For those born in the early part of the 80's, don't you miss stationaries? First off, have you ever tried collecting them? I remembered me and my sister collecting different paper products. There were cartoony ones and there were floral ones. We'd barter all sorts of stationaries, with all sorts of sizes depending on the designs. We used to have a box full of stationaries. My Ama used to sell them, my mother used to sell them as well along with Parker pens which I secretely take when she's not around. I used to send notes to my classmates using colorful paper products. Now I wonder where all those are. Maybe it's time to open up Ama's boxes again, hmmmm...

I see a lot of paper products these days, with different designs and with different gsms, acid free or non-acid free. I didn't really care much of those during those days, it was all in the design. But with the advent of watercolors, calligraphy, fountain pens and all other colorful pens and papers, one is very much critical on where each type is used. Although I'm not complaining since I'm a hoarder of all of the above, I just miss the simplicity of writing a simple letter to a friend or a loved one. I miss the exchanges of notes whether it be a one-page letter or a 5-paged letter.

Let me also include the advent of stamps which can easily make a plain paper into a well designed paper product. Ahhh... You should see the transformation... A sight for sore eye. 

What other paper products have you tried?

Kangaroo Mother Care

Every so often we get newborns who have low birth weights or those who have birthweights of less than 2500 kg. Althought they are born small, they have good suck and good cry. And for as long as they are in our facility, we tend to provide and educate the mothers as much as we could. As health workers, we can do so much but at the end of the day, the patients have the last stand on whether or not they follow what we suggests.

Kangaroo Mother Care has been seen as an alternative method for helping babies who are born preterm or those who have low birth weights. It follows what most kangaroos do with their young, they put them in their pouch, carrying them around. And the bond between the mother and the young is seen to be tight. 

For us humans, this is a technique of skin-to-skin contact for mother and baby. Babies are carried in a pouch. The mother's heat is transferred to the baby to help regulate the body temperature. This is beneficial for, as I've mentioned, preterm babies and those with low birth weights as they have erratic body temperature making them prone to dehydration and sickness. This also forms a tighter bond between mother and child PLUS, the baby has more direct access for breastfeeding. All of these are base on several studies performed to determine the benefits of early skin-to-skin contact.

Today marked the first time we used the Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC). It is our hope and aim to give each babies the chance for better survival and increase the bond between mother and child. Thanks to Ma'am Dearly Awa and Dr. Glinard Quezada for the technical assistance.

The baby here was born 2.4 kls. Although the baby had good suck and good cry, we opted to try them on KMC. Yes the baby had her clothes on. We were trying it out first.

 

Goulet Pens Blog: Noodler's Flex Pen Cleaning and Disassembly

I bought a Noodler's flex pen last year from The Craft Central and was disappointed because the ink was dripping when I pressed hard on the paper. So when I finished the ink, I cleaned it and just kept it. A few days ago, I decided to ink it up again and use it with my journal. I was browsing thru the net looking for great flex pens and to understand more about fountain pens (since I love "hoarding" them) and stumbled upon this video. It's a wake up call, making me love my Noodler's Flex Pen.

Goulet Pens Blog: Noodler's Flex Pen Cleaning and Disassembly:

I was able to adjust the nib, the ink flow and started to doodle with it.

The paper is not fountain pen friendly but notice the thickness of the lines? Meaning I was able to press hard on the paper without the ink dripping from the pen. I browse thru The Craft Central last night and they don't sell fountain pens as of the moment. But I'm happy I got to work with my Noodler's. If you need some tips and tricks, there are a lot of blogs that teaches you so. There's the Pinoy Penman, Goulet Pen, Leigh Reyes' Blog is also a good resource for your questions.



There are infinite possibilities on the net. Go....

Morning Musing

5 Reasons Why You Should Start Using Fountain Pens

I've been cranky since I got back and I've been blaming it on jetlag. Haven't slept well too. I envy dear husband because he sleeps so peacefully at night. I find myself awake at 1am or 3am or 4am and couldn't go back to sleep. Then I remembed a video shared to me by a dear cousin-in-law Katrina Kheiy of m.calligraphy. He wrote a word using Waterman fountain pen but with a diffent nib. And I remembered a local calligraphy artist using Jinhaox450 but with a different nib. And I remembered a certain website selling my dream ink the Diamine Shimmering Inks (ang haba lang naman ng connection diba?) He directed customers to an article written at "When in Manila" website so I thought I might share it with you.



Maybe this is what I need, to slow down a bit...



5 Reasons Why You Should Start Using Fountain Pens