Surrogate Journals

It strikes me that not everyone keeps a journal or a blog ... this was no major revelation mind you, just something I have to remind myself now and again when I am socialising. "Not everyone writes a journal Pamela", I sometimes have to soothe myself ...

There are so many other forms of chronicalling our lives. I mused here recently about the visit of an old friend. Catching up on news face-to-face is a great way to review the months since last you met. Even emailing a friend regularly can become a type of journal experience - especially if you (or they) keep them all and you can review them at a later date.

Then there is your daily diary. If you record your activities (and perhaps some qualitative comments about the day) then your appointment diary becomes your journal too ...

More recently for me I have had a young cousin staying from Cananda. This has inspired more conversations with other family memebers too. And I see these interactions as a nother way of telling the stories of our lives ... our family lives, history and points of remembrance ... all really important aspects of who we are.

It is making me feel quite strongly about my heritage, especially my female heritage, right now.

Consider the things that are journalling, but without journalling ... collecting letters, notes, souveniers from movies you go to, photo albums, postcards or your scrap book.

Expanding the definition of journalling as a verb can only be a healthy thing I am sure ...

Can I Have Five?

Can I have five minutes of your time???

Oh you would not believe the twists and turns in New Century Notebook at the moment. Wow.

I really would love some responses to my Blogging Survey ... all dead easy questions and really fast and easy to fill out. Five minutes maximum. Calling all bloggers!

The survey is ..... here ... if you choose to accept this mission!

Test time!

Ok!

So who is still keeping any New Year's resolutions to write everyday in their blog or diary???

Hmmm?

How are you doing?

I'm keeping up my usual writing rituals but falling behind in the blogging (we have had so many visitors from other cities and my gorgeous cousin from Canada that I have a great excuse!!!).

It's only 24 days in to the year - too early to be faliling those resolutions guys!

My Grandma Wrote a Journal!

Can you imagine how excited I was to learn this news!!!!!!!!!!!??????????

It was like - "OH MY GOODNESS". I couldn't think straight for a little bit when I heard the news. My poor cousin is here down under visiting from Canada at the moment and she just mentioned in passing that she had read Grandma's diary and that it is "full of ordinary things like what she did each day, going shopping and things like that".

I nearly lost my breath, fainted, & screamed with delight! To know that I come from a genetic pool that includes a diary writer! Horray. I am not alone in being the mad diary writing one in my family anymore. Phew! To think that it is in family hands and wasn't destroyed or given to a local museum or historical society too. I am so pleased it is in family hands. My grandma died before I was born so I never got to meet her ... but my mum tells stories about her.

I asked my Mum if she knew that HER mum had kept a diary and it was a total surprise to her too. It's so exciting. Of course now I need to work out how to get an airfare to Canada solely for the purpose of reading it ... hmmm ... what can I sell on e-bay?

Seriously - it has given me such a boost of motivation for this project just knowing she kept one ... But now of course my cousin think's I'm some kinda strange person - I'll need to work on that and start acting normal again! (By the way this is a pic of my Gramma in Sept 1960 - don't you LOVE the feather?).

Calling All Bloggers!

Research and book writing is never easy ... I need help from fellow bloggers for my book.

I need to know more about how people got started blogging, what they blog about and WHY they do it ...

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ... I have set up a survey for bloggers here ... and I would really really really love you forever if you could stop by and just fill out this quick survey. I would love you even more if you sent other people there too!!

(I've plenty of love to go around!)

Old Friends - Walking Diaries

Summer seems to be the time so many people return to Perth if they are living overseas or interstate ... this is possibly due to the great summer weather, but more likely due to the fact it's also a long school holiday period.

I like catching up with people I haven't seen for awhile. I might put a restriction on that, I like catching up with people I haven't seen for awhile if they are friends and I like them!

I had reason to catch up with a few people over summer, but one was a friend I haven't seen for a few years. We knew each other when we were like 17 and starting our nursing careers together. This was a time we all 'grew up' from innocent childhoods to adults who help really responsible jobs and met incredible people in awful circumstances (the patients). We witnessed all those embarrassing mistakes one makes in the transition - you have to stay friends because you all have so much 'dirt' on each other!!! In those days (oh dear ... I am coming off old now!) we did our nursing training on the wards, and very little in the classroom - we played and worked hard.

The catch up was like re-reading a diary. Snippets of gossip about people we still saw, changes in our own lives and changes in people around us. It stimulates memories, feelings and thoughts from the past the same way reading an old diary can do.

Old friends, diaries, memories, photo albums - like it or not the past determines part of who we are.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I'll feel better soon ... I hope ... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Hmmm ... not yet obviously ... but I will .... soon.

Regular readers will remember how much I loved the new Beta Blogger when it first came out (not). Well I succumbed. I tried again. I was really postive (honest). I didn't have even the tiniest little negative thought in my mind. I figured the bugs would be out of it by now. I was actually being really rational.

It was all wasted *sigh*

But - in trying to stay positive my blogs appear on line this time. That is a huge improvement. What has been missing is any comments people have left in the last few months. Well interestingly, some comments were still coming to me, and some weren't.

SO- If I offended anyone by not getting back to them I apologise. And I am going to sit here and read them all now. (Well sometime in the next couple of days, but from your PC screen you can't tell that I am actually taking off to the movies with my daughter to see Holiday).

Now. Back to being positive. I don't think (fingers crossed) that the new Blogger has any other hiccups.

New Year Diaries

So how does your new diary look?

Are you already regretting not getting a different one? Or perhaps you love the one you have but wish you had written more neatly in it that last couple of days? Or are you still to buy one (perhaps you are one of those people who will wait until they are on sale before you buy!).

Whether it's your date book or journal - the new year usually brings new books to sribble in - and the opportunity to do it differently this year. Just don't forget you don't need to wait a whole year to change how you are doing your journal or diary. Don't fall for that one!

Happy New Year

Oh the joys of the New Year and a new blank book to start writing in!

Yep, that's crazy I know. But it's an exciting part of the annual cycle to start afresh, start anew. No different than we can every day of our lives, but there is something special about New Years.

Make the most of it. And have a great start to 2007.