Janice MacLeod's Blog, page 12

The problem with writing each day in a journal is that some ideas keep popping up. Sometimes these ideas pop up for years and won’t let you go. This is the case with my new macaron note cards now, finally, available in the shop.

How many times have I written in the margins of my journal: Create macaron note card. Hundreds! I’m not sure why they have haunted me so. I’m not sure why I haven’t created them yet, but when a friend requested them as her thank you cards for a recent shower, I finally did it. Voila! Done and done. *happy dance*

I love painting macarons but I don’t really like eating most of them. Sometimes the taste combinations are too bizarre, too sweet, too fruity or flowery, or pistachio. As you can see from this horrid little video I took when I first arrived in Paris.

Nice still shot for the cover photo. Oh dear. I called them “macarooooons” like the coconut haystacks of my youth. Rookie error. It’s especially horrible when people leave comments about my rookie moves. How was I to know?!?!?!

My friend Sandro from Rome (who also INSISTED I call him Sandro in my book, Paris Letters) gave me a stern talking to when I told him I basically only tried hazelnut gelato when I was in Rome. He shook his head and told me I owed it to myself, to the artists who make gelato, and to Rome itself, to try other flavours. He was right. I soon discovered that Pear gelato was a refreshing delight. This is Sandro being smiley before he got all serious about gelato…

Oh how I miss the me with long hair. Here is a chemo-do, taken the other day on Amélie’s birthday…

Christophe is a handsome fella. And Amélie is taking her new 2 year old status in (fast) stride. I digress. Back to the macarons. So I tried many macarons. Here are the lovely staff at Ladurée before they yelled at me for taking the photo…

So I took photos outside, flushed with embarrassment and high on sugar.

I even made four Paris Letters, all extolling the study of les macarons.

And yet… at the end of it all. After all the taste testing, all the painting and writing, dealing with comments on my rookie YouTube video years later, these tiny treats have haunted me. I just can’t stop painting them. Finally, the note cards exists. I spent half the day yesterday just tucking the new cards into the pink envelopes because it looked neat and pleasing.

Very Kondo. Tidy tidy tidy.

I’ve also come to one conclusion that you’ll probably not like.

Vanilla.

If a boutique can perfect vanilla, they are worth it. If not, keep on trucking.

*the world shakes its head in disbelief. First a government shutdown, then the yellow vests, now this?!*

Vanilla is the hazelnut gelato of the macaron world. It really is that good. Or it can be. You’ve got to taste them all to find out. Not all macaron are created equal. That said, a note card of just vanilla macarons doth not a pretty note card make, so I painted up the pretty ones.

Including pistachio. Italians have a saying, which applies to the pistachio macaron: Bello ma non balla. He’s pretty but he can’t dance.

That’s kind of how I feel about most macaron flavours, but they sure are pretty. Even pronouncing the names feels good on the tongue. Here is a digital macaron note card over at my Paris Printables shop. Tagline: Digital downloads for your printing pleasure.

Griotte! Menthe! Citron! Even Pistache has a certain panache when said out loud. But Vanille, oh sweet vanille, sounds good on the tongue and tastes good on it too.

I’m hoping that my macaron note card creation will finally break me free of the spell of painting them. After all, there is a lot of France to paint.

Creating the Paris Letter for this month was tricky. First, I wanted it to feature the Arc de Triomphe, which has been circumnavigated by the Yellow Vest protesters for a couple months (and counting?). The problem is that I’ve never really liked this particular Paris monument. Why? When there are the lacy steel lines of the Eiffel Tower…

The bulbous dome of Opéra…

The maze of Montmartre…

The reflective magic of the Seine…

The je ne sais quoi of the Paris café…

The Paris café always feels like anything could happen.

The Arc de Triomphe is a blocky Lego of mixed emotions.

At mostly every angle…

Yes, it’s about triumph, but it’s also about conflict, which bums me out these days when there is so much world anger out there. But I had a concept in mind and I wanted to explore it in a Paris Letter. So I set out for inspiration.

Eugène Galien-Laloue was known for painting bustling city life.

