It's an "It's about time" page-per-day diary from Brownline. Haven't used this particular product before, but when I was still working we used a lot of Brownline office supplies, and I was always pretty satisfied with their quality. It's approximately the same size as the At-a-Glance Standard Diary, which is what I figured I'd go with -- until I found the Brownline. For some reason, I find this one a little more esthetically pleasing than the Standard Diary -- might just be that slightly Deco-looking logo on the front.
Also, the Brownline was a little less expensive (I ordered mine from Amazon), making it even more attractive! Here's a shot comparing it to what I've been using for the last couple of years, an undated Exacompta Forum Journal in the 5"x7" size.
I absolutely love the cover shade of the Exacompta (it's a Quo Vadis Club Cover), the size of the journal, and the paper quality (yummy!). But I found that I was frequently using more than one page per day, so I really wanted something just a tad larger. And, at 8-and-a-half-inches by almost 6-inches, the Brownline fills that requirement perfectly.
It also has a lot of other features I really like. For instance, each month's section begins with a two-page monthly calendar spread, with nice big squares (over an inch tall) to write in.
Each two-day spread includes mini calendars (for last month, current month, and coming months). And major holidays are printed at the top of the pages, small and out of the way.
I didn't take a photo of this, but most months have a "memorandum" page following the last day's page, for notes or to-do lists. There's a four-page planner for 2014 at the back of the diary (again, no photo -- sorry). And the inside back cover includes calendars for 1800 to 2050!
So, with all that going for it, I'm hoping this is going to be fun and efficient to use. The only possibly negative feature I've found is that the paper is a little thin. But it seems to take a variety of ink very well, without a lot of show-through. And since I generally use gel ink or ballpoint, I don't think that's going to be a problem. And face it, after the Exacompta, any other paper is going to feel like a falling-off.
Well, I think that's it for now. I keep saying this (and I keep meaning it, but don't seem to be able to follow through), but I really do want to get this blog going. Which means I really need to try to post a little more frequently than twice a year!
Oh, and before I sign off, I want to say something about my search. As I said, it's taken me a long, long time to find the (fingers crossed) perfect diary. I'm not sure why it should be so difficult to find a simple one-page-per-day diary in the US. I found plenty online, for sale in Europe and the UK. I guess Americans just don't buy diaries anymore. And here I'm not talking about planners or organizers or agendas or appointment books or journals (although I use those, too!). What I wanted was just a simple daily diary with one page for each day of the year. With the dates pre-printed, but without hours and minutes pre-printed (I'm not going to use it to keep track of appointments). And at a reasonable price -- say, less than a hundred bucks. Make that much less than a hundred bucks!
I did find tons of gorgeous journals available at our local Barnes & Noble. But none of them had the requisite 365-page format, so I would have ended up using two (or more likely, one and a half) for the year. Not optimal.
Now I just need to figure out what I'm going to do about November and December. The Exacompta will get me through October, but I'll need something to use for those last two months of 2012 until I can start using the new diary on January 1st. So I guess I'm heading out on yet another search!
