Love letter to Levenger

I don't have fine china, I have everyday dishes (Fiestaware), but I know that there are people who have china that they love, but they keep it put away for special occasions. Maybe that's a good idea, I think it does make special occasions just that much more special when you get out things that you don't use all the time, like silver. I have my grandmother's silver, but the only time I ever use it is on Thanksgiving.

But that's one of the things that I've tried to get over--not with china or silver, but all of the beautiful, everyday things that are maybe too beautiful to use. Like paper. One of the guys at work came to me yesterday and said that we were out of legal pads, and did I know if we had any more. I told him that I would order some, but in the meantime, I had one that I would give him. He asked, didn't I need it myself, and I said no, I buy my own paper because I like the really expensive stuff. I think he thought that was kind of dumb, and it is, to an extent, but as we're fond of saying at work, it is what it is.

I enjoy writing by hand. It's a different thing than typing, writing makes your brain work in a different way, I think. It flexes different muscles. So if I'm going to write, I'm going to use tools that make it a pleasure. In my case, it's Levenger Circa paper (letter sized shaded annotation ruled paper, $16 for 100 sheets or Action Method Dot Grid Refills) and a Pilot Precise V5 Extra Fine Rollerball pen. Bob sometimes makes fun of me for having "special" pens; if he needs a pen, any old pen will do. If I'm just scribbling down a phone number or something, sure, any old pen and a sticky note will do. But if I'm taking extensive notes, or writing a to-do list, I want a pen that is a pleasure to use, and that makes the notes a pleasure to read later.

He has also made fun of me for having favorite eating utensils and favorite/special juice glasses. I don't care. Everyone has favorite things, and if using them makes the day better, why not? I'm always reminded of a quote I heard once--I don't remember who it was attributed to--on the order of, if you're going to eat chocolate, eat the good stuff. I apply that to just a few things in my life--sock yarn, candles, purses, and office supplies are the ones that come to mind.

While I was perusing the Levenger website, I ran across this review of their Circa Task Pads:

When I originally purchased these pads, I used them sparingly because of the cost. At some point, I realized that whatever it was that I wanted to address at a different time had a value that for me was far in excess of the 9 to 11 cents of each sheet.

I have some of those task pads (you can see one in the top photo, in a Compact-size notebook), and I, too, have felt like I needed to conserve them, but how dumb is that? If something is useful to you, use it. When I die I'm going to leave a houseful of pens and notebooks anyway, I might as well use some of them up. I stick a half dozen of these list pages in the front of my larger notebook. Then, if I'm in a meeting and think of something that I need to do, I can jot it there and move on. It's easy to remove it from the big notebook and stick it in the notebook that I keep in my purse.

I'm a big fan of Levenger Circa, if you can't tell. Everything is interchangeable, and I have a portable punch that I can use to make any paper fit into a Circa notebook, or make custom flyleaves out of scrapbook paper. It's very exciting. (I know, I'm weird.) There are three sizes--Letter (8-1/2 x 11), Junior (5-1/2 x 8-1/2), and Compact (3-3/4 x 6-3/4). The picture above shows two notebooks, a Junior size and a Compact. I switch between a Junior and a Letter size one for notes at work, and the Compact one is the one I keep in my purse. They don't really make that one anymore, or at least, they don't make much in the way of accessories for it. I just ordered 300 refill sheets in case they stop making those, too. I also keep knitting and sewing patterns in a letter-size one at home.

Oh, and you can buy 3x5 card ones, or punch your own 3x5 cards . . . This is a "swatch book" I made using a Circa 3x5 Jotlet notebook. I can drop it in my purse if I'm going to the fabric store and need to match something.

Here's a deal: Buy the Levenger Simply Irresistible Sampling Kit for $40, and get a $40 Levenger gift card that you can spend for more Circa stuff (or anything, really). Virtually free!

And here's a great article about lists and notebooks: James Altucher - How a Waiter's Pad Saved My Life

Wicked

I just noticed that my bookshelf in the Kindle app on my iPad is pretty telling regarding the kind of books that I read, i.e., almost exclusively urban fantasy. Also, I just counted, and I have 196 books in that app that contain the word "Dead" in some fashion, also telling.