Naturally, this led me down a rabbit hole of Google searches for his work. I love his fashion, reflections, trees, and the fact that the monument is in the background, not the foreground. Inspired, I set out to begin.

And added paint…

Things were coming along. I wasn’t totally loathing our monument. Added more paint which turned out okay on the monument but became framed by tearful, black bushes. NOT the plan.

Bushes out, some conflicty looking fire clouds in the back, a possible foreshadowing of the sad boulangerie explosion? How much more can Paris take?

Added a nice little stamp I found in my usual searches around Paris where I look for nothing at all in particular and come home with bags full of what Marie Kondo would call “Miscellaneous.”

Settled on this hue…

Wrote out the thoughts I’ve been mulling all month (A Paris Letter really does take a month to concoct)… and voila…

It’s darker than in real life. One must factor in the odd things that happen when one must actually print the thing. You can get it in the shop. A great gift for anyone who adores the Arc de Triomphe. Military buffs perhaps. Or Lego aficionados.

Pantone released its 2019 Color of the Year: Living Coral

Pantone releases a color each year. During that year designers from all genres include the hue in their work.

Who was on trend before her time?

This shot was for an article I was in about slowing down and painting. It was in the August 2014 edition of Psychologies Magazine.

Some years I’m all BLECH with the Pantone choice, like in 2016 with Rose Quartz: What was annoying about this choice is that for anyone who has ever lived in Paris and purchased a light pink anything, they soon find that it turns to this dirty pink hue on its own. Could be the water, the detergent, the way washing machines work, but mostly it’s just from living in a sooty city. So we already have a closet of that hue, thanks, without even trying.

Living Coral is different. It’s vibrant and it looks great with other colors, like with the blue in this dish I picked up at a flea market:

I’m excited to see how this shade trickles into the mainstream. In the meantime, you can find plenty of shades of Living Coral around Paris since red, orange and pink all fade to coral eventually, also without even trying.

Pantone also includes color harmonies with the Color of the Year so you know how to pair it. Repetto has known all along:

As has Picasso…

And this nameless artist, who also included a Living Coral shawl on our subject:

And let’s not forget our culinary artists…

Or our street artists… And some ladies about town…

By the way, January is a month of sales in Paris. Perhaps the boutiques are trying to offload all the old Pantone Colors of the Year to make room for our darling Living Coral.

But I don’t need to go shopping. I’ve already got a whole wardrobe of Living Coral. Just as well. I need to stay home and work on my new Paris Letter. Will it include our new Pantone hue? Subscribe over in the shop and find out.

Also, two treats for New Year’s resolutions. Both my Paris books start with January and go to the end of the year. They make for nice pals as you navigate your way through 2019. Find links to fun stores to buy them here.

Hee hee.

I’ve got my fingers crossed for Limpet Shell to be the 2020 Color of the Year.

Today is my birthday. I’m celebrating with 20% off at my shop this week. If you didn’t get a Paris Letter under the tree, go get yourself a little pressie now. I call it my “Glad I’m not dead” deal of the year.

Second, so many thoughts. First of all, 2018 can be done already. I’m not quite at that stage when I feel like my recent cancer situation feels like a lesson or a gift. It feels like a random shot by an Anti-Cupid, who instead of making people fall in love, makes people ill. Jerk.

There seems to be a chain. My friend had it, then I got it, then another woman nearby got it. And so on and, tiresomely, so forth.

But enough about that. Glad to be alive. Glad the cancer is gone. Not glad to be rid of body bits, but you can’t mourn what can’t come back.

Third, I learned recently that people are going back to paper books. They tried the ebook, loved it, then somewhere along the line, reading an ebook felt like scrolling through a Facebook feed, while reading a paper book felt like an escape from all that. This pleases me because my paper book, A Paris Year, is infinitely cooler in print. I feel it came out during an e-craze, and now it’s finding its groove as a tactile paper handful of joy.

Thanks USA Today.

In the book, I chose to make December 27th about my favourite thing in Paris: Neon signs and lettering. So much glorious eye candy.

