It's a NEW year and a NEW JOURNAL

First, let me start off my saying, "the sickness has struck my house." Well, not the whole house, just Husband. And the sickness I speak of is pneumonia. seriously. He has barely been out of the bed in a week. But thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, he's feeling like a person again. And hopefully only one week of his three weeks vacation will be wasted on pneumonia.

Anyway.

I've been keeping a journal off and on since middle school (when my spelling was atrocious). For the past 6 years, I have had a new journal for every year. I try to carve out specific time every day to write in it. They are great to look back on.

The main title of my journal is My Life and each volume has a different subtitle. 2010 was Mommy's Book of Secrets. And we all remember what happened to that volume in early August. I was so disgusted with what I allowed to happened to my journal I couldn't even look at it. I didn't piece it back together and I certainly didn't write on its water logged pages. 2010 was over for me ... at least the journaling part of it. Sad, but true.

But that only means that My Life volume 6: Let's Try is Again. Dryer this time had some catchup included on the first pages. I'm excited to be journaling again. When I got empty volume 6 out to start it, I realized that it was my last one "in waiting" I love the format and binding of the journals I use and with the exception of volume one (which is a great Van Gogh spiral that BBWP gave me) they are all the same, less the color. So, I need to get back to stock piling and searching for new ones.

I got volume 5 out of hiding for this blog post. You can tell some of the sharpie I used to label the spine was even washed off. poor dirty, dirty volume 5.

a side view of the water logged pages.

I'm excited to get back to journaling. Has anyone read The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath? well, they are abridged in the sense that her husband destroyed the last ones but I love the book anyway. My copy is definitely well worn.

My Dirty Journal

my dirty journal and all its pieces.

The story of how My Life: vol. 5, Mommy's Book of Secrets turned into a shower toy for my favorite two toddlers:

Husband and I have a pretty big custom built shower in our bathroom. It's a great place for the kids to cool off after playing outside. They can walk around in it. Play. Get wet, not get wet. I let them play in there about once a day while I'm in the bedroom or bathroom feet away, listening to their silliness.

Last week, I was sitting on the bed finishing up a crochet project and the kids were playing in the shower. Well, Daughter was playing in the shower and Son was coming back and forth from the shower to the bed adjacent.

I'm paying little attention to what Son is holding as he goes back to the shower. About a minute later, Daughter yells something that I don't exactly remember. Something about "it is dirty" Then Son squeals. This was a new phrase for her (even in the shower) and it piqued my curiosity. I walk the few feet from my bed to my shower and peek in.

...

Daughter was lathering up my journal and Son was holding their container of soap.

lathering

up

my

journal.

(keep calm. keep calm. keep calm. If you lose control they will both get upset and then all three of you will be crying and your journal will still be soaked. rescue the journal deal with the kids later.)

I step into the shower. snatch my very water logged journal up off the floor and in the calmest voice I can muster I croak out something like, "My journal was not dirty. That was a no no no." I'm pretty sure it came out as a screech.

I take the journal to the counter, start flipping through the pages. they are mostly ok. the top, bottom and outer side inch was soaked on all the pages, but the middles of the pages were still dry. I calm down a little. My journal has really thick pages. I think it has a pretty good chance of drying out.

So, I turn around to start doling out the age appropriate punishment for each child even though I wasn't sure what that was yet and I notice the floor. pages of my journal on the floor. the inside front cover on the floor. They ripped out 8 pages and most of the inside over. Again because the pages are thick I was able to get them laid out flat to dry. I became slightly traumatized. I stuck my head back in the shower to announce shower play time was over because it is a no no no to bring books in the shower and wash them. That was all the discipline I could manage at the time.

(sigh)

I still haven't tried to put it back together yet. tape, staples, whatever. I'm not quite ready yet. The book is hard to close and the pages while not quite stuck together are hard to turn. And they are definitely water damaged.

Oh what a story Volume 5 has to tell! Also, I've learned that my bed side table is no longer a safe place for my journal.