Janice MacLeod's Blog, page 2

2025 Trend: The return of physical experiences

A shift is unfolding, a quiet rebellion against the pixelated world. We’re craving something real again. Something we can hold in our hands.

This thought started with letters. I should have known.

This is the April Cottage Letter. I put it together this rainy weekend. A three pager, a wildflower card, and a sticker. So hefty and feels good on the fingers. Also in a luscious lavender envelope. Get yours at the Etsy shop. They go out this week! As I packaged up the first letter, I noticed…

How NICE it is to feel the weight of a letter.

A real letter. Envelope, stamp, ink on paper, words that had taken their time getting written, then passed from one hand to the next from my mailbox to yours. Real human hands connecting us, culminating in a quiet moment to sit down and read it.

This month’s letter is so good… it’s hard to be humble on this one… it ended up better than than I expected. The magic of pens and paper, space and quiet.

The digital age had reached its tipping point.

I think we all have PTSD with the news. Constant BREAKING NEWS is breaking us. We don’t want to watch it but we have to see… just in case something happened. Then we get sucked in and our minds shrink, our days collapse, and at the end of the day we don’t think of our highlights so much as the headlines.

It’s got to stop.

Let’s return to physical experiences. It’s not just about nostalgia. It’s about presence.

The paper comeback. Let’s be the trend.

Photo: Beechmore Books @beechmorebooks

Journals, postcards, and stationery. There’s something about writing on actual paper that slows the mind. You have time to grab two thoughts at once and merge them into something greater than their individual parts.

And books! Paper books that smell niiiiice.

Psychology Today says “printed books lead to better comprehension and information retention, with the physical act of turning pages, creating an ‘index’ in the brain that aids memory.”

Let print books stack up on nightstands once again! We’ve grown tired of scrolling ourselves to sleep.

Tactile shopping: The anti-algorithm.

I’ll be heading to the mall to return or exchange a pair of pants I bought online. I should have just went to the mall in the first place. I’ll be trying on, thumbing through, and seeing new hues and patterns. An immersive experience like in the olden days. The feel of fabric is one of the missing pieces of online shopping (I’m looking at you Shein).

Thumbing through things. A novel throwback.

Stopped by the local independent bookstore the other day. Had a nice chat with the proprietor. She had me thinking big thoughts days later. Thoughts about printing notecards and art again. Gawd how I loathe print-on-demand. Tried it and loathed it. It’s what made me pull back from selling products in my Etsy shop. Crappy paper. Horrible inks. Plasticky feel. Yucks. The stationery equivalent of buying the aforementioned pants online.

Though you’ll have to buy the notecards online when I figure them out. That’s the rub.

I know. I know. We need an online life. I’m just suggesting we pull back a bit to find balance. Tactile stuff. My kid has been running around with her instant camera and having a great time with the photos that pop out instantly. SOMETHING to show for the creative efforts.

Art without the compulsion to document it for an audience.

Except now, in this blog post. Where I am documenting it for an audience.

This shift isn’t about rejecting technology. It’s about remembering what it feels like to touch, smell, and hold the world around us. To not get hypnotized by screens.

Basically, we should all embrace our granny nature.

Grannies are masters of the tactile experience: clotheslines, baking from scratch, letter writing, moments that don’t need to be Instagrammable. It turns out, the greatest trend of 2025 isn’t a product or a platform. It’s a movement back to something we’ve always known:

Life feels better when you can hold it in your hands.

Herrmann Stamm @herrmannstamm

PS April is Letter Writing Month. Get on it!

PPS If you don’t know what to write, get a gift subscription of letters in my shop.

PPS Mother’s Day is coming up in many countries. A letter subscription makes for a great gift.

PPPS If you’re already this far, leave a comment.

Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese poem as a collage

The birds are back. When I first moved to this cottage, I noticed the sound of birds. In Paris, you don’t hear birds. Maybe the squawk of the odd pigeon but even they are a quiet bunch.

I took this photo on my second day in Paris. Little did I know it was the SAME DAY I would spot the lovely Christophe. That was a good day.