I can’t get enough of pretty signage. The obsession began when I lived in California. All that Route 66 signage meant many trips to neon sign hot spots like Barstow and Salton Sea. But Paris, ah Paris, is condensed metropolis of pretty signs…

Fourth, I’m going for a walk. It’s my birthday and I’ll walk if I want to. Christophe has given me the gift of hanging out with Amélie so I can go outside and blow off the stink of 2018.

Onward folks. Onward.

This is the latest Paris Letter. Ah the rooftops of Paris at night with the glorious Eiffel Tower sparkling bright. One could argue that the Eiffel Tower is the ultimate ornament. I listed this latest letter in my shop if desire a little Paris this holiday season.

France itself has been in the spotlight a little too much for my liking. The Yellow Vests… the upcoming Acte 5. The movement certainly hasn’t faded away. One must admire the whole Yellow Vest idea. Everyone can score one of those. You can decide last minute to fetch yourself a common yellow vest and get out there and protest. And each week is an Acte… as if they are already setting the scene for a modern day Les Misérables musical. So many points of view on this one. I’m still mulling my own, and watching each Saturday for what happens next.

The world seems so tense these days. I have already declared my New Year’s Resolution to “Not be so pissy.” I think it’s cancer trauma. While you’re going through it, you have too many appointments, treatments and side effects to address. No time for emotion. Once it’s done, whaaaaaa!!!! The tears and anger just flop out.

By the way, update: All the treatments are done. YA! Let’s assume I’m cancer free. My hair is growing back. I have short hair for the first time since I was in Grade Two. I don’t even know what to do with it. Suggestions welcome. Right now it’s a bit… Wolverine.

While we are all feeling the effects of World Anger, let’s just give ourselves a salve of pretty Paris pictures. This time, blues and yellows.

Sparkly round lights, a yellow car and an azure blue sky. Paris is very good at colour wheel theory.

Perhaps not so pretty, but interesting to take an early morning walk and see all the loading and unloading. I wonder if those potatoes were to become fries alongside steaks. This is right outside my front door on rue Mouffetard. The windows are just as lovely on the outside as they are inside St. Médard church.

Gotta love a Paris café diner cup and saucer. I think I have photos of every colour combination. After coffee, naturally…

Unless you go here, where they are notoriously grumpy…

I even wrote nice things about his café for a paper in Montreal at one point in time. But the photo is nice and I like the neon sign against the blue shutters.

Why is graffiti so hard to read at times? Why must one be indecipherable when tagging? Here’s some graffiti that is more straightforward…

Found this cute couple in the 13th. I rarely walk around the 13th. Much of it is a monument to questionable architectural decisions, but the graffiti is nice and is updated often. There must be a lot of painting happening in the middle of the night in the 13th.

The 13th. Ugh. But look… blue shirt stranger showing up for my photo theme. Thanks guy.

I believe this is right outside Hemingway’s door. I’d like to think he used this box to post his letters and stories. The boxes have been updated so I doubt it, but wouldn’t that be grand? Book business sent from THIS box?!?!?!?Since the time changed, it gets dark earlier in the day, so a late night stroll for nice azure blue and yellow can happen before dinner.

I’m told this bit of a church is haunted by Nicolas Flamel, of Harry Potter fame. I’m not sure this is accurate. I was walking around with the ultimate Harry Potter fan at the time so I think revisionist history was at play. I just like the colour combination.

Another beautifully lit church against an azure sky. St. Moustache… err, I mean St. Eustache.

I love it when I’m looking for a blue and yellow theme, and some stranger turns on the TV just as I walk by. Thanks stranger.

These candies are fine but the packaging is fantastic. These containers keep kicking around the house long after the candy is gone. They are perfect pretty holders for my hair pins… that I hope to use again when my hair is longer.

I like to think of this little graffiti man to be the Mary Poppins of the mail. A little angel sending letters on their way. I could have used one of those this month. Almost every letter and package of note cards I sent out on mid-November was delayed by the post, but everything seems to be moving along now. I was told it was due to a postage strike (now resolved, thank goodness), volume, and a bunch of federal holidays. I can’t blame President Bush. That’s not cool, especially when everyone is blaming Trump and Macron for everything these days.

