FJC Guest Post - Rowland

FJC Guest Post - Shaynie

FJC - Greetings From....Guest Post

Sue - From the Magpie's Nest sent this post as a response to 13 Feb prompt - Greetings From...

Greetings From…

The Fireplace Hearth

I’m sitting on the rough red bricks that surround the fireplace with my back to the flames. It is mid-afternoon but might as well be twilight. What little light that reflects off the unbroken snow outside the sliding glass door is quickly swallowed up by the insulating curtains that stretch from ceiling to floor. This room is all about warmth and comfort. The walls are paneled in a reproduction of walnut, there is wall to wall carpeting on the floor, and all of the seating is upholstered, punctuated with squishy decorative pillows. A reader’s table stands between the plush recliner rocking chair and the nubby plaid love seat that also rocks. A cluster of pendants lamps allows the room’s occupants to choose the light that suits them best. There are magazines in the side racks of the table and library books stacked on its’ surface. Bookshelves flank the fireplace, supported by those same red bricks.

I am sitting on the hearth because that’s where the real warmth is. I’ve folded back the glass doors that are intended to keep sparks from flying into the room. They also intensify the heat. I wouldn’t be able to sit here and enjoy the warmth of the flames if the doors were closed, it would be too hot. Beyond the occasional snap of moisture vaporizing in the fireplace the room is quiet. No television (although there is one in the corner), no radio, nobody else in the house at the moment; just the scratching of my pen across the paper in my lap. This, truly, is bliss.

Send Me Your Entries From February Journaling Challenge

I am going to post several of my entries from February Journaling Challenge here during March, so you can see how I interpreted these prompts, and what I did with them. I would love to hear your comments.

Even more importantly, I would love to see what you did with yours. I have already followed entries of several of you, but it would be nice if others can see them too. So send me pictures of your entries. You can send them all if you like - I am not promising to post all of them, but I will choose a selection from everyone who sends them, and post them.

Please send them to lostwanderer5 [at] gmail [dot] com

Attach pictures, and if there is any text you want me to add, send it directly in email, in standard HTML or Plain Text. 

Please send them by March 15 at the latest. 

Thank you, and I sure hope to have a lot of emails from you guys. 

Check Out My Interview On Keeping A Journal

I did an interview for Kristin at Journaling Saves about keeping a journal. Check it out

Meet a Journal Keeper - Dave

Thanks for the opportunity to share with your readers my journaling style.  

First off let me say how surprised to read your last journaler's post.  It's a guy!  I meet so few guys that journal, or admit to it anyway, that I was in total shock.  

I started serious journaling when my son was in sixth grade.  He English teacher told the class that they all has to keep a journal and write in it each and every day.  He was quite bummed about this "chore" and so I promised him I'd keep one too.  We went down to the local dollar store and bought the two smallest ones we could find.  They were sort of girlie so we covered them in manly contact paper.  

He kept to his promise and I to mine.  At the end of the year we sat down and shared portions of our journals with each other, especially the days when we did things together.  It was interesting to hear his perspective on these days.  He said he was a little sad to see the journal year end.  Then we decided to try another year.  He and I have kept one every year since.  Although we have moved up to the bigger journals without the tiny locks.

When he graduated I pulled some stores and quotes from my journal and created a scrapbook with pictures.  It was the hit of the grad party.  Everyone wanted to read the stores.

I now have about 20 journals.  I do wish I had started earlier. So now I encourage everyone to start now.  You'll be glad you did.

I have a few requirements for my journals: 

• They must have at least 365 pages (I write a page a day)
• They must be sewn bound (my journals get a beating)
• I only use waterproof ink (usually a fountain pen)
• It must be at least 5 x 7 (most are 6 x 8)

I usually write at the end of the day and try to focus on the positive.  I sometimes whine but try to keep that to a minimum.  Who wants to read a whiner?  I certainly don't, even if it is me.

In the last three years I've been adding sketches to my journals.  I usually sketch something simple, my lunch, a chair, whatever happens to be at hand and then at the end of the day do my journaling around it. I often add watercolor washes.  My journals become quite interesting when I travel.

Although I also keep an electronic journal (usually about 750 words a day), I find the paper journal most relaxing and enjoyable to look over later.  I have attempted to keep an index of my paper journal in an electronic spreadsheet.  My idea was to be able to locate the entries by keyword.  But I haven't kept it consistently.

I also keep a work journal that relates to software design.  These are more diagrams and pictures.  But I never mix secular work journals and personal journals.  That's just my style and it seems to work for me.

Anyway my personal journal, and now my illustrated journal, has become such a part of my everyday life I can't imagine doing without it.  Sometimes is clears my head, at other times it's just relaxing, at still later times it brings great satisfaction to look back and see the progress I've made.

Also, in the last three years I've been adding sketches to my journals.  Here are a few examples from the last three years:

2010: http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveterry/sets/72157623170701024/

2009: http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveterry/sets/72157614575548476/

2008: http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveterry/sets/72157603704230853/

Thanks again for the opportunity to share.

...dave

travel.daveterry.net

daveterry.blogspot.com

Meet a Journal Keeper - Chuck

DAY LOG

About 9 months ago I started writing everything down. At the time I was going through a rough patch and saw this exercise as a way to get all the worries out of my head and into a system where I could begin to deal with them. Over time the problem was dealt with, but I continued to "log my days". While not really a "journal", my daylog goes with me everywhere and I try to write down important (or not so important) details so I have a history of my days and a better feel for when I did things.

