What is one thing you can’t live without?
If I were younger, I’d say I couldn’t live without my phone. But Boomer Lady that I am, I assert that I can’t live without writing implements and paper. Sure, that may look like two things to you, but in my lexicon, “pen and paper” is a collective noun. Don’t argue with my brain. It’s getting old, too.

Ever since I figured out how to write and ditched giant pencils and oddly lined paper (which smelled very good). I owned lots and lots of paper and wrote many, many words on most of them (some were used to draw horses, trees, flowers, and cars).
I just love to write and always have. Nothing made me happier than an essay test or term paper assignment. I could write! Any subject would do! And I always journaled, wrote stories, and passed long notes among friends in school.
I remember my sixth-grade teacher confiscated a many-part note between me and John Zapp. She stifled a laugh when she realized we were writing about remote-control aircraft, not “do you like me, yes or no.” He and I spent the next year, along with other odd little gifted children, writing a newsletter for the seventh-grade class. Bonus: we got to run the machine that printed the purple ink that smelled so good. Mimeo machine?
Just ask Anita what we did in high school. We wrote stuff. Stories, multi-part humor notes, very long book reports, etc. I regret that I couldn’t be in journalism class because I had to sing all the time. A surprising number of those who were in that class ended up teachers, journalists, and the like.
Well, I didn’t know where that story was going. But anyway, I have been writing my whole life in all my jobs, and reluctantly switched to keyboards when I realized I typed faster than I wrote by hand. But in addition to my obsession with blogging, I still write by hand in my sticker-filled journals, take notes by hand in meetings, and have a huge collection of pens (between me and Kathleen, we could run a pen shop in our house).
I need my writing tools.
No excitement here at home today. It rained, and I discovered the newly spread dirt surrounding the house is very sticky. The clay is now on top. But the rainwater tanks are collecting away, which is exciting to me. Of course, I saw and heard birds today. All the sparrows are here!




I kept making bookmarks today. The kit makes a LOT of them. I’ll have holiday gifts for everyone at this rate. And who wouldn’t want an extremely sparkly bookmark??

