Wow, 5 minutes to post and you managed to pack quite a punch with this one.
I love all of these ideas. I feel like I do document my life, my feelings and my testimony on my blog so it's the best journal I've ever kept. But I have lots of good mail, movie stubs, postage, and such that help piece my life together.
Love these ideas -- thank you! I need to be better about this but am feeling that a lot of my blog entries are a help (obviously not all of them!) -- which is a start, I guess.
How funny that this has been swirling around in your brain, because I just posted about it too, well, sort of. With blogging I feel like I've abandoned my written journal and my scrapbooks and that bothers me. I want to document my life, but I feel like there are pieces of me in lots of places and nothing gets finished. So...thank you for your tips! I'm taking them to heart.
immediately after every vacation or family experience, we try to come up with a list of 100 things we want to remember about the experience. we sometimes start our list on the way home on the plane, in the car - you can write on your boarding passes, itineries, takeout menus, etc. it's actually very hard to come up with 100 things, but it really makes you "stretch" to remember little details. it's so fun to read through later, becuase you will have forgotten little things that aren't captured in any of your photos.
We have a Christmas ornament tradition kind of like yours-- I try collect an ornament from every place we visit. I tie a little ribbon around them with the year we were there. Hunting them down has been a fun adventure. I couldn't find one last time I was in DC-- I guess that is a good reason to go back.
11:54 AM
Anonymous said...
That's why I blog too - I have a terrible memory and I like to have a place where I can capture all the little moments I would normally forget.
I just downloaded the software from blurb to make my own book. I think it's going to take a long time for me to figure out the formatting and the pictures, not to mention the posts and in which order to include them, but it's definitely worth it!
12:53 PM
Anonymous said...
It's a great idea to keep these things that document our day to day lives. I used to keep various boxes and baskets with meaninful odds and ends in them, but a few years ago I bought a giant scrapbook and just started pasting everything I wanted to keep in there -- like birth announcements, cards, movie tickets, boarding passes from flights, etc. It's sort of a catch-all for our family mementos.
I love going through a recipe book and finding notes (especially if they're from someone else) - same thing with books and scriptures.
WHAT A POST! Great ideas Kristi...thanks for passing them on.
1:39 PM
Anonymous said...
I do the recipe book thing and have for years. The other day my mom made some potato recipe on the sole recommendation that one of her kids wrote "delicious" next to the title in her old Lion House cookbook. And it was.
I still do some handwritten journals- my husband had ask a few years ago for journals for the kids that we could write things in them that we would like to remember. I am the one who usually writes in it and when we have visitors come stay with us, I like them to write something in the kids journals as well. I also have one about my marriage. It asks questions and you or your spouse can answer them. I also keep track of what we do for each anniversary in their too. I like to keep Christmas cards and wedding invites in a binder too. I love to get the penny imprint when we go places. The ones you pay 51 cents and get a picture on the penny of the place you are visiting. I have done it for years and keep them in a little box. Fun to go through with the kids.
3:05 PM
Anonymous said...
Yes, I'm a lurker. Have been for quite some time and love your blog. Of all the things I have thought of commenting on, I can't believe that this is it. My husbands parents started buying us the ornaments that the White House Historical Society puts out every year. After my MIL died we quit getting them but my husband surprised me last year by ordering the ones we missed. Thought this would be a great momento of your time in D.C. They really are beautiful and each is like a mini history lesson. Not too expensive either.
I love the ornament with the letter. We got ornaments each year, but I would love to know why my parents choose the ones they did.
Do you by chance know of a company where you can have your blog printed and bound? I found one company, but they said that cannot do the new version of blogger.
I'm a party addict. I just recently decided (after hosting two BIG parties in one month!) that I needed to keep track of that. So, I've glued the invitations in a journal and written a little bit about each party on the next page. I can't wait to look back at these and remember the the times with good friends and good food!
what great ideas! i like to keep my calenders because one little phrase of what i had to do a certain day brings back a flood of memories. i wish i was a better journal keeper-personal journal, not blog ;)
The winner signing and dating the game box is brilliant, and so is the tithing envelope idea - I wish I'd started both a long time ago, but I'll start them now!
Chanel: I know you posed the question to Kristi, but I thought I'd give it a shot. I am using blurb to publish (in book form) my blog. www.blurb.com, and you can only use it if you're using the new version of blogger. There are lots of options ranging from which size you want your book to be, to the font/color and layout of each page. I really like it so far.
O.K. I have maybe one thing to share, but it's an idea you'd have to tuck away till your kids are older, but you are preparing for it now. A couple of years ago someone I know got a gift from her parents: 365 index cards, each card dated for one day of the year. Every card had written on it an event from their immediate family history including blessing, baptism, and wedding dates, the day they planted a tree that still stands in her parents' yard, and so on. The box was titled "This day in Smith Family History". I think it would be cute on a rolodex file.
I love the idea for the board games! how fun! My husbands family does the 'new ornament' every year and when the boys got married the wife took over so I am doing it for my husband, I remember getting him (like you after christmas) a spider-man one because that year he just couldn't wait for the movie to come out, he loves spider-man.
