Journaling, In a Jar, In a Car, Wherever you are

These are some of my journals. I have 4 large black binders with printouts of the last 8 years of typed journals. I have journaled since I was 12. I stopped for a short time while married for various reasons but since my divorce I have journaled almost daily.

When I look back at my journal from age 12, I laugh at some of the things that were written. When I was reading some of the entries of 8 years ago for a blog I was writing, I cried at many of the entries having forgotten much of the stress during the time of my divorce.

Journals should contain the good and the bad so that when they are looked upon later by you or your family, the situation can be seen clearly and you can know what worked and how you got through your stress etc. I kept just a journal of blessings during the first month or so of my divorce for if I wrote down what was going on, I doubt I would have made it through.

Just focusing on the good things of each day really helped me stay positive in a difficult time. After the initial stressful months were over, I started writing it all down again but still focused on the blessings of the day along with other daily activities.

Now, I write the events and feelings along with the blessings.

For those who don't journal or haven't written their family history, I have collected many lists of questions you can answer that will eventually give a good idea of your life story. I will post those questions on my blog "Pages" on the home page so those of you who want to start a journal or write your family history can use them to start. Or, you can print them off and give them with a journal or diary to your children when they marry, or your parents or friends as gifts.

Something I thought would be a great idea is to call my mom every Sunday night and ask her to answer one of those questions and I would type the answer as she tells it to me. In a year, you would have 50 plus stories written down giving you a great family history for a parent.

With my girls when they were younger, we would use Sunday afternoons after church as "journaling time" where they would write in their journals or I would write what they told me when they were little or write funny things they would say. I have some on the computer and some in little diaries I bought for them.

I started a journal with each girl when I found out I was expecting. I journaled cute thing and put in their ultrasound pictures and a picture of me at each month of pregnancy with fingers held up for each month of pregnancy. There are many things you can do to journal and they don't need to be hard. The two pictures above are from one of my daughters journals. The upper about a Disney trip about age 6 and the foot drawing is from a few years ago. Whatever they feel like putting down is still a record of something.

We have an art work journal where we video tape the girls doing an art show of all their school work so we can have their description of the item and then we can throw it away after eliminating clutter only keeping the "special" projects. You can clip and paste things into a journal or, like in the above photo, I kept my favorite candy wrapper from New Zealand.

The list I will post came from a "Journal in a Jar" where we cut up the questions and put them in a jar so that each day you could pull one out and write about it. I did that once and it was so much work, I now just give them the list with a journal.

When I was in Peru the first time, I wrote the journal on paper and typed it when I got home. The second time. I was smarter. I sent myself an email each night from a Internet cafe etc and then just clipped and pasted it into my journal. So, "yes" you can journal wherever you are!

Hope you use our "journal in a jar" to journal in your car and wherever you are!