Anyway…

The birds are back: The geese are squawking, the robins are nesting, and the human snowbirds from Florida are back… for one reason or another. Aghrm.

All this birdsong got me thinking of Mary Oliver’s poem Wild Geese. I came across it 100 years ago. I thought it would be nice to make a collage of it.

Check out the video on Instagram

Also pah-lease follow me there if you haven’t yet… it’s where I do most of my video-ing. In the video, Mary Oliver is narrating, which is nice to hear now that she’s gone.

If you’d rather not have a live action video, or want to look at the pages in detail… voila:

How nice is that poem?

In other news, the March Cottage Letter is about the birds coming back and the art of giving yourself permission to have a little fun, which I suppose is where this poem collage came from. Just trying to have a little fun.

If you want the March letter, subscribe at the shop. In a few days, we move on to the April letter and March is gone forever. Ho hum. The March letter includes a bird postcard:

PS Thanks for all the kind words about the previous blog post about the election. WOWZA so many people had nice things to say. Love!

Want enlightenment? Work at your local election.

Photo: Lina Bob@anbb

Beautiful people everywhere.

We had local elections this week. I’ve worked at these elections before and it is one of my favourite jobs ever.

Let me explain.

First, a cross section of humanity.

All kinds of bodies and styles. The human form in all its creased and crinkled glory. We all have scars. The lady with the eye patch. Her exposed eye was huge, yellow with red lines, looking like a constant state of alarm. The skin cancer guy with half his nose gone. Old flirty men with the bluest eyes. Hands with such thin skin that they would bruise if you looked too hard.

Second, the unguarded faces.

People show up with their political views written all over their faces. The fury, the enthusiasm, the annoyance… it’s all there for me to observe. It’s like an actor’s masterclass. They don’t see me. I’m invisible. Just a role behind desk. But I see them.

Third, life is happening.

The widow who cried because this was the first time in 40 years that he voted without his wife. The newlyweds, wed at 80, voting together for the first time. The guy who declared that this would be his last vote ever because he was scheduled for medically assisted dying next month. Canes, walkers, people unable to grasp a pen, and the worst… when someone would drop their ballot and attempt to pick it up. We are coached to not intervene unless requested. It’s hard not to step in, “I’ll get that for you.” Dignity. Quiet capability. That’s what these people want. And if they need help, they’ll ask for it.

Fourth, life advice.

In the downtimes, I chatted with the other poll workers. They were ladies of a certain age. They gave marital advice (keep busy), cooking advice (the best pie crusts), and even gambling advice (sworn to secrecy).

I walked away from the polls with a mind full of beautiful people. It’s easy to slip into a pool of outrage these days, especially in politics. But people… real people… they are what pull you out. Just their beingness and aliveness and walking through life armed with scars so severe that you see the heroic feat it took to show up and vote.

The guy who is getting the medically assisted dying next month… he hugged me before he left. In that hug, I wanted to pull all his aliveness back in, even though I knew it was seeping out of his mortal self. Last month he had a birthday party where he announced his plans. He’s been gleefully goodbye-ing ever since. The word: goodbye… good bye. Having a good departure. He’s gifting himself a string of good byes and leaving rapture in his wake.

We are lucky to be living.

We are fragments of sunshine. With our savage scars and ridiculous little daily ups and downs, we are still glowing in our aliveness. And it was a stroke of dumb luck that for a brief time I could see the luminescence emanating from these fine folks.

For where 2 or 3 are gathered… and all that.

My position was at the end of the line, where you drop your ballot in the box. Naturally, these people are happy to see me because they are almost done. I spent the whole three days of the election working my material to make people laugh. Workshopping my Tight Five. By the end of the third day, I collected some laughs, hugs, and a whole load of kindness. And for that guy who is heading off next month, it was nice to be one of his last ports before departure.

Janice

PS The March Cottage Letter is out the door and it’s a beauty. Sign up today and I’ll pop your letter in the post. Check out the Instagram video:

Subscribe for one month to check it out, or 6 or 12 to indulge in sweet mail every month.

