About the Journals

 TRISH KIEL has been a nurse and healthcare consultant for forty

years, a momma for almost that long, and a “Nonnie” for the past

nine years. 

A third of a lifetime ago, she escaped the gray Midwest for

sunny Arizona, where she lives with her craftsman husband, Jason,

and their ten rescued cats and dogs.

 In between vet visits, she enjoys hiking, biking, and exploring the Arizona trails, capturing adventures via Peloton, listening to Audible, wine tasting in Napa, solving crosswords, sewing, creating content, and, especially, sharing stories with her grandbabies.

 Trish has a BSN from Northern Illinois University, an MBA from Keller Graduate School of Management and is also a REALTOR in Arizona. 

IN DECEMBER 1999, just seven months after the tragic Columbine

High School shooting,  I was Mom to a teen and two tweens and felt an urgent need not only to connect with my children but also to better understand their emotional health.

 So, using blank journals purchased from a local bookstore, I set out to do just that, and the original “Christmas Journals” were born. The handwritten journals, one for each child, consisted of “getting to know you” sections featuring their favorite things and people, questions about their lives, their hopes and dreams, “would you rather” queries, and fill-in-the-blank statements to finish. I explained to them that the journals were meant to be their Christmas gift to me and that I wanted nothing more under the tree on Christmas morning than their completed journals.

I wanted their gift to be the gift of themselves.

THE GIFT OF ME JOURNAL is a multi-year gift from child/teen to adult - for any occasion (e.g., birthday, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Gotcha Day, Hanukkah, Christmas). The questions are prewritten for each chapter, starting with age five and ending with age nineteen – including some jokes, fun facts, an area for “artistic expression,” and a place for you, the recipient, to respond. Once a specific year is completed, you hold onto The Gift of Me Journal until the next year, when you present it back to the child to answer that year’s set of questions. You’ll find places for you to craft and add your own questions (if so desired) and an opportunity for the child to ask you something that he/she/they might want to know. This is how the journal comes to be a journey, one that is shared between child and adult, connecting and capturing family moments. 

My wish for you is that you will gain as much insight, amazement, pride, and laughter from these pages as I did from mine.  - Trish