As for ideas...I think you should save to-do lists, it will show what you did that kept you busy all day.
I have thought writing a post about this for so long and so it is kind of funny on the day I only have 5 minutes to post, I am writing about this, when I had planned to take more time. I have a few things on a list that I feel guilty about that I could do better. Journal writing used to be one of them and now thanks to blogging it is not on that list. Not because I feel like my life's journal is on my blog but I have started writing more personal things down to keep and have kept track of little mementos better. Here are a few things I have done or thought of doing to keep a journal without actually writing in one. saving Sunday church programs, three hole punching them and putting them in a binder. write a little something about each talk on the program next to the person who gave itif you use Netflix did you know you can print out every DVD you have ever rented. It is always fun to go back and see what we have watched this past year and the months we were in our Civil War phase or now that we are in a Anne of Green Gables phase. I buy this toy catalog every year since Annie Kate was little. I keep them in my Christmas boxes. It is so fun to pull out and see what toys were around 8 years ago. Can you imagine how fun it would be to have a Sears or JC Penny catalog from you were a kid to see what toys came out the year you were 3. (that is so dating me with the Sears catalog comment)keep a small wooden box to hold all your movie tickets that you have been to. They are awesome because they are dated and have the movie on it. How fun would it be to have your movie ticket from Star Wars. (this makes a great cheap gift for Christmas) write in your recipe books. write the date you made the recipe, any special quests for dinner, comments your kids made when they ate it.when we play board games who ever wins the game gets to date and sign the box. For our game Acquire - this is quite an honor to sign and date the box. If you use a study manual for a church lesson on Sundays. Write on the top of the chapter, who taught the lesson, the date and a few things you enjoyed about the lesson. Years later it is so fun to go back and read what stuck out in your mind. Draw things they had on the table. I did this my whole mission with my R.S. manual.Save your tithing envelopes from every ward you have been in, they have your bishops name and address on them. This way years later you have their address available to write them a thank you note for all the service they gave.For a wedding gift Jeff and I were given a journal to write all of our service callings we have had in our church, with the date, who we served with and what we learned. This makes a GREAT wedding or Christmas gift. It is never too late to start this.My girls each have a small box that say Washington D.C. on it. it holds any tickets and small things we pick up from monuments or events we do while living here.[Image]keep your good mail. Find a spot for cards and letters. You don't have to keep everything but find a spot to put them. Even if you never read them again - what a joy for your grandchildren to find them and read them someday. I found out after Jeff's Grandpa's funeral that he had a "received" stamp that he would stamp the date on the mail when he got it. So I then went out and bought one. Cool huh!start a blog - it free and you can make it private for only you to look at. You can get them printed. I got this idea from Amy W.'s mother in law. We buy a Christmas ornament each year for our kids and then write a story to them of how this ornament applies to what they were doing that year. It is fun each year for us to pull out the letters and read them when we decorate the tree. In 2001 I bought Annie Kate an American Flag. We wrote about September 11th. We wrote about that Christmas when we got on a airplane she asked if it was going to crash. Something I would have forgotten if I had not written it down. {Hallmark is a great place to buy an ornament that fits any theme, and I buy them after Christmas}I will say that nothing beats your thoughts in your own handwriting. So find a spot to do it. If it is your testimony in the back of your scriptures, memories in the front of your cookbook, or feelings on the back of a program, don't let your life pass without having your thoughts in your handwriting.
I had found this in Jeff's Great Grandfather's journal a few years ago and now have it framed in our home.
If there is any particular advice or admonition I wish to leave it is that I hope my posterity will cleave to the church and its auxiliary organizations and love the value and happiness that comes from service to God and one's fellow men. January 15, 1931
This advice has helped Jeff and I this year with our church service. I look forward to each of my daughters having a copy of this and when they share it with their children they will say these are the words or your Great, Great, Great Grandfather! Don't wait to keep a journal in some way or form
Do you have something you do that is keeping a journal without writing in one, I would love to know!
posted by everything pink! at 9:14 AM on Oct 25, 2007
Untitled
26 Comments -
GREAT IDEAS! Thanks for sharing.
10:11 AM
Great post with such good ideas. I want to try incorporating some of these ideas into my life. Thanks for sharing your ideas.
10:27 AM
Wow, 5 minutes to post and you managed to pack quite a punch with this one.
I love all of these ideas. I feel like I do document my life, my feelings and my testimony on my blog so it's the best journal I've ever kept. But I have lots of good mail, movie stubs, postage, and such that help piece my life together.
10:30 AM
Love these ideas -- thank you! I need to be better about this but am feeling that a lot of my blog entries are a help (obviously not all of them!) -- which is a start, I guess.
10:32 AM
What a bunch of great ideas, Kristi! If I had 1 idea for every 100 of yours...
10:33 AM
How funny that this has been swirling around in your brain, because I just posted about it too, well, sort of. With blogging I feel like I've abandoned my written journal and my scrapbooks and that bothers me. I want to document my life, but I feel like there are pieces of me in lots of places and nothing gets finished. So...thank you for your tips! I'm taking them to heart.
