Okay, I will admit it. I have a Journaling addition. Actually more like a Journal addition! I love all the beautiful journals that are available now!!!

Gone are the days of just using some nasty little spiral notebook with a kitty on the front! Why now, the choices are endless. And because of the nature of myself, and being in love with textures and colors and beautiful graphics and handmade latches and all that… I must have 20 at least now!

Let’s see…. I have a dream journal. And a gratitude journal. One about my life. Yes, one about my band as well. (I keep track of every gig and write some thoughts about each one as well as keeping some of my songwriting bits in there…) Oh, and I have a separate songwriter journal. I have a garden journal. I have a soap and candle making journal, though I really don’t do much of that craft anymore. But if I do want to, I’ve got all my secrets safe and ready to start again!

I’ve got a spending journal, that I just started. It’s more a record, an accounting. I got this idea that if I wrote down EVERYTHING I spend money on, I would start to watch it a little closer and all. So far, so good. It does seem to help…. some.

I’ve got a rock and mineral journal where I keep information about suppliers for our business, as well as ideas and things that I’d like to try and implement in the business. It’s my little black book of rock dealing. I have a book for all my screen printing and graphic art clients as well. I write in information about their jobs, what color shirts they ordered and when, and information that I need to know about their particular tastes and jobs and ideas. It’s been very informational. I have one journal that I keep all about my publishing business. Again, ideas, things that have happened, totals and yearly goals.

I have one journal that I keep all my website information in. I run about 60 websites so I keep all the loging and FTP information in it as well as ideas about sites, and passwords and any account information that I’m likely to need, especially with a new computer or if I travel and need to access the accounts to fix or edit something. It has saved me tons of time and effort on many occasions.

And yes, I have one journal that is my personal thoughts and reflections journal. It’s hardly a day to day thing, but well, it’s special to me and important. It’s gotten me through some tough times. And celebrated some wonderful ones as well.

I guess too, that my daily journal has to be my personal blog! Almost up to 500 entry posts now, I can clearly say that it is perhaps my most favorite Journal in the collection. It’s not as pretty and touchable as the others, but it’s very important.

In my younger years, I wrote a lot, but I mostly just used a daily notebook that had my to do lists in it as well as daily life messages and scribles that needed a home. I have at least a dozen of them. While they are not really “journals” they do measure my days and often have important bits and pieces of my life. Like wedding plans and moving out to California plans and new baby plans and then the bittersweet of plans for a new life after divorce. All these journals and records and even the blog go into making my mark on life… my lifeprint on history. It’s important, at least to me and my memories.

So can you have too many journals?

Heck no!!! Not at all.

In fact, I’m looking right now for the best in recipe and cooking journals! I want to find one that is just right to start my own family journal of cooking and recipes so that some day I can hand it down to my daughters and their daughters!

You can never have too many journals.

You can learn more about my crazy life at:

www.themobilehomewoman.com

We’re so excited to announce that the main site, Journaling Life.com is overgoing a new facelift and make-over!  It’s been a while, no doubt, but we’re excited and I think you will be too!  

We’re devoting ourselves to keeping the Daily Journal up and running with wonderful posts, information, news and reflective journeys into writing styles that will help to encourage and enthuse you with the whole journaling process.  

Please be sure to stop in and visit often!  

David and Sherri

The Journaling Life Staff….

I went to visit my children yesterday, as is a custom of mine, in addition to getting visitation rights on the weekend.  Activities include taking Vonnie to theater, and sometimes running errands with the other kids, as well as having a greasy order of chili cheese fries with any or all of them at the local coney island in wonderful Clarkston, Michigan.   After a time of working with Vonnie on her school work, and later watching an episode or two of the Gilmore Girls (yes, I said the Gilmore Girls), I commenced to get my things together to leave for home.  Vonnie called me from her room, hence I went in to kiss and hug her goodnight and goodbye.  I noticed she was acting kind of melancholy, and so I asked her what was bothering her.  She shed a few tears, and told me how much she missed me, and hated not having me around as much.  

She understands, all too well, the nature of divorce, and also how much I did not want a divorce from her mom, but she also understands it happened and that you only have a choice to sink or swim with regard to dealing with it.  I reassured her that I loved her sooooooooooo much and that I would ALWAYS be there for her at anytime of the day or night.  What she mentioned next kind of threw me for a loop, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since.  She lamented the fact that since her mom and I split up when she was so young, she had very few memories of when I was actually living there.  This made my heart sink to the lowest depth I’ve felt in some time.  She said that she does remember how much we laughed when I was still living there, and this I can attest to since I have always had a philosophy of laughter.  It makes one’s heart cheerful, and can chase disease from body and soul.  I sat there with Vonnie and hugged her, reassuring her that despite the way things have turned out, we can choose to love each other (as a family), and reengage the laughter philosophy.  I told Vonnie that if I could take all the sadness and pain away that was caused by divorce, I would do it in a heart beat.  Since I cannot, all I can do is love her, support her, and help create sweet memories for her, and her siblings, from here on out.  I love those tender moments with my children where I am witness to the redemptive sides of their wonderful natures.  Therein lies the rub, it’s all about taking bad situations in our lives, and making them redemptive.

