Count your Blessings

Hey you guys!  Short little post today.

Yes, yes, I know, you can stop cheering.  I’m terrible about talking too much–I just run at the mouth, and I do the same thing (but worse) in text.  But I’m serious.  I was just thinking about this, and thought I would share it with you in my effort to keep updating the blog.  🙂

Journaling!

How many of you writers out there keep some kind of by-hand journal?  I suppose that in this day and age blogs are sort of like journals, except that there is forever the idea that A. Whatever you write is on the internet, for all to see–there are some things you just can’t write, for fear it will get back to your boss/friend/significant other/parents/etc.  And B. You’re always, in some way, trying to be entertaining, so that people want to read your blog, and will keep coming back to it.  There’s no such pressure with a journal.  (As long as your family members aren’t nosy little buttheads who sneak in and read it!)

Anyway, I’ve tried keeping journals at various points in my life–I’ve done nothing but read about writers who journal often and intensely, many of whom also kept ‘writing journals’ in addition to personal ones.  In that way I felt kind of obligated to keep one, you know?  But that aside, I do like to think that in the future, when my memory is failing me and I wonder what life was like for me back on March 3 of 2005, I will have access to that information for years to come.

Still, journaling isn’t something that comes naturally to me.  I forget about it, or I’m too tired by the time night rolls around, or I’m too lazy, or I don’t feel like anything interesting has happened to me, etc etc.  (Not to mention that any kind of extensive writing in the traditional sense makes my hand cramp up.)  I’m kind of a wuss.  But I still think it’s an important habit to get in to, so I keep on trying.

This year for Christmas,

my Grandmother bought each of us, my sister and my cousins and I, a little journal.  I think mine is quite lovely to look at–it’s white with a bunch of little sketchy birds on it.  🙂  Anyway, with it came a letter, very sweet, that essentially told us this was going to be our ‘Blessings Journal’ for 2013.  Our job?  To write in it every day for a year, and every day to think about and write down ONE blessing.

The idea is, of course, that we as a society spend entirely too much time thinking about the bad things, the things that have gone wrong, the ways people have slighted us, etc.  We don’t focus on the positive, and it’s a really terrible pattern to be in.  After all, how happy can you possibly be if you’re always remembering the bad things?  Who wants to get old and only have the terrible times that you remember with any clarity?

So she gave us these journals in the hopes that we will be able to spend a little time every day focusing on things about ourselves and our lives that are worth being thankful for. =D  And I thought that was a totally awesome idea, so I’ve been trying very hard to keep up with that.  I think I started too broad, though–friends, family–and I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I’ve already begun listing some things that are kind of… lame?  (The fact that I have a lot of hair, for example.)  But maybe, as the months go by, I will get better at picking out the blessings in my life…  Or I’ll just have to go find some new ones!

So what about you?  Do you keep a journal?  Faithfully or sporadically?  Could you benefit from keeping a Blessings Journal, or just thinking about the good stuff more often?

Cheers,

Celeste

And although this is mostly Michelle‘s thing, here’s a crazy video of a bird laying down some sick dubstep beats!

(Feel free to tell me if you skipped my entire post and just watched the video–it’s okay, that bird is CRAZY awesome!)

(PPS, my first Scuba Diving class is on Thursday, and I’m super-excited!  Even if I do have to get up at 7AM, and eventually parade myself around in a bathing suit.  *shiver*)