The Log Blog

I've been listening lately to Desolation Island, one of the Master and Commander series (the two I've "read" so far have been great books—nice character development, good stories, engaging writing, great sense of ocean-going adventure). Near the end of the book there are a few quotes from the ship log, recording in brief form the latitude and longitude, weather, and crew's activity for the day. Thinking about the ship log has made me think about this little record of my own, which is, by definition, a log itself.

So far I haven't recorded much statistical information about my daily life in this log (other than yesterday's embarrassing revelation of my late shower), but I'm not sure such statistics would be terribly compelling to you, my millions of adoring fans. However, I did run across the other day a blog that has got me thinking about a daily log I could make that might hold some interest for you, if not just serving as a good exercise for me.

Dan Lawyer, who I don't know, is keeping a blog called 365 Days of Gratitude. In it, each day he writes about something he is grateful for. An intriguing idea. As I've thought about it, I remembered someone who told me that during her mission for the Church in Haiti (where I also served), she had a goal to have an adventure every day. It was her way of keeping her spirits up in a challenging situation. Also a cool idea.

So my thought is this: In the log part of my blog, I'm going to try (see how long it lasts) to highlight each day something that's cool. Not necessarily something that I'm grateful for (although that will likely also be true), but something that is "virtuous, lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy" (Article of Faith 13).

It's that old "good news" thing . . . an attempt to mention something positive about each day. I'll also attempt to do so briefly, although as you have likely noticed, "brief" is not my greatest quality. And I may from time to time enhance my log blog with other stats/highlights of the day.

Anyhow, day one: The recently acquired glowworm toy that has a remarkable ability to make Caroline happy when she's sad (and which has, as a result, gone through many sets of batteries in its short life).