A few years ago, I decided to start making my own cocktails at home.
There were several reasons for this. First, paying $15 for a cocktail is ridiculous. Second, too many bars serve inconsistent drinks. And third, there is nothing more disappointing than ordering a favorite cocktail and getting something completely out of balance.
The final push came on my birthday.
My spouse and I visited a local speakeasy that I had enjoyed before. It was a charming place: Prohibition-era cocktails, a small intimate room, and a password required to get through the door. Unfortunately, this visit was memorable for all the wrong reasons.
My spouse asked the bartender a question about one of the top-shelf bourbons. The bartender pulled the bottle down and slammed it onto the bar without saying a word. From that point forward, things only got worse. Our cocktails arrived in the wrong glassware, and they weren’t made correctly. At one point, my Sazerac arrived with lime in it.
A Sazerac.
With lime.
Some crimes cannot be forgiven.
On the way home, we stopped at a liquor store. I bought a few bottles and decided that if I wanted a proper Sazerac, I was going to learn how to make one myself.
It turned out to be one of the better decisions I’ve made.
Around that same time, I had watched far too many episodes of Bar Rescue. For all its drama, the show taught me something important: balance matters. A bartender who pours extra liquor into your drink isn’t necessarily doing you a favor. Every ingredient is there for a reason. The goal is not to taste the alcohol; the goal is to create something where the ingredients work together.
The more I learned, the more I noticed inconsistencies when I went out. At one upscale restaurant in town, I watched a bartender make two copies of the same specialty cocktail. They came out noticeably different shades of green. That should never happen. A cocktail should look and taste the same every single time.
These days, I have a growing collection of bar tools: jiggers, pour spouts, bar spoons, mixing glasses, strainers, and pretty much everything else a home bartender could want.
And before anyone says it: a pony is not a jigger.
A pony measures 1 ounce and 1/2 ounce. A jigger measures 2 ounces and 1 ounce. I will die on this hill.
I use those tools, too. Every pour gets measured. Every recipe gets followed. Consistency matters.
As someone who has become increasingly committed to using what I already have, I’m always looking for creative ways to avoid wasting food.
Which brings us to three persimmons.
Two days ago, I had three persimmons that had become far too squishy for me to willingly allow into my mouth. It’s a texture thing, okay?
After some searching, I found a recipe for something called a shrub—a sweetened vinegar syrup that can be mixed into everything from bourbon cocktails to sparkling water.
Naturally, I had to try it.
The process begins by peeling the persimmons and squishing out the insides.
Shudder.
The resulting pulp goes into a bowl. The basic ratio is about 1:1 fruit to sugar, so I combined 1 cup of persimmon pulp with 1 cup of sugar. I also added roughly a tablespoon of ginger powder because it sounded like a good idea at the time.
I covered the bowl with plastic wrap and left it in the refrigerator overnight.
The next morning—at approximately 6:40 a.m., for reasons I still cannot explain—I strained out the solids and was left with about 2 ounces of syrup.
This will be great in yogurt or something later.
The solids weren’t wasted. I saved them in a separate container with plans to add them to yogurt later.
Next came the vinegar.
I chose apple cider vinegar because I thought it would pair nicely with the sweetness of the persimmons. Most shrub recipes call for a 1:1 ratio of syrup to vinegar, but since this was my first attempt, I approached it cautiously.
After all, you can always add more vinegar.
You cannot un-vinegar something.
I started at about 50% of the recommended amount and gradually worked my way up to around 75%, tasting as I went.
Once I was happy with the balance, I transferred everything to a mason jar and gave it a good shake.
Then I tasted it.
Wow.
This is going to be good.
At least this wasn’t days of work to only get 4 ounces.
At the time of writing, I haven’t actually used it in a drink yet. I want to give the flavors another day or two to mingle before I start experimenting.
Besides, I only ended up with about 4 ounces of shrub.
If it’s as good as I think it’s going to be, I need to exercise at least a little self-control.
I don’t know what it is this week, but everything I’ve tried for the second time seems to have been far more difficult than the first.
I managed a row of single crochet for the first time, then immediately discovered I was incapable of doing it again. And this notebook…
When I made my River Song planner cover, I removed the paper block completely intact—glue, stitching, and all. Naturally, this led me to think, “Why not make a tiny, tiny A6 Coptic notebook?”
I already knew black paper behaves more like cardstock than regular paper, so I planned accordingly: four signatures, two sheets per signature, plus some black cardstock I already had set aside for the covers.
First, either the cardstock I bought is too heavy, or someone on the internet lied to me about how well it would work.
