Out With The Old, In With The New...Journal #77

 I caught the journaling bug years ago...well, decades ago, really. It's something I do, something that takes me only a few minutes a day. I used to write in a journal until all the pages were filled, but I decided to use one journal for every six months, two journals a year.

I've used that system for a long time.

Yesterday I finished up Journal #76. Today, I begin Journal #77. If I've written two journals a year, you can do the math to see just how long I've been writing in these things.

When I started, I could go to our local religious bookstore and pick up both the binders and filler pages. As fewer and fewer people kept journals, they discontinued the binders, but they still sold the filler pages. Now, they don't even do that. I had to call the company and order filler pages over the phone the last time I needed replacements. I remember having a conversation with the woman on the phone who said there will come a time when the company will no longer carry the fillers.

I don't exactly know what I'm going to do when I finally run out of pages. I think I'll print my own pages, cut them, and punch holes in them.

Thankfully, I don't have to worry about that for a little while.

Yes, it's a changing of the journal guard. Bring on 2024--the second half! Who knows what interesting things will be taking place.

A Place For History...

 It took four boxes, boxes that were stowed in various spots throughout the house and garage. Last weekend I searched the basement, the garage and gathered the boxes together. 

My journals needed their own place.

In our last house, we put up shelves around our master bedroom and the journals took up a large chuck of the shelf space. We Also had several bookshelves in our old house and we got rid of almost all of them at our pre-moving yard sale.

What to do?

With our bookshelves gone, I found a shelf we did not sell/give away in the basement--we used it for food storage. I had to assemble it, but I thought it would work for my journals. Turns out, it worked out fine. There's four shelves and I used two of them. I ended up finding spots for seventy journals.

Seventy...

I'm glad they have a spot. 

No Matter What, You Always Forget Something...

Yesterday I loaded up my car with things I would need for the next couple of days and headed south. I took a few days off to dedicate some serious time to writing. I packed my bags--I didn't need to take too much--and headed out. Once at my friend's house I jumped right in and wrote a couple of thousand words. They flowed. I love that feeling when I'm writing, because that doesn't happen everyday. At least, it doesn't happen to me that often.

I was feeling good. I was in a zone. I took a break in the afternoon and dug through my bag thinking about where I was going to sleep so I could set things up.

That's when it hit me.

I forgot my journal.

That hasn't happened in a long time.

I've blogged about keeping a daily journal before. I've not written masterpieces in those pages. In fact, most of it is pretty boring. I learned a long time ago that the purpose is to write, to explain the events of the day, and sometimes, how I felt about those things. not to write masterpieces everyday.

And I've been writing about those things every single day (except for maybe one or two days in January, 1987...) since January 25, 1985. People do different things. I write a journal entry every night before I go to bed.

When I discovered I had forgotten my journal I wasn't too upset. I usually forget something when I leave home for more than a day. Luckily, when it comes to journals, I use binders where I can add pages. Just fold a regular 8 1/2" by 11" sheet of paper in half and fill up that half with words. And because I'm at a writing retreat, my friend was kind enough to print off a couple of pages of lines for me so I could continue chronicling my life. 

When I get back, I'll pull out my three-hold punch and include the events of these past few days. I'll put them in between pages already describing previously experienced days and the blank pages of days yet to come. And one day, perhaps years down the road, I may pull the particular journal covering this time in my life and notice several pages that don't quite fit, them having not been cut with all the other pages in the journal. 

And I'll remember the time I went to my friend's house to write.

And I'll remember it was the time I forgot to bring my journal along.

And I'll remember how great it was to have time just to write.

After all, isn't that what a journal is for anyway?

Blast From The Past...Winter Journal 1992 Vol. 1

My friend Bob asked me a question last week. Back in the spring of 1992 he and I joined a group of students from the University of Utah on a camping trip. We visiting some of the most amazing places in America. Bob asked me if I could reference my journal from 1992 and let him know exactly when we went on our trip. I'd said I'd be glad to. Luckily, I remembered his request and pulled down the journal.

And suddenly, it was twenty-five years ago.

