Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas
Documenting little details of your everyday life becomes a celebration of who you are. Carolyn V. Hamilton
We are so busy, but what are we busy doing? Keeping a journal helps us understand the life we’ve lived and the thoughts we had while we lived it. As we plan our itinerary for our trip out west the schedule is getting pretty full. Can we see this person I ask, just pop in and say hi. I’m not even trying to fit cousins in, just nieces and nephews.
Making this trip so everyone gets to see most of what they want to see is our goal. We don’t have tickets to the Calgary Stampede yet, we thought we couldn’t get any but there were a few available last night. My husband has to decide if he wants to go now that it looks like it’s a possibility once again. Decisions, decisions, decisions, we only have a bit of time to spend so we have to decide how to spend it.
Years ago we took the ferry to Vancouver Island and toured Bouchard Gardens so we aren’t doing that this trip. We’ll see Stanley Park, dinner beside the ocean with a niece and nephew and their families, and the Night Market in Richmond on our first day.
When do we rest, when indeed? We might have to lighten our schedule a little we do have a fourteen-month-old on board, but I expect him to be a little trooper sleeping in the stroller or carrier.
How lucky we are to be able to take this trip for his Great-Grandmother to get to meet him, and my kids to see their Grandmother.
Our little dog is staying with my daughter-in-law’s grandparents while we are away, but they also got asked to look after a cat. Fortunately, the cat will stay somewhere else so we don’t have to worry about a cat and dog fight. They might have gotten along well, but my daughter-in-law doesn’t want the responsibility of Lulu getting hurt while with her family.
There’s a whole load of stuff in life that is worth documenting. You see it every day but do not even notice. Jan Chipchase
Sometimes we plan things for years, other times they come together quickly as this trip is. We are so blessed to be able to go on a family trip, to have a family to see, to live so far away and still be able to get together, to be able to pick up the phone and talk, and even video chat if we want to.
There is so much to enjoy, so much to see, and so much to be grateful for. We will be getting in a lot of walking which I hope will make up for the amount of eating we will be doing. Good food is always an enjoyable part of a holiday.
One of the things I’m planning to do is create an Illustrated Journal of our trip. I’ll be giving a couple of talks on Illustrated Journals when I get back, so having one I started on our trip will be a good example of what I’m talking about. I’m feeling a little pressure to make it worthy of display but the goal is not perfection, so much as documenting our trip.
Documenting our life is a good exercise and putting our thoughts, maybe a few photos, drawings, and observations on a page will bring us back to the moment when we look through our journal. We can write down what we are grateful for and how we feel now. We can write down thoughts we don’t want to forget. Combining writing, art, photos, and even memorabilia will fill our journal and make it special. I like to read my journals and relive what I was thinking because we don’t always know at the moment how important something will be. We won’t always look back on things the same way we were looking at them when they happened.
Life is what we make it, and keeping a journal whether written or illustrated is a way to make more of our lives. The more we put into life, the more we get out of it.
Document the adventure of your current life, whatever and wherever that might be. Diane Evans
Documentation is a love letter that you write to your future self. Damian Conway
Art creation is the documentation of the soul’s voice. Malkiese Paythress
Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.