My Sorbonne note card is rather blue and yellow.

It is part of a newer note card pack of 12 available in my shop. Note cards and letter subscriptions are available… perfect for that Francophile friend on your list… or for you. Treats for self! There are so many pretty things on Etsy created by people who are getting crafty at their kitchen table and thinking up wild ideas in their basements. Some of these people are trying to quietly solve the problems created by all the reasons the Yellow Vest movement was born. Quietly revolting with scissors, glue guns, and yarn.

If you’ve been hanging around this blog for a few years, you likely remember that I post about my annual Nurture Project. With this project I pick one person who could use a little extra love and secretly make it happen for the year. Sometimes this is extra letters in the mail. Sometimes it’s responding in a timely manner to texts. Sometimes it’s dinner. It can be as simple as leaving comments on a social media post.

We all like virtual high fives.

But early this year I discovered I had cancer and all external lovey dovey kindness was reeled in. I had to concentrate on doctor’s appointments, treatments, and sleep. I had this crazy thought in the middle of it all:

I wish I only had cancer.

Not cancer AND looking after a toddler AND managing my shop. Wow it would be so great to only have to deal with cancer.

That’s some interesting perspective.

That said, the toddler did make days more amusing. Only now when I’m nearly in the clear can I even give it a voice. And even then, if you ask me about it, I’m not likely to want to talk about it. It’s going to take time.

So while I was in my panic, I think the Nurture Project energy turned toward me. I received prayers, mail, gas cards (so useful), Amazon gift cards (for books), comfy lounge clothes, wigs, hats, and even surprisingly flexible schedules for my care givers so they could cart me here and there, or look after Amélie or make food, or send me nice emails.

Thank you for this!

I even had someone ask for ALL the Paris Letters I’ve done, which it turns out, is 96 this December. I didn’t even know I was so close to 100. I sent them off with an open heart and wrapped in a bow. Now she’s putting them in clear plastic envelopes and placing them in a binder, which is also my preferred storage method for basically ALL THE PAPER THINGS. If you’re curious, here’s the listing which made my year. I hadn’t whipped up the December 2018 letter until she asked for the order. So kind! The package retails for over $800 bucks, but I couldn’t… I just couldn’t… I… it’s too much. So we agreed on $500 USD and a massive box of letters went her way.

Now that I’m on the tail end of treatments, I have slightly more energy. I whipped up a new set of note cards to send thank you notes to friends.

Watercolour fun good times! And a chance to include images of all my vintage French postage. I’m coo-coo-for-coco-puffs in love with French stamps.

This one has a ship sailing the Seine and an airplane flying over Pont Saint-Michel in Paris.

I can’t forget my beloved Jardin du Luxembourg and a hot air balloon stamp. By the way, there is so much Paris art out there with hot air balloons overhead. Never, not once, have I spotted a hot air balloon. When asking a pilot about this he told me that Paris is a no-fly zone and there are helicopters in the sky patrolling that WILL shoot you out of the sky if you try it. Quoi!?!?!?

So if you try it, I suggest you have a parachute like the guy in the stamp above.

Maybe it’s best to keep your feet firmly on the ground, and why not. In Paris, the view from the ground is lovely. This is one of the Haussman buildings we see all over Paris. Baron Haussman was the architect behind these apartments. The name Haussman literally translates to House Man in German. A perfect name for an architect.

Here we have the Sorbonne, the university for so many great thinkers, such as…

Marie Curie who is featured on the stamp on this note card.

Ahhh so satisfying. With these new note cards in my shop I feel like I’m back baby. I’m back.

As we approach the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, I’ve got Marie Curie on my mind. I love this little book that writes her story so beautifully.

Her discoveries made it possible to take X-rays on the battlefields. I bet there are a lot of soldiers who are all, “Hey Marie, thanks for saving my limbs. Limbs are very cool. We like limbs.” No one likes turning into an amputee. Amputee day is a bummer.

Since she couldn’t study in Poland, because girls couldn’t do such things back then, she high-tailed it to France, and basically, rocked science for the rest of her life. They were all, “Merci Marie, here’s a stamp.”