Cottage Letter for February: An ode to gals and pals

This month’s Cottage Letter includes a blank notecard and envelope along with a three page letter. Fun!

Maybe I’m late to the Galentine’s Day valentine concept… celebrating friendship love. It seemed to be a hot topic all over the place this year. Was it around all this time? Have I just not noticed? I asked Google:

“The holiday can trace its origins to a 2010 episode of "Parks and Rec," in which the main character, Leslie Knope, decides that the day before Valentine's Day should be an opportunity to celebrate the platonic love among women, ideally with booze and breakfast food.”

Yep, definitely out of the loop on this one. A friend of mine recently lost his wife of 50 years. First Valentine’s Day without her, so I would like to add Palentine’s Day to the list of Valentine’s and Galentine’s. I thought of my pal a lot on Valentine’s Day. Interestingly, the Cottage Letter this month is also about the love between friends rather than romantic love.

Less expectation. More celebration.

Over here at the household we celebrated the day as a family. A Familentine’s Day, if you will. Famlentines? My daughter and I made a heart shaped cake for daddy and he showed up at home with a bouquet of flowers for each of us.

Nailed it.

I had a lot to celebrate this year. Mostly in the form of people I have never officially met.

Since launching my new letter series COTTAGE LETTERS, I have had a whole alumni of PARIS LETTER subscribers show up.

What a treat! It felt like a reunion. Some people had subscribed to my Paris Letters for years. Then my little monthly friendlies ended when the project ended and Dear Paris, the anthology of the letters, came out. The anthology was, of course, a celebration and it was nice to be published with Simon & Schuster, but it did signal the end of an era, which would have been sad if I hadn’t ALSO had so many other things going on.

I call them “All the alsos…”

Also Covid hit, so I was locked in with needy roommate (aged 4) at the time.

Also, health-wise I had a lot going on. (I was finally discharged from the oncologist this month… after SEVEN years.)

Also I left Paris so figured I should come up with something else.

Also also also. All the alsos.

I didn’t realize that I had pushed a lot of bereft feelings down whilst all the ALSOs were going on. When people showed up again to subscribe… gosh it was like valentine after valentine after valentine.

It made me emotional. Misty eyed with glee over the sight of familiar names.

So thanks everyone. You sure know how to make a girl feel loved. Galentines and Palentines all over the place.

Photo: Kelly Sikkema

This month’s letter includes a blank notecard to write a message to anyone who could use a little extra love.

To subscribe to the Cottage Letters, head on over to Etsy.

Happy (paper) Valentine’s to you.

Janice

Lost Weekends: Quiet grief as Pacific Palisades burns

Photo: Cynthia Magana

I was doing fine. I was checking in with friends. Who is where. But also watching it unfold rather suddenly live on TV.

Then a reporter said, “Gelson’s. It’s gone!” And this… this triggered something.

… Orange popsicles from Gelson’s grocery store after a hike in Temescal Canyon.

… Temescal Canyon, my beloved hiking trail. Yes, the trail is still there, but it’s no longer flanked by tall trees and sagebrush that lead to a huge, wonderful cactus, at least ten feet tall. That’s gone, too.

… Perusing the wall of air fresheners while waiting for my car in the car wash, with tip money in one hand and a popsicle in the other.

These were my Saturdays and Sundays. Living regular old life around Pacific Palisades, California.

… Meandering through the Farmer’s Market to pick up soup and oranges.

… Tucking into the bookstore where I met Tom Hanks (at an event… he didn’t meet me there for coffee.)

… Caffe Luxxe… the coffee shop where I would sneak off to get some writing onto the page. GONE.

Even memories of my headspace flooded back.

Thoughts I was noodling, hangups, heartaches. The flashbacks of LA life in Paris Letters were all written in Pacific Palisades and Santa Monica. All these memories now layered with ash.

Photo credit: Thought Catalog

I’m being overly dramatic. That’s how I feel I am being. I’m being ridiculous.

Me… invalidating my own grief, making it not count somehow because I didn’t lose a house in the fire like my friends did.

This week, I’ve walked around my life doing the usual things, mittened and layered, and in conversation with people who don’t have fires top of mind. “Oh yes, that California fire and all those celebrities who lost their homes.”