Since my current set-up only accommodates about 8-10 weeks of logging, I put together a "how-to" for myself on the steps necessary to prepare a new journal each time I run out of space in an old one. I've attached a pdf of my steps (with pictures).


BLOG - JOURNAL
I keep a full fledged blog-journal complete with rambling entries and in-depth analysis of dreams and plans and problems. But I don't write in it everyday. I *do* write in the daylog everyday though. Even if it's a line or two. In preparation for this guest post I went back and I went back and looked through my main journal for mentions of my daylog and pulled these lines from random entries: (Keep in mind - these are entries in my FULL-FLEDGED JOURNAL, but it's amazing how much I refer to the daylog and use it to make notes that I reference in a journal entry later...)

- Memo notebook – Daylog and TODO list – kept with me as often as possible, write down everything

- Good news! We got food this time! Bad news – the service is just as bad as we remembered. I jotted down some details in my daylog and Carrie asked if I was writing down something about the horrible service. I handed her the book and told her “this isn’t a secret” She read the whole thing from April 11 till present. She commented on my writing style which was nice and I felt good that she knew I wasn’t keeping anything from her. It’s just my newest method to keep from going crazy.

- Crissy saw me jotting stuff down in my daylog and mentioned that I should make a note about seeing a pirate, so I did.

- I’ve got a hell of a lot of recapping to do. Luckily I’m keeping the daylog. I’ll just hit some highlights:

- Wednesday I started a food journal. I usually write down what I had for different meals in my daylog just for reference. But now I’m trying to writing down portions (at least servings) and I’m including snacks too.

- I’m living by my daylog.

- Another few days have crept by without me writing, but have no fear – I have the highlights in my daylog.

- I still have plenty to do and am making an effort to keep track of everything. If anything – I can say that my daylog book is getting far more use than this journal. I’m all about writing down things as they happen

- I’ve nearly perfected my daylog method. I’ll get closer with my TODO’s. I’ve put this blog together to my random babbling to myself. I’ll eventually find the system that works for me. I just gotta keep at it.

- I’ve been maintaining my daylog. In fact on on volume two! Over the past few months I’ve come to discover what I’m good at and what I’m not.

- I’ve been daylogging and journaling now for almost a year.

- I’m wondering what it’ll take to bring me back to writing here every day again. I’d hate to think I need a crisis in order to document things (then again – I *am* still keeping the daylog) and I sure as hell don’t want anything to get me all riled up (that’ll happen on it’s own soon enough, I’m afraid).

- I mean, there’s been plenty of things to write about. For whatever reason I’ve decided to just keep track in my daylog instead.

- It all started last year with the car problem. It’s continued to be a source of comfort for me to be able to write whether it be here or in my daylog. It might be the OCD, but I feel better having documented things each day.

http://facebook.com/chuckhawley
http://twitter.com/simplyodd

---
What are you afraid of?
http://creepycleveland.net/

P. S - if you would like a PDF copy of Chuck's Day-Log hack, then please email me. It's much more readable.

Meet a Journal Keeper - Kevin

Hi Dolly,

Journal Keeper

Thank you for the opportunity to be a part of your delightful website!  Your website is one of the few websites I try to visit every day.  

I love to journal and have been doing so for most of my life.  I started in middle school (11-12 years old?) and now I am 49 years old.  I have saved all of my journals and I love to occasionally glance back through them.  It is so interesting to see where I was and what I was thinking 10 years ago or even 6 months ago.  I have never been good at keeping photo albums so my journals also function as a kind of photo album since I often paste pictures I have taken in them, even more so these days with the proliferation of digital cameras and cheap, high quality color printers.

Mostly I write my daily activities, cerebral ponderings, doodles, quotes, drawings and ideas.  

I also love to cut things out of magazines and paste them into my journal as well.  I also tend to paste in movie tickets, receipts from restaurants I really liked and stickers I find or are donated by my kids.  I carry my journal with me everywhere.  It is in my briefcase on the way to work and it sits on my desk while I am working so I can jot down ideas if a good one strikes.  I carry it with me when I go to the doctors office or when I am dining out alone.  It is my friend and constant companion.

I have discovered I write best when my kids are with me.  They are most assuredly my muse and always fill my head with wild imaginings.  This is the way it is with kids.  They think so freely and without reserve.  They revel and joy in life’s simple pleasures and in that wonderful sparkling mirror they bounce that blissful spirit to all of those around them.  I don’t know what I would be without them.  They have started journaling themselves and it fills my heart with joy to sit down and write, doodle or draw with them.   

We are all pen and pencil fanatics and love to go to local art stores on the weekends to pick a new, cool pen or pencil to write with for the rest of the weekend.  I keep a few tins and jars on my writing desk that are filled with colorful and fun pens and pencils that we all pilfer from regularly.

Warm regards,

Kevin  (AKA Laser T. Swift)

Workspace

Guest Series Open Invitation to All Journal Keepers

Hello Folks, 

I am opening this blog to other journal keepers after receiving a fabulous post from Kevin, whose post will be up tomorrow. It will be a series titled: MEET A JOURNAL KEEPER 

If you want to share your journaling experience, please send pictures from your journal (you can just send a cover photo or your picture if you don't want to share any pages), as many as you like, and whatever you would like to add about your journaling habits, how long have you kept journals, anything really. 

It will be your post, so it can be anything you want. It doesn't matter what kind of journal you keep - daily, weekly, dream whatever. You are all welcome. 

This will be open and on-going series with a slot open every Wednesday, so if you are interested, please email post to me at lostwanderer5 [at] gmail [dot] com 

Happy Journaling!