I love the time from late fall through Christmas for many reasons, and as the Holiday Season approaches each year, I find myself attempting to recreate certain events from years past that hold a great deal of meaning for me. It’s a spiritual presence that emerges from another dimension where time is irrelevant, and along with it come fond, meaningful memories of Christmas past. November 1st seems to be the time, every year, when I begin to sense the presence of the Christmas spirit, but for me I truly believe it’s something much greater than fond memories. It’s so easy to merely have an emotional experience filled with memories, but I’ve always believed that memories should have an authoritative position in our lives from which we can ponder in order to draw up wisdom for better living. The best analogy I can use would be that of a deep well, which is symbolic of a permanently fixed memory, and the waters at the bottom those sweet morsels of wisdom. I would like to know, however, what makes the Holiday Season such a unique time for all this contemplative wonder.

Christmas time, this year, was a strange experience insofar as it was the first year I’ve ever been out of town for the season.  I had Christmas a couple of days early with my children in Clarkston, MI, and then went south to Atlanta.  I say it was strange because I’ve never been away for the holidays, and the weather in Atlanta was in the low 70s on both Christmas eve and Christmas day.  The first thing that went through my mind, as I felt the warm Georgia breeze against my skin, was that this doesn’t seem like Christmas with all this warm weather.  Where is the snow and over all winter solstice festive atmosphere that helps make Christmas what it is?  It just didn’t feel like Christmas to me, yet it was, nonetheless, another experience upon which to reflect.

 It seems as if the experiences have changed radically over the years.  When I was a youngster, I remember how much fun it was piling into the car on Christmas day and driving over my Aunt Eleanor’s house in Grosse Point, MI.  Anyone who knows the Detroit area will know that Grosse Point is where the upper crust lives.  There are middle class sections, upper middle class sections, wealthy sections, and very wealthy sections.  Aunt Eleanor lives in the wealthy section of Grosse Point, and we always felt like we were granted permission, once a year, to experience the epicurean privileges of the royalty that lived on the other side of the tracks.   I can close my eyes and see in my mind the powdery snow falling as the afternoon sun sank lower into the horizon.  I can hear the starchy crunch of the snow under the tires of my father’s 1967 Chevy Impala, and feel the occasional gust of wind against the car.  Perhaps it’s just a bigger than life child’s imagination, and exaggerated memory of how it really was, but those memories, as they represent themselves today, are all that I have.

It’s no surprise that our experiences and impressions of these events change since our perspectives continue to evolve with time.  Obviously, what I valued as a child is 180 degrees off from what I value as an adult, and the things I valued as a 25 year old adult are a far cry off from what I value today.  The best example I can give is in the area of receiving gifts at Christmas time.  Honestly, I’ll take a good glass of wine, a fine meal,  and great conversation over and beyond a gift.  Don’t get me wrong, I am always grateful for any gift, it’s just that there are more valuable things I long to experience, and those things cannot be wrapped and decorated with a pretty ribbon and bow.  

Sometimes I really find myself lamenting the fact that I cannot experience the holidays the same way I did as a kid, yet I get great joy out of watching my four children in the midst of their own holiday experiences and memories.  I was discussing this with my youngest daughter Vonnie who asked me to tell her about the times we would pile her older brother and sister into the car, around Christmas, and drive around the Detroit area looking at Christmas lights.  Sandra and Kurt used to fight about who saw the most amount of lights, but they soon forgot about as we pulled into the parking lot of the local coney island restaurant. Ironically, some of the best lights in the area were in Grosse Pointe, and Grosse Pointe Woods.  Yes in deed, the upper crust sure knew how to dress up their homes.

I will always love the Christmas season, and I expect to go to my grave loving it, yet as the times become more increasingly impersonal as a result of technology, it’s more important than ever to keep myself from becoming a Scrooge.  I must admit that I have Scrooge-like tendencies, especially as I watch technology erode some of the more personal, and traditional aspects of the holiday.  I love to hear the ancient and traditional carols played on authentic instruments, but this year I heard a CD playing techno-carols.  It was bad enough to hear some of the synthesizer drive music of Mannheim Steamroller (though some of it is very pleasant and traditional sounding).  These are only my personal reflections on my own sense of tradition and pleasant memories of my experience.  We all have our likes and dislikes, hang-ups, and idiosyncrasies about life in general, but through it all we develop our own memories, and these memories feed the soul and remind us of more simple, warm times in our lives.  All of this is the very substance of what helps give us hope for tomorrow, and wisdom by which to live.