If you insist on using VB Do NOT go with a relational database that's going to be a freaking mess.
Do you need to include both text AND binary data in each record? 'cuz I remember you wanted to store images.
Unless you write dozens of pages a day I would recommend a simple sequential database consisting of text records with a delimiter with images stored as "image calls" { which would be text defining the image location} and having all images copied into one image directory.
Then since it's a diary, presumably a daily thang, make the daily record identifier something like Day Month Year like 042217 then define a delimiter to divide records as desired. This way you would have one text file for the database and one folder for the images.
Now your database would be something like ...
042217|boring text <image>C:/diary/images/buttkick.gif</image> more boring text|other random bits of data|<end-record>
042317|blah blah <image>C:/diary/images/wedgie.gif</image> more boring text|more random data|<end-record>
042417|blah blah boooring <image>C:/diary/images/thwack.gif</image> more boring text|other random bits of data|<end-record>
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Your display interpreter simply needs to read a record then break the thing apart at the delimiter, read the image tags and grab the image from the location ... easy peasy

Um yer going to start noticing there's a trend here with things that I mention ... BUT if you recall the webpage I showed you with the Javascript examples I wrote ... um well technically it's a database written in PERL. Only the display is in HTML format ... which like your "Rich Text Layouts" is a type of text formatting ... specifically Hypertext Markup Language. It also happens to be eXactly what you are trying to do ... only in a real language not that silly Micro$soft VB thang

If you are interested I'll show you the database at that other place but it's a little more complicated than what you need ... same idea though

Oh and a much easier example is that GhosTalk code I wrote ... if you use the "cookie save" option it creates a little cookie database with date time and data all delimited. When you use the cookie manager thingy I wrote your cookie database is sent over and the manager breaks the records up at the delimiters and sorts everything.
Yeah too much rambling here ... iffen you want I'll show you some examples ... Oh and that xmas tree decorator ... same idea ... runs off a siguie brand database and builds a big picture ... like I said databases are a specialty
