I love stationery. There isn't much that I don't love about it to be honest, but its mainly the promise those empty pages give, the organisational possibilities and sometimes just how god damn pretty it all is! I totally geeked out when I saw the passions collection from moleskine and so may have gone a little crazy with an Amazon order.
My first choice was the Wellness Journal. I actually first saw this on Rachel's blog, Notes From My Closet and knew that I might have to get a sneakly purchase in.
Like all moleskines this is covered in a (faux??) leather black casing, but this series are embossed with images that match their purpose. So the wellness journal has people in various athletic poses. It has an elastic strap around it, to hold everything in place, and 3 different coloured ribbons (grey, charcoal and black) so that you can mark 3 different pages (very handy).
The journal starts with some basic info, such as conversion charts for sizes, seasonal foods and a list of basic foods along with their nutritional information, which are a useful reference. The smooth off-white pages are then pre-tabbed into different sections, such as Personal Goals, Diet and Exercise Log. These sections have pages printed, to help you record the information in the best possible way.
I have used the diet pages (blank pictured below) to create daily meal plans. There are not enough pages for you to really use it as a food diary long term, but I thought creating 'perfect' days and meal ideas would be a useful reference for those days when I'm getting a total food blank.
The exercise log would be fantastic to use if you had a particular goal in mind e.g. a certain length of run or the ability to lift a certain amount of weight. Marking down every run or little work out, would over time allow you to reflect on just how far you have come.
After the 6 tabs, there are a further 6 blank tabs with relatively standard pages; some blank and some in empty tables. The back wallet (a standard feature of all moleskine notebooks) contains some stickers that give you some ideas about what you might want to record in these sections, such as inspirations, challenges and meals. I have actually created a section called meals, as I think this will be a good place to actually write out whole meals with ingredients, instructions and nutritional information. I have then cross referenced my food plan days with the meals in these sections.
The notebook also comes with a set of grey and green stickers, that you can use to highlight your notes. Who doesn't love a sticker!
My second notebook from the passions collection is the book journal. You may recall that I have set myself a challenge of reading more in 2013 (not going too well), and I thought this would be a great way of recording all those great stories.
This would be a great gift for any book-worm, and once again has those lovely smooth moleskine pages, ribbons, and handy wallet at the back (which I have photographed below). It also has the colourful stickers to help you take notice of certain pages or notes.
The notebook contains a tabbed A-Z index, and it is up to you whether you record your reads by title or author. Each page contains a dedicated space for you to write your favourite quotes and your opinion on the book as well as how you rate it out of 5.
After the Z, there are again 6 tabs with blank pages for you fill with whatever musings take your fancy. Once again, there are some stickers with suggestions, and I have created a section to record the names of my favourite books, the books that we have read and are going to read at book club and my 'To Read' list. I'm sure that I will think of a use for the other 3 sections as time goes on. I really do love this little book and can't wait to get it filled in.
I brought these journals from Amazon for about £12 each, and there is a huge variety including a fashion and style journal and recipe journal that might also interest other bloggers. Have you got a passions journal and do you use it? Are there any other companies out there that have things like this?