Yeah, a few celebrities lost their homes, but THOUSANDS of regular people lost their homes, and glib comments about haves and have nots are sad and mean.

People lost their homes. Pets lost their homes. Wild animals lost their homes.

And a small part of me lost a village.

So I’ve been walking around astounded at the fires, then astounded when I watch the news and some irrational and irritating political story is the headline instead of the fires. No thanks, Apple News, for your Local feature of mediocrity. It’s an odd kind of lonesomeness.

Today my kid didn’t eat all her salad. Fine. Whatever. But she didn’t eat the tomato. And this… this triggered something.

When I first moved to LA, I went to the nearest grocery store and bought a beautiful red tomato. Ah yes, I thought, THIS is why I moved to California. Local lovely tomatoes everywhere.

The tomato was as horrible as the bland tasteless tomatoes we get in the middle of winter here, shipped from California.

I felt duped by LA. I thought you were special. What is this terrible tomato doing here… in Santa Monica!

These days, I dish out bigger bucks for better greenhouse tomatoes, still shipped from California, but there have been advances in tomato tech, and they’ll do. They aren’t as good as fresh from your own garden but it’s winter so some flexibility is required.

I picked those uneaten tomatoes out of the salad and pushed the seeds out and into a strainer. I washed them to remove the outer seed coating. I found a planter and soil.

I planted the seeds.

I know they will grow. Tomatoes can’t help themselves.

I’ll watch them sprout and put them on a sunny windowsill to fret about them until April.

By then they will be weak so I’ll replant them in bigger pots and fret until the last frost of May.

I’ll plant them and fret whenever the temperature dips in June.

I will have tomatoes by July.

I’ll do all these things because somewhere deep in my DNA, I know I am suffering. I see my grief as a normal and necessary human experience that makes me feel wobbly and sensitive. This wise sage within observes addict behaviour: an inability to stop watching videos of the fire, to keep checking who has marked themselves safe and who hasn’t. Texting. Emailing. Obsessing when a call doesn’t go through.

It’s because I care, I’ll say, to justify my inability to look away from the screen.

But my inner sage knows better. She sees I’ve become unmoored and rudderless. What I need is grounding. Literally. From the ground. These tomato plants will give me a place to go, if only to the sunny window at the far corner of my house. Something to check on.

Photo credit: Theodor Sykes

I will plant these California tomatoes in my own garden far, far away from California. They will be watered with rain, they will stay on the vine until the day we eat them. They will be sweet and tangy. They will be better.

I will fix this one little California problem.I will heal this one little California hurt.

And perhaps, with time, I will feel like I’m standing on a little more solid ground.

Janice

PS I considered making this post my February Cottage Letter, but it seemed more timely and widely relevant to place it here. Plus, it’s kind of a bummer and my Cottage Letters are meant to be a delightful letter received in the mail. Thank you to all who subscribed so far. I have 35 places left for the January letter, then it will be closed to new orders until the February letter, so if you want the letter shown below subscribe now in my Etsy Shop.

Subscribe at the Etsy shop.

Cottage Letters: Fun mail is here again.

The short story is that I have a new letter subscription. It’s called: Letters about life, the seasons, and gardening.

It’s not excessively sweet or sentimental. You know I don’t do saccharine very well. I’ve got too much of an edge for all that. And I’m an enthusiastic gardener but not a good gardener. I’m also not an old lady. But this title Cottage Letters seems to be completely adequate and also vague enough to encapsulate what I plan on getting up to with these letters: Talking about life, the seasons, and thoughts I have in the garden. Plus I like the double TTs in both words:

Veranda Letters? I like saying VER-AN-DAHHHHHH. Maybe. I might change it. So many ideas come from sitting on my veranda. Basically it’s Letters from Janice but that is about the most boring title ever. Cottage Core reminds me of Cottage Gore. I’ve asked around. We’ve net out at Cottage Letters. (Please leave a comment below with other suggestions.)

My aim with these letters is to write the most beautiful encapsulation of the month and add ephemera that makes the package a treat to receive.

