One Line A Day

I'm not really a 'journaler'...I LIKE journals and I've bought a few over the years (I do love to LOOK at the journal section in the bookstores...all of that nice leather and the gold-edged pages), but I usually start out gung-ho for a short period of time and then lose interest or stop writing after not too long. In college, I started a 'Quote' journal, which I still have, but haven't written in for a very loooong time. I would include meaningful quotes, verses, ideas or short stories that I had heard or read and wanted to remember. I'm glad I still have it, and over the years have occasionally perused through it, each time thinking 'I really should continue doing this'.

In college, I was fortunate enough to get to go on a big trip - called "Wheaton in the Holy Lands". We studied intently on campus for two weeks and then spent 4-5 weeks traveling to Italy, Israel and Greece. We were 'required' to keep a journal as part of our grade for the program and I'm thankful we did, as it really helped refresh my memory when I returned home, and provided extra details as I looked through all of the MANY pictures I took and attempted to put them in to a scrapbook. I haven't pulled it out lately to read it, but I know it would bring back some great memories of that time, now SOOOO many years ago... :)

Last fall, as I was reading one of the many blogs I follow, Camille Roskelley shared a "PSA" on her blog about these "One Line a Day Journals":

It's a Five-Year Journal - with a space to write just one or two lines a day, so no 'pressure' to feel like you must write pages in a journal each day, but you can write about something special that happened that day, or something funny or cute your child said, or something you're thankful for etc... I thought they would be a neat gift idea for some of my 'Mom' friends who have kids that say any number of cute and funny things, so I ordered several as gifts for Christmas. I ordered an extra one 'just because' and decided even though I don't have kids, I'd still like to have one to write in. I waited until January 1 of this year to start writing in it (that's the anal retentive side of me coming out...can't start writing in it in the middle of the year (gasp))!! :) But YOU could start writing in it anytime of the year that you want. So far, I've written in it every day. It's good because before I go to bed each night, it 'forces' me (in a good way) to think back over the day and recall what was the best thing about the day or what I was thankful for that day etc...I'm certainly not writing anything terribly profound...my snuggly, snoring dogs may have an entry or two in there :) but it has been a nice place to record memories, especially as I'm preparing to leave Colorado.

I purchased my journals from Amazon originally, but it looks like they don't currently have them in stock from Amazon directly, but you can get one from another source listed there, or, the website paper-source.com has them for sale as well (they're just a little more expensive on their site).

I don't think I'll ever be a 'Dear Diary' kind of journaler, but I think this one or two lines a day is something I can handle!