The prompt for week 6 is Journals and Diaries

Questions related to this week's entry:

Do you keep a journal or diary?
How far back do they go? What do you record?
Where do you keep them?
Do you always buy the same one or vary them?
Have you inherited any?
Do you intend to pass along your journals or destroy them?
Pictures
Do you have a favourite?
What do you use to write with – biro, pencil, ink or fountain pen?

Do I keep a journal or diary?  How far back do they go?  What do you record?

Not really.  I have tried several times but never stuck with it.  It’s something I know I should do, wouldn’t we all like to have a journal kept by one of our ancestors?  When I was in about 7^th or 8^th grade someone gave me one of those “5-year diaries” with a lock on it.  I remember mine was white but don’t remember what else was on the cover.  Nor do I remember what I wrote about, I’m sure it was about friends, boys, school, etc.  I suppose it got tossed many years ago.  I do keep a trip journal of sorts, to document our nearly 20 years of driving back and forth to Colorado Springs to visit my dad.  Some years were better than others as to what I wrote.  One thing I did write was that almost every stop we made for gas I’d note how much gas cost and the mileage our car got on some tanks.  Interesting to look back and see the variance in gas prices between 1993 and 2011.

Where do you keep them?

Apparently not in a place I can remember, or I’d go look at mine.  I imagine I’ll find it eventually, I have a lot of boxes and crates full of stuff that are packed away somewhere, that I’ll get to one day.  And it could even be in semi-plain sight on a bookshelf.

Do you always buy the same one or vary them?

I’ve only bought one for myself, it was/is a large brown journal.  I often buy new ones for my daughters for gifts.  My daughters are way better at keeping a diary/journal than I am.  I do have several that were given to me as gifts, some of which I use as trip journals.

Have you inherited any?

My mother kept her “diary” on those old steno pads.  She never really wrote how she felt about things, but she wrote about the things themselves. She used a page for each month, she’d jot down the date and whatever interesting thing happened that day (got new TV; went fishing, someone came to visit, etc).  She is also a source for the births of my first 3 children, as she wrote each one down in one of her notebooks.  She died in 1981, before her last three grandchildren were born, or I’m sure they’d be mentioned, too.  We were also given a copy of my husband’s grandfather’s oldest brother’s journal he kept from 1882 until about 1887 or 1888.  He wasn’t very wordy, mostly stated the facts.  I’m surprised there’s still trees in Indiana (or maybe they aren’t many anymore), because it seems that other than going to school, the next activity he spent the most time at was cutting down trees for firewood.  They cut wood for the school, themselves, Grandma Allen (Louise Lamb Allen), and probably others that weren’t mentioned.  There were also a lot of overnight stays among relatives and friends.  Even though the entries are brief, they still give a glimpse into life in the 1880’s.

I’ll probably pass mine down to anyone who is interested, such as it is.  Maybe by the time I am ready to send it on, there may be more entries.