If you don’t want the long story but do want the letters, head over to my Etsy shop.

Now for the long story.

As you know, I finished up the Paris Letters subscriptions at the end of 2020. Just in time to release another book, have four (!!!) MORE surgeries, Lyme Disease, plus the fresh delights of brain fog experienced by ladies of my certain age. HONESTLY, I ask you.

I focused on painting because my writerly brain was on hiatus. I painted Paris storefronts, I did a line of notecards for Chronicle Books (out in 2026), I made collages… I puttered aimlessly looking for The Thing. I got art crushes on Urban Anna and Katie Daisy.

As I look back, I see all these as training ground. My inner Mr. Miyagi hard at work getting me in shape for the next big event.

Then we had postal strike. In December! And it lasted four long weeks. It was a bit disastrous for my ol’ Etsy shop. Since I use the regular mail with regular stamps and most orders come in December, I was stuck. To use another service would have wiped away my profits, so I put my shop on vacation mode and accepted the sour reality.

Forced vacation. Gross.

When you’re in the well and all you have to eat is lemons, you take the lemons. You eat the lemons. You accept the lemons.

Photo: Annie Spratt

During this hiatus, I asked myself a very simple question:

What if I made the letter subscription of my dreams?

It would:

Include an exquisitely written letter… as many pages as it takes.

Include fun ephemera… some created by me, some by others… ephemera is Found Things after all.

Have matchy matchy envelopes, seals, and stickers to make it pretty.

Have fancy lettering.

It’s not like a Paris Letter, which are illustrated letters. Paintings, really, with a letter written on the painting. I was really into the illustrations when I was in Paris. Now I’m really into the writing and creating an exquisite letter package, which won’t always be an illustrated letter. It might never be. I’m not sure. I don’t want to limit myself to a small section of a page to fit a letter within. No more boxing myself in!

Here is the anatomy of the January 2025 Cottage Letter…

Voila!

This letter includes a letter (three glorious pages long), a botanical postcard AND a card from Jessica Roux oracle card deck… another art crush. Every person will get a different card from her deck. Sort of a January-resolution-future-seeing surprise for everyone.

I did have some concerns. Reservations, if you will.

I even went to the envelope shop to talk to the wall of envelopes. I’m not even kidding.

“Are we doing this again, guys? Is this happening?” The response:

Nothing but smiles looking back at me. I guess we’re doing this.

I’m back, baby. It’s gonna be epic. This is what I want to spend the rest of my long life thinking about:

Creating amazing fun mail that brings all the writing and artistry together in one very lovely package. Month after month. Year after year.

I asked Christophe about it and he shrugged. Perfect. He did the same when I told him about Paris Letters and look how that turned out. His reaction was never important. My reaction to his reaction was what was important. You shrugging at this?!?!?!?!? Fine, I’ll show you.

That’s all the fire it takes, apparently. And a wall of envelopes who want to follow you home.

There is a 12 month subscription, a 6 month subscription, and you can also buy just one letter if you want to check it out.

Get your letter subscriptions over in my Etsy shop.

Thanks!

A user’s guide to midlife.

Mastering midlife in ten tips.

All year I’ve been watching my classmates from high school reach certain milestone birthdays. I’m a December baby, which means I’ve been tailing my buddies, looking for clues on how it will be when I tip over into midlife.

I have been collecting hot tips, which I shared in this podcast with Kimberly Wilson @ Tranquility Du Jour:

Where to Find the Episode:

Substack: https://kimberlywilson.substack.com/p/podcast7

YouTube: https://youtu.be/ycaOVD2T28w

Libsyn: https://traffic.libsyn.com/hiptranquilchick/tdjs2-07.mp3

We talk about transitioning from our young grasshopper selves to our wicked old owl selves.

A few highlights of the podcast: 1. This eye mask from Amazon.

It’s lightweight for hot flashes, it covers the ears to muffle purring bedfellows and it fully blocks out light, which is good for afternoon naps especially when hormonal changes make you an insomniac.

