Here it is! (Was it worth the wait?) 
After much deliberation, (You can ask Naoto how many times I picked up something and put it back, only to end up with something really basic!) I decided to go with a red leather cover and I stuck with the peacock blue book cloth for the back. I didn’t think the yellow and white book cloth would hold up well over time. Plus, I love red and I love blue, and the yellow doesn’t really fit my vibe…I couldn’t see myself really loving it once I got it home. 
Plus, I really wanted gold accents and that didn’t seem to fit with the yellow pattern vibe. I forgot to mention yesterday that you can also choose your binding colors and other accents for your book. We didn’t get a good picture of those options, but you can see them here. I didn’t add a pen loop or an elastic because I like a simple notebook, but seriously, you can have so much fun adding all the accouterments you like! 
If everything in my life could be these two colors, I would be happy. 
I ended up going with Fool’s Paper for my insides. It’s also a fountain pen friendly paper and when I tested it at the store, I loved how it worked with a 2B pencil, a fountain pen, and a regular thin gel pen. It’s so smooth! 
Because I could, I got a mix of lined, dot grid, plain, and grid papers. 
I also added an envelope to the back, because why not? 
In addition to my notebook, I bought a Kakimori postcard and this notepad. 
The notepad has ten different kinds of black paper inside, with all sorts of textures. I sampled it in the store and thought it was fun, and I’m looking forward to using it in my Travelers Notebook and for little notes here and there. 
And I couldn’t pass up these cute birthday postcards that came with a tiny pencil so you can draw in flames for the number of candles the recipient is celebrating. Genius, right?
If you’re in Tokyo, I highly recommend Kakimori for stationery lovers. I made a small (A4 size) notebook, but they also offer A5 which would be an amazing size for a scrapbook if you filled it with one of the heavier paper options. It’s just such a neat experience to make something just for yourself…now to see if I can get into the habit of using it! I’ll report back!
Happy New Year! Naoto and I are in Japan right now–we’ve been here since 10:45pm local time on December 31, 2019. We rang in 2020 on a train to our hotel. It wasn’t planned that way, but our flight was delayed by two hours so…
Here we are on the train, looking a mess from the thirteen hour flight. It’s been a really great trip so far and I’m looking forward to sharing about it soon! (I say this fully aware that I’ve never shared alllll the things from some of our previous trips! Argh!) If you want to follow along (somewhat) live, I’m sharing over on Instagram. (@adamihasegawa over there!)
When we got home with it, I washed it and held my breath the whole time. (You’re apparently not supposed to wash old quilts…who knew?) I used the delicate setting and let it air dry and came out fine. I figured I can’t have a blanket in the house that I’m not washing and I’d rather use this quilt than just store it in the closet. Since then, Presley barfed on the quilt and I had to wash it again, so I guess it’s just going to be a part of our lives…which is kind of the point, right?
Last weekend was our annual book club Christmas tea and it was delightful, as usual. We had four kinds of sandwiches (egg salad, shrimp salad, roast beef with provolone, and cilantro chicken salad,) two kinds of scones (cranberry-orange and bacon cheddar,) Christmas cake, grape salad, and Christmas punch. I love a good tea sandwich so I ate way too many and also floated away from all the tea. 
Stasia brought corsages for everyone so it felt especially fancy. I think corsages are under-utilized and I’m going to demand one for every birthday from now on. 
We read PG Wodehouse which was enjoyable, but I read it all in a couple days so I was sort of Wodehoused out by the end. The writing is really charming though so hopefully I’ll be ready to tackle a short story here and there in the future. 
We always have party poppers with crowns, mustaches, and jokes. Reading the jokes and guessing the riddles is always my favorite part of the day. 
Three cheers for good book discussions in 2019!
Merry Christmas (if you celebrate) and happy holidays! I’ll be back later this week with a Christmas update. Until then, I hope you’re enjoying the holiday season! ❤️💚
kimberly ah 