I *Heart* Fridays: I *Heart* a New Diary

Yesterday I bought my 2009 diary. I love buying my new diary for the new year.

I *heart* the feeling a new diary gives of a clean slate: the whole year is stretched out before you with endless possibilities. The diary is fresh and untouched, the pages - like the year - are waiting to be filled with your life: the big and the small things, the details of your days.

I love the possibilities and the symbolic fresh start. I have had a personal situation which is surrounded by (someone else's) very negative energy hanging over me for the past two and a half years. It will finally be over in the next couple of weeks, so my 09 diary holds even more significance, promise, and joy than most others that have gone before. I'm so looking forward to closing the cover on 08 with a true sense of closure and opening 09 with clarity and positivity.

I'm admittedly a bit of a neat freak - if you haven't read my previous post about that click here - and I hate the state my diary is in by the time we get to November each year. The frantic nature inherent in this time of year is reflected in my diary: bits a pieces are scribbled everywhere and there is an accumulation of various pieces of paper shoved in the pages. Not my usual style at all! I long for the visual respite of those virginal white pages that will be mine in just over a month.

My diary of choice for the past couple of years has been an A5 day to a page one from KikkiK. It's nicely designed and comes in a range of good colours. It's not my perfect diary, though it is close. I've had a fruitless search to find anything that I like as much. This year I have a soft aqua one which is the same colour as my office storage (also from KikkiK), but for next year I've gone with rosey, dirty pink (the colours are somewhat different to the photo and not nearly as bright).

I did come across a gorgeous diary in an art supply shop, and I would have loved to have it, but for a few reasons... The positives: it was a day to a page (a must for me), and just as important the design was simple and beautiful. The pages were divided in half horizontally and the top half of each page was printed in a solid colour. A different colour for each day of the year. Just gorgeous, and it would have been a delight to open each day. The negative: it was totally impractical for me. It was very small and there was very little space to write and make my many lists.

For a brief moment I considered buying a bulk standard diary from an office product supplier and customising it with a fabric cover and bits of collage throughout. But that's not what my day-to-day diary is about - that's more of a journal to me. And more importantly the thought of looking at bad typography (that those products inevitably have) every day would mortally offend and depress me.

I might seem a bit obsessive about this, but to me it's important. My diary is always on my desk in front of me and I look at it and use it many times every day. Is your new diary as important to you? Am I alone in this quest to have a choice when looking for diary perfection? (I suspect in other countries you actually do have a choice.)

I have my beautiful new diary here in front of me and I can't wait to start it. It makes me happy just looking at it.

Happy Friday!

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