End of NaBloPoMo...or is it?

Everyone,

30 days have come and gone. I feel like there should be some kind of rhyme at the end of that sentence but there isn't. So. 30 days. Yay to Laura, my Dad, Zuke and Melissa, Roommate Julia, Karen, and Valinda who all made it with me!

The last 2 years of doing NaBloPoMo has been good. This year was the easiest yet. And because I always go through blog withdraw after November, I don't want you to suffer the same fate. I intended to push myself just a little harder this year and write for another month. Yes people, every day you can come back here and see me.

I have always been a voracious journal writer (ask my parents) and I have found that writing in my paper journal isn't as fun anymore. Frankly, I feel like I never find the time to do it. When I do, Butterfly wants to color in it and crosses out whole sentences. (True story.) So I just gave up. I don't even think I've journaled the boys birth in there. I may have to put that one down.

I have about 30 journals. My first one was an early Christmas present from my Nana when we were living in Colorado. I was 7. It was white puffy plastic with little hearts and fairies on it. And it had a lock and a key. This made the book really indescribably important. I HAD to write in it. And I did. Off and on until I was 12. Mostly it was drawings of my room, the fish in my fish tank dying and how mad I was at my friends. Then when we moved to Utah and got all of our stuff out of storage and into our house in North 4o, I found that little book unpacking. I sat down right then and there and wrote about how upset I was moving to Utah and how much I missed Colorado.

I think from that journal entry on until Butterfly was born I wrote almost every day. I took my journal to camp, on trips, to college, even on my honeymoon. I even have a picture of Juice on our honeymoon writing in his own journal. I think he has about as many as I do. Yes, I have read them. No, he has not read mine because I think he gets bored or frustrated with me and stops. I even get bored and frustrated with myself and stop when trying to read them.

While people my wonder what the point is of journaling, I have one practical application for it. Right after Butterfly was born, we got a letter from the dmv. It said we owed over 1000 dollars in parking tickets and fees. We were dumbfounded. We had never even seen the ticket. Or any notices. We were over a year late pay and they were going to start putting a collection agency on us. Ouch. They stated where and when our car was cited, and I knew someone had to have made a mistake. Out come my journals, and I have a detailed account of what we did that day. (Mostly I was ill with being newly pregnant and went to work and came home that day.) Juice had to fax that over to the dmv to prove that this was an error. I think they might have been a little impressed that I would journal what I did on some random day. Either that or they were bored or frustrated with me because I moaned a lot about how ill I was. Ticket problem no longer a problem.

When we move from Maryland (which we always say we are going to but haven't actually done anything about it), I will shut this site down and open a new one for our new area. I intend to have this one published for my family history and my journal. I'd love to have both of these months on file. Who knows, I may even make it a habit and blog every day.

Then again, probably not. But I'd like to take this small step and hopefully get next month on the books as well. Hope you come along for the ride and maybe cheer me on a bit?

Thanks! See you tomorrow!
Safire