Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Perpetual Calendar

This past Christmas, my sister gave me one of the coolest gifts ever: a perpetual calendar journal. I think I remember her saying the idea came from this, but she changed it up a bit and bought a nice little wooden recipe card box to keep the cards in instead. **Update, I've added photos** Check it out:




I started out so excited that I wrote something for every single day, though as time went on that got hard to do, plus I was writing silly things like, oh let's see...January 14th: "Watched movies all day". Ah yes, memorable.

So I started only journaling on days when something particularly funny, weird or exciting happened and I find I have at least two or three things per week to jot down. I'm eight months in and I can't wait to start reusing cards in January so I can take a little trip down memory lane. As my sis says, "the first year may be the least rewarding, but imagine the archive of special memories that you'll develop over 10 years. Eventually, it will be a daily treat to be reminded of what happened each day over the last decade."

This has been so fun to keep up with, and even as I sat down today I couldn't resist the urge to look back at days this past year and smile. One of my most recent (and wordiest!) entries was on August 2nd, when we spent the night at my sister's apartment in Eugene. The plan was to head down after Handsome got off work on Monday night, spend the night, and spend Tuesday canoeing with a picnic lunch. Here's how it went down (in shortened perpetual calendar speak):

"Day in Eugene started out disastrously. Set out in the AM to have picnic lunch canoe trip. First stop, Starbucks and grocery store. Get fixings for picnic lunch. Off to rent canoes. Canoe rental man nowhere to be found in usual riverfront spot. Not to worry, main canoe rental place is just a few miles away. Can our growling tummies wait a bit? Sure. Hmm, can't find canoe rental place. Have right address? Check G's phone- yes, should be right here. See sign out front, yes this has to be it. Only building in sight is surplus store. Well maybe they rent canoes. Walk inside...very scary. Stand in line quietly, occasionally glancing sideways at eachother with fearful looks. Boys think they have it figured out, rental place around back. Leave surplus store, relieved. That...was weird. Drive around back- no dice. Try pizza place back by riverfront- canoe place moved, not sure where. G finds updated address on his phone. New place just down the road. Drive down the road- again, no dice. What gives? Ok, let's call them. Phone disconnected. That can't be right. Call again- still disconnected. But website is functional! G discovers last website update was in 2010. Okay, perhaps they're not in business. Canoeing = officially out. What next? Open swim at nearby outdoor pool? Sweet. Drive by- place is INSANE. Lines out the door. Forget that. Stomaches officially eating themselves. MUST EAT NOW. Resort to picnic lunch on itchy dry grassy hill while discussing next move. Bowling? No fun, indoors. Mini golf? Blech. Drive to ocean? It's approximately 2:15- this would give maybe 1-2 hours at beach. At this point, sure why not. Start drive to beach. Make it five minutes, plans change again. G discovers indoor free swim with wave pool in next town over. Make 15 minute drive to pool, parking lot doesn't look too full! Could it be? Walk in, place looks awesome. Pay (cheap!), change (rapidly), RUN for pool. Spend remaining hour and a half soaking up as much chlorine as possible. Love. SO love. Day is saved!"

I have to say that most entries are ONE LINE in length, as to save space for the coming years. Well August 2nd is screwed already because this entry obviously took up almost the entire card. I couldn't resist. I'm still chuckling about this day.

Thanks for the awesome gift sis, I can't wait to read this card again in a few years!

**Oh, and if you can't quite see the text on the card in the photos- I have an interview tommorrow! Wahoo!**

3 comments:

The Dish said...

So...basically you should post a photo of this little calendar so we can oggle all the greatness that is MLE's creation and perhaps reproduce for our own DIY gift?! ;-) Sounds awesome...love the explanation of the canoe trip...too funny...

Kirimi said...

I took pics of it before posting this, but forgot to add them! There, added! :-) Oh and Em gave of these to Tawna too, in case you want to check it out in person.

NatiliaVish said...

Oh Kirimi... I totally decided I was into this "blog award" thing and so gave you one. :) Now you have to blog more, because I said so. I think that's how it works.
-Lisa