quarantine Archives - The Well-Appointed Desk

Taking It One Hand at a Time

Ana — Fri, 03 Apr 2020 15:00:00 +0000

by Tina Koyama

My Leuchtturm weekly planner is eerily empty. As a mostly retired introvert, my calendar is never overly full, but it hasn’t been this blank since seventh grade. Jazzercise on Mondays, yoga on Wednesdays, an Urban Sketchers meetup every second Fridays – all gone for the foreseeable future (thank goodness the trash pickup is still on Thursdays, or I’d lose all my weekly markers).

A week or so after Washington State’s (and the US’s) first COVID-19 deaths became public, my anxiety level was ramping up as fast as the infection curve. Drawing always takes my mind off other things, so I wanted to keep going with my usual sketching habit, but I was having difficulty focusing. Nothing grabbed my eye, and I kept fussing about which (of my admittedly vast supply of) art materials to use. I needed something to draw that I didn’t have to look for or be inspired by first. One morning I simply grabbed a Bic ballpoint that I had last used during InkTober and started drawing my own hand (which happened to be “handy”). It worked: The act of focusing on the drawing calmed my agitation so that I could move on to other tasks.

Over the next few days, I drew my hand each day. When I shared the sketches on social media, I joked that I had become more aware than ever of my hands, squeaky-clean but increasingly chapped as they were.

I know that many writers and other creatives start their day by writing “morning pages” in the Julia Cameron tradition. I decided that drawing my hand every morning would give me the same kind of daily focus I needed to get through this global disaster. It gives me a bit of structure on my empty calendar. Like writing morning pages, it clears my mind while also giving me time to reflect if I’m ready to. Sometimes the act of sketching shakes loose some thoughts that are worth following up, so I end up journaling afterwards.

For now, I’m sticking with simple materials so that I can grab any paper without worrying about whether it’s compatible. A favorite notebook has become one by Shizen Design that Ana gave me a while back. It contains five bright colors of paper bound into one book, and the thin paper seems to do best with ballpoint and pencil, so I get an easy color fix without fuss.

Take care, everyone, and wash your hands. Please share in the comments how you are getting through each day. You can follow my daily hand sketches on Instagram.

Tina Koyama is an urban sketcher in Seattle. Her blog is Fueled by Clouds & Coffee, and you can follow her on Instagram as Miatagrrl.

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Setting up my new home office

Ana — Fri, 27 Mar 2020 15:00:00 +0000

While much of the world is starting to adapt to a life of working from home, I am in the process of setting up a home office in preparation for my new life. What form that will take exactly, I’m not sure.

I was recently laid-off from my job of 19 years. This lay-off occurred just weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread across the globe. Unlike other people who have lost jobs as a result of the pandemic, I was already unemployed and largely staying at home before our current shelter-at-home policy took effect.

I had not really started thinking about how or where I would work until the shelter-at-home requirements had been put into place. My timing is terrible, I know. The BWI Pen Show and the Arkansas Pen Show were immediately after my lay-off and I hoped they would provide an infusion of funds and much-needed time with friends and penthusiasts.

Once I returned home after the Arkansas Pen Show, I realized it was time to get serious about dusting off my resume and portfolio and start planning for my new life, whatever form that may take.

Part of that planning included needing to set-up an actual work space at home. Previously, I had been making do, working from the kitchen counter or precariously balancing my CINTIQ on the edge of a tiny tabletop when freelance work was needed. This was not comfortable or the least bit ergonomic.

Initially, we were planning to acquire various new pieces from IKEA including an adjustable standing desk, new drawer units and accessories however the whole non-essential travel ban made it necessary to think inside the box. By that I mean, we needed to poke around our packrat house and try to locate items we could use or reuse. Bob found an old, extra-large (30″x40″) drafting board in the basement that he had purchased at a yard sale several years ago. He got out the power sander and some stain and urethane and refinished the drafting board into a new worktop for me. He also found an old set of IKEA legs at the print shop and mounted them on the bottom. Voila! a new-old desk.

It has enough room for my CINTIQ touch screen, laptop, bluetooth keyboard and some pretty bits so that it doesn’t feel too austere.

We rescued an old metal drawer unit from the print shop as well that I could use to put various ephemera bits. It currently has our postal scale (yes, we are still shipping out orders!) and I’ve added a couple of my Dudek pen blocks so I have both beautiful and useful writing tools at the ready.

Also on my desk are:

Galen Leather washi tape dispenser ($35 via Vanness PenShop)
Japanese tea warmer ($18.99 via Amazon)
Bunny Desk Scissors ($29.95 via Amazon)
Anker Soundcore Boost Bluetooth speaker ($59.99 via Amazon)
Kathy Weller “We are the Weirdos” mug ($20.50 via Etsy)
Kate Spade stationery box ($30)
sheep pushpin keeper ($9.95 via Amazon)
Pelikan Star Ruby Fountain Pen ($167.95 via Goldspot Pens)
Lamy 2000 Multi-Color Ballpoint (€56.20 via Appelboom)
Parker Jotter Fountain Pen ($24 via Goldspot Pens)

And before anyone asks, it looks like the cover on my laptop is no longer available on Amazon but similar designs can be found here.