Second, my bookbinding needles are apparently designed for projects much larger than a delicate little A6 notebook.
Third, my only thread option was from an upholstery repair kit that, for reasons known only to the manufacturer, included regular sewing thread. That was probably a blessing for a notebook this small, but it’s definitely not going to hold up for anything larger or thicker.
By the time I finished, I had used several words I wouldn’t say in front of my mother.
The upside of making such a tiny notebook is that it’s difficult to see the sewing details. Since I don’t think my stitching was particularly impressive, that’s probably for the best.
But hey—once again, it lays flat.
At this point, I’m beginning to think that’s becoming my signature accomplishment.
Get it? Signature?
Pages repurposed from a different notebook.Front cover with holes.Finished notebook from the side.It lays flat!
I recently went on a cruise to Scandinavia with a parent. One of my closest friends lives in Oslo, and I really wanted to see them—especially because I’m planning to start looking for work in Norway at some point. That’s a very long-term project involving sponsors, immigration paperwork, and enough bureaucracy to keep several trees employed, but still.
Our first port was Kristiansand, Norway. We took an excursion to the old town and a cannon museum that had been a Nazi stronghold during World War II. It wasn’t my first choice. We had originally booked a train excursion, but it was canceled, so I scrambled to find a replacement.
Old Quarter of Kristiansand
The main thing I wanted to do in Kristiansand was visit Norli, one of Norway’s bookstore chains. Naturally, that became my first priority.
This is clearly a cathedral but I was standing next to Norli, so it counts.
Finding a Norwegian book turned out to be more difficult than expected. Many of the books were in English, and a surprising number seemed to involve Harry Potter. I have had enough of J.K. Rowling to last the rest of my natural life, so I kept looking. Eventually, I found a novel that turned out to be book seven in a series. Fortunately, it appears to be fairly standalone.
After that, I became determined to buy shoes.
I had packed my ugliest pair of sneakers for the trip and immediately regretted it. While shopping, I stopped in one store where the salesperson assumed I was Norwegian.
Reader, I have been living off that compliment ever since.
This is probably why she thought I was Norwegian – required for citizenship.
I’ve been trying to teach myself Norwegian on and off for years, so having someone assume I was local felt fantastic.
Eventually, I found the shoes and then it was off to Oslo.
I won’t go into much detail about my visit with my friend. Some things are allowed to remain private. 😉
What I will say is that a surprising amount of Oslo was shut down because the president of India was visiting.
That is not a sentence I ever expected to write.
Despite that, I loved Oslo. After meeting up with my friend, parent and I headed to the cultural museum because I had one goal: see a stave church.
Stave church…dream come true!
The museum ended up being one of the best museums I’ve ever visited, and I’ve been fortunate enough to visit places like the Louvre and the Rodin Museum. The grounds contain around 180 buildings from different regions and time periods throughout Norwegian history. I could easily have spent an entire day there.
This is the inside of the stave church. I can’t believe how beautiful it was.
Sadly, Oslo was also our last day in Norway.
One thing I’m especially proud of is how much Norwegian I actually attempted to speak. A few years ago, I would have been far too shy to try. This time, I used Norwegian whenever I could. Everyone was patient, and I even completed an entire transaction in Norwegian.
For someone who mostly learned through podcasts, books, and stubbornness, that felt like a victory.
Then we arrived in Denmark.
Our first stop was Copenhagen, where we spent the entire day at Tivoli Gardens. The rides were fantastic. Some of them are surprisingly old, and yet they remain incredibly fun.
A garden in Tivoli Gardens.Still not sure what this pirate ship is, what it’s for, etc.
Outside of Tivoli, though, I didn’t enjoy Copenhagen very much. I found the city dirtier than I expected, and nothing else really grabbed my attention.
Our final port was Skagen, where we took an excursion to Voergaard Manor and the supposedly idyllic town of Sæby.
The manor was interesting, although much of it remains a private residence, which limited what we could see.
Mostly Renaissance but the original section is medieval.
The bigger frustration came later. We lost about thirty minutes in Sæby because several people on our excursion interpreted “be back on the bus by 11:00” as “return whenever your heart tells you.”
That was unfortunate because Sæby ended up being the more interesting stop. I would have happily spent more time wandering around there.
I like old churches. This one is in Saeby.
As for the cruise itself?
This was my second cruise, and I suspect it will also be my last.
The vegan food options were disappointing. The food wasn’t terrible, but when I’m paying cruise prices, I expect meals that are better than what I can make at home. For a buffet that seemed to stretch across half the ship, there were usually only two or three vegan options available, most commonly lentil curry or eggplant.
