Journal News

I am not the world’s best journaler. I’m infrequent, have multiple journals going, feel like I’m repetitive and tend to journal about negative things. However, journal I must. This article introduces two new (to me) sites on journaling.

Journaling Saves: Journal Your Way to Fabulous. Don’t you love that tagline? Kristin’s post ‘Hidden Wisdom and Letters to the Self” struck a cord with me. I’m familiar with ‘letters to the self’ which can be letters to your younger self or your older self. In this article, Kristen has you write a letter to your future (wiser) self. Intrigued? Check out Kristen’s blog for how she handled this (and thought of it).

Writing Through Life offers journaling tips, writing prompts, free downloads and links to other journaling sites. This colorful and interactive site offers a lot of practical activities in an engaging manner.  You can also sign up for Amber’s free weekly ezine.

I’ve come to terms with there being no right way to journal. Find the way that works for you and do it. Then improve upon it when the time is right.

______________________________

Notebook Hoarder

Flipping through the channels the other night I came across Hoarders on A&E, which I had heard of but never watched. Intrigued, I watched the show for about 20 minutes, but then I changed the channel as I didn’t think I could relate. I don’t enjoy watching reality shows and cannot stand to be in the vicinity of character actors like they have at Renaissance fairs and Colonial Williamsburg. It’s just weird. But I digress.

So this woman lives with her husband and three sons in complete and utter chaos; wall-to-wall stuff, barely a walking path down the hall or in any of the rooms. She uses one of those extended prongs to reach for things across the STUFF that is her life. In one scene the son who recently moved away to college goes through some of the stuff with her and he picks up this frog purse with the price tag still dangling from it. She paid $35 for this purse she has never used. I doubt she would miss it if it should somehow disappear. The young man just rolls his eyes. I change the channel.

The next day I am cleaning out my office closet and what do I find? Notebooks, blank books, journals. There are probably over a dozen of various sizes and colors shapes and quality. As if that wasn’t enough, Brush Dance had a sale last week (online) where every single journal that they sold was $3. I ordered six. They arrived in the mail yesterday and are sitting next to me as I type this. They make me very happy.

There is nothing like a new notebook to lift my spirits. I check out the notebook aisles at office supply stores, stationery stores, grocery stores. Wherever they are, so must I be also. It doesn’t matter how many I have, I keep looking at others. I don’t always buy, but I do always look.

I like to think they represent possibilities. They are receptacles of thoughts I haven’t thought yet, feelings I will experience, knowledge that will seep from my brain onto the patiently waiting paper in one of a dozen notebooks that will call to me when their time is come. Maybe I’ll write a letter, maybe a book. Possibly I will use one as my daily journal or the more infrequent travel journal.

So how am I different than this woman with the frog purse? Except for our taste in purses, probably not a lot. Oh, and I can walk down my hallway without fear that piles of stuff taller than me could fall on me and kill me.

____________________________________________________

Journal Writing

Whether you call them journals or diaries, these keepsakes of personal writing are a way to find your true self or to slow down the daily/weekly/monthly/yearly cycle to appreciate the finer things going on in your life. Journal writing is also a way to work through those dark nights of the soul and come out the other side.

(Photo courtesy of Felixco, Inc)

___________________________________________________________

DIY Summer Journals For Kids (or Adults)

Here is a simple how-to that shows you how to use supplies you have around the house to create your own journal.

_________________________________________________

Warm Milk Journal on the Benefits of Journaling (May 2010)

________________________________________________