Showing posts with label Journals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Journals. Show all posts

Friday, April 15, 2011

My Wonderful, Incredible, Magickal, Appreciation Journal

About a year ago I wrote a post about my appreciation journal.  In trying to keep my spirits up, I was looking back through the past 12 months of things I had to appreciate, and decided to revisit the topic.

I should prefaced this post by stating that I LOVE journals.  As some of you know, I love paper in almost all forms (plain notebook or printer paper doesn't do a whole lot for me, but just about anything else does).  Whether it be an individual sheet, a ream, a pad, or, most especially, a journal, I just love it!


Now that you know that about me, you'll understand my delight when I found this particular journal. I didn't want to spend a lot of money, but I wanted something relatively pleasant, thereby increasing the chances that I'd actually use it!  I headed over to the bargain books section of my local Chapters.  I didn't think my chances of finding a journal or blank book in that section were great, but I figured it was worth a try.

I didn't see anything, but of course I had to take the opportunity to browse through the section anyway.  After a few minutes, I saw a single copy of an untitled book with a pretty spine.  Pulling it out, I found it was the PERFECT blank book for my purposes. 

It's a pleasing square shape, with appealing, varied colors of green, pink, yellow lilac and blue on its plush cover.  Three small panels take up half the front cover, with a word written in each--Faith, Family, Friends, respectively.  ('Faith' gave me pause, because I tend to associate it with the Christian religion, but then I realized I, too, have faith.)  Flowers and a butterfly round out the rest of the front cover.  Inside, the pages are very pale versions of all these colors, with an inspiring quote on many of them, and a handy white bookmark ribbon to hold my place.


 
 
I fell in love with it instantly, and knew I had the book I needed in my hand.  I looked at the back, and the inside front cover, and the spine, but could find no title or price listed.  I looked for other copies, but it was the only one.  I decided it had been misplaced, and went to the gift books section, assuming I would find more copies there.  Nothing.  I took it up to the counter, explained my search, and handed it over to the sales clerk.  She could find no information about price on it, either, nor could she look it up in her computer without title or ISBN number or SOMETHING.  She called a manager over.  After hearing a shortened version of the story, the manager glanced at it, handed it to back to me, and said, "Just take it."

"Really?" I asked, not believing I understood her correctly.

"Yeah," she said.  "We can't find any information on it."

I thanked them and left the store, elated that I had found such a perfect book, and it hadn't cost me a cent!  I've thought since then that I was meant to have it, and that perhaps it appeared there just for me.

Magick!


Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Appreciation Journals

I'm not sure how much validity this has, 'cause I love journaling anyway, but I'm really enjoying my new practice of keeping an appreciation journal.  I think it is slowly changing my thinking to more positive avenues.  And I especially love that Don is doing it, too, so we can read our entries to each other after we're done, and about 1/2 the time, they're about the same things!  And I totally love the actual physical book itself, with it's pretty pastel colors, faux weathered pages, and soft cover--I love touching it and looking at it, as well as writing in it. 

As to the actual appreciation part of it, I had no idea how much I truly had to be appreciative of in my life.  I mean, I could always find at least 5 things to list about how much I appreciate my husband, but that seems like cheating--after all, I'm not trying to keep a Don-is-great-and-wonderful journal (though he is).  So I try really hard to come up with 5 things I appreciate that are not about him, at least not directly. And I keep thinking of items!  AND I'm noticing more and more with each passing day.  I do actually find myself noticing things throughout the day that I could list at night when I write my entry.  It's nice.