Just checking in

Figured I'd come by and give the tires a kick, maybe check to see if this thing still starts, in spite of the low battery indicator.

So how have you all been? I've been...meh. Maybe even less than meh. As yet unresolved medication issue is adding to the general fatigue, crankiness, depression and to-hell-with-it attitude. Yeah, it's been a barrel of fun around here.

Almost no "making" (Gosh, I kind of hate that term. I understand the idea behind it, but it really does sound kind of...twee). My poor sewing studio is languishing under a thick layer of dust. Every so often I pick up a fountain pen and do a few drawings, but those mostly consist of random leaves and flowers.

Adding to the general sense of "eh, why bother" is the state of the house. When I had the closet doors installed upstairs, I had to move my desk and computer (temporarily) to a different spot in the room. I've a shelf to put up for the router, a new file cabinet to put together and the desk move/rearrange to finish. Yeah, the closet doors were put in the week of Memorial Day.

When I had the living room carpet cleaned, I moved both end tables and the television and stand into the dining room, so the cleaners could just go for it. I also moved the couch and my favorite chair around in the room - ditto. I did put the chair, couch, television and one end table back, but the other end table (and the lamp that goes on it, as well as the quilting magazines that live on its lower shelf) are, you guessed it, still in the dining room. The carpet was cleaned...Labor Day week.

Meh. The only person these things would bother is me - and obviously, they don't.

A couple of years ago, after a thirty year gap, I went back to using fountain pens for my personal writing. I've a bit of a "collection", though I don't think of it in that terms, as I do use them all regularly. The herd does need to be culled a bit, as I've big birthday coming up and a rather large pen purchase planned.

At work, I'm mostly on the computer or messing around in pencil. But I do use a pen fairly regularly, and decided to bring something fun to work (heaven knows, I need some fun). The Pilot Vanishing Point and Decimo pens are retractable fountain pens. The Japanese cleverly figured out how to cover the nib when it is retracted so the ink does not dry out.

The clip is at the business end of the pen, so that when it is clipped to a pocket, the nib is up (for obvious reasons - they rarely leak, but why tempt fate?). The clip, therefore, is between your fingers when you write. After the first few words, you don't notice it; it serves the added purpose of keeping the nib in a decent writing position.

My phone won't do macro pictures, but you can see how small the nib is. Beautiful lines, though.

In the interest of keeping things simple, I use ink cartridges in this pen, rather than keeping a bottle of ink at work. Three seconds to change one out when it is empty. It's really not too much longer to refill from a bottle - just more potential for inky fingers.

I'd better hop to it. At least it is Friday, even though it tends to be the longest day of the week.