At one point there was vegan gravy but no vegan mashed potatoes.
I still haven’t recovered from the confusion.
Finding decent food became a daily challenge, which was a major disappointment.
And, of course, there is one unavoidable feature of cruises.
I had to leave town for a couple of days, and when I got home, I was greeted by an overgrown nightmare. Okay, maybe “nightmare” is too strong, but the green carpet across the whole area made it incredibly difficult to find the things I actually planted.
Over the past three days, I’ve spent eight or nine hours trying to catch up. I’m finally starting to see a modicum of progress, but overall, it’s been pretty discouraging.
I lost a whole row of herbs because they were planted too close to a quince bush that I cannot get rid of no matter how hard I try. I lost several more herbs for unknown reasons, too. One of them grew perfectly fine last year, but not this year.
I also found an insect that immediately triggered the “OMG what the heck is that???” response.
The bunching onions and chives never sprouted, either.
After about 90 minutes of work, I finally started to feel like I could at least see the garden again.
Two hours later, I was still pulling weeds and trying to identify what was actually growing versus what had invited itself into the beds.
At around the five-hour mark, things finally started looking a little more manageable, and I could focus less on panic-weeding and more on checking on the vegetables that were actually doing well.
Okay, now for the better news: my tomato plants are doing well. I have a lot of carrots, lettuce, arugula, and an absurd amount of dill and cilantro.
After all of that work, I finally harvested my very first thing of the season: one single radish. 😀
I know that in a week or two I’ll probably feel much better about all of this, but right now I mostly feel discouraged and overwhelmed. I guess the “silver lining” is that I also just lost my job, so now I get to spend a lot more time out there…
I used to see a lot of bullet journals on my personal Instagram account and thought they looked amazing. Design your own planner exactly the way you want? Sweet.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that there was an actual method attached to bullet journaling. I hadn’t done much research before trying it myself. I was mostly seeing beautiful spreads online — watercolor paintings, perfectly coordinated weekly layouts, intricate trackers, and pages that looked more like art books than planners.
Very quickly, I started to feel pressure to make mine look like that.
At first, I tried drawing every weekly and monthly spread ahead of time. I do not have the patience for that, so I switched to drawing one or two weeks at a time instead. Then I realized that if I wanted things like my book tracker in the back of the notebook, I would need to plan the entire notebook layout in advance anyway.
I tried using the actual Bullet Journal method at one point and discovered I hated how unfinished it felt. I wanted structure and consistency, not rapid logging and migration. I know that system works wonderfully for some people, but it didn’t work for me.
The Sticker Phase
While I was working on my computer science degree, I had an instructor who was very into planner culture. She showed me her A6 Wonderland222 planner and I immediately fell in love with it. I ordered one myself and quickly became overwhelmed by all the blank space.
This instructor was also very into a particular stationery and planner sticker shop, which I won’t name here because this is not criticism of that creator or her business. She gave me a small card with samples of washi tape, so naturally I visited the shop and bought a ton of things: weekly kits, monthly kits, decorative stickers, functional stickers…if it had cats, books, or cats with books, I bought it.
Then I found another shop and bought even more.
I hit the Black Friday sales hard. I ordered a Chinese New Year advent calendar and opened the entire thing all at once because I lacked the patience to wait.
As it turns out, many of these weekly kits are not designed for A6 planners at all. They are generally made for Hobonichi planners and similar Japanese formats. So I ended up with stickers overlapping into the next day, which drove me absolutely insane. At that point, I decided I hated my A6 planner and swore I would never buy one again.
Naturally, I decided to try bullet journaling again so I could use the stickers there instead.
That also did not work.
I tried using every sticker in the weekly kits because I felt like I needed to justify owning them. The result was cluttered, overwhelming, and honestly kind of ugly. I also experimented with a notebook that used black paper, which sounded cool in theory but quickly became impractical when I realized I couldn’t jot something down without finding a light-colored gel pen first.
The Hobonichi Cousin
After all of that, I bought a Hobonichi Cousin because everyone I followed online swore it was the perfect planner. I liked the idea of having monthly, weekly, and daily pages all in one place. When it arrived, I spent several hours assigning themes to each month and drawing a detailed book tracker in the back. I was ready.
And then I realized that system didn’t work for me either.
The daily pages felt like pressure. I barely touched the monthly spreads. I ignored most of the trackers. I disliked how few blank pages there were, and especially disliked what felt like wasted space: pages about preserving eyesight and address pages I knew I would never use.
