Having fun with your journal

For many of us, the journalling process feels a little bit stiff, a little too Important.  Often a chore we feel me must do.  Bah, I say.  Make it fun!  Last August, my honey and I purchased our home and began a month long process of intense renovation.  I knew I wouldn't have the time or energy for regular journalling, so I made myself a little calendar, colored in the days with marker, and recorded little snippets of my day.  Simple things like, "Put first coat of paint on the living room", and "New furniture delivered today."  Nothing terribly exciting, but my days were recorded and they are fun and interesting to look back on now.  On the few days that we took off from packing, cleaning and renovating, I recorded our days with photos.  We enjoyed a warm summer day at the pool, a hike up Prospect Mountain, we took our dog to the park.  It's all there, my whole month recorded, a month-at-a-glance.

Another thing I like to do in my journal is record my real life in bits and pieces.  On this page I've recorded things like "What I'm watching", "What I'm cooking", " What I'm reading", and "What I'm making".  You get the picture.  Again, nothing profound, and yet it's another fun way for me to look back and say, "Ah, THAT'S what I did that month."

This page (or spread) was begun on New Year's Day 2013.  I made a grid, colored the sections in with different colored markers, then listed the best memories I had of 2012, wrote about how we spent New Year's Eve, and reserved the rest of the boxes for journalling about the various thoughts and struggles I had throughout the month (January is ALWAYS a tough month for me.  I struggle with Seasonal Affective Disorder).  Even though the words on this page aren't all fun and cheery, the colors make me happy and it is interesting for me to read.

So you see, journals don't have to be boring.  They don't have to be profound.  The most important aspect of a journal is that it's YOU.