Before I jump into more blog posts about my word of the year, I thought it might be helpful to show some headings of page themes. Once again, what I love about making a calendar journal in a dotted or grid journal is the versatility it offers. Because my focus and interests may change each year, my theme pages often change too. I take some time for listening prayer, asking what to focus on, and also reflect on things that have caught my attention over the past month or two. This year, meaningful quotes and verses keep catching my attention, so I've dedicated some pages to those at the beginning of my journal to refer to over the year. I also came across a great website for finding quotes: http://www.azquotes.com/. It is a new find for me, and a treasure trove of inspirational quotes.

Having already done a definition word study for my word of the year, now I do a Scripture word study and read through all the verses that have my word, or the idea of the word, in them. From the list, I choose the most meaningful to me personally and write them down in my journal. Last year I wrote down the Scripture references, but this year I've decided to write down the entire verse/s in the journal. Here is a post link I wrote in the past about how to do a word study: https://valeriesjodin.com/2016/01/how-i-explore-my-word-of-year/

As I look through 2017's journal I look for what I want to repeat and what I want to modify. I referred to the banner page ideas often to make my monthly calendar. I thought I might include one again, but realized that all that practice in making banners enables me to freehand them now. I’m not going to include it in this year’s journal, but here is a photo of last year’s banner page

Instead, I am drawing banners as the headings for most of my major theme pages as you can see below. I am also making some modifications for page titles such as: "Interests & Ideas" are replacing "Goals" or “To Do” lists. The "Artworks Made" section in 2017 will be modified to "Art & Projects" since I'm doing more developing and writing this year. Here is a photo of last year’s art banner and this year’s. Then the spread to record my interests, ideas, art, and projects.

"Books Read" has been changed to "Books". I've decided to write the books in pencil I want to read or am in process, then when I finish reading them I will write over the pencil with pen, erase the pencil lines, and color the "books" with colored pencil. I am adding a "Movies & TV" category this year. It's one category I wish I would’ve included in previous journals.

My daily entry banners kind of “fell off the wagon” last year, so this year I would like to be more consistent. I bought a bullet journal stencil pack from Amazon and gave myself permission to play with possibilities for the daily banners.

As I was playing, I thought I have enough banners going on already, so I am going to focus on a shape or vertical small banner with the number date on it for my daily heading. I will use the same heading for each month and might even mix a symbol with it. The key for me is that the daily entry title needs to be fast and easy to do

I have a few more pages I want to feature, such as Significant Symbols and my animal of the year… but all in good time. Right now I have my quotes & verses and am excited to focus on my word of the year with a new project I will share more about next time. Here is a preview picture of my "Mystery" word of the year: