1. old overalls.
2. strawflowers.
3. a new notebook.*
4. odette’s book.
5. kindergarten art.
other things:
super partial laughable early dismissal day.
wishing for the compassionate attention of literally anyone.
*if you need a new notebook of your own, you can use the code readtealeaves for 15% off!
This post includes affiliate links to online shops. Reading My Tea Leaves might earn a small commission on the goods purchased through those links.
I threw my back out (again) last week and so while trying to take it easy and keep up with my new regimen of physical therapy exercises, I’ve got keeping cozy on my mind. I’ll regret wishing away the warm sunshine and green leaves of September come November, but in the land of make-believe, just for today, I’m building a nest of autumnal coziness, including:
Clogs that are almost like slippers.
Socks in the very best shade.
A new novel (coming in November—available for preorder now!)
A notebook in case of inspiration striking.*
Matching sweatpants and sweatshirt.
And a quilt for proper cocooning.
*If you’d like, you can use the code readtealeaves for 15% off your Appointed order!
This post includes affiliate links to online shops. Reading My Tea Leaves might earn a small commission on the goods purchased through those links.
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TAKE ACTION:
In an effort to ground this make-believing in something much more down to earth, here’s something we can do today:
Send support to folks in Puerto Rico. Hurricane Fiona has caused massive flooding and a privatized energy system has left nearly the entire island without electricity. In lieu of donating to broad disaster relief organizations, consider sending support to local organizations on the ground like Taller Salud, a feminist mutual aid organization currently working on hurricane relief and Brigada Solidaria del Oeste, a local organization founded in response to Hurricane Maria and raising money for direct aid in the form of first aid kits, water filters, and lamps. A donation made to the Fiona Community Response Fund via ActBlue will support a coalition of community-led organizations working locally, including the Maria Fund.
Also!
It’s National Voter Registration Day and the midterm elections will be here before we know it. Check your registration, register to vote, confirm your polling place, and make a voting plan at Vote.org.
I’m the only one in my family not starting a new school year, but I’ve sharpened every pencil in the apartment and cracked a new notebook and after the topsy-turvy unpredictability of summer, I’m ready to hunker down and share a new project of my own. After years of collaborating on projects for this site, Rose Pearlman and I have decided to write a book. It will be a manual and a manifesto and a 300-plus page compendium of our favorite things to make. We’re calling it, tentatively, Making Things: Finding Use, Meaning, and Satisfaction in Crafting Everyday Objects and we’re delighted to say that we’ve found a home for it with editor Jenny Wapner at Hardie Grant.
At its heart, MAKING THINGS will be a celebration of the art and ritual of making things by hand. Through the projects in the book, Rose and I are humbly hoping to encourage a tactile connection to the objects in our homes and in our lives as a conduit to the larger project of envisioning a different kind of future for ourselves and our planet. It’s a lofty goal for projects made of simple materials, but then, of course, that’s the point.
Our goal is to make a book that confronts the challenges of our current moment—to look critically at our consumption, to consider the impact of our consumer habits on people and planet, and to reclaim a sense of connection and groundedness in the face of an increasingly digital world. At the end of MAKING THINGS, we hope the reader and crafter hasn’t just made a few new things, but that they’ve experienced a mind shift—a reset that gives permission to choose creativity over consumption and to celebrate what they can make for themselves, simply.
The nature of books and making things by hand being what they are, this will be a slow grind. MAKING THINGS won’t hit shelves until Spring 2024 but we’ll keep sharing bits and pieces of our process in the meantime and we can’t wait to make something worthy of celebration when the publication day finally comes.
Thanks as ever for all of the encouragement and support we’ve found here over the years. We’re delighted to turn this work into a practical tome; something that can be dog-eared and leafed through and placed in the center of a table for friends to gather around.
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