Inspired by Emily Falconbridge, my fellow DT member Megan started this thread over at Scrapbook Essentials. She challenged everyone to make a “thankful journal” like this one Emily made.

Basically, it’s a hand-made journal with 52 pages made from assorted notepaper, cardstock, envelopes, tags … anything that can be written on! Each page represents a week, and has the numbers 1-7 written or stamped onto it (one for each day).

Emily says, “I am consciously counting my blessings each day and building up a source of inspiration and strength for myself. I decided on one ‘spot’ per day to record a snippet, even just one word – something from THAT DAY, no matter how crazy or busy or depressing. I believe there is always something to be thankful for.”

I couldn’t agree more!! So I made my very own “Gratitude Journal” last week. That name fitted perfectly with this quote on the journalling card which I used for the front cover: “Gratitude is the faithful blossom which springs from the soul.”

I used all kinds of things to make my pages: notepaper, paint swatches, an unused sheet from my address book, a sheet from last year’s Sudoku desk calendar, a blank cheque deposit slip, a page from my Daily Planner pad, envelopes, dividers from my photo boxes, a paper bag, tags, a page from my shopping jotter pad, etc. The most fun part about making the journal was going around the house and collecting all this stuff!
I punched holes in all my papers, and then used a couple of book rings to hold it together.

Here are a few photos of my journal:

And here are a few things that I have mentioned in my journal so far:

1) Seeing my dear friend Christi again after 4 loooong months apart.
She, Hugh and the girls came to visit us on Monday afternoon. And you should have seen the gifts she showered on us! I was completely blown away by her generosity and kindness.
I received a new bag, filled with candy (5 bags of it!), body scrub, 3 bottles of body spray from Bath & Body Works, and a huge pack of scrapbooking goodies.
And the boys? Oh. My. Word. The boys were SPOILED! They got jandals, a T-shirt and 2 pairs of boardies each (I will have to take some photos, because they look SO stinkin’ cute in their new threads).
Ethan got tons of Spiderman paraphernalia, while Tyler got a mountain of Buzz Lightyear stuff. I couldn’t even list everything if I tried, because there were so many things! But suffice to say the kids are VERY happy with all their gifts. Later that evening, they kept saying “we are so lucky to get all these things from Christi, eh Mummy/Daddy?” … um, that would be a YES! And they are both sleeping with their special polar fleece blankets at night, even in this heat!

Thank you Christi, from the bottom of my heart! You are one of the most generous people I know and I love ya heaps!! So glad you’re back. Even if you’re not back on the Coast just yet.

2) My sweet lil’ sister offered to babysit for us last night so that Rob and I could go out.
We have both been so busy lately and haven’t spent much QT together, so it was wonderful to go out for the whole evening.

First, we headed to the Auckland Luge. Rob had already been once (with Ethan) but it was my first visit. We had 2 rides each, and it was awesome!! Probably not as good as the Rotorua one, but better than the Queenstown one. Now we can’t wait to take both boys there, because we know Tyler will just LOVE it!
After that we went to Joust for dessert & coffee, which was really nice.
Got home around 9.30pm and found that the kids had been angels. Perfect!

I am really loving the concept of writing down something I am grateful for every single day. And I have not found it difficult to think of things to write. In fact, some days I run out of room because I want to list so much! Perhaps next year I will have to make my pages a bit bigger, since I obviously have so many things to be thankful for. Not a bad problem to have, huh?