The Notebooks

I love to write things down, writing gives me a way to organize my thoughts, helps me to remember an experience, a feeling and often it is my way to truly express my heartfelt thoughts. 

So I started purchasing steno pads, they are easy to carry around, I can take out a page if I've changed my mind, I can make a grocery list, write a poem, "practice" a letter I want to send to someone special, record a dream or even to monitor my Bluebird boxes.

I try keeping one at the computer, jotting down something important, a recipe, or vital information about our families history from Ancestry.com, a quote, an address I don't want to forget or even a phone number.  The problem comes when I take it to the other room to transfer the information into my address book or the kitchen to try the recipe.  

The one I use for Bluebird monitoring goes with me in the field, where I record what is happening in each of the twenty something boxes once a week.   I often find myself also taking notes about weather, butterflies, flowers blooming or crops in the field, or I might be inspired to write a poem.

I have a notebook for dreams, I am amazed at the dreams I have had and nearly forgotten, until I read it in this little steno pad.  I take it to share with my wonderful hubby and it gets mixed up with another notebook that belongs by the computer.  Now I have dreams written in the notebook with quotes and recipes from beside the computer.

I also do travel journals, in these notebooks.  I can go back to the first trip I took to Texas and read the heart wrenching account of my experience there, the family I met for the first time in my entire life.  Then I will have some poetry related to that visit.  A couple years later will be another account of a trip we took to Texas and rode motorcycles.  Then suddenly in this notebook there is my sales made at an art show...........  seriously?    

Now I am going through these notebook, looking for my information on art sales because I must report my Ohio Sales Tax!   It's like looking for a needle in a haystack and I only did three shows this year!  Not only that, I find myself lost in my writings, crying, laughing and remembering special times, special people and wishing I was more organized.

My real question today is, "Do I just start fresh with brand new notebooks?"  or  "do I continue in my old notebooks, filling in the blank pages with my random, meandering thoughts and ideas?"  I always want to be organized and it seems to always elude me.