Welcome to Dromgoole's
Monthly Newsletter for
January 2020
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This month, the newsletter contains a
recap
of last month's events, a
calendar
of upcoming events and releases,
Dillon's Corner
, and a
feature article from Christine and Claire
!
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Fri. January 17 - Sun. January 19: Philadelphia Pen Show
Thur. February 6 - Sun. February 9: Los Angeles Pen Show
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What a month!
We had a very merry holiday season here at Dromgoole's, with every sort of activity, event, and special sale to keep us on our feet.
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David Oscarson dropped by a couple of times, and his good friends Anita and Firdosh spent those days with us, too (right).
Firdosh and David met years ago through Dillon and became fast friends. In fact, they worked together to develop David's Ganesha fountain pen (not yet available on our website, but you can take a look at his site
here). We also got to see David's gorgeous Marriage of the Waters pen while he was here!
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Michael, David, Anita, and Firdosh at David's last visit of the year.
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Dromgoole's also played host to the Traveler's Caravan for a few weeks, and kicked it off with a special event. Congrats to Shaquinta for winning our contest for the prettiest Traveler's notebook!
Speaking of Shaquinta, we were so happy to be a part of her story with her now-fiancée, Kim. Kim knew that Shaquinta was a fountain pen lover, and secretly came to the store to pick out gifts, learn to write with a fountain pen, and prepare a beautiful proposal for Shaquinta! Sounds like the perfect love story to us...
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Congratulations to Shaquinta and Kim! Thanks for letting us be a small part of your story together. (It made us laugh when Kim told us that the picture on the left is not Shaquinta's reaction to the ring, but to the TWSBI Precision Kim got her 😄)
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Just before Christmas, the real live Santa took time out of his busy schedule to visit Dromgoole's with one of his elves. He even walked around the Rice Village neighborhood passing out candy canes to Christmas shoppers! Any resemblance to Willie Dromgoole and Dillon Hoang is purely coincidental.
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We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday, and that you're starting your New Year in high spirits!
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If you're interested in any of these, email
dromgooles@sbcglobal.net to place your pre-order, and keep your eyes peeled for our email blasts so you don't miss out!
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This month's favorite:
TWSBI Transparent Purple Eco
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"This pen is such a perfect pure purple. It's my favorite shade--not too blue, not too red. Fill it with
Diamine's Shimmering Lilac Satin, and the ink inside matches the color of the pen perfectly. Even after TWSBI released other special edition colors, this is one of my all-time favorites."
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Bullet Journaling Without Losing Your Mind
(and Your Resolve)
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Christine Dromgoole & Claire Steinman
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It always begins the same way. You resolve to organize your life, to never miss another appointment, to keep a to-do list and actually do the tasks on your list. You’re heard so much about Bullet Journaling, so you look it up to see what the hype is about. And what a hype there is.
You are inundated with images of multi-colored, sticker-adorned, Instagram-worthy bullet journal layouts, with handwriting that looks like a designer font. You see journals that track the number of pages read, miles run, and shelter puppies hugged each day. You see daily water intake trackers featuring tiny hand-drawn glasses filled with blue highlighter.
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You become inspired to craft a perfect, beautiful, customized agenda. But you’ve got to keep track of five kids, or six college classes, or seven unruly fountain pen shop employees. You don’t have time to write brush-calligraphy headings for each page. So over time, your beautifully-decorated journal that you kept for a week ends up squished in the bottom of your backpack, or on a shelf under a pile of books you haven’t read, or in the trunk of your car somewhere, you think...
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Bullet Journaling is designed to be both customizable and radically simple.
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It's easy to get caught up in all the great ideas you see online. But if you try to implement them all at once, you're setting yourself up for failure. Bullet Journaling is designed to be both customizable and radically simple. With this mindset as your starting point, and with a few principles in mind, you can drastically simplify the process of starting a journal.
Before we begin, we want to emphasize: there is
nothing wrong with curating an aesthetically-pleasing journal with all the stickers and colors you want. For many people, designing and decorating can be a calming, joyful process. But we invite you to free yourself from the feeling that your journal needs to be like that every day. On the days when you have the time and inclination, go ham. But on the days when you hardly have a free moment to look at your agenda, much less decorate it, we’ve got some do's and don'ts for you.
(These tips are based on the info provided at
bulletjournal.com and
tinyrayofsunshine.com. They have a ton of great resources for getting started and customizing your Bullet Journal, but the following advice would apply to any journaling system you want to use.)
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The classic acronym for all of us with a tendency to overcomplicate things:
Keep It Simple, Stupid. The Bullet Journal System is fully customizable, but the basic structure is remarkably bare-bones. We won't go into too much detail here, because the resources we listed above give ample advice. For a quick reference, check out this guide Kim at Tiny Ray of Sunshine created (click to enlarge):
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The point is, at its core, the Bullet Journaling system takes one page to explain. That's all you need, and for some, that may be more than what you need. If you don't use the monthly log, throw it out. If you don't want to bother with stars and exclamation points and eye symbols, don't use them. Don't get caught up in all the great ideas you see others using if it's only going to make things difficult and burdensome. Bullet Journaling is a tool box. Don't cart around a bunch of tools you're not going to employ.
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2. Do minimize the amount of time you spend writing in your journal
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Don’t go into more detail than you need to in the moment. Logging your tasks, events, and notes should take a line or two at most. As Bullet Journal creator Ryder Carroll says, “The Event ‘movie night’ bears no more or less weight than ‘best friend moves away.’” If you want to go into more detail, do that on your next blank page later, when you have time to sit and think. Don't feel pressured to record every thought you have right when you have it. Write down enough to remind yourself later, then move on.
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3. Don't overwhelm yourself
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One of the biggest problems that people have with New Year’s Resolutions is trying to start too much at once. If you’re brand new to bullet journaling, don’t commit to journaling every aspect of your life right away. Start small, and build up as you establish new habits.
If you keep forgetting appointments, focus on recording them in your monthly log and checking it every day. If you want to get better at remembering what you do from day to day, focus on writing brief descriptions of your activities as they happen. If you want to track your food intake, start by just writing down your meals each day. Know yourself, and be honest with yourself about what you can handle at once. Don't put too much pressure on yourself.
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4. Do give yourself grace
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If you miss a day of journaling, that doesn’t mean you failed. If you miss a week of journaling, that doesn’t mean you can’t Bullet Journal. If you miss a whole month of journaling, you can start right up again any time you want. Bullet Journaling is a tool for you to use when you need it, not a program that you have to follow to the letter. You can stop journaling and start again at any time. Resolutions don’t have to be so strict. Give yourself room to be human, and recognize that you need different things at different times of your life.
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5. Don’t listen to what anyone tells you about Bullet Journaling
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Everyone has a system that works for them. Your journal is not going to look or function exactly like anyone else’s, because your life is not like anyone else’s life. Don’t let yourself get caught up in feeling like you have to keep up with the Joneses. Your journal is for you, not for anyone else.
If our advice doesn’t work for you, scrap it. If you come across different advice that works better for you, take it! If you want to develop your own system, do it. Journaling and agenda-keeping of any type should be an activity that enriches your life, however that looks for you. We hope our advice gives you inspiration to know where to start, and freedom to not feel tied to any one system or set of rules.
We hope this upcoming year brings you the determination and enthusiasm to accomplish anything you set your mind to. Have a wonderful 2020 from the Dromgoole's team!
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713.526.4651
2515 Rice Boulevard
Houston, TX 77005
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