F: Five-Year Journal

Today I would like to share this wonderful series of posts by Tami Taylor about keeping a Five-Year Journal. 

First you download Taylor's PDFs, 12 in all, one for each month of the year. She asks you a question every day that you answer with one sentence or so in the same place. So, for example, every year on April 7th you answer the question "What did you have for breakfast today?" on the same index card or same page in your journal. After 5 years, you have a collection of answers at a glance that show you the ways your life has changed, or perhaps ways that it hasn't.

I love this idea very much, but I haven't actually started because I can't decide what format I want it to be. Tami is a scrapbooker, so she made a set of 366 (for leap year) beautiful cards on which to write her answers that she then collects in a small box. I could also see doing this on a blog and just cycling back through the same posts for the 5 years, or you could go on indefinitely, really. I would make sure you had a backup for that, though! 

You could do a private version in your email or an e-journaling desktop program. I also love the idea of a Moleskine dedicated just to this project, and you wouldn't lose any of the pages that way. Or maybe a 3-ring binder with looseleaf pages that you can add (or subtract, in case of a journal emergency) is better for you? I also like that you can change up the questions during the first year to be more specific or more suitable for your journaling style.

I originally found this because I was searching for a writing version of the Project 365 and the monthly photo a day challenges. Although you could certainly use the photo word prompts for a written piece instead of taking a photo. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Music of the Day: The music video for "I'll Be There For You" aka the iconic "Friends" theme song

This song always time-travels me back to my freshman year of college in the fall of 1994. VH1 must have played this video at least 10 times a day and I would always stop for a dance break! I also think more people should know about the second verse and the bridge.

Bonus video: BTS of making the video

B: Alton Brown

Outstanding show that was a bucket list item for me. I love listening to his stories. Thanks for coming to Reno, Mr. Brown! #lastbite #altonbrownlive 

(The audience had permission to take photos without a flash, and no video.)

A: About Me

Hello to everyone visiting from the A to Z Blogging Challenge! I'm a reporter from a small town and I often feel like I want to share some behind the scenes glimpses of what it takes to write the news. This blog is also a way for me to prove that I am writing my own articles and I am not a robot! 

My bio:

Sara Dowling has covered education, government, business and community events news in rural Fallon and Churchill County, Nevada for the Lahontan Valley News since 2023.

A Fallon native and a 1994 Churchill County High School graduate, she also holds an associate of arts degree in graphic communications from Western Nevada College. While she doesn’t have any formal Journalism education, Dowling treats her current opportunity to learn from LVN Editor Emeritus Steve Ranson as a Master Class.

To compensate for hearing loss caused by a childhood injury, Dowling utilizes technology such as audio recordings, closed captioned videos, voice-to-text transcription and digitally enhanced hearing aids in her reporting.

Dowling loves God, her family and serving her hometown community through writing. She has always enjoyed learning, reading, writing, art and music and she walks at least 10,000 steps a day with her Shih Tzu personal trainer, Princess.

She may be contacted at fallonnewspaper AT yahoo DOT com.