terriko

This is crossposted from Curiousity.ca, my personal maker blog. If you want to link to this post, please use the original link since the formatting there is usually better.

As of this writing (happening on Monday), I’ve gotten the paperwork done at customs and in theory we get the rest of our stuff tomorrow. We left Oregon on December 29th and had theoretically paid for the truck to get packed and our stuff delivered ASAP, and instead this is more like the time I moved the other way where, among other chaos, my work visa claimed that I was an 11 year old with a PhD and understandably that wasn’t going to fly at the border but without a valid work visa I couldn’t do import paperwork. Le sigh. So now we have a move that has been both extremely expensive, slow, and caused huge amounts of stress and labour that we didn’t expect. But it’s nearly done so I guess that’s something? I’m excited to finally set up my office maybe later this week, though!

Stickers

dinos with shiny hearts (stickii, no artist listed)

doggies with sweaters (stickii, no artist listed)

valentines objects (Neko Mori Arts via stickii)

Katrinkles (from an advent calendar)

Using up some unfinished valentines sheets from last year!

Fountain Pens and Inks

Pilot E95S <m> – Diamine Blush (Inkvent 2025)

Kaweco Liliput <b> – Van Dieman’s Underflow

Pelikan Pura <b> – Diamine Ruby Taffeta (Inkvent 2025)

Pelikan Pina Colada <m> – Diamine Celestial Skies (Inkvent 2025)

Leaning into the new inks for this month: three from the Inkvent calendar I just opened and one new ink from Fountain Pen Day (November 2025). Celestial Skies is continuing from last month.

Commuter Stationary

My "Commuter Notebook" setup with two foutain pens, described in more detail in the post.

TWSBI Eco T <m> – Organics Studio Nitrogen

Pilot Kakuno <m> – Robert Oster Rose Gold Antiqua

Lochby TN-sized dot grid refill

Traveler’s Notebook zipper pouch (used as a cover)

The new part of this is the Kakuno — I was finding that I really missed swapping in colours day to day to make it really obvious where yesterdays’ stuff started. I’d bought the Kakuno to be my purse pen (cheap, light, easy to write with) but it hasn’t gotten used in a while because I was rotating other pens in and out. I’m not sure I’m going to love Rose Gold Antiqua in this pen (I’ve had trouble with it clogging in other pens) but I’ll give it a shot since I’m trying to use up some samples and it is a pretty ink when it works.

The Eco has been working beautifully, and I love Nitrogen’s shine on the Lochby paper. The notebook itself has worked out nicely for commuting — I mostly write with it at work and it’s a mix of work notes, todo lists for home, journal-style entries, and creative writing. I may eventually get a second TN-sized refill to be just a work notebook, but for now the everything notebook format is working well. It’s a little bit less weight, I can get by with the zip case as cover, and I’ll use up the refill faster this way.

In the same vein: the plan is to write these pens dry unless I run into clogging problems, so you likely won’t see these next month!

And In Unrelated News…

I finally went and found a plugin that replaces WordPress’s Block Mode editor. I’ve never been a huge fan, but lately it’s been… hanging? Not switching blocks? Whatever is happening, it’s actually been getting in the way of writing a lot lately. So far this is the first thing I’ve written with the new old-style editor and it’s really helped.