2. Giving self permission.

For me, this means publishing books traditionally through my agent and a publisher AND self-publishing. There are some books I create because they are super fun to create but not necessarily worth my agent’s or publisher’s time as they might not be fiscally worth their while.

Side note: They still pay the bills. Here’s a few collage books I created under the slightly hilarious pen name Betsy Nightingale:

3. Staying in touch… and being okay with not.

Hey, the phone works both ways. We can normalize being okay with having “light touch" friendships with people. We can love each other and also not spend half our relationship talking about how we should get together. Though I mourn the geographic distance between me and friends, I understand that we can’t all be everywhere always, so I juggle missing them with celebrating them when I can.

4. Stillness, quiet, peace, repeat.

I use that mask shown above to centre myself during the day. Block out the day for a few minutes. Start again. Especially nice for ramping up to kitchen messes or loads of laundry.

5. Foster managing moods.

I observe when I run hot and try to catch it. Midlife for the ladies is a circus act of hormones. Oh the senseless RAGE! Then I work on cooling it down. Just better for health.

6. Dr. Teal’s Epsom Salts with Melatonin.

Melatonin is absorbed through the skin. Makes sleep better. Smells nice.

7. Rocking chairs.

Maybe we are all seniors in training. I put rocking chairs on my porch and find the rocking calms me down.

Image: Cory Bjork @corybjork

8. Double down on natural talents.

Some things come easier to you than others. For me, book writing… pretty gifts presented in various forms of paper. Letter writing, story telling, books, paintings. Double down on the things that are easier for you to do than others. I like making planners. They are a great way to share a year’s worth of art. Plus, Paris amiright? Get the 2025 Paris Planner at Amazon.

8. Get real on non-talents.

Much of life is about trying out different things to see if they will be hobbies, side gigs, paths to happiness. Midlife is a time to release the fails and double down on the activities that bring joy. For me, that’s less guitar and more garden.

9. Release heavy relationships.

If you would rather stay in bed for the afternoon than meet them for a quick coffee… well, see “light touch” friendships above.

10. Do weird things.

I signed my kid up for curling because I’m curious and might be interested in doing it myself.

I said yes to a Bingo night to win a turkey or ham because I thought it would be quirky fun good time.

I already mentioned the rocking chairs.

xo,
Janice

How to let the ideas in… plus partnering with Chronicle Books

Photo Source: Artem Beliaikin

I’ve been pondering on my porch lately. We’ve had a mild autumn and I’ve been out there staring off in the middle distance waiting for that line of literary thought to reappear.

It’s been a minute since I “wrote wrote.”

“Writing writing” is when we make the extra effort.

Journal writing is writing, but “writing writing” is taking that journal entry and polishing it up.

Polishing it up to… gulp… share with readers.

Writing itself is very simple:

You have an idea or are in the mood to write.

You try to write it out.

Only during or after writing it out do you know if you have something worth “writing writing.” a

If it’s worth working on further, polishing it up as a finished piece.

Sharing it in its final form.

We think we will know if we have a good idea before we write it out but generally we don’t know until we are in the middle or end. Only then do we see ideas that work nicely together. Only then do we see the poetry in the words. Only then do we catch glimpses of genius. My invisible writing partner doesn’t show up for me often until I start writing. It’s off in the corner doom scrolling, especially lately. Only when I start writing does it waltz over and lean in to see what I’m writing. Then it whispers gems in my ear.

Or not.

But I’m not going to find out if I don’t write, and you might not either. More tips over at my writing courses.

So we have to write it first to see if it’s worth polishing up and eventually sharing. When I was writing PARIS LETTERS, by the time the book was done I couldn’t NOT share it. It had a momentum, a life of its own. It would have felt harder to hold onto it than release it to the world. It couldn’t NOT be shared.

But there are some books we write and cannot bring ourselves to release to the world. There is a hesitation. That’s cool. That happens. Some books are meant to only have the author as the reader. The end game for books is different for everyone. They don’t all have follow the trajectory of Writer to Publisher to Major Motion Picture to Awards Season. Sometimes they go from outside of our gut to the page and that is enough. That can be PLENTY.

