"Words -- so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them." ― Nathaniel Hawthorne 💙 Ah, so true! Nothing I know is more powerful than words; they can hurt like hell, soothe and encourage, change your mind, change your life! Have a lovely Wednesday, beautiful souls! 😘✨🦋

I’m going through a phase where I write my personal journal less often, maybe twice a week, but I seem to write more pages each time. 📖🖋📖🖋📖🖋📖🖋 That’s why I can never have pre-written dates in my notebooks. It’s important to me to respect my creative rhythms, to accept that some days I just don’t have time or can’t be bothered. This flexibility has allowed me to keep going forward with this habit, even if it’s done at different speeds throughout the year. It slows down, but it never really stops. 🐌📖🐆 Are your quite rigid with your writing habits or do you allow yourself some flexibility? I wish you a sweet and easy day, my lovelies 😘✨🍄❣️

My Writers’ Wisdom notebook 📖🖌 Today I added the words of Isabel Allende, a prolific Chilian novelist I have loved for a long time 📚💕📚💕📚 I wish you a motivating, interesting Monday my lovelies 😘✨🍂🐿🍁🍄

Reading excerpts from an author I love 💙 this is a rather new notebook, and in this one I can use all my inks! In the previous one, a Moleskine, I could only write with my black Pelikan ink, all the others ended in massive bleedthrough disaster. This is Diamine Presidential Blue 🖌 I hope your Sunday was as peaceful and cozy as mine… I made soup, walked Solo, journaled, updated my planners, cleaned my office space, and now I’m going to call my parents for our weekly chat📞 Ready for a brand new week! Have a beautiful one, my lovelies 😘💙✨

Study notes at an airbnb last week, with less than ideal lighting but not all pictures are created equal 🤷🏻‍♀️ 🎞 - at home I use a really strong white light that mimics the sunlight, but I didn’t travel with it. 📸 What works for you when it comes to IG pictures? Do you always take them at the same place? Do you use tools, filters, etc? I tend to be pretty lazy when it comes to apps and ways to make my feed more interesting. I still don’t know how to do a reel, I don’t ever use effects…even though I enjoy them on others’ feeds. I’d love to learn all that but a part of me thinks “no, you have zero time left to add to the social media aspect of your journaling”… So I try to stay reasonable, even if I did get many DMs lately about why I don’t do videos, why I don’t have a youtube channel, or sell products… (because I don’t want to quit anything in my life so I can have more time to devote to social media) - I’m here for the community and the inspiration and it’s working for me✨📖✨ We all have the same amount of hours in a day - do you struggle with balancing what you do with them? Do you have non-negotiables (I consider fitness like one, for instance, I feel like it keeps my energy, mood and stamina stable for everything else, so it’s like an essential medication) 🚴🏻‍♀️ It has been such a struggle in my life to balance my time, and I’m not as busy as other people seem to be. I’m just naturally slow 😆🐌 Aaah, more time! The one thing we can’t purchase, no matter how rich we are! 🙇🏻‍♀️⏰📆 Ok enough ramblings for today, I hope you have an inspiring Thursday, my lovelies 😘🧡🍂🐿

This section in my Research Journal is all about the history of matrimony…So here is a pretty love quote to balance out the abominations of history I’m describing : 🥰 “What greater thing is there for two human souls, than to feel that they are joined for life–to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting?” ~ George Eliot (whose real name was Mary Ann Cross, but back then women were not even freakin’ allowed to write books so…) Going back to my tedious linguistics theory textbooks books now 📚📚 and wishing you a wonderful Wednesday my lovelies 😘💕✨

I’m home and I’m so happy to be surrounded by the familiar things I love…even if I already miss my family! I have an insanely busy week, as I need to catch up on all the reading I didn’t do while on the road, and I have a paper due on Friday. So I will keep my captions short this week, and my screen time to a minimum… until I feel somewhat on top of my to-do list. Sending you hugs from my messy desk! Have a great week my lovelies 💚😘📗🖋✨

Bonjour from the neverending road 🛣🛣🛣 It will actually end for us today : only four hours left to our three day adventure. I’m taking a break at the most depressing highway stop in Indiana right now, because my hands hurt from holding the wheel with the grip of death 🤭 I’m starting to feel yucky from all the unhealthy road food…at every trip I promise myself the next time I travel I will pack kale smoothies and various hippie crunch superfoods so I don’t have to put myself through airport and highway gastronomy…but do I ever do that? Ne-vah. You don’t want to know how many fries I ate on this trip 😆 Monday I go back to the greens, the workouts and the self-looooooove 🥬🚴🏻‍♀️💋 for real! I wish you a happy, joyful Saturday my lovelies 😘✨💕🚗🐾

🎶 on the road again 🎶 We’re taking a break for lunch in Amsterdam, New York. So far I drove all the way here…my husband decided I was going to get over my fear of driving once and for all, so an overdose of highways over the next three days should inoculate me for good 🙄 What’s next!? Eat a spider? Sit on the edge on the Grand Canyon? (I have a lot of phobias) — but it’s true that there is only one way to surmount them…! I can’t wait to be sitting at my desk to do some quiet journaling with Solo at my feet. He’s enjoying the trip, doesn’t seem to realize his precious life is at stake when Mama is behind the wheel. Maybe he’s right, maybe I can do this 💪🚗🐾 I wish you an inspiring Thursday, my lovelies 😘💕✨🍁

I’m at the airport, a few minutes left before my husband’s plane lands! 🛬💕 I just realized the passionate kiss I was picturing in my mind will have to happen through a mask 🥴 how romantic! I just wanted to wish you a peaceful and productive week, my lovelies 😘💕✨🍁

Research pages on the symbolism of apples 🍎 because it’s the season!! Apples have had such consequences in “history” whether for Snow White or Eve… !😲 I’m driving to Montréal tomorrow morning to pick up my husband at the airport 💃🏻🕺🏻🦮 Tuesday, we drive back home together with Solo. 🏡🚗🐾 Happy October my lovelies, it’s the best month in my opinion, so I intend to enjoy it fully and immortalize it in my journal! 🍁🍂

I’m driving back to the American midwest next week. It was a tough decision ; I was hoping that by now we would have found our dream home in Vermont, and I wouldn’t have to go back…🚗🚗 …but to make a long story short, looking for a home was made very complicated these past few months…the US-Canada border, which was closed during the worst of the pandemic, reopened on August 9th for Americans who want to drive to Canada. I naively thought the US would reciprocate and immediately open their side to Canadians. But no, it’s still closed, which makes everything so annoying for me. I will have to come back here in the early Spring and resume my house hunting! 🤷🏻‍♀️🏡 What I truly want is to build a house right on the border, so my side of the house would be in Canada, and once in a while I’d invite my husband to visit the Queen of the North, and then I could say “nah, go back to your country, you yankee intruder!” …he would then build a wall in the living room, right in the middle of the sofa, so I could finally watch my French TV shows and he could watch football. Would that perhaps be the key to perfect happiness?! I wish you a wonderful Wednesday my lovelies 😘💕✨🍁