Remember that moment each year you got your new school diary? I always loved it: searching for a nice one at the 'Back To School Campus', and then filling it with all kinds of personal stuff, to make it your own. I don't know why i did not keep those old skool ones, or perhaps they are still at my parents place.
I still love doing this, but developed some new hobby with it: making ordinary notebooks into diaries. Some people called me nuts for doing this, but who cares?
I like doing this for several reasons. First of all, just the fun to make something the way you (sort of) want it. Second: because this way it's much cheaper, you don't need to buy fancy stuff anymore. And last but certainly not least: old notebooks don't have to be thrown away, but can be refurbished.
It's always nice to feel and scroll through the old diaries once in a while.
What strikes me mostly, is that i totally forgot about the kinds of appointments i had at the time, and with whom.
For example in the 1990 diary, i now notice i had several appointments with Gruïde, about whether he was or was not the father of my son (at that time already almost 5 years old). We went to have bloodtests, also with Henrique and with my son. It turned out the closest match was with Henrique.
At that time i was still very much in love with Gruïde.
I don't think he was ever in love with me. We were 'dating' (depends on whether you consider having sex is 'dating') from 1983 until somewhere in 1984. Then i met Henrique, and somewhere in that time i became pregnant (which i only found out several months later), so it was not clear who was the actual father.
When meeting with Gruïde about this, he was quite emotional, and once he told me, that he had the gut feeling that Arie was his son. He had a son with his girlfriend of about the same age, and he said literally, that he felt Arie was more his son than his actual son Tron.
For a long time I did not have an official job, although sometimes i cleaned some houses for a while. I never had have a proper job after i left school, because like very much young people in the 80's, nobody wanted us. I'm born in 1963 and consider myself part of Generation X, although some might say i'm of the babyboom generation. If you would see my whole work timeline, it's obvious it's totally GenX. I have never been rich, never owned a house, had only for 5 years one steady job, after i lost that one too i had to jobhop from one flexjob to another, and have been without work for many longer periods of time. Like now.
But it explains the sometimes cheap-ass solutions for many things in my life. As with the diaries, for instance the budget one of 1991.
The thing i hate most of the usual premade diaries, is the amount of useless information. Like the 1993 diary:
The first 30+ pages are filled with the year calendars of 1992, 1993, 1994. Than the holidays and festive days of that year, the royal birthday's (WHY?), seasonal days, future festive days, school holidays, one page to fill in your personal free days. Than several pages of foreign festive days, measurements, windforce, earthquake scales, titles, distances in kilometres and the time it takes from one place to another by AIRPLANE (i had never been in an airplane at that time), roadside assistance stations (i did not have a car, and still don't), a table of distances in the Netherlands, traffic rules abroad, automatic international calling.
Sadly i lost some years, i guess because i started using an organizer. Only the ones from 2001 until 2007 i kept.
I like the comfy one i had in 2008; you have something to hold on to, in difficult situations. Like we have our phones now. For me i still like to use the paper ones, for this reason also. Whenever i have an appointment, i can put it on the table, write a bit, draw, just scroll a bit through the pages.
Although you have to take care, that people don't glance into it. I had several occasions, when someone peeped in my diary, and making assumptions or decisions based on what was written in it. I really hated that. They should have just asked, and be satisfied with whatever answer they got.
With the bigger notebooks i used, i made a separate notes-section. At first i used it well, but somehow i now have a separate, small notebook. And a terrible amount of pieces of paper on the loose, floating through the rooms, taking up space, and finally, at some point, ever, ending up in the paper bin.
I still need to fix some workarounds for that somehow.
DateTime: 2023 mar 24, 19:43 CET
Author: Mulder
Tags:
budget
diary
DIY
generation X
notebook
organizer
stickers
Names register:
Arie
Gruïde van Dankeren
Henrique Delheuze
Tron
Tuut
Indexes:
Photography: DIY diaries