It all started with the crayons, right.? Our love of coloring in things and drawing things and melting things.... As a calligrapher, Crayola broad-tipped markers are one of my first loves. The colors and the diversity of lettering styles I can create are amazing. Yes, I know they're not lightfast. Yes, I know they are not archival. But, according to Crayola.com, as of May 2017, they do meet the standards of being acid free. And of course, they are so very affordable. 

completed March 14, 2018
Thank you for letting me turn you original scribble into art, RosiMari.

As of December of 2017, I went from being a mere person carrying around a planner to a full on 'Bullet Journal' - er-ish. More like a planner/journal person or as one of my favorite online people called it, a PLOURNAL-er. 

What's the difference between what I do now, than what I did before?
Before, I would buy a pre-printed planner and fill it in as colorfully as possible.I started with a daily I had gifted to me once a year, then into a weekly which worked awesomely for work with multiple appointments, to a personal monthly calendar with pages for journaling. One of the things I found in a sojourn across the web, was something called a collection. 

This idea, to me, was AMAZING. It was so simple... just track the books you've read in a year... or the shows you've watched, or the movies you've seen, or the podcasts you've listened to, or the advice (good or ill) you've been given... Track it. TRACK IT ALL! But all on the same page in your journal. Whoa!

From there I learned about '*Bullet Journal' - a sort of DIY planner/journal. Its key is the future log and 'bullet' pointed tasks you can migrate to make your busy-ness more productive. Follow this link to the video by Ryder Carroll, who organized the system in the first place.

I have always been a person who takes a lot of notes. When I'm meeting with clients, if I have a meeting for church, if I am studying or researching for something upcoming. I like to write out synopses of my days, record awesome things that have happened or just jot down thoughts I may have had. So I adapted everything (it's a deep, dark hole, the "*BuJo" - Bu-llet Jo-urnal -  community) to something that would fit with what I was already doing and what I wanted to add.

​Further down the rabbit hole brought me to an article about ZIBALDONES. Zibaldones are catch-all books started by Venetian merchants in the late 1400's. 

Zibaldones are what I WANT to carry because its already steeped in history. I LOVE HISTORY! But I like order, too... So I've decided to make sure I have a table of contents, my collections, and everything else under the sun.

I consider everything from December (of the year 0001) until now, practice;  getting a feel for the method (and madness) and as of March 8, 2018, I fully dived into the community. Here are some practice pictures and the big one on the bottom is my new, official, monthly spread for March.

I am absolutely in love with this hodge-podge system AND it integrates my creativity far too well with the rest of my life. Expect many more doodles and drawings and artsy monthly calendars. I also plan on some pen reviews. I am on the hunt for an everyday writing pen to replace my current one. I recently discovered the ink is not archival quality... and as other lovers of history will tell you... that is pretty damn important. I LOVE IT!

* 'Bullet Journal' and 'BuJo' are both copyrighted terms and belong to Ryder Carroll and http://bulletjournal.com/
​** Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library