I was at my aunt Mary's several years back in Maine and looked through some of my grandmother's old belongings. My grandmother Esther passed away almost 2 decades ago. Having grown up across the country from her, to see some of her personal things was exciting to me. I was particularly struck by a note she scribbled on a piece of scrap paper (or it might have been a napkin even). It was simple, the weather outside, what the grand kids were doing at that moment. The fact that she shared a simple snapshot of what she was doing on that day spoke volumes to me. Although it was simple, to see her handwriting and what her life looked like at that exact moment was very poignant.


She must have known I would share this love with her (or maybe she just hoped I would) and she gave me this journal when I was 12.


I have to laugh when I look in it...... not only is my handwriting bad, I signed each entry with "Hidden Forever, Melissa". Which now that I think about it, I'm sure my punk brothers cracked into it more than once to read my deepest, most personal thoughts (like who I was in love with for the week, or what chore my parents made me do). I was BOY CRAZY - and wrote at the top of most of the pages who I "liked" for the week (yes, it was usually more than one boy). Of course now that I have girls myself, this terrifies me.



I journaled on and off during high school and into my early 20s. These journals actually got thrown out. On purpose. By me. You see, I was a TERRIBLE teenager. You know, the typical "my parents divorced, I'm mad, and now I'm going to do everything I can to get back at the world" type. All I can figure is maybe at the time I needed to write. It was therapeutic to get it on paper. But I wrote about EVERYTHING. Including moments I wasn't proud of. Moments I'm not sure I want the rest of society (or future generations) to read.... Anywho, I had no problems pitching them into the trash when I was in my mid-20s and finally got my act together.

I continue to journal and still include the good, the bad, and the ugly. But I try to write in a manor that would benefit my children and my children's children. Trying to find the good in life and capturing the lessons I've learn from my trials. I've kept paper journals for a long time, but have recently started using LDSJournal It's a free journaling website that allows you to add pictures to your entries. It even has a section with prompt questions (about your childhood, marriage, accomplishments) - it's a great help when you are not sure what to write about. The BEST part of the site it that you can have your journal formatted and printed into a book for a reasonable fee.

I keep small journals for each of my kids - I write about funny things they do or say. What their favorite foods, tv shows, or toys are for the week.

If they are close by, I trace their hands...

And when they are big enough, I have them write short things in it of their own...


I found this fab journal for Nate at a discount book store and it's PERFECT for little ones... It comes from a company called Journals Unlimited. I think I found a bunch a while back on Amazon (or check EBAY). They offer many different varieties of journals and the prompt questions are great. Here is a page from Nate's...

I loved this question/answer - "What did you do to brighten someone else's day?" - his answer was "getting Lauren a fork". It sounded like he really had to dig to get that one!

I'm not sure who, if anyone will be interested in the history of my life. But I'm guessing that one day, someone of my posterity will find my everyday, humdrum life exciting to read.

So go - write about the weather or what you are doing at this very moment! Someone, somewhere will thank you for it.