did you know i'm a journal kind of girl?

i am.... i am a journal kind of girl ..... on a shelf in my family room i have about 20 or so journals....most of them are done ...full.....finished ..... just on the outsides, they mostly look fun and lively and busy .... and then the insides are chronicles of days, trips, events, journeys, moments, ideas .......

here's a story of my first artsy journal ......
my best artsy pal ever, allison, found out about an art workshop called art and soul ..... and it was in cleveland ohio (this is years ago now) .... we talked each other into doing it ..... signed up for classes, plane flights, hotel room ..... got our class lists of supplies ....packed nine thousand bits and pieces of potential art joy .....scheduled baby sitters and such ...... and off we went ..... when we got to the gate at the airport we were GIDDY .... we didn't know it at the time, but we were taking a HUMONGOUS leap on the path towards being full fledged, full timed, fully realized artists ......huge step ...... so....we were giddy and giggling and SO very excited ..... and i said, al, i have a gift for you ..... a VERY important gift that could change your LIFE ..... and i whipped out a DOLLAR store notebook....lined...spiral bound ....... and told her that from this point on she had to document ever single solitary moment of our trip ...... i had markers, glue, tape, this and that ..... and we began ..... WE ARE AT THE AIRPORT .... we were writing some really genius stuff!! .... or not .... but every single bit of that journal exudes giddy, silly, gung ho happiness ......flat out joy .....the joy of art .....all in a dollar store notebook that was transformed miraculously into a journey journal of epic proportions ...... at all moments we had our journals on hand ..... we filled those journals up with words and things and art and trash and ephemera and junk and goodness and joy ....... this is a picture of my journal from that trip .... i adde a metal cover .... i had brought metal mesh for a class ..... and cool rivets .....and all sorts of artist trades tied on and glued in ..... we took a beading on paper class (allison did NOT love it, i did ....but then she turned into much more of a beader than i ever was) ......so i beaded the edges of some of the journal pages ...... and that was the beginning of a big ole journal thing that allison and i share ...and that we share with our families ......
later, allison was asked if she had journals to go in a book ... and she volunteered me, and my journals...and even our children's journals are in there...... and why you ask, am i telling you this now? is it perchance, because i have not done any art today to show you? why, yes indeed, that is the problem exatly!!! ..... i am teaching a spiritual journaling class at my church ..... and spent a long time today working on my syllabus, my hand outs, my plans, and such ...... the truly artsy fartsy willy nilly bit of me really slows me down ..... if i weren't teaching an artsy class, i surely could have gotten through the task much more quickly ...but no, i go the slow road, worrying about which week to do color pencils and watercolor .....oh, pocket pages, we should do that early ......it could have been quite straight foward and quick ...but i, no surprise, took the long and winding road ..... the nice bit is that pretty soon i'll have fresh journal pages to blog about every sunday ....... the even nicer bit, my task is done WELL ahead of time ....whew!