Leuchtturm 1917 Out, Traveler's Notebook In

I started keeping a bullet journal in mid to late November. My first purchase was a Leuchtturm 1917 since that was what I saw a lot of folks suggesting. It didn't work for me. I'm crafty enough that I'll be able to cut the pages out and use them elsewhere but otherwise this was a very expensive false start. Don't get me wrong, it;s a perfectly acceptable notebook if you are disciplined enough to either sit down and create your monthly/ weekly/ daily pages OR just not give a field of fucks about whether a collection pops up in between week 2 and three of January.

Nope. I can not have collections or whatever in the middle of yearly scheduling pages. The point is to keep me productive. Putting a collection in the middle of a month is like asking a magpie to spell its name in rice and then spilling a bag of gems on the table. Ooooooh shiny!

I set out to fully create all the pages I would need for a year. I don't do a separate page for each day and prefer a week on two pages spread. How fucking tedious is that shit? Nope. Nope. Nope. If it feels too much like work I won't keep up with it. Back to researching...

I came across Traveler's Notebooks. these seemed like the answer to my problems. Pre-made monthly (yay!) and weekly (these ended up being a fail and I now make my own) inserts. I can keep collections in a separate insert. I could hear angels singing. I gleefully ordered this notebook:
Do you see the problem? The freaking inserts poke out past the cover. Granted I'm using 5 inserts plus a vinyl pocket and a kraft paper folder  but still this is unacceptable. The problem now is not only am I invested in the inserts I'm using but I bought a shit ton of them so I have standard sized inserts out the wazoo. Not to mention the 2 blank and 1 horizontal weekly insert I won't ever use.

Irritated by this whole series of events I decided to make my own cover out of some felt I made and had around.

This works. At least the pages are covered but it's not the hand-feel I wanted so I joined a few buy/ sell/ trade traveler's notebook groups on Facebook and this beauty popped up at a reasonable cost:




I've been assured it will fit all of my inserts without the pages poking out. I can't wait to get it in my hands. Sadly, that will have to wait since I'm getting ready to start the annual LA to TX to MD journey. I'm also considering having the cover stamped or burned to read "Chronicles of a Wayward Pussy"