And the First Day Cover…

Little known fact. Marie Curie discovered radium and polonium, two highly radioactive elements. Her remains are so radioactive that she is interred in inch-thick lead in the Pantheon in Paris to prevent the radiation from harming those who come to visit her.

You learn so many interesting medical facts while you’re in a medical crisis. For instance, we have CT scanners thanks to… the Beatles.

True fact. “Partial credit for the development of the CT scanner is due the Beatles, according to British radiologist Ben Timmis. That’s because the band’s recording label, EMI, heavily funded the research of the CT’s inventor, Sir Godfrey Hounsfield. Because the Beatles sold so many records and made so much money for EMI, Hounsfield was able to devote four years of full-time work to the development of a commercial CT machine, which was called the EMI-Scanner. ” Source: The Writer’s Almanac

All these fun facts have melded together in my noggin’ and inspired this month’s Paris Letter, which is about the close relationship you have with your local pharmacist in Paris.

All my updates with friends these days start with medical stuff, then end in fun stuff. So now that the medical stuff is over, a quick fun story. A lovely reader was wanting a personalized bookplate from my shop so she could add it into her book. Fair enough.

However she sent the request for a personalized message for the bookplate to the bookseller instead. The bookseller responded to this confusing request with this spark of genius:

“Hello Leah,

(Your book(s) asked to write you a personal note – it seemed unusual, but who are we to say no?)

Holy canasta! It’s me… it’s me! I can’t believe it is actually me! You could have picked any of over 2 million books but you picked me! I’ve got to get packed! How is the weather where you live? Will I need a dust jacket? I can’t believe I’m leaving Mishawaka, Indiana already – the friendly people, the Hummer plant, the Linebacker Lounge – so many memories. I don’t have much time to say goodbye to everyone, but it’s time to see the world!

I can’t wait to meet you! You sound like such a well read person. Although, I have to say, it sure has taken you a while! I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but how would you like to spend five months sandwiched between Jane Eyre (drama queen) and Fundamentals of Thermodynamics (pyromaniac)? At least Jane was an upgrade from that stupid book on brewing beer. How many times did the ol’ brewmaster have one too many and topple off our shelf at 2am?

I know the trip to meet you will be long and fraught with peril, but after the close calls I’ve had, I’m ready for anything (besides, some of my best friends are suspense novels). Thanks to your socially conscious book shopping, I’ve found a new home. Even better, your book buying dollars are helping kids read from Brazil to Botswana.

But hey, enough about me, I’ve been asked to brief you on a few things:

We sent your order to the following address: “

How fun is THAT?!?!

One thing Parisians are not… they are not cinnamon people. They veer toward almond. They are a marzipan people. For this reason alone, I can never ever really pull off being French. My shrieks of glee at cinnamon-infused treats will give me away every time.

Parisians also don’t take photos of a million little things they see around Paris. They do, however, look at me taking a photo, then look at what I’m taking a photo of, then shrug and keep on walking.

No Parisian will admit to taking a photo of a pigeon.

But I can’t help myself. All these photo bits are ingredients for my letters.

This…

Becomes that…

Which you can find at my shop, along with a slew of others.

But sometimes, a photo cannot lead to anything else. A photo is the final product… especially if you’re like me and go ballistic at the sight of autumnal goings-on around town.

I love how blue and orange dance together so nicely in Paris.

Some might say this is more yellow than orange. Let’s call it School Bus Orange.

And this does venture into the purple hues.

This is one of a hundred photos I took of Le Mirabel. The day I bought a new camera, I stood outside Le Mirabel and proceeded to learn how to use it, adjusting levels as the sun went down and the neon lights took over. In the end, the Auto feature took better photos than I did. C’est comme ça when one is learning something new. Self must be gentle with self. Or self must try all the features, then use the Auto feature as insurance. To this day I use the Auto feature.

And some post-production digital jiggery pokery.

