Reading Journal

 Let's talk about my reading journal.  

I started using a reading journal because I most often either read a book on my kindle (to prevent the continual accumulation of books in my home) or listen to audible books.  I find that I miss book covers.  Isn't that strange?  One of the main reasons I use a reading journal is that I include a picture of the cover so that I can flip through the book and remember what I have read - nostalgically. I also like it because it tracks information about my reading for me.

I use an A6 (Pocket) navy Leuchtturm 1917 notebook.  For each book, I include the following:

• picture of the cover
• star rating
• title
• author
• type of book (kindle, printed, audio)
• date completed

That's not a lot of information for a reading journal. It doesn't include any thoughts about the book itself (other than star rating), but that's all I want to record.  This meets my needs.  You should meet your own needs!

For each year, I also include a few pages of reading stats.  (If you want to see my reading stats, they are here.)  I track method of reading, copyright date, first time or repeat read, genre, and star ratings.  

Journals

 This is my stack of notebooks.  Here is what I use them for, from the bottom to the top:

1. The brown leather loose-leaf notebook on the bottom of the stack (that looks like it needs some care) is a Franklin Planner notebook that holds my Franklin planner pages.  In the world of digital planning and bullet journaling, I still find that the Franklin Covey two pages per day set up is the best format for my day to day planning for work.  I use the Leadership Classic refill in my Logan Open binder (the link is to the zipper version - they don't have the open one anymore apparently).
2. All of the other notebooks are Leuchtturm1917 dotted A5 (medium) notebooks (except the top one).  The navy blue one is my bullet journal.  In our house, we call them blue books, and we say that the blue books know all.  This is where I record our daily life (other than work). Each month has a theme - each book holds six months.
3. The Port Red one is my Lay Ministry notebook.  I am the Associate Lay Leader and Director of Lay Ministry in our Annual Conference.  This is the notebook that I use to plan and track it all.
4. The next one - the stone blue one - is my General Conference / Juridictional Conference notebook.  I was a reserve delegate to General Conference and a delegate to Juridictional Conference - this is the notebook where I tracked the planning and the voting.
5. The Forest Green notebook holds the notes from training / educational events.  
6. The Pacific Green notebook is the book I use to record notes from work meetings.
7. The notebook on the top of the stack is a navy A6 (pocket) notebook.  This is my reading journal.  In a future post, I'll explore this book with you. It's very simple - not at all like the more decorated and extensive reading journals that I see on the internet. Those are great, but not what I wanted to do.

Poema Tweed

 We were recently in Las Vegas / Henderson, and I stopped on Sin City Knit Shop (Henderson) again.  Great shop, helpful staff.  This time I met the person who dyed this yarn.  That was fun.

I, of course, purchased yarn.  

The yarn is Laines du Nord, Poema Tweed.  It's a blue green yarn (of course) with lots of yardage.  While I was in the store, I saw a scarf knitted with light weight yarn on larger needles, and I liked it.  She didn't have the exact yarn, but this is the same brand.  It is color 506.