This Day In Gutsy History

As part of a workshop I am taking, I accepted the challenge to start a Perpetual Family Memory File. You know those blank, perpetual birthday/anniversary calendars some people use to track important dates? This is kinda like that, except it's for tracking (and celebrating!) the things that make up your every day life.


Since it is just a file box with 3x5 cards in it, the whole thing was assembled for under $3.50, using ink, stamp sets, a ribbon, a tiny bit of cardstock, and adhesive I already had in my stash. There is a card, date stamped, for every day in the year, plus month dividers and a pink "you are here" marker card.


It's meant to have just one line about your ordinary life that day. Examples of recent entries are: "Jillson's first ballet class," or "Maddie bit Mommy's knee and was told no!" or "Dinner with friends at Dave & Buster's." I love what another participant wrote about this project: it's like an old-school, paper-and-pen, permanent "status updates" file--something that'll stick around longer than, say, tweats and such.



I thought this Emerson quote was perfect. I found it while I was looking for something else he wrote and thought "oh, I know just what to do with THAT quote."

If we can hold on to this file for years and years, as I hope to, we can look back and see what we did on the same day in years before. We're keeping the box in the kitchen, and almost every day, usually during dinner, we talk as a family about what one liner to put on the card.

Thanks to Stacy Julian, Kolette Hall, and BPS for this great idea.