I haven’t been writing lately because I’ve been… drumroll please…

Whipping up notecards for one of my dream publishers.It’s a notecard collection with Chronicle Books.

THE Chronicle Books.

If you have picked up stellar notecard sets in the last decade, chances are many of them were published through Chronicle Books.

And now so will mine.

Let me tell you how it all went down… in a long list of sentence fragments:

Back in June I declared that June is for Janice. I was about to be looking after my kid full time for the summer. A daunting thought. So I sat on my porch for much of the month reading and staring off to the middle distance.

Somewhere in that middle distance, a thought came to me: Why not get a publisher to publish my notecards? Then I can get them in a fancy box.

I’m really treat-oriented. The idea of having a professionally published box for my notecards was a fun thought.

I whipped up a proposal for my agent. Side note: Agents won’t take anything you fling their way. I had to convince her to convince them. She said yes and sent it off to a few publishers who mirrored my vision.

“Mirrored my vision.” Honestly. I’m getting very writerly writerly now.

Chronicle Books lapped it up… sort of. They liked the one specific notecard design and asked me to make a collection based on it. I’d tell you exactly what it is but it really is too early to spill those beans. We can’t have any competitors getting a whiff of the grand schemes.

“Whiff of the grand schemes.” Do schemes smell?

Not sure, but if they did, this scheme would smell like freshly baked bread in a cottage surrounded my lavender fields.

So I’ve been “painting painting.” Once that project was handed in, I felt spaciousness. Also, a potential postal strike is on the horizon so I put my Etsy shop on vacation mode. I don’t want letters destined for Schenectady to get stuck in a hopper in Mississauga.

Off I went back to the porch to stare into the middle distance. Turns out November is for Janice, too. Whether I like it or not.

And that’s when that literary line of thought came back. Finally! So I’ve been writing again. We’ll see what comes of it. I’m not sure what it will be. I have to write it down to find out.

Janice

PS: The notecards will be out in 2026… yes, SIX… so in the meantime, get yourself a copy of the 2025 Paris Planner for a taste of Paris all year long. Full of art and photos of lovely Paris. I tossed in every gem I had. Loads more art than previous years.

The County Fair: How to win all the prizes

Image: Priscilla Du Preez @priscilladupreez

“You don’t need a man, Liz. You need a champion.”

That famous line from the film Eat, Pray, Love was on my mind this past weekend when we prepped for the local county fair. This year, we were going to enter our flowers, art, and gourds.

This year, we were going to be champions.

The prep work started in earnest. I gathered vases and snipped flowers for the flower arrangement categories. Our kid set up her craft table and got busy making posters: One of the family. Another of a beloved hobby. A pet. You name it, she drew it.

“Whip up a poster of a bird. There is a category.”

She would whip it up and I would slap the entry tag on it. Meanwhile, I was grooming the geraniums, marigolds and dahlias. I even grabbed the African Violet off the mantle and slapped an entry tag on it.

At the end of our weekend, we had two hampers full of flowers, art, and painted gourds.

We waltzed into the fairgrounds next to a guy carrying a big zucchini over his shoulder. A lady was dragging a wagon of multicoloured corncobs. I smile-snuffed at an old lady who walked in with her African Violet. She smile-snuffed back. Then we laughed.

It’s a bizarre mix of competition and cute.

The giant pumpkins were already in place. The unusual carrot category had a robust (and gnarly) showing. The flower arrangements were… um… sadly stunning. But too late now. Soldier on.

I thought a heavenly George Michael might help me out in the “Sunshine in a Mug Flower Arrangement” category. 

In the junior art categories, the senior volunteers took the greatest care with the posters, beaded bracelets, and decorated boxes. They oohed and ahhed over the entries, making my seven year old beam with pride. How nice is that?

Talk about KINDNESS.

We had to wait until the next day to see if we had won anything. The first ribbon we found was an Honourable Mention for a decorated gourd. It was her first ribbon ever and she was so excited. She didn’t know what Honourable Mention meant. All she knew is she had a ribbon next to her name. WINNER.

