The end of an era?

I'm currently facing one of those dilemmas that strikes fear into the hearts of those of us who rely on our old faithfuls...I think my favorite journal is being discontinued. Since mid-2005, I've been using the same type of journal. It's leather bound, roughly 6x8, with a sewn binding and cream colored paper of a lovely thickness. I do glue two pages together before I work on them, but it's probably unnecessary. I just like a little extra thickness since I do a lot of painting and collage in my books. Almost everything about this journal has been perfect for me and the way that I work. I like the simplicity of the leather cover- just a plain brown or black, no extra embellishing. I like the quality of the sewn binding, which allows me to remove pages without wrecking the binding. I like the color and the feel of the paper. The only thing I've wished for, on occasion, is that they would make a slightly larger version, slightly smaller than 8.5x11.

It takes me 2-3 months to fill one, and I've been using them since 2005, so I have a good stack of these. They feel like home to me. They feel right in my hand and they fit perfectly in nearly every bag I own. When I begin a new journal, there's still that sense of familiarity. I love these darned books.

But when I bought my last journal, I had a hard time finding one. They're usually right there with all the other leather bound journals at Barnes and Noble. Last time I had to go to two different stores before I found one. I didn't think much of it at the time, but I'm nearing the end of my current journal, and I set out to pick up another new one this week. I had to go to three stores before I found one this time. And I had to dig for it, too. It was hidden behind some other style of journals like a lost treasure. My hoarder tendencies sprung right up, and I had the cashier try to locate another one for me. She looked it up in the computer, and only one store within a 50 mile radius that still has some in stock. (Guess where I'm going tomorrow? lol) The cashier wasn't entirely sure if it is being discontinued, but she thinks that the fact that they are disappearing from all the stores isn't a good sign.

So I'm a little nervous that once I fill the journal I bought today, and the one I plan on picking up tomorrow, I'm going to have to go back to the drawing board on journal options. I guess I should be looking at it as an opportunity to branch out, try something new, play around with a larger size, rah rah rah. But instead it makes me downright grumpy because this one area where I don't want to fix what isn't broken. It took me a good few years, and a dozen journals, before I found and fell in love with this one. I don't wanna look for a new love! I want my old one!

Anyway, despite driving around from one Barnes & Noble to the next,  and griping on the Internet like a curmudgeon, I have been journaling a little. I did a page recording some of my Vegas memories, which was okay but not fantastic. Somehow journaling about something days later sort of lost the energy that I think it would've had if I'd done the page actually in Vegas, or right after I got home. But the second page was fun for me. I played around with doing a border (cut from an old calendar) around the entire page, and I like how it turned out.