Compartment 14B

My 5-year plan. 2008-09-30 - 10:50 a.m. The first couple of weeks in October mark some big yearly events: it�s my husband�s and two best friends� birthdays all on the 3rd, my birthday on the 9th, Thanksgiving on the 13th here in Canada, with all its attendant feasting and visiting with family, and on the 7th, it�s the anniversary of this journal. I�ve been going strong for 5 years and this entry is my 665th. Ta-dah! While every year I kind of go, �Hunh. Another year and I�m still here.� this anniversary is a biggie and I intend to mark it with a gift. My plan, if I can figure out a way to do it relatively easily, is to print 3 copies of the whole journal and have them bound, one for me and one for each of my kids. In fact, given that I write about one page of text per entry, I may have to do more than one volume per copy. If I can�t do it easily, I still intend to do it, but I�ll be lucky to have it done by Christmas. Heck, I might be lucky to have it done by the end of maternity leave next year. But I�m going to do it. It�s all well and good to have it online, or even backed up in electronic form, but I�d really love to have paper copies too. In fact, there are a couple of blogs/journals out there I kind of wish I could purchase paper copies of. The amazing but no-longer-updated Tequila Mockingbird springs to mind. Writing this journal, and reading others� too, and becoming part of a community spangled across the continent, has really been an amazing experience. It has changed me, shaped me, educated me, and given me solace when I needed it. Just as importantly, it has chronicled my life from the time I was a newlywed, onwards through the conception, birth, and early lives of both of my children. But I have to admit, I don�t often go back and read my earlier entries unless I�m looking to prompt a specific memory or find a certain piece of information. I think having this journal on paper will invite perusal. And yes, I will probably cringe at some of my earlier stuff or my more na�ve or poorly-written entries, but outweighing that is the possibility, nay, the likelihood, that I will have those �a-ha! I�d forgotten that!� moments. So yeah, 5 years. Longer than a lot of people I read who are now considered to have been here a long time. You don�t have to be impressed, but given that I wasn�t sure I�d keep it up a month? I am, and that�s what matters. Before - After All content � Shawna 2003-2010 That means no swiping my stuff - text, images, etc. - without asking. P.S. If you're emailing me, replace the [at] with @ in the "to" line. Oh, and if you put the word "journal" in the subject line it'll have a better chance of making it past my junk mail filters. recommend me HTML and design help by Jo hosted by Diaryland