Jenna’s April-June Favourite Things

July 9, 2020 by Jenna | Chatterbox, Features

I did a January-March favourites post earlier in the year, and it doesn’t really feel like 3 months has passed since then but it has. We’re now in a new financial year (I lodged my tax return yesterday – one of my favourite things to do because I get some money back hehe) and we’re not that far off from 2021 at this point…

Anyway, even though I’m still working from home and staying inside my home nearly everyday, I’ve still found some new favourites.

Stan my Sourdough Starter

I’ve been obsessed with making sourdough since the start of April and I made my own starter from scratch. Stan is maintained with a mix of rye and all-purpose flours. I did a full post on my sourdough-making process in this post here so I won’t go too much into it. I love Stan so much. He smells delicious and is really low maintenance because I keep him in the fridge and just give him a weekly feed. He makes really delicious bread and has ruined me for all store-bought bread. If it wasn’t such a long process to make each loaf, I’d be having sourdough everyday. (Don’t tell Stan I cheated on him and bought a sourdough baguette the other night!)

Le Creuset Casserole Dish

I’ve been eyeing a Le Creuset casserole dish for forever and I used my sourdough-making as an excuse to buy one (it was also 25% off sitewide at the time). It works so well for making bread and we’ve also been using it to make lots of risotto, stews and other dishes. We’d previously bought the little Le Creuset mini cocottes and now it’s so great to have the real thing! I do have to say that the mini cocottes are perfect for individual pot pies though.

Hobonichi Weeks

Lately I have rediscovered my love of the Hobonichi Weeks. I was planning on doing an updated planning post because I had started using the new Erin Condren Daily Duo (and have been really enjoying it). However, with the Erin Condren controversy that was revealed recently, I can no longer support the brand. I will continue to use the Daily Duo until it runs out in June 2021, because it cost me $150 (including shipping) and the company already has my money… but I’m going to start exploring different options for next year. In the past two years, I’ve been using a combination of a bullet journal, Hobonichi and the Erin Condren hourly planner. I will still continue to bullet journal and rediscover the versatility of the Hobonichi Weeks. I also bought a lot of Hobonichi Weeks stickers years ago so it’s great to be able to use them up.

Zebra Sarasa Mark On Pen in 0.4

Since I’ve started using a Hobonichi again, which is notorious for having very thin and smooth paper, I’ve started trying out some new pens. My favourite pen is the Pilot G2 in 0.38 but it’s not very fast-drying when I use it on the Hobonichi paper (takes probably 2-3 minutes to dry and there’s still smudging sometimes) and I didn’t really have a pen in my repertoire that wrote smoothly and dried quickly in the Hobonichi. After testing out a range of new pens, the Zebra Sarasa Mark On is my favourite. It dries quite quickly and writes really smoothly. Other contenders were the Pentel Energel Clena (the regular Pentel Energel dries way too slowly), but the nib of the Clena is more pointy and makes the writing kind of scratchy. I also like the Sakura Pigma Micron but it’s got a felt tip, which makes me sort of nervous. The Pigma Micron is really good on glossy stickers though.

My Phalaenopsis Orchid

We received an orchid as a housewarming present this time last year, and one of my goals for 2020 was to get it to rebloom. And I’m so excited to announce that it has not one but two flower spikes growing right now! Hopefully we get some beautiful flowers this year because the flower spikes look really nice and healthy (though we have had a recurring snow mold problem and have had to leave them out of their cover pots until the weather warms up). We have a second orchid but we purchased it in Summer and it finished blooming around the start of Autumn. I don’t think it’s had enough vegetative growth time for it to rebloom this year. For now, I’m feeling super accomplished and fingers crossed we get beautiful blooms for years to come.


Hope you all had a (relatively) good first half of the year. Did anything exciting happen? I’d love to know!

The following two tabs change content below.
Jenna is an Aussie blogger and reader who loves to indulge in great books and great food. She is a doctor (of philosophy) and can usually be found fangirling about something, devouring delicious food, or taking a nap. You can find her on Twitter @readwithjenna and on Instagram @readingwithjenna.

Tags:


4 responses to “Jenna’s April-June Favourite Things

  1. Wowww, Erin Condren DID that? That’s… horrible. A perfect example of the privilege she wrote about. Hopefully you find an awesome new planner company with better morals!

    I love how your sourdough starter’s name is Stan – when I first read it, I thought you used it in the fandom vernacular (like “stanning” a character?), and I guess it still fits! We stan stan.

    Hope you and Adrien have a wonderful month Jenna, and that your orchid keeps on blooming! I started planting herbs this quarantine out of boredom (basil, mint, etc) and they’re pretty low maintenance hehe.
    Aila @ One Way Or An Author recently posted…Beach Read by Emily Henry Review | I Didn’t Know A Beach Read Could Be So ~Angsty~My Profile

    • I knowww! I was so shocked when I read the news about Erin Condren. But her planners are getting more and more expensive to ship to Australia anyway (I think shipping was $24.99 USD, which is $35 AUD, plus an extra $6 in tax).

      Haha thanks for stanning Stan. His name is actually Stanislav and we were trying to come up with a very alliterative name and it needed to start with S haha (Stanislav the Sourdough Starter).
      Jenna recently posted…8 YEAR BLOGOVERSARY: How Blogging Has Changed My Life + INT GiveawayMy Profile

  2. Bec

    You just reminded me I need to do my tax uuuuggghhh I have a feeling I might end up losing money BUT ANYWAY. You’ve also reminded me that I am supposed to be journalling more (I’m very slack. I want it to look pretty like yours, but struggle to find effort and motivation haha)

    I can’t believe the year is half over. It feels like it’s taking forever while simultaneously feeling like a completely new year compared to January. It’s crazy!

    omg you named your sourdough starter?! That’s amazing and also makes for a hilarious paragraph. I’m losing it over Stan.
    Bec recently posted…Jenna’s April-June Favourite ThingsMy Profile

Leave a Reply

CommentLuv badge