Meet A Journal Keeper - Shane

I began journaling on January 1, 1991, my Freshman year in college. I don't know why I started. I just had an empty notebook and wrote "journal" on it and never looked back. I am so grateful I stumbled across this incredible pastime. I was 22 when I started and have been journaling for 20 years now. I love journals. I have been on the hunt for manly journals ever since I bought my first hard back journal. There's plenty of blank books with kitty cats and flowers, but I have to dig deep to find the type I like. I like nostalgic covers, preferably with superheroes or Peanuts characters. My journals must be hard back covers and ruled, not that I've never made an exception. I like the standard size journal. Too big and too small messes up the visual on the bookshelf.

What do I journal about? Life. When I first started, my entries were pretty boring, just giving the run down of my day, but I ended each one with a prayer. I look back on some of those expressions to God and am overwhelmed by how much I needed His assistance in life. Now I write out my prayers (still), observations from my Bible study, funny or poignant things my kids say, victories and failures (because you can learn from both), revelations about marriage, and just over all how I'm feeling. When I was single, I journaled a lot. I would fill a book in 2 months. Now that I'm married with three kids, I don't have the same gumption for writing as much as back then, but the passion is still there.

I have filled over 50 journals and have about 25 waiting for me. I never start a new one until I've finished the current one, which is really hard when I have a really cool one waiting for me, but it's a rule established early on and I've kept it. I'm proud to say I earned the title of "Notebook Addict of the Week" from Nifty over there at the website Notebook Stories, and never knew how obsessive my passion for journaling was until I wrote about it to get nominated. But it has been fun to find websites like this and people like me who are fellow "Journal Addicts."