Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Journals & Diaries (part 5)

I've loved this journey through the memories of journals and diaries.  I love that direct link between past and present. With that in mind, I think that I've found a way do do something pretty special with this book.

It looks like a fairly ordinary journal.  If you flip through it, you'll see that there are a lot of blank pages. Only the first 18 pages are filled.

This is the last journal that we discovered as we helped my Dad move into a retirement center last month. Click "Family Treasures" if you haven't already read it. Then click Journals & Diaries  to catch up and read the previous posts in this series.

My mother used this journal from 1994-1996.  She was in her early 70s, retired, and a grandmother of 13. This journal is not one in which she documented events.  It's a place where she kept her thoughts and insights.  She put quotes that she found meaningful and wrote how she could apply them in her life.  She wrote about her own struggles as the last pages were written after she'd experienced some mini strokes which left her sight impaired and made many of life's regular tasks difficult. She wrote about her desire to know her purpose, to remain useful and be an encourager.
Besides the 18 filled pages in the front, there were 5 pages in the back filled with specific prayer requests for family members, friends, and church needs.  Many of these had little check marks, had lines drawn through, or the words "thank you" written beside them.

Wow...
Humbling...
And I got to keep this book.
I knew I wanted to find a creative way to share it with her other children  (my siblings) and her grandchildren (our kids).

Do you know about Blurb? Oh, my goodness!  I love it!  I use their Bookify to turn my painting blog posts into a book at the end of each year. Maybe that will be another post...


I used Bookify on Blurb to create and publish this.

I had a vision what what I wanted, and I figured and worked and tried and reworked and thought and worked again.

1st -  Sentence by sentence and word for word, I retyped the entire 18 pages of scratchy, some barely legible, handwriting.

2nd - I wanted it to be about her words. I wanted it to be a way for her messages of encouragement and wisdom to be passed on.   I wanted it to be an honoring her thoughts.

3rd - I didn't want it to be a "book to remember grandma by" project.  So I didn't put in any photographs of her.  

4th - I wanted to make it easy to read, but I was determined to also keep her handwriting. The very essence of the project was that the wisdom came from her.  Seeing her handwriting would keep that at the center. 

5th - I used her favorite colors (reds, pinks, purples).

And... this is how how it looks.
Every word from her beautiful, personal (ok, scribbly and hard to read) handwriting on the left-hand side is typed and formatted in a beautiful readable style on the right-hand side.
It's all there in a beautiful little pink 8"x 10" book.
There are truly some wise words inside this little book.
I'll snip & paste a few below. They'll be out of context and without her commentary, but still worth reading slowly.




There were two pages left in the minimum Blurb book, so I took the opportunity to list some of her favorite sayings.

Thanks to a little creativity, a little perseverance, and Bookify at Blurb.com (No, they don't pay me, but I wish they would! I have a lot of good things to say about them!) I feel like her words have been honored.

Spoiler alert, if you happen to be my niece, nephew, son, daughter, brother, or sister.

6 comments:

  1. How blessed I was when I had lunch with you and wsharifor as able to see this precious gift in person! My dear Helen, you are a gifted writer & artist! This is a sweet legacy that your mom has given to all of you. This will be the cherished treasure this Christmas!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Already a published author. this is a great idea and something that will be cherished by all who receive. Oh, so many wonderful thoughts and things we can apply to our lives. Thank you for sharing!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Nelvia. I loved putting it together.

      Delete
  3. Anger is meant to be a visitor, never a resident. (spoke to me from that second photo).

    What an incredibly meaningful gift this will be. Wow. Nope do not know about Blurb, but you bet I will be finding out. One of my friends and I discussed this very thing a couple of years ago, because I wanted a hard copy of my blog; I found a site, sent it to her, we talked some more...have forgotten about that until now..not about preserving my blog in hard copy though, just haven't sat down and DONE something about it. Will be doing so now, so thank you! And no clue how I missed this post in your series.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm sure there are other sites, but Blurb Bookify has been great for me.

      Delete