10:34 AM
this one includes writing, but it's still fun!!
immediately after every vacation or family experience, we try to come up with a list of 100 things we want to remember about the experience. we sometimes start our list on the way home on the plane, in the car - you can write on your boarding passes, itineries, takeout menus, etc. it's actually very hard to come up with 100 things, but it really makes you "stretch" to remember little details. it's so fun to read through later, becuase you will have forgotten little things that aren't captured in any of your photos.
10:46 AM
I have always kept birthday cards, and all the letters from my grandparents. I have a couple boxes of them. I love your ideas....
11:13 AM
What great ideas.
We have a Christmas ornament tradition kind of like yours-- I try collect an ornament from every place we visit. I tie a little ribbon around them with the year we were there. Hunting them down has been a fun adventure. I couldn't find one last time I was in DC-- I guess that is a good reason to go back.
11:54 AM
That's why I blog too - I have a terrible memory and I like to have a place where I can capture all the little moments I would normally forget.
12:29 PM
I just downloaded the software from blurb to make my own book. I think it's going to take a long time for me to figure out the formatting and the pictures, not to mention the posts and in which order to include them, but it's definitely worth it!
12:53 PM
It's a great idea to keep these things that document our day to day lives. I used to keep various boxes and baskets with meaninful odds and ends in them, but a few years ago I bought a giant scrapbook and just started pasting everything I wanted to keep in there -- like birth announcements, cards, movie tickets, boarding passes from flights, etc. It's sort of a catch-all for our family mementos.
I love going through a recipe book and finding notes (especially if they're from someone else) - same thing with books and scriptures.
1:29 PM
WHAT A POST! Great ideas Kristi...thanks for passing them on.
1:39 PM
I do the recipe book thing and have for years. The other day my mom made some potato recipe on the sole recommendation that one of her kids wrote "delicious" next to the title in her old Lion House cookbook. And it was.
2:41 PM
I still do some handwritten journals- my husband had ask a few years ago for journals for the kids that we could write things in them that we would like to remember. I am the one who usually writes in it and when we have visitors come stay with us, I like them to write something in the kids journals as well. I also have one about my marriage. It asks questions and you or your spouse can answer them. I also keep track of what we do for each anniversary in their too.
I like to keep Christmas cards and wedding invites in a binder too.
I love to get the penny imprint when we go places. The ones you pay 51 cents and get a picture on the penny of the place you are visiting. I have done it for years and keep them in a little box. Fun to go through with the kids.
3:05 PM
Yes, I'm a lurker. Have been for quite some time and love your blog. Of all the things I have thought of commenting on, I can't believe that this is it. My husbands parents started buying us the ornaments that the White House Historical Society puts out every year. After my MIL died we quit getting them but my husband surprised me last year by ordering the ones we missed. Thought this would be a great momento of your time in D.C. They really are beautiful and each is like a mini history lesson. Not too expensive either.
4:13 PM
I loved flipping through my Mom's Sears catalog. And yes it would be awesome to still have one. Love these ideas.
5:56 PM
Such great ideas, thank you!
I love the ornament with the letter. We got ornaments each year, but I would love to know why my parents choose the ones they did.
Do you by chance know of a company where you can have your blog printed and bound? I found one company, but they said that cannot do the new version of blogger.
6:00 PM
I'm a party addict. I just recently decided (after hosting two BIG parties in one month!) that I needed to keep track of that. So, I've glued the invitations in a journal and written a little bit about each party on the next page. I can't wait to look back at these and remember the the times with good friends and good food!
8:28 PM
Wow, I didn't know anyone else in the world played Aquire! It was always very cutthroat at my house!
11:07 PM
what great ideas! i like to keep my calenders because one little phrase of what i had to do a certain day brings back a flood of memories. i wish i was a better journal keeper-personal journal, not blog ;)
11:35 PM
The winner signing and dating the game box is brilliant, and so is the tithing envelope idea - I wish I'd started both a long time ago, but I'll start them now!
10:33 AM
Chanel: I know you posed the question to Kristi, but I thought I'd give it a shot. I am using blurb to publish (in book form) my blog. www.blurb.com, and you can only use it if you're using the new version of blogger. There are lots of options ranging from which size you want your book to be, to the font/color and layout of each page. I really like it so far.
1:40 PM
O.K. I have maybe one thing to share, but it's an idea you'd have to tuck away till your kids are older, but you are preparing for it now. A couple of years ago someone I know got a gift from her parents: 365 index cards, each card dated for one day of the year. Every card had written on it an event from their immediate family history including blessing, baptism, and wedding dates, the day they planted a tree that still stands in her parents' yard, and so on. The box was titled "This day in Smith Family History". I think it would be cute on a rolodex file.
12:05 AM
barb that is brilliant!
6:01 AM
I love the idea for the board games! how fun! My husbands family does the 'new ornament' every year and when the boys got married the wife took over so I am doing it for my husband, I remember getting him (like you after christmas) a spider-man one because that year he just couldn't wait for the movie to come out, he loves spider-man.
As for ideas...I think you should save to-do lists, it will show what you did that kept you busy all day.
5:47 PM