Pottery Barn is having a 20% off sale on some of their gorgeous home office furniture. So, if you’ve been coveting their Printer’s Office Suite, for instance, now would be a great time to place an order.

A few more gorgeous pieces that are on sale:

Printer’s Letter File Hutch

A selection of lovely baskets

The Harrison Lamp

Now, if you’ll excuse me, the Wyatt Table Lamp is calling my name…

**Just so you know, this post wasn’t sponsored or requested–I just noticed the sale going on and wanted to share it with you.**

One of my favorite things about the new year is choosing a fresh day planner. In my quest for one that’s just the right size, and has just the right innards (I need plenty of space to schedule my days), I came across these 5 gorgeous agendas that I wanted to share.

Satin Ribbon Planner

This handmade monthly planner offers several clever features aside from that lovely woven ribbon cover–you can choose your start month, the wire binding means it can lay flat on your desk, and it’s filled with motivational quotes to enjoy throughout the year.

My Lavender Cottage’s Planner

Another spiral-bound planner so that you can open it flat, this one features a fun inside design and handy tabs to take you straight to the month you want. A wide variety of papers are available for the outer cover, which means you’re sure to find one you like.

Leather Hand-bound Planner

This lovely leather planner is a delightfully tiny size–perfect for purses–at just 3.75″ x 6.25″. It’s a two-page weekly spread style, so if your handwriting’s tidy, and you don’t have a lot of activities to jam into each day, take a closer look and see if this is the planner that’s right for you.

Desktop Planner

This clever desktop planner uses a wooden base and dividers to keep track of things and even has little pockets to hold smaller items. It’s solidly constructed, and handcrafted, and due to its design, reusable year after year. If you have a shabby chic style home office, this one might fit right in.

Weekly Eco Planner

This undated planner is loaded with earth-friendly details like the recycled banana fiber paper that makes up its pages, and the hemp cover. Plus, by being undated, it’s extra flexible. (Though, I always find my handwriting’s not good enough for an undated planner, personally.)

Have you picked out your new 2011 planner yet? Do you even use a planner? I’d love to hear what you look for when making your decision!

Inspired by Meredith’s post about Great Books to Read Aloud With Your Kids, I started thinking which print books are must-haves around my office. Yes, I know, with the Internet, I can always find the information I need without cracking open a book, but I think reference books are important for two reasons–one, the internet doesn’t always work and two, it’s often faster to just go straight to the “source” instead of figuring out which of 80.000,000 results you’re going to rely on for your answer.

Besides that, I often like to work with the router unplugged to avoid the distractions of Twitter and Facebook completely, and when I go online to do research, it’s much more tempting to follow a rabbit hole than it is when I simply open up a book and look up the answer. So, those are my reasons for having a print reference library (I’d love to hear yours!), but what five books are on my most-turned-to list?

1. The AP Stylebook. I’ve mentioned my magazine  background, and it was my very first  internship where I learned the importance of a really good stylebook. They used AP, and I’ve stuck with it ever since. If you do any writing during the day, a book like this can help keep your writing style consistent so you’re not referring to Website in one paragraph and web site in another. (Though, I’ll admit, online, there are reasons to write it both ways, and I use email instead of the AP prescribed e-mail… So, in other words, use a stylebook, but don’t wed yourself to it.)
2. The Oxford American Dictionary (full set). I have all 20 volumes on my bookshelf, but really, any good dictionary will do. When I was a kid, I used to read the dictionary when I ran out of books, so I splurged. (Weird, I know. But, it was illustrated, if that makes this revelation any better.)
3. The Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus. I seldom use this one, but every so often, I absolutely must have a good synonym for a word, and I’m always glad I can turn to a print thesaurus instead of a web search.
4. Flip Dictionary. Billed as the book, “For when you know what you want to say, but can’t think of the word,” I find this resource to be far more useful than my thesaurus. I think it’s in the way the words and concepts are linked, so you’ll want to find the resource that suits your thinking style best (though, really, I don’t think you can go wrong by having both a reverse dictionary and a thesaurus on your shelf). This is the style of resource that I find is most lacking online.
5. The Elements of Style. The fifty-year-old classic continues to be a must-have writing resource. Jim Lehrer said, “Only something to actually write about trumps the list of what is required to put words together in some kind of coherent way.” Assuming you have something to write about , this book will help you assemble your thoughts coherently.

So, those are my five top favorites. What are yours? Or are you an internet-only kind of researcher?

***Links in this post are Amazon affiliate links which means you’re supporting GirlyPC when you use them to buy one of these books. We appreciate that!***