I procrastinated. And this time it cost me $260.

We booked our first cruise in January. I had nine months to get passports. Nine months. So naturally, I waited until October 1.

That little bit of ridiculousness deserved a place in my journal.

Then I needed a boat.

I drew the blue stripes myself with a ruler and marker—and, naturally, made an oopsy in the top right corner. I could have started the whole thing over, but instead I decided my oops needed a purpose.

I can’t draw a boat. At least not one I’d want permanently sailing across this page. 😂 So I started looking around.

At school, I found an old discarded copy of Dan’s Hat, and there it was: exactly the boat I needed. It pained me a little to tear a page out of an old book, but I did it anyway. I cut out the boat illustration and placed it right over my mistake.

Oopsy gone. Boat found. Page saved.

That’s part of the point.

A story journal isn’t supposed to be perfect. You don’t need to know how to draw everything. You don’t need perfectly coordinated supplies. And when something doesn’t turn out quite right, sometimes you don’t fix it—you make it part of the page.

Story journaling doesn’t have to start with a beautiful photograph, an important milestone, or a perfectly planned page. Sometimes it starts with a trip to the post office, $260 you really didn’t need to spend, and a boat rescued from an old school book.

Your story is hiding in the little things.

What happened in your ordinary life today that might be worth keeping?