Goodbye and Hello

During my rookie year as a pro writer I spent $110.00 to buy a fountain pen on sale at Levenger. While that sounds insane, the pen retailed for $450.00, so I thought it was a good bargain. At the time I wanted to make the jump to using only fountain pens for hand writing, as my arthritis was starting to make it difficult to use anything else. Also, I fell in love with the pen, so that decided it.

Back then I had no idea that my Platinum Koi would be my faithful companion for the next twenty-two years. I've written thousands of letters, hundreds of journals and autographed Lord only knows how many of my books with this pen. If you work out the price with the endurance, it only cost me around $5.00 a year, which is probably what a person spends on crap pens. It's certainly always been the finest writing instrument I've ever owned . . . until it started to skip and clog this year. I nursed it along with frequent cleanings and sparse use, but eventually I had to accept that it was time to retire my old friend.

I needed to buy a new pen to replace it, but I was waiting for another lovely bargain to come along. I also didn't want to spend a lot because my ability to hand write is going to end in the (hopefully not too) near future.

Out of the blue Levenger sent me an e-mail to offer me sixty percent off the True Writer pens they were retiring, which included one I've always wanted because the colors remind me of my daughter (I gave her a pearl and rose gold necklace for her birthday that she constantly wears.) So I bought the True Writer Ivory Rose Gold pen for $35.00:

She arrived today, and she's a beauty, too -- very lightweight and comfortable to hold, and so classy:

She'll pick up the workload from my retired Platinum nicely, I think:

I know it's a bit silly to make such a fuss over a pen, but this feels like the universe stepped in when I really needed to find my new writing companion. So thank you, Levenger and the Universe. :)

Comments

nightsmusic said…

I too have a True Writer! Lovely, lovely pen. But you do know, they might have been able to send you just a new nib. I think they're around $30, but it would take care of the skipping and such. If you want to hang on to that Platinum that is ;)

November 22, 2020 at 5:32 AM

Maria Zannini said…

What a bargain! And I agree with nightmusic. Your old pen might be fixable.

November 22, 2020 at 6:58 AM

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Valerean

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