People often say the printed ink is light enough that you can simply write over the daily pages if you want to repurpose them. In my experience, that wasn’t true at all. My handwriting competed visually with the printed quotes at the bottom of the page, and I found myself crossing out dates at the top just to make the pages usable.
Everything felt chaotic.
Returning to Structure
Eventually, I tried bullet journaling again — except this time, it slowly stopped being a planner altogether. Instead, it became a commonplace book. Looking back, that is probably what brought me back to keeping commonplace books in the first place.
Ironically, after all of this experimentation, I ended up returning to the A6 Wonderland222 planner.
Why Aesthetic Productivity Didn’t Work for Me
Over time, I realized that my aesthetic simply does not align with what people often associate with planner culture online. What I actually appreciate about the Wonderland222 is that it provides underlying structure without demanding that I use it in a particular way.
I eventually realized that I am creative, but only if there is some structure underneath everything.
For example, I turned some of the undated daily pages into a baseball section where I track my favorite team’s roster, wins and losses, and other notes throughout the season. I even designed my reading tracker to resemble a baseball scorekeeping book.
That creativity came much more naturally once I stopped trying to recreate what looked good online.
In the end, aesthetic productivity simply did not work for me, and that’s okay.
I don’t want organizing my life to feel performative. I’m minimalist by nature, and I eventually realized that I was spending more time trying to create the appearance of organization than actually building systems that supported my life.
At the same time, I know aesthetic productivity genuinely helps some people stay engaged and organized, and I’m glad they’ve found systems that work for them.
Because ultimately, that’s the point of a planner in the first place.
Baseball schedule – a bit messy, but beautiful to me! 🙂
This is not an actual photo of me – credit to ChatGPT for the image generation.
I have spent years feeling inadequate because there is so much I want to learn that I eventually become overwhelmed and end up touching none of it.
At the moment, I am studying four languages. I am still in the phase where my brain immediately reverts to French because it was the first language I learned outside of English.
There are currently four commonplace books in my bag. One of them is completely blank, just in case.
I carry a pen case full of stationery tools I “might need,” along with a Kindle Scribe.
I want to write a dissertation on the Scottish Highlands around the time of Culloden. Or perhaps another period of Highland history. I still cannot decide.
I want to learn to knit so I can make beautiful sweaters and shawls.
I am trying to grow my own food and learn how to can it, partially because gardening fascinates me and partially because apparently some part of my brain is preparing for a zombie apocalypse.
I want to make paper and ink.
I am going to spin my own yarn someday and dye it using plants I have grown myself.
I am designing a planner that actually fits the way I think and work instead of settling for something mass-produced.
I am binding notebooks by hand because it turns out I genuinely enjoy it.
For a long time, all of this made me feel like a failure. I constantly felt behind. Surely, if I were more disciplined, more focused, or more organized, I would already be proficient at half these things.
Eventually, though, I realized something important:
You cannot dedicate your entire life to mastering dozens of subjects simultaneously.
Some seasons of life are for language learning. Some are for gardening. Some are for theology, history, sewing, bookbinding, or note-taking systems.
Some days I spend hours studying Torah. Other days I spend six straight hours documenting Norwegian vocabulary and grammar rules in my learning compendium like a Victorian scholar who has just discovered Scandinavia.
And honestly? That is fine.
I have stopped trying to force myself into becoming a hyper-efficient machine optimized for productivity and mastery at all times.
Now I mostly try to ride the wave of whatever is currently lighting up my brain.
The interests eventually circle back around anyway.
You do not have to learn everything at once.
You just have to stay curious enough to keep returning to the things you love.
There have been several studies showing that people tend to remember information better when they write it down by hand. For me, that has absolutely been true. Hence the ever-growing stack of commonplace books around my house.
One study discussed in Scientific American explains that typing involves repeating the same simple finger movements, while handwriting creates distinct physical motions for each letter. According to Audrey van der Meer, who spearheaded the study, handwriting helps lock the motor and sensory systems together.
I won’t get too deep into the science here. That isn’t my area of expertise. But looking back, I wish I had been able to handwrite more of my notes in law school.
I tried for a week or two. Eventually, though, the professors spoke too quickly for me to keep up effectively by hand. I switched to typing instead, organizing everything neatly in OneNote by class, with individual pages for each topic on the syllabus. My organization system was solid. The problem was retention.
I’m also not the type of person who can compulsively reread notes over and over again. That makes it especially important for me to absorb the material the first time I encounter it, and handwriting seems to help with that.