You know I sang that Adele song all along here. Never mind I’ll find someone like you… I wish nothing but the best for you…

I’ve always liked this shot but never knew what to do with it:

That upper window is haunting. All I really remember about this day was going to the Picasso Museum after years of waiting to open. I have seen a LOT of Picasso art in my time. All over the world there seems to be a Picasso exhibit. And that’s why I think this museum is a letdown. All the good stuff is on tour. The only thing I found interesting or lovely or inspiring was this:

That’s a decent envelope. And it’s addressed TO HIM, not BY HIM.

If you would like a decent envelope addressed to you, visit my Paris Letters shop. All kinds of Paris fun will be delivered to your door. Except marzipan. No marzipan. Ever.

Why are autumn people so very obsessed with autumn?   They start wearing corduroys and big orange scarves, they waxing poetic about chai tea, they display a cornucopia of gourds on their front porch, and generally look drunk with glee as the temperature drops.

I’ll tell you why. Autumn brings out the introvert. Even if you swing toward Extrovert on the Introvert-Extrovert scale, the cold winds quiet the mind… and I think the cold weather makes hot beverages taste better.

Extroverts clap with glee when summer arrives. Hot weather brings out their inner Kenny Chesney. It’s all sunhats and cold drinks. But autumn? Ahhh, that’s all tea and cinnamon.

It’s fun to step outside (in your pants for the first time in months) and take photos of autumn.

Glamorous lady in yellow.

The other day I received an order for a Paris Letter in my shop from a Jeanne. It was for her mother, also named Jeanne. At the same time I was fulfilling the order, another Jeanne made an order. Jeanne is also my grandmother’s name. Since my latest health scare, I’ve had a loss of faith about whether or not there is anything beyond this world. Going under during surgery was such a blank space that I wondered if, when we die, it’s all Lights Out Tits Up. But, when I received those orders, I did have an inkling… a little renewed spark… that possibly something else is out there helping us along.

The days are also getting shorter, but you don’t even mind because you’re inside sipping tea and making pompoms for your hats.

Hey nature, nice framing.

You start sitting on benches that you ignored before, just to listen to… nothing. Autumn is quieter than that loud extrovert Summer.

You actually start craving warm foods and being open to eating things that you despised in Spring.

And huddling together just makes evening more fun.

You dig out your yellow bag to match the trees.

And boots are back!

I’m so obsessed with walking to Buci News that I included a sketch and photo in A PARIS YEAR.

Speaking of books (and obsession), Outlander placed #2 in The Great American Read. Clap clap clap!

“It is now the fall of my second year in Paris. I was sent here for a reason I have not yet been able to fathom. I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive. A year ago, six months ago, I thought I was an artist. I no longer think about it. I am.”

-Henry Miller

The ol’ critical illness mentioned in the last post garnered so many kind comments. Thanks Reader. You’re the best. I feel I’m nearly in the clear… just a slew of hospital appointments until Christmas, six months of nasty but effective meds, and boom! Back to normal.

Hopefully.

So thanks for all the kind wishes. Keep sending those good vibes. They work!

Today is my first day back to my desk. My first official day when Amélie is at daycare, Christophe is at work, and I’m not being monitored by Team Caregivers… AND I have high speed internet.

Life is dreamy.

So it’s been six months since I shared Paris Letters. I have actually been sending them. I just haven’t had the strength to tell you all about it. These are all finally listed in the shop… and they are bigger there, for more detailed perusing.

May is about trying to get a package delivered to your apartment in Paris. Nearly impossible.

June is about hanging out at Le Select café to try conjuring ghosts. Also nearly impossible.

July is about picnics in Paris. The easiest thing in the world. Unless you plan for it.

August is about the quiet serene of Paris when everyone else has left. Dreamy. And you get all the treats to yourself.

September features Jardin des Plantes and is about the great return of all those who left in August.

October features the fever of taking photos of Medici Fountain in October.

The best photo I’ve taken of said fountain…

But that doesn’t keep me from taking a gazillion photos whenever autumn rolls around.

The October letter also features the new French postage stamps. Each new president gets to decide on the new postage stamp, which sticks around until another president comes around. And these lovely stamps are in prancing about France in all their autumnal splendor.

More fun Paris Letters are over at my shop. Happy autumn!