Smelling Salts Journal

Fall Planner 2024

It’s the first of September!
The first day of meteorological Fall!
Here’s SSJ’s Fall Planner 2024
7×5 Autumnal TBDS

Cauldrons

  1. Cocktails in the Woods II: The Temperance Edition
    Experiment with low-alcohol and alcohol-free sips
  2. