All Kinds of Delightful Journals (Part 3 of a Journaling Series)

Besides the classic journal, as I call it, where you write about every day life, there are all kinds or types of specialty journals and today we are going to touch on three of my favorites…

These journals were purchased from Deseret Book, which has a wonderful selection.

The travel journal: This is a journal where you keep track of your vacations and travel adventures. Consider including-

• the planning stage
• your travel companions
• the travel route and mode of transportation
• the accommodations
• weather and location of each day
• tours, attractions, local sights
• photos (If you have a polaroid camera, that would be a fun size and you could pop it in right away.)
• ticket stubs and receipts
• favorite memories from each day
• nature sketches
• travel quotes and memes (Create your own!)

This journal (top left) has kraft pages.

Choose a journal with sturdy pages if you’re adding mementos. Consider blank pages if you want to sketch.

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The study journal: This is a journal that becomes a personal study tool. It’s a place to keep your study notes. What you include will vary depending on the type of study, but consider-

• vocabulary and definitions
• favorite verses and quotes
• timeline of events
• doctrines and principles
• memes, pictures, sketches, doodles
• your thoughts and insights
• your questions and answers or conclusions
• lessons to learn from others’ experiences
• your own experiences and lessons learned
• your testimony

This composition book is one of my scripture study journals.

I prefer composition notebooks for this kind of journal. A spiral notebook works great as well. I like to use a variety of colored pens to make it fun and to break up my notes.

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The gratitude journal: This is a journal for the purpose of positivity. 🙂 It’s a place to record your blessings and works best when you write in it daily. Consider including-

• your favorite part of each day
• memories which bring a smile to your face
• acts of kindness and service bestowed upon you
• acts of kindness and service you give to others
• things and situations you are grateful for
• people who bless your life
• uplifting quotes and verses
• your doodles and sketches
• photos of your friends, family, and pets

This specialty journal features encouraging quotes. It’s pictured in the first photo above and is entitled: Three Moments of Joy.

Select a quality journal with a beautiful cover or custom make your own cover of a spiral or composition notebook (Mod Podge your favorite quotes and memes). A plainer journal can be brightened up with colored pens, stickers, and washi tape.

♥ Stay tuned for a guest post on bullet journaling, which is something I’ve yet to try. Do you keep or have you ever created a travel journal, study journal or gratitude journal? If so, I’d love to hear about it. What would you add to my lists? ♥

A Journal’s Purpose (Part 2 of a Journaling Series)

What is a journal?

A journal is a book of remembrance, a personal timeline, an autobiography, a family history.

A journal is a collection of your life stories.

Encourage your children to keep a journal. They will appreciate it when they are adults.

A journal’s purpose is to give you a place to record any and everything that has to do with being YOU.

It’s never too late to start a journal or pick the habit back up again.

Get a notebook, a journal that will last through all time, and maybe the angels may quote from it for eternity. Begin today and write in it your goings and comings, your deepest thoughts, your achievements and your failures, your associations and your triumphs, your impressions and your testimonies.

                             ~Spencer W. Kimball

I have five basic tips for keeping a journal:

1. Set aside a specific time each day (once a week at the very least) for journaling.
2. Write from your heart and let your thoughts flow out. Just be yourself.
3. Give specific details of your most significant memories. Details might include location, time of day, your emotions, people involved, goals set and accomplished.
4. Date each entry with today’s day, month, and year. If you are writing down a past memory, make sure you also include that date or timeframe as best you can remember.
5. Write both first and last names of people you mention, even family members and close friends.

Don’t forget to include the “weeds” of your life- your mistakes, trials, and fears. We learn and grow through opposition.

Sometimes you may feel like your life is too mundane to record, but there is something to be said for the ordinary. Isn’t it comforting to know others have been where you are now?

Your journal will be one-of-a-kind, just like YOU!

There are many benefits that come from the habit of journaling:

• Detailing your most significant moments in words will preserve them for all time.
• The act of journaling has meditative qualities, especially if you choose a quiet setting. You will often feel relaxed, reflective, and at peace as you journal.
• Journaling is therapeutic. Keeping a journal can be similar to talking to a counselor or a friend who listens attentively and never judges.
• Journals become a type of legacy for your posterity.
• Journaling may help you recognize and appreciate your blessings. In a later post we’ll explore the joy of keeping a gratitude journal.
• When you handwrite your journal, your memory may improve. That’s because the act of taking pen to paper helps us remember important things.
• Journaling may help you truly discover yourself. You will get to know yourself better as you journal.

♥ If you keep a journal, what tips and benefits would you add? Stay tuned for more posts in this series. Thanks for visiting my blog. ♥

Living Inside Stories (a Journaling Series)

Your life is a story of adventure, mystery, comedy, tragedy, and romance. Your life is a story full of sorrow, despair, trials, second-chances, growth, discoveries, miracles, faith, hope, and tender mercies. Your life is a story with villains, heroes, foils, and all characters in between. Right now you are living inside a story! Not only are you living inside your own unfolding story, you are living inside many stories. You are touching lives. You are even a part of ripples, meaning you have set off or continued a chain-reaction of events.

Your life is a treasure trove of stories! So you should document them! Welcome to part one of a journaling series. Over the next few weeks, let’s explore the art of journaling.

I have been keeping journals- off and on- since I was eight years old. My very first journal has a cloth cover with a strawberry pattern on it, and it was given to me by my maternal grandparents as a baptism gift. Each of them wrote an inscription to me on the inside front cover. I wrote in that journal with erasable pen. I thought erasable pens were the neatest invention at the time! Before erasable pens, I had the compulsive habit of starting my school notes completely over whenever I made even the tiniest mistake in pen. Now that I think of it, I’m sure rewriting my notes several times over helped me memorize for tests! Still, I’m happy to note that in keeping a journal, I learned to relax to the point of simply crossing out my mistake and moving on. Plus, it’s not easy, nor is it attractive to tear out a page from a bound book.

Confession: I have torn out pages of my journals for one reason or another, even from bound journals. I don’t recommend doing that if it can be helped, however. 😛

It’s fun for my kids to read through my goofy childhood journal entries, and it’s fun for me to see how my handwriting has changed over the years. I used to write very precise, slanted cursive. My cursive was so precise, and so slanted that my teachers would use me as a class example. That was both embarrassing and a little ego boost. I do not write this way today. Honestly, that was exhausting! I do have very neat print, however. You can tell when I’m tired because my writing will get sloppy, haha.

♥ Stay tuned for more posts in this series. We will explore different kinds of journals, my favorite journaling supplies, the benefits of journaling, and I will share some of my journaling experiences along the way. Do you keep a journal? Have you ever torn pages out of your journal? How neat is your writing in your journal? I’d love to hear about it! ♥

Keeping a Journal and 52 Stories

I’ll be writing in my journal about how much snow we got today and how the boys went outside to sled and play in it. This was just a couple hours after snow-blowing our driveway and sweeping off my son’s truck.

I was a very good girl last year and kept a detailed journal from February through December. In the past, my journaling has been rather inconsistent, but I’m confident my sporadic efforts will add up nicely to give a sweet picture of my life for my future great-great grandchildren, especially if I keep the habit up and add childhood memories as I go.

There are many benefits to keeping a journal. For me, writing in a journal is therapeutic. It’s like a friend who is always available to only listen and never judge! I’ve also found that writing down special moments or occasions soon after they happen keeps those memories fresh and accurate. When my kids have read my childhood journal entries, they’ve realized that even with our generation gaps, we have a lot in common (such as peer pressure). But most of all, I’ve come to recognize and appreciate many of my blessings, big and small.

• A journal can be as simple as a spiral notebook or you can find pretty or themed journals at bookstores such as Barnes and Noble.
• Always date each entry.
• Write from your heart and be honest. Share your ups and your downs of life.
• You never know. Your trials and mistakes and the way you handle them or learned from them might inspire or help someone years from now.
• Get detailed! Saying you had a fun day won’t mean anything unless you list the specific events that made it fun.
• Write both first and last names of people you mention, and add their relationship to you.
• Don’t worry about spelling or perfect penmanship. If you make a mistake, just cross it out instead of ripping out the page and starting over. Cross outs and doodles give your journal personality! I’ve even glued paper items into my journal, such as a turtle drawing my niece made for me or a ticket stub.
• Think outside the box if you want. I created a type of journal by printing out personal email conversations I had years ago with my sister and my closest friends, while I lived in Peru. I put each printout in protective sleeves and compiled them in a binder. Bloggers who journal in their posts can turn their blog into books with services such as blog2print.com (I’ve never used this so I can’t vouch for it.) 

Today I came across this article on familysearch.org that has a challenge, called, the 52 Stories project, which I’m going to do this year. I’m hoping some of my readers will join me. The idea is to record (in any form) one life story each week of this year. The best way to do this is by random memory. If you don’t know where to start, try asking yourself one of these questions.

Here is a snippet from the article that stood out to me:

“On nearly every headstone, no matter how plain or ornate, is carved one universal symbol. It’s a simple horizontal line—a dash—separating two significant dates. The first marks the day one precious soul entered this mortal life. The second marks his or her inevitable journey onward.

A well-known poem by Linda Ellis, “The Dash,” speaks of this symbol:

“For that dash represents all the time
that they spent alive on earth.
And now only those who loved them
know what that little line is worth.”

We are each, right now, standing somewhere in the middle of our own individual dashes.”

♥ Do you keep a journal? If you decide to participate in the 52 Stories challenge, let me know! ♥