A Note to all of you Non-Journalers

[faerywings]

I confess I don't usually journal. I don't like journaling and many (99.9999999% possibly) of my LOs don't have journaling.

However, I am going to try really hard to write more on my pages from now on. I had a very concrete experience yesterday that convinced me how important it is.
My son is 23 years old and has been having a lot of strange dreams since we have been in quarantine. He will ask us if they are real or just things he made up in his mind. A lot of them are real memories. Yesterday he was trying to describe a memory of my mom holding him in front of a dinosaur sculpture. He asked if I knew where it was taken, and we knew places where it *wasn't.*

He started looking at old photos and Gary remembered that I had made a bunch of paper scrapbooks from when the kids were young. We dragged them out and the kids *loved* looking through them and reading the blurbs I had written. (OMG-- all of the Fiskar scissor edges! :faint: )
The journaling triggered memories for them and I had also written down stories that they had told me which made them laugh.
It was a smack in the face of how much more they liked the journaling than the photos. And the photos they liked best were the ones of them just "being"- they enjoyed looking at the things in the house, in the background. The toys, the pets, the dishes.

I have to admit, it was very eye-opening and I think it might change the way I scrap now. Not for every page, but it will make me think a bit more for a lot of them.

 

[faerywings]

And BTW- we did find a photo of him and the dinosaur- he was three years old and it was at an exhibit at Van Saun Park in NJ. And OMG- he was such a cutie!

 

[CindaA]

That's awesome!

 

[taxed4ever]

I love to journal, so don't know why I don't do more of it on my pages. I usually include some kind of journaling on my layouts, and hope to do more about going through this Pandemic. We are living history and we should all be documenting it for future generations!

 

[felis]

I love journaling, just English don't love me. I do make some pages only for my family eyes where journal on my own language, but there is not a lot fonts that have cyrillic symbols too. I'm not a fan of the proverb: "A picture is worth a thousand words", I think exactly the opposite what you drawing with words can make even the boring pic at remarkable story.

 

[Nickel]

Great story! i love to journal but sometimes I'm so restless and impatient to get a lay out done that I skip the journaling

 

[Danesa]

A great reminder of how important it is to document our little & big moments. For us, it may be something insignificant but for those who come behind it can really be something significant. Thanks, Chris, for this post. I'm not much of a journal layout person but I do have junk journals that I scribble in each day. I need to carry it over into my layouts for sure.

 

[veer]

In the time of paper scrapping I did journaling, and I do it for holiday albums

 

[VickiStegall]

This is GREAT! I love that you had those moments



I love journaling on my pages. I just need to SCRAP MORE lol You'd think I'd have more time now to do it, but nope. lol

 

[faerywings]

I hear ya, Vicki! even though I have *time* ATM, I have very little mojo and motivation.


The other bit of advice for any new parents- write it *all* down. You think in the moment that you won't forget things. But you do and much faster than you think.
One thing that I am realizing is at this point is what Trudy said- that we are living in history right now. Our words will document this for generations to come.
(And no one will actually believe that the president of the USA suggested that injecting disinfectants should be a topic of research otherwise. *head desk*)

 

[twinsmomflor]

That's a great idea. I am so bad too. I'll try to include in some if I can. I need to print my scrapbooks too....

 

[zanthia]

i am a non journaler - having no kids there is no one to look at m y pages down the road . usually i find wordart or even a quote to be enough.

 

[Mary Davies]

Those memories are so precious and journaling relives them time and again ...I do like to do journaling on some but not all pages.