Have you set-up a work-from-home space? Are you making do on your couch or kitchen table? Or are you still able to go to your job wherever it may be?

Thanks to my sponsors for providing some of the images I use for Fashionable Friday. Please consider making your next purchase from one of the shops that support this blog and let them know you heard about them here. Thanks for your support and for supporting the shops that help keep it running.

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Link Love: (Week Two Quarantine)

Ana — Wed, 25 Mar 2020 15:00:00 +0000

For me, this is my second week of social distancing/quarantine/lockdown. Tuesday was the start of a 30-day Stay-at-Home Order from the city of Kansas City. Previously, we were just recommended to practice social distancing, but this week things have gotten more serious.

I would love to make Link Love entirely a place for escape from the Covid-19 concerns in our world but I’m sure, like me, it’s good to have resources and inspiration for how to get through these tough times and also to hear how others are doing. Thankfully, the internet has made it possible for us all to not feel so alone.

However, using pens and pencils allow us to escape from the digital boxes. Like Laura posted yesterday, there has never been a better time to redouble journaling efforts to document this historic time. Journals provide a safe place to put down all our worries too. We can also take time to tackle some correspondence and reconnect in a more analog way (check out the Thank You, Internet post from Typewriter Revolution).

My hope is that you and your loved ones are healthy and well and that we must just concern ourselves with how to get through a trying time. If you have other suggestions or stories about your time in isolation, please post them in the comments.

Journaling in the time of Covid-19

Laura Cameron — Tue, 24 Mar 2020 15:00:00 +0000

Review by Laura Cameron

How are you? No really. I’m asking how you are. Because the last two weeks have been a whirlwind and I feel like I’ve fallen through the looking glass into a completely different world. And sometimes I’m ok, and sometimes I’m not.

About a week and a half ago, I saw a Tweet that talked about the importance of journaling right now, not just to alleviate one’s own anxiety, but because we are living in a historical time and what we write could become a primary source for future generations.

I thought about this, and about how journaling has helped me during the worst of times (I suffer from anxiety disorder and my 20s were ROUGH), and decided it was a good idea. I don’t hold myself to any particular time or format, but I try and write daily or at least every other day. Whether it’s the endless statistics that I seem to have numbed my mind to, or my swirling feelings and emotions, I’m finding it cathartic to write whatever is in my head down on paper.

When I decided to start, I first had to choose whether this journal should be electronic or handwritten. As you might guess, I opted for handwritten. I went to my drawer of notebooks and selected a nice bound volume, my Elemental Notebook. (The irony that I am writing about a respiratory pandemic in a volume dedicated to the element Oxygen does not escape my notice.)

I keep my notebook next to me on the couch, and write when the moment feels right. Although I have a ton of fountain pens, I find myself using my Retro Twinkle Popper for most of my entries. Whether or not I’ll go back and re-read my entries, or share it with future generations, or whether it will ever see the light of day, I’m finding comfort in this daily exercise. And it’s helping me be more ok.

I hope you and your families are safe and healthy and finding comfort in small things right now.

The post Journaling in the time of Covid-19 appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

Link Love: (Week One Quarantine)

Ana — Wed, 18 Mar 2020 15:00:00 +0000

Truly, I considered doing a post without a single mention of the viral infection that has left us all quarantined in our homes but I just couldn’t. So, I put most of the posts in their own section this week. That way, if you are sick to tears of all the gloom-and-doom, you can just skip that section altogether. However, I did my best to include more uplifting links throughout this week’s Link Love, even in the Coronavirus-related section. My hope is that we can all join together, separately — the mating call of introverts everywhere.

Pen-and-paper enthusiasts are probably the best suited for this sort of self-isolation. We have our notebooks, pens and inks and probably a stack of books, films and series we’ve been dying to start. I know I have unfinished knitting and sewing projects, an assortment of 30 Days of (fill in the blank) projects I’ve either started or wanted to do and a pile of cookbooks with recipes I’ve been wanting to try for ages.

As for entertaining the younger folks, online craft videos, cooking and other projects can keep them entertained. Drawing on paper grocery bags to create maps, costumes or stories might be a great way to spend an afternoon.

Don’t forget to include a little fitness into your quarantine. There are tons of videos on YouTube from yoga, pilates and other fitness gurus especially designed to do in the comfort of your own home. Going for a walk, pulling weeds in your garden or a bike ride can be your new gym regime for the foreseeable future.

I know we are all stressed about the future, our health (and the health of our families) and when the next pen show might occur. Until then, let’s host our own virtual pens shows, complete with workshops and classes, history lessons and the like.

We will continue to post reviews and ideas here to keep you all inspired.