. Hopefully I’ll get more writing done this week, but even if I only journal that will be OK considering the condition of my hands and the fact that I need to type with them as I work every day. Sometimes you need to cut yourself some slack.
From left to right: PenBBS, Retro 51, Esterbrook and Leonardo
Currently Inked
I wrote my Kanilea dry. I really enjoyed using it, although I still believe that Kanilea pens are overpriced beauties. I bought my pen second-hand on the Pen Addict Slack, but as the message was archived and the pen that I got is no longer made by Kanilea I have no idea what its name is. That’s something for me to figure out. I wasn’t planning on adding a pen to the rotation, but my Leonardo Momento Zero Grande Mother of Pearl arrived and it was too pretty to sit in a box until I got to it. I was feeling nostalgic so I filled it with Waterman South Sea Blue, a really great and inexpensive ink that has now been renamed to “Inspired Blue” which is not a very descriptive or inspiring name. Also in rotation: my Esterbrook Estie Seaglass with a Journal nib, filled with Diamine Jack Frost. This pen and nib combination is so much fun to use I may return it to the rotation for a third time in a row once I’ve written it dry. The Retro 51 Wings of the Monarch fountain pen with a 1.1 stub nib filled with Caran d’Ache Saffron. The pen drags a little as it writes so I may try to smooth the nib out once I’ve written it dry. PenBBS Year of the Ox, a trusty, workhorse writer filled with Pilot Iroshizuku Ina-Ho.
Other Things
There was a local shopping event two weeks ago, and I went a little wild buying Lego sets. I’ve started building Legos as a way to relax and clear my head once I go sick, and they’ve been quite a comfort during the past few months. I can’t build them on days with bad neuropathy, but on good days they really cheer me up. I’m working on the Hogwarts Icons Collector’s Edition right now, and Hedwig is absolutely stunning.
I was planning on posting a review this week, but I had chemo this week and it really took me to town. Two days of practically no sleep (due to steroids) and the terribly hot and dry weather we’ve been having meant that I had to spend more time than I planned letting my body recover from the wallop it received mid-week. As I’m typing this I can barely feel my fingers due to neuropathy (a common side effect of my treatment), which means that typing, writing and drawing have been a challenge.
HOWEVER, I’m still here, still smiling, still picking up my pens and journalling, and even messing around with new art supplies that don’t require the precision and control that my beloved watercolours do.
I’m not sure if I’ll dedicate a review to the Sakura Pigma BB brush pen, but I will say that it’s a super soft, relatively wide brush pen that is very expressive and fun to use for spontaneous sketching. The Marabu Yono, which I got as part of a notebook package from Cult Pens, is a delight. I’ve never used acrylic markers before, and I love using this one. This is definitely opening up a whole world of possibilities for me.
Sakura Pigma BB brush pen and Marabu Yono acrylic red marker on a Maggie Rogers Field Notes sketchbook.
Health
I got Chemo number 9 of 12. Had a scary new side effect of the treatment or the blood thinners I’m on (likely the blood thinners), but I weathered that too. Next week I hope to get back to walking after the few days off I took for recovery (and because of hazardous weather). Also got to see a psychologist that works with cancer patients. Hopefully he’ll help me deal with the anxiety of what lies ahead.
Reading
I was planning on reading “Cibola Burn” by James S.A. Corey but Hilary Mantel’s “Bring Up the Bodies” has utterly mesmerised me and I haven’t been able to put it down. The quality of the writing, research and characterisation is evident in every page, and the result is a bewitching narrative – no mean feat considering the fact that very little happens in the book and the ending is well known.
Writing
None whatsoever apart from my journal and my three good things, and even they were backlogged for half the week. A combination of sleeplessness and neuropathy (which, if you’re wondering, feels like what your hands feel like after they’ve grown numb and then started to prickle back to life) made writing unattainable for most of the week.
Currently Inked
No change from last week because I didn’t write much. I’m about to write my Kanilea dry, after which I’ll probably hold off inking any new pen since I’m gearing up for my new DiamineInkvent calendar. Like last time, I’m planning on filling 25 pens with 25 inks, and unlike last time I’m planning on writing them all dry.
Other Things
I’ve been building Lego sets as a form of meditation and relaxation. I’m currently working my way through the Lego Harry Potter’s Collector’s Edition, and will probably finish it next week.
I’m starting to get back to podcast listening. I used to listen to 3-4 hours of podcasts a day, every day. When I learned that I had cancer I stopped listening to podcasts entirely, and I’ve discovered that there are still podcasts that I can’t listen to right now. On my current listening list are: The Pen Addict, Maintenance Phase, and Reconcilable Differences.
I’ve been going through a rough timelately, and as many people have been so kind to say, staying optimistic despite all the bad things that I’ve had to deal with lately is key to getting through this terrible time. That is, of course, easier said than done. My mind tends to latch on to the painful and scary parts of the day, to the bad feelings, anxiety and doubt. It doesn’t help that we are all living through difficult times, and it’s hard to see and end in sight.
So I’ve started a new habit during the past month, and it’s helping me end the day on a positive note, with an added bonus of helping me use up some of my many notebooks.
I end each day by writing at least three good things that happened that day. I dedicate a page for each day, in my Dingbats notebook, with “Three Good Things” as the title, the date and day, and then the list of good things. It doesn’t take more than a few minutes to find that day’s three good things, and for most days so far I’ve managed to find more than three good things to reflect on. They are usually conversations that I had with friends, or moments where I felt like my old self, or things that I enjoyed reading or watching.
Writing these down has been so helpful in getting me to see the good in each day, and in trying to stay positive when life is pretty tough.
Writing at Large 