A Resolution Solution & A New Year

As the new year approaches and as Anna and I have worked to launch this blog, I have thought a lot about hobbies and creative outlets that I used to really enjoy but haven't kept up with very well as I  have gotten older. One of these things is keeping a journal. I was a hardcore daily journal writer from the age of 10 until I was 18. College brought with it not only independence and excitement, but schoolwork. All of these put together meant busy days. Busy days then meant that I had less time to devote to a daily (very detailed) journal and a lot more to write about as I learned more about life, college, and myself. So as time has worn on, I have barely written in my latest journal. It is nowhere near consistent or complete. I have finally come to the conclusion that I just can't keep the type of daily journal that I had kept in the past. Below are pictures of the journals I have kept over the years. The stack contains nearly all of them (I think two are missing from this stack), the green puppy one was my very first journal ever (the entries in that one are hilarious), and the brown one is the last one I completed fully.

Over time, I kind of just let go of such chronicling of life events and stuck to taking photographs and enjoying life in the moment, trying my best to remember the details myself. It's been great! Life is good even if I don't journal, but I do miss it. I miss physically taking the time to think about my day. A while ago, I came across the idea of a "calendar journal" in the blogosphere. One of my favorite blogs Wit & Whistle had this post about a calendar journal, which was inspired by this post at Design Sponge. A calendar journal consists of a box that contains note cards with the date of every day of the year written on each of the cards. Every day you write a single thing about the day on the appropriately dated card. This way you can continue through the years and look back on what you did on each day in years past.

After seeing these journals and learning about this kind of chronicling, I fell in love! It's perfect! It is a way to keep a journal and take the time out of your day to reflect on events past. Not only that, but I think I'm going to enjoy the challenge of writing only one thing about my day, rather than fleshing out all the details/thoughts of the day thoroughly, like I once did.  I completely agree with Amanda of Wit & Whistle; if I'm going to be looking at the box every day, I think it should be beautiful! With this in the back of my mind, I kept an eye out for a box to use. I finally found this one (left), just in time for the new year of 2012. It doesn't look like much yet, but I plan to burn a neat pattern into the wood and stain it. I'll keep you all posted on that as it progresses! (I still have one other, larger woodburning project, so we'll see if I can keep up!)

So this is my new year's resolution: to begin and keep a calendar journal.
I hope you find one that helps you be happier, healthier, and all around a better you!
Happy New Years!
- Jenny