2026 Notebook

We bought this little book of cafes in our region. The region is big enough that some of them are still an hour or two away if we were to take a bus or train to get to them. Luckily, this book highlighted some within walking distance from us. I felt good knowing I had already been to one of them. Yesterday we went through the book and picked one near by. We might do one further out next week. The cafe was in an old Japanese style wooden house. It had a nice long patio on one side of the building and sliding window doors all along the patio. In front of the patio there’s an ume tree that’s blossoming. We took off our shoes on the patio before we get into the house. We sat down at a huge round table that would not fit in any room in our apartment.

After looking over the menu for a bit I decided on the matcha and cake set. I do not know if I’ve had a lot of the traditional style matcha. I tend to prefer the matcha latte. The cake of the day was a cheese cake that was a nice balance to the tea. Across from us on the large table was another couple who were seemingly on their first date. I realized later in the evening that they were doing a first date on valentine’s day. I did some journaling as I listened to them talk about how they don’t know enough about spiritual things to have an opinion on them. After we enjoyed our tea, sweets, and reading time; we went upstairs to see a little gallery of art from a local school. Despite the repeated reminders, I only bumped my head on the rafter ties once.

Early this year I finally finished up the small Leuchtturm¹ that I had been working through for the last year or two. I started a traveler’s notebook. I am a little mixed on. I like the hardcover Lechttorm² notebooks for journaling. They’re nice and compact. Fit nicely in my shoulder bag without eating up a bunch of space. The traveler’s notebook is much larger and the actual paper bits are smaller pieces that I can insert and swap out. Which means they might be a bit more fragile after they’re taken out. But the format is nice. I got a little zipper bag to keep my pen inside which helps. I can have a grid paper type and a lined type at the same time for different types of notes. Leuchtturm sells little adhesive pen holder so you can attach a pen holder to one of your notebooks. It’s slightly too snug for my current fountain pen that I’ve been sporting. Zipper bag works well for multiple pens too.

During the new year holiday I restarted doing 750 words³. I go through phases of writing regularly on there and stopping for a long time. I want to do a bit more writing this year. I also like doing it on 750 words because it’s easily translatable to getting blogs posted. It gives me writing inertia. And while I enjoy journaling for myself on paper, I do like the connection that the blogging brings. When I am writing on paper, there’s no such inertia for me to get it into the blog. Though it might be helping me form ideas in the background. I restart the daily 750 and I just got this travelers notebook. Regardless if I am journaling on paper or on the computer, I tend to write stream-of-consciousness or about the day. I do not journal to organize a to-do list (though I should consider to do so). I end up wanting to write about the same thing in both places. Luckily last year, I got the Book of Alchemy which is a fun title for a journaling book. The book is largely journaling prompts compiled together around the time of the lock-downs. A lot of people were using journaling as a way to cope with it. And this book of journaling prompts came out of it. Some of the prompts will give a backstory and then toss the ball into your court. Some are interesting stories, but not really inspiring journaling prompts for me. Or too much homework for a journaling prompt I want before bed. On those days, I will still spring board off of it. It’s been fun to go through and for now primarily how I am trying to diversify my journaled topics.