Current favorite series': oh, there are just too many! But the absolute best things I've read lately are "Wicked As They Come" and "Wicked As She Wants," by Delilah Dawson. I somehow ran across the first one on the publisher's site, where it could be read online for free for a few days. I didn't think it was really something I wanted to read, because 1) the cover looked too "romance-y", and 2) it sounded kind of steampunk, which I don't normally do, but I tried it since it was free, and was immediately charmed by it, enough so that I went ahead and bought the Kindle version so I wouldn't have to hurry through reading it.

The story begins with Tish Everett, a hospice nurse, rummaging through the estate sale of her last patient. She finds an old locket that looks interesting and, when she is suddenly paged for an emergency, she absentmindedly sticks it in her pocket.

Once she gets home and is able to open the locket, she finds that when she falls asleep she is transported to another world--the land of Sang, which is populated mostly by "Bludmen," or vampires. The particular Bludman that she runs across first is the ringmaster of a traveling carnival who, it turns out, had cast a spell to bring the perfect woman to him, and voila, there she is!

The world-building is great, the most inventive and interesting that I've run across in a long time. The second book, "Wicked As She Wants," is loosely based on the story of the Russian Tsars, and the upcoming third one, "Wicked After Midnight" (January 2014) is to be set in the Paris cabarets.

There are also a couple of novellas set in the same world, "The Peculiar Pets of Miss Pleasance," and "The Mysterious Madame Morpho," as well as a short story, "The Three Lives of Lydia," included in "Carniepunk," an anthology of carnival-themed urban fantasy.

Fickle

I stopped carrying around the Mulberry journal for the same reason I always do -- because it's just too heavy. I already have my laptop and iPad to carry back and forth to work, and that heavy binder just added too much weight. And this time, of course, unlike the other times with Franklin Covey products, I can't get Mulberry refills, they just don't exist. I tried to make it work by punching my own paper, but I wasn't happy with it.

So I moved back to another favorite, Levenger Circa. As someone in my office remarked when she saw the Levenger catalog on my desk, Levenger is dangerous. As I've mentioned before, there are a few products that I am obsessed with, or a few retailers, I guess. One of them is Levenger. They produce the most wonderful, high quality leather and paper goods. I have, for the most part, resisted buying any of the leather goods, but I've bought quite a few paper products over the years.

Circa stuff is very cool. You can build a notebook using several different kinds of paper, different covers, dividers, etc., and rather than rings, the pages are held together by plastic or metal discs. You don't have to open rings like you do with a ring binder, you can just pull the pages away from the discs. Levenger was having a sale on a lot of the Circa stuff, and I bought a punch. So now I can take any kind of paper and punch it to fit into a Circa notebook. The one in the picture above was a piece of scrapbooking paper. The possibilities are endless! The filler paper that I prefer is their dot grid paper. For some reason, it seems smoother to write on than some of the other choices. I probably prefer the layout of their notation lined paper, but it is rougher.

Anyway, this is my current paper love, my custom Circa notebook with dot grid paper, white plastic tab dividers, clear covers, and an ever-changing colorful flyleaf, currently mauve and blue retro flowers.

I'm fickle like that.

Transition

Okay, so the transfer of the domain name has taken place. willa.com now leads to the website for Willa skincare products, and my new domain is willacline.com. I know that there will be lots of broken (or "brokeny," as we tend to say at work) things throughout the site, so bear with me. I probably won't go back all the way to the beginning of time to fix things, but if you run across a page that is particularly broken, let me know. I plan to go through at some point and fix links to images, but that will probably happen slowly.

My new email address is willa at willacline dot com. I express it that way so that it doesn't look like an email address to robots. My old willa.com email address has been collecting spam for 17 years, so it's probably time to retire it anyway. Maybe I can keep the new one a little cleaner by using alternate addresses for signing up for things, and keeping the "real" one for real email. I guess we'll see.

Thanks for hanging in there with me!

I am currently in the process of selling the domain willa.com. I will be using willacline.com in the future, but for now, please bookmark this URL (http://willacline.blogspot.com), and change any contact information you have for me to my gmail account, willa.cline@gmail.com. Thank you! More details to follow.