Then we scavenger hunted for all our stuff. Three first places, a couple seconds, a few thirds, a fourth, a sixth and a seventh. And a whopping $29 in PRIZE MONEY. Even for the marigolds! (And my African Violet got 3rd after that smile-snuffer senior who won 2nd.

Robbed!

The beauty of a local fair is that friends from all over stop by the booths and see your name. A friend of mine who lives three hours away noticed the injustice of the African Violet competition and send me a funny message about it on Facebook.

Good wholesome fun.

These county fair ribbons were quite possibly the most satisfying of all prizes ever.

And I’m counting the New York Times best seller badge for Paris Letters because you never think you’ll win that one. But with my dahlias… I thought maybe. And I did. First prize. Holy Toledo!

It doesn’t look like much now, but the category was “Three of a Kind in a Bud Vase” so gimme a break. AND get this: This variety of dahlia is called Fancy Pants, which is exactly how I felt when I saw that ribbon. It’s part of the Happy Singles Dahlias from Floret Flowers. My friend Áine bought the seeds for me ages ago because the name reminded her of how we felt when we traveled together back when we were happy singles. But now we are happily marrieds, as you can plainly see:

Just look at that raw talent. 7th place!

Speaking of super duper prizes, Amazon made my 2025 Paris Planner a Top New Release:

If you were one of the people who made it a top prize, thank you. If not, feel free to pick up one or two for yourself and for any stocking stuffers. And birthday gifts. And New Year’s gifts. And, and, and, and… You get the idea.

A tribute to Autumn in Paris

I’ve just spent the last week pouring over Maggie Smith clips in Downton Abbey. Last week I listened to a slew of Kris Kristofferson.

I’m starting to wonder if I’m a Tributist: Someone who pours over the works of famous artists with binge-like obsession.

It’s like a masterclass.

Though I wouldn’t say I learned much. I certainly haven’t accomplished much. But I blame that on autumn. Long walks, scarves and sweaters… acting like I’m a hunting excursion through the muirs of Scotland with the Crawleys.

If I’m anything, I’m an Autumnist: Someone who delights in all things Fall.

Bought myself a cinnamon candle

Incorporated the chai tea

Back to the scarves

Pumpkins and gourds on the porch

Removed summer sand from everything

Mood lighting

Found walking in corduroy

And that was just yesterday. And I pour over my Paris photos for autumn. I think one of the best reasons to travel is to take a gazillion photos so you can sort through them, arrange them, rearrange them, and pour over them later. It’s like binge watching a TV show, but it’s autumn and Paris…

These stairs in Jardin du Luxembourg are an invisible necessity most of the year, but strewn with leaves... you feel like you're walking up to an autumn-themed heaven. In fact, I hope heaven is autumn for eternity.

How many hues can one get in one autumn scene? I like this one because of the purples in the background and how they mingle nicely with the yellows in the foreground. 

Of course this fountain photo is an example of being in the right place at the right time. The next day I returned and the wind had whooshed the leaves away. 

The iconic Jardin du Luxembourg chair. Pretty but uncomfortable AF. However, it's not about sitting for hours. It's about resting, then moving on. 

The garden staff leaves the leaves (ha ha) to give us another sigh worthy scene.

Definitely Main Character Energy here. 

The chair configuration gives clues on the previous occupants of these seats. Four friends having a good laugh before moving on to the next scene.

Another path that is invisible the rest of the year. The yellow sets off the ominous black trees.

I was so in love with autumn on this particular photo excursion. It all WORKED. I came back the next day and took a series of photos but nothing worked. That’s Paris. Some days it shines for you, other days it turns its back.

Hey the new 2025 Paris Planner is full of these photos. I reconfigured to add more art to the planners this time:

This is the hardcover version. Someone asked me to make a hardcover so there it is. Not available in Australia, which is so annoying. But Australians can still get the paperback. (PS Australia… the link takes you to the USA page, but you have to scurry over to the Australian Amazon site.)

This is my fave of all the autumn in Paris photos. 

Dreamy flowers matching leaves.

Sorry-not-sorry that this one will make you drool. 

Happy Autumn!

Janice