A Bride's Journal

You're probably wondering why so many posts about planning and behind-the-scenes details? The answer. My mom. She told me that time is going to fly by and I'll want to remember how much fun we had planning our adventure.

I've been journaling since a homework project in 6th grade. Our teacher, Sister Ann Marie, asked us to write about our daily lives for a period of time. The purpose was to create a time capsule - something we could look back on later. Portions of our journal were turned in so that she could verify we were actually doing our homework. But for most of the journal we could be as open as we wanted. As a result, most of my first journal (written in a Hello Kitty notebook) is redacted. My mom found it, read it, and was extremely hurt by it. My punishment was to expunge all swear words (and there were a lot - some pages are almost all black marker). I've done a better job at hiding my journals since as well as thinking through what I want to have permanently recorded. After my MBA, for my graduation present to my mom I gave her a journal titled "On Growing Up." The journal included both hardcopy entries and online blog posts. I tried not to edit the journal and include very heart-felt entries/postings. It was the first positive communication I'd shared with my mom. (NOTE: Be wary - very wary - of moderators at retreats asking you to write letters to people you're angry with. The moderators actually SEND these letters. I can't remember if I caught the letter to my mom before she saw it, but you can imagine what a teenage girl might write to her mom.)

I chronicled/journaled my first trip to Burning Man (reading about the experience now makes me very thankful for my friends as I was seriously lock-me-up crazed). Planning and preparing for Burning Man actually strengthened my relationship with my mom. The three of us (my dad, my mom, and I) have breakfast pretty regularly and many times my mom and I got so caught up in conversation about costuming and sewing that my dad pulled out his newspaper. This interaction was in stark contrast to my high school/college years where my dad and I would geek out about computer games or traffic and bridges (my dad's a retired civil engineer and in a previous incarnation I did a turn as one as well).

So... I've decided to listen to my mom (something I haven't always been good at) and begun creating A Bride's Journal. Like my Burning Man journal it will include snippets of IM conversations (names will be changed to protect the innocent), emails (names again will be changed to protect the innocent), Twitters, and LiveJournal entries. As my mom's not online, she won't see the journal until the week before our wedding (it's going to be a gift to her).

The upside of writing a journal? It really makes me think about why were doing something and what I want our life/our relationship to mean. Sometimes I take myself way too seriously - these missives and entries keep me honest. Other times I'm totally cheesy. Hopefully as with my Burning Man journal I can read through this journal and laugh, learn and grow.

Are you keeping a journal? Blogging about your DIY projects? How are you choosing what to include and when to share details?