In high school, we had spelling tests where we memorized vocabulary terms alongside their definitions. During the test, we had to fill in the correct word next to each definition. Because I had physically written the words down beforehand, I could often close my eyes and “see” the page in my head. Even if I couldn’t immediately remember the correct word, I could remember where it had been positioned relative to the others on the list.
That kind of visual and physical memory still seems to matter for me now.
At any rate, I love creating these various and often random commonplace books. I don’t have to learn at someone else’s speed. I can sketch diagrams where needed. I can reorganize information however my brain naturally wants to process it. For me, it’s simply a better system.
The funny thing is that I never really learned how to study. As a child, most schoolwork came easily to me, so no one ever thought I might need actual study strategies later on.
Over the years, I have Googled and browsed Pinterest trying to find the “best” note-taking system. One method that appears constantly is the Cornell Method, where the page is divided into three sections: a narrow left-hand “cue” column for keywords or questions, a larger note-taking section on the right, and a summary section at the bottom.
I tried it a couple of times and never found it especially helpful. Even the research surrounding the method seems somewhat inconclusive.
What I eventually realized is that I don’t need an elaborate system.
I just need something straightforward that works with the way my brain already processes information: plain notebooks, handwritten notes, and room to think.
No fancy handwriting. No planner stickers. Just paper.
And yes, I once asked ChatGPT for note-taking advice. It suggested mind maps.
I practically yelled at the screen.
They look so chaotic to me that I know I would immediately become irritated with my own notes and never look at them again.
I spent five hours on 5/9/2026 weeding and somehow still feel like I barely made a dent. Still, I was able to confirm growth from several more plants, even if others continue to elude me.
Vegetables I can identify so far: six carrots (not too concerning, since carrots can be reseeded every couple of weeks through July), sixteen potential heads of lettuce, six or seven heads of Swiss chard, four or five heads of arugula, and two corn stalks. I planted two rows of corn earlier than usual because the soil temperature was finally warm enough…or so I thought.
Herbs I can identify: lots of dill, oregano, borage, lovage, lemon balm, and marsh mallow. Oh, and of course the mint I planted in the strawberry pot — the same mint I apparently dig up every single time I weed. -_-
About a week ago, I transferred my Japanese Trifele Black tomatoes into larger pots, and by today they already looked strong enough to plant outside. I planted five of those, along with five Brandywine tomatoes that skipped the intermediate pot stage entirely. I decided not to transplant the Cuore di Bue yet because they still don’t quite have true leaves. Those will probably be ready in another couple of weeks.
Finally, I was also able to transplant the mini bell peppers and the cayenne peppers. Huzzah!
Not everything is going smoothly, though. My zucchini and cucumber starts — which I bought to replace the pickling cucumbers that died — are already struggling with powdery mildew. Since I don’t have a drip irrigation system, these plants need extra attention to keep moisture off the leaves.
One common treatment is mixing 1 tablespoon of baking soda with 1 gallon of water. I applied it with a watering can, although apparently spraying it directly onto the leaves would have worked better.
I also used a vegan disease and bug repellent on the greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini. The Swiss chard already has a few holes in the leaves, and I know from previous years that stink bugs absolutely love my squash plants. Turning over a squash leaf and discovering hundreds of stink bugs underneath is not an experience I care to repeat. No thanks.
One leaf on the right, one on the left with powdery mildew.Total of 10 tomato plants in.
Every time I take a vacation (which is rare the past few years), I always end up being overly ambitious about how many books I will get through. Even though I always have my Kindle, I still think I should pack 3 or 4 physical books too.
I considered taking two physical books and one commonplace book for this trip and studying a bit. Then I remembered that ships sway. Like…a lot. I try very hard to keep my handwriting neat and readable, so I don’t believe a swaying ship will be conducive in this particular endeavor.
Thus, I will only take my Kindle. I have the Scribe, which comes with a stylus, so I can either take notes in the book itself, or highlight things I might want to transfer into a commonplace book after I get home.
I am also one of those people who packs a ton of stuff “just in case” I want to use it. For example, when I go to work, my bag contains my Kindle; a pen case with a variety of Zebra Mildliners, some washi tape, correction tape, a straightedge, two mechanical pencils, lead refills, and an eraser; at least two of my commonplace books; my planner (which is in its own purse); and if there is a morning/early afternoon baseball game, my tablet. Yesterday, I was excited to read during lunch, so guess what I forgot to pack? See? If I don’t have it, that’s the only thing I want.
So…I have to be firm while packing. Kindle, planner, maybe one commonplace book. Oh, and I suppose I should pack clothes.
Cèilidh Nam Freumhan 