Did I see?

last year's notebook

Notebooks. When I was little, I had an ancient, yellowed book of empty pages I glued in pictures from magazines. A hobby. As I became a homeschooling mom, I started to write in a composition notebook the things we did for the day, people I had to call, recipes, what to make for dinner, and appts. I wasn't consistent every day, but I've saved them, and love them.

I know my dear friend Maureen has faithfully plugged away in her little notebooks. I've also found that my 96 year old Grandmom plugs away at a notebook writing who has visited, called, and what she has done...and sometimes how she feels. My daughter Hannah is an active journaler, and when she was small she kept a sticker notebook too.

A while back I read about how some people have added pictures and stickers to their grown up notebooks. I read some entries on how they did it, and tried to be more daily engaged in my own. All those things I tried to notice the kiddos did, a special quote, a dream, a plan, I tried to give more to the written pages. I wanted to upgrade my notebook to a sketchbook, but told myself to first fill a notebook. With the help of some scribblers and bigger people ripping out some empty pages for their own notes, I filled it, and now bought a sketchbook from Wal Mart! I've saved magazines, and bought a few from an antique store for a dollar a piece that I'm taking pictures from.

One of the writers that shared about doing one was Ann V. at Holy Experience. Here she recently published more in detail about bringing in the beauty as she does it. I tried to find an article I read once of a woman who cancelled her Twitter acct to write her "tweets" in her notebook. Obviously I couldn't find it, but it did make me think about what I was putting on Facebook and my blog might be served better for some memory if I wrote it down, and it made a complete picture of my day.

"Notebooking" has helped my to slow down and notice things more, and Jeremy and the big kids also like looking at it.