Recording life

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I have always loved pens and paper. My heart quickens when I near an office store and as soon as I walk through the automatic doors I race over to the pen aisle. I might need a new pen to add to my collection of pens scattered throughout the house.

My love affair with the pen is growing somewhat distant however as the click of keys and the computer font replaces my less than lovely penmanship.

Surprisingly enough even in this computer age I have still managed to make lists on actual paper. "To do" lists, meal lists, "don't forget" and grocery lists are strewn throughout the house on bits of scrap paper, post-it notes or legal pads. Then there are the journals and notebooks. The prayer journal, the personal journal, the soap list and ingredient notebook, and several journals that I have absentmindedly used the first page of and then tucked away somewhere to be forgotten for at least 2 years.

From now on things are going to be different. A passing comment made my by sister-in-law at our last book club meeting has completely changed my perspective and made me wonder why I haven't started this ages ago. My sister-in-law was saying that her and her husband have been lamenting that in this age of technology there is no written record of the events of our lives.

They have started carrying a journal with them and keeping this record.

I, for one, have tried to keep this record in the past. I even tried keeping one on the computer but I kept forgetting to add events and pretty soon I was so behind I never returned. That happens more often than not.

The new leaf I have turned is the realization that all of these things can be kept in ONE book. Before this I thought my deeper thoughts had to have their own book, my "to do" lists another book, my schedules another book and so on. Now I carry one journal around and keep it all in that one book.

It is so liberating. Each morning I write in the date and anything I want to write. I might start by writing a verse that really stood out to me when I was reading, or the fact that my kid is currently smearing jam all over his face, or that I have been struggling with patience. Then from there I can write my "to do" list for that day. The possibilities are endless and it's all kept in one book.

You really should try it. Just for a week. Then after the week is done you have a journal of that week that includes everything from the mundane to the significant and it got recorded, instead of forgotten.