Except for my missionary journals, I've always used three ring binders as journals. I've loved being able to use my journal as a scrapbook, of sorts. I found the dates. I remembered about when it was because after the trip we came home to the knowledge that California was on fire due to the Rodney King Riots that took place while we were gone. We knew nothing about the riots (this was pre-internet, mind you...). Tonight, I messaged Bob, gave him the dates, but I didn't put away the journal just yet.

1992 was quite the year for me. I met my wife, proposed (thankfully, she said, yes...), graduated with my undergrad degree, toured Europe, returned to my old mission, and got married. We remember the big things, and usually remember the important dates, but looking at the things I put in my journal made me remember so much more. There was so much, I'll need two blog entries to include all the stuff.

My journal included Christmas, 1991. I found several Christmas cards from many friends, one friend who passed away shortly after.

There was a card from the Fraternity/Sorority committee complete with their signatures.

I attended a hockey game at the then Delta Center. I believe this was the first sporting event held at that venue.

Then came the infamous U of U Choir Retreat, the place where I first met the woman I was going to marry.

And I included the ticket stub to where I took her on our first date. I can't remember who won--must have been concentrating on other things...

I found the flyer for one of the more interesting fraternity tradition: The ∆X Scamofolage. The goal: go to the BYU campus in Provo, Utah, and see if we could get dates. We would all meet at an agreed upon location at the end of the night to see who was successful, and who wasn't. Check out our lame "pick-up lines." They're classics!

Of course, not everything was fun. I lost a friend that year--I'm sure many people lost many friends during that time. I'm glad I put Shauna's obituary into my journal all those years ago. It brought back some bittersweet memories.

Next blog post--more pictures from 1992, more experiences, more of the life that was.

Daily Journals...59 And Counting

Back in January, 1985 a couple of friends gave me a journal. I was about to go on my LDS mission and it's customary for missionaries to receive a journal so they can record the events and memories of their mission experience. Most missionaries write in their journals--some write a lot, others very little.

Me? I filled four missionary journals then I just kept going.

Every day...

And yesterday I finished my 59th journal.

Today I decided to do some cleaning and re-arranging and for the first time in a long time I put all the journals on the same shelf. Most of the journals are the same style. I bought them at our church's bookstore, Deseret Book. However, a few years ago the company stopped producing those journals so I used others. Every once in a while I'll find a journal in the old style at a thrift store. I always check when I go to a thrift store to see if they have any of the old journals. Sometimes I get lucky.

I have to say that there's a lot of boring stuff included in all those journal entries. Most days are pretty hoh-hum. But also included in all those pages is an entry for every day of my life since the end of January, 1985, an entry for the day I met my future wife, for the day each of my kids was born, for the day my mom died and everything in between. No one may ever read all the entries (all 10,900 plus...) but I'm glad they're there.

Bring on #60!

A Day In History...The Day The Twins Were Born

One advantage of writing in a journal everyday for the past thirty years (almost...) is you can find what you did on a certain day in history. Twenty-three years ago today our extended family welcomed two bundles of joy and I recorded the event in my journal.

But as I read about the rest of my day a little more than two decades ago, it's kind of confusing. I was a senior in college and at this time of year, I was busy with work and singing. We were getting ready for the Christmas season and the University of Utah A'cappella choir was singing like crazy trying to earn money for our European tour. 

I recorded that I saw the twins, then I partied with several choir friends, Alan, Stephanie (the two were married a month before my wife and I...), another Stephanie, Matt Bill, Russell, and Carrie. I have no idea where we partied but I always had fun handing out with those great people.

Then I apparently went home and did a little more partying with my roommate Matt, Julie and Megan. For the life of me, I can't remember who Julie and Megan were--Maybe Matt remembers. And, I believe I should clarify here, when I say "partied," or "partying" I'm not talking about an alcoholic rager where anything and everything could and did happen. No, my college partying consisted mostly hanging out, chatting, and maybe breaking open a Coca-Cola. Boring for some, I know, but we had great times, nonetheless.

In the past couple of months I've been referencing my old journals more and more. I should do it more often. Happy birthday, twins! Glad to have you here!