During the month of November I had a goal to write a blog entry every day. I met that goal. In doing so I seem to have created something of a habit. I’m not complaining. I like having a daily reason to focus my writing capabilities on some topic or another. However to help me out on those days when I would stare at the blank screen at a loss for what to write, I created a list of possible blog topics. I called it my Blogable list. The list was written on post-it notes and stuck to the cupboard door of my computer hutch. I still have the list and I keep adding to it. Somehow the list keeps getting longer rather than shorter.
Several months ago I went back and reread all of my teenage journals. There were many of them filled with endless chatter about peers and my feelings about relationships and my ponderings on my self worth and who I wanted to become and religious musings. 95% of my journals covered these topics. I hardly ever mentioned things I did with my family. I never mentioned schoolwork or my teachers even though they were huge in my life at the time. I never mentioned the things I was learning. As I read back I saw these huge gaps and wished that my teenage self had had a Blogable list so that she could have been reminded of the other things that there were to write about.
I remember those frustrating gaps in my teenage journals and I wonder what gaps am I leaving in this online journal today. I can’t see the gaps from where I’m standing, just as my teenage self didn’t see her gaps. So I am enlisting all of your eyes. Are there things I have mentioned in passing that you’d like to hear more about? Are there things that I completely fail to mention because they seem obvious to me, but aren’t to you? Are there questions you’ve been wanting to ask and have answered? If there are, leave them in the comments below. I’ll add these things to my Blogable list. I give no guarantees that I’ll actually respond to all of the comments. This is a public journal and there are some things that I’m leaving out very deliberately. However it is possible that you’ll provide me with impetus and material to write some entries that will entertain us all.
Something to think about …
Last week we were having an Enrichment Planning Meeting at someone’s house and she had found a scrapbook of her mother’s (who lives with her)hidden away in the garage. When she opened it she found clippings from newspapers that were amazing!
We figured out from reading through some of the articles that they were from about 1942ish and one was a baby announcement page saying that Gordon B. Hinkley and his wife had a baby boy.
And another clipping showed the prophet of that time and told about how he would be conducting the next conference. AND another clipping showing a picture of George Albert Smith handing the first braile Book of Mormon to Helen Keller!?!
We don’t think of those things do we? What if some of the newspaper clippings from today would be amazing to our descendents?
I mean, we were all oooing and aaahing about those clippings…
who knows what will make future generations ooo and aah?
On the other hand, at my Christmas party I went to the other night my friend was telling us that she found some journals that her grandma or husband’s grandma had written and she looked into them and was shocked!
Everything that grandma had told them about her past was WAAAYYY different than what she had written in her journals. It was filled with affairs and other things you really DON’T want to know about a grandma.
My friend handed them to a parent and told her to hold on to them until that grandma had died.
We teased her that she could use them to write a racy novel! (and then write a white washed version for her family members!)
Who knows what will be valuable to future generations?
We all just have to do our best to document our lives.
I like to think that we all have our own angel documentary videographers following us around so we can watch it later.
Personally, I think you are doing a really great job!
Something to think about …
Last week we were having an Enrichment Planning Meeting at someone’s house and she had found a scrapbook of her mother’s (who lives with her)hidden away in the garage. When she opened it she found clippings from newspapers that were amazing!
We figured out from reading through some of the articles that they were from about 1942ish and one was a baby announcement page saying that Gordon B. Hinkley and his wife had a baby boy.
And another clipping showed the prophet of that time and told about how he would be conducting the next conference. AND another clipping showing a picture of George Albert Smith handing the first braile Book of Mormon to Helen Keller!?!
We don’t think of those things do we? What if some of the newspaper clippings from today would be amazing to our descendents?
I mean, we were all oooing and aaahing about those clippings…
who knows what will make future generations ooo and aah?
On the other hand, at my Christmas party I went to the other night my friend was telling us that she found some journals that her grandma or husband’s grandma had written and she looked into them and was shocked!
Everything that grandma had told them about her past was WAAAYYY different than what she had written in her journals. It was filled with affairs and other things you really DON’T want to know about a grandma.
My friend handed them to a parent and told her to hold on to them until that grandma had died.
We teased her that she could use them to write a racy novel! (and then write a white washed version for her family members!)
Who knows what will be valuable to future generations?
We all just have to do our best to document our lives.
I like to think that we all have our own angel documentary videographers following us around so we can watch it later.
Personally, I think you are doing a really great job!
Re: Something to think about …
That’s interesting. I worry sometimes about this. I use my (paper) journal to vent about things–and to get things that I’m worried about out of my head and down on paper. As a result, there are many things in there that my posterity may not need to know about. (Not that I’m having torried affairs, but I’m not a perfect person either). Someday I may want to type and preserve an edited version.
Then again, I feel like editing my life that way would be lying about who I am, so I don’t know.
Re: Something to think about …
That’s interesting. I worry sometimes about this. I use my (paper) journal to vent about things–and to get things that I’m worried about out of my head and down on paper. As a result, there are many things in there that my posterity may not need to know about. (Not that I’m having torried affairs, but I’m not a perfect person either). Someday I may want to type and preserve an edited version.
Then again, I feel like editing my life that way would be lying about who I am, so I don’t know.
Blogables
Perhaps you would be willing to share your “blogables” list? That sounds like a useful thing to have around. I have a short list of a similar sort in the front of my (paper) journal, but I rarely use it. Maybe worth another look now that I am reminded. 🙂
Blogables
Perhaps you would be willing to share your “blogables” list? That sounds like a useful thing to have around. I have a short list of a similar sort in the front of my (paper) journal, but I rarely use it. Maybe worth another look now that I am reminded. 🙂