When my team went to New Orleans for a meetup in November, I had a chance to see my friend Pam, who trained me when I joined Automattic a little over ten years ago. She is one of the most creative people I know. She’s a natural writer with a clear voice — I feel like I’m in a room with her when I read her blog — and she sews beautiful clothes.

She also binds books (check out this cool time lapse of her process). When I saw her in New Orleans, she had a gift for me: a journal. That she made! With her own hands! She bound it with paper that has line drawings of flowers every few pages, pasted colorful floral endpapers inside, covered the book in green cloth, and attached a ribbon bookmark with a leaf and a flower charm on it. So much gardening love 😍. As soon as I saw it, I knew exactly what I would do with it. It would be my sabbatical journal.

I saved it for five months, and on my first official day of sabbatical, I created my first entry. I’ve written in it every day of this first four weeks of my sabbatical. I’ve also drawn a little something to illustrate every day.

It’s funny, I like the process of writing, but I rarely go back and read what I’ve written. I do like to go back and look at the drawings, though, even though they’re so amateur. Drawings take a lot less effort to consume. I love flipping through pages and getting little visual reminders of my sabbatical so far.