My ADHD brain in blog form.
Posted in Fountain Pens
Once again, I’m sharing my current top pens. Last year’s approach to my top tens worked well, making me actually stick to lists of 10. I swear, this post gets harder every year. The nibs aren’t too hard, but the pens! It takes me more and more time to narrow down to ten, and then actually figure out the order.
Since I’m keeping to the same format as last year, I’ll compare my lists
But without further preamble, enjoy my top tens of 2023.
Posted in Fountain Pens
A while back, a question was posted to the Facebook group Goulet Nation:
Are there any pens that just are outside our reach but stay in our desired list even as we know we won’t get them?
I’m highly fortunate to be able to purchase most pens I want, but there are definitely some that are outside of my reach. To be honest, even if I won the lottery, I don’t know that I’d buy these pens. I have a hard time imagining spending so much for a single item — big ticket items, like a house or car, excluded.
Posted in Fountain Pens
Once again, I’m sharing my current top pens. I took a somewhat different approach this year, so that I actually choose a top 10. I’m judging my pens based on appearance and the way they write. So I have two different top ten lists. Because of this, I won’t be comparing to last year’s top pens, which ended up being a top 28.
This was just as hard as I expected it to be. I’m fortunate enough to have an absolutely fabulous pen collection, so narrowing it down to my favorites grows increasingly difficult each year.
But without further preamble, enjoy my top 10 pens of 2022 by appearance and by nibs.
Posted in Fountain Pens, and Non-Fountain Pens
While it was difficult to do last year, ranking my pen purchases was a useful exercise. So, I decided to do it again. I have to say, I’m embarrassed by the long list of pens I purchased this year. I was hoping to buy less pens this year, not more. But I’ll discuss that in another post.
I realize that this is a long block of text. But, if I added a photo of each pen, it would take absolutely forever to get through. So, for pens that I’ve already discussed in a dedicated post, I’ve linked to that post (and the photos contained therein). For the rest, where possible, I linked to an Instagram photo from the pen maker or store they collaborated with. When that wasn’t possible, I linked to a good photo on Instagram (consider following those fine folks) or one of my own Instagram posts.
Posted in Pen Shows
Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for pen envy or impulse purchases resulting from viewing this post.
Per usual, you can click on the images to view them larger. I do my best to provide you with high-quality pen porn. 😉
Although I purchased and received several non-pen items, I’m only going to review the pens and nib in this post and the Jinji chocolate in a later post. Feel free to jump down to a specific mini review: Analog Notes | Namiki | Platinum | Mayfair Pens | Gravitas Pens | Nahvalur | All in the Nib
DISCLAIMER UPDATE (6/24/22): TWSBI and Narwhal have released a joint statement which I cover in my most recent TWSBIgate post. While not completely satisfied with TWSBI’s response to the situation, I no longer feel the need to dissuade people from purchasing their products.
DISCLAIMER (5/1/22): Since writing this post, TWSBI has been involved in some unsavory actions, and I am currently boycotting them. For more information, refer to the #twsbigate tag page.
After the fun I had with The Fountain Pens Tag post, I decided to jump on the round 2 version that’s been going around. Except this time I’m just focusing on nibs.
This post is inspired by Heather Austin‘s video THE PALETTE TAG ROUND 2 | ALL ABOUT EYESHADOWS! In that video, she credits Samantha March and Allie Glines with coming up with the idea.
Posted in Fountain Pens, and Non-Fountain Pens
DISCLAIMER UPDATE (6/24/22): TWSBI and Narwhal have released a joint statement which I cover in my most recent TWSBIgate post. While not completely satisfied with TWSBI’s response to the situation, I no longer feel the need to dissuade people from purchasing their products.
DISCLAIMER (5/1/22): Since writing this post, TWSBI has been involved in some unsavory actions, and I am currently boycotting them. For more information, refer to the #twsbigate tag page.
Both last year and in 2019 I wrote about my biggest pen wins and regrets. It was fun to look back on my pens, so I decided to do the same thing this year. However, with my 2021 Top Pens post, I basically already did that. So, I decided to do something I’ve seen in the YouTube makeup world — surprise, surprise — and rank all of my pen purchases.
Note: Some of the pens have already been discussed in recent posts. If a description looks familiar, that’s likely why. Also, where possible, I linked to an Instagram photo from the pen maker or store they collaborated with. When that wasn’t possible, I linked to a good photo on Instagram (consider following those fine folks). And, when all else failed, I linked to my own photos on Instagram.
Posted in Fountain Pens
DISCLAIMER UPDATE (6/24/22): TWSBI and Narwhal have released a joint statement which I cover in my most recent TWSBIgate post. While not completely satisfied with TWSBI’s response to the situation, I no longer feel the need to dissuade people from purchasing their products.
DISCLAIMER (5/1/22): Since writing this post, TWSBI has been involved in some unsavory actions, and I am currently boycotting them. For more information, refer to the #twsbigate tag page.
My planning from last year has paid off. This year, I’m revisiting my 2020 Top Pens and seeing what differences there are in comparison to my 2021 top pens.
As I said last year, I tend to sell or trade pens that don’t make me happy to own. I’m getting closer to all of my pens being favorites, but I made myself narrow them down to a top 10 and top 20. I kind of cheated with the Always Inked section, but don’t judge me too harshly.
This was so much harder than I expected it to be. I slightly adjusted my judging criteria this year. I did my best to put these pens in order of which ones I’m most disappointed to un-ink (clean out). And so, I give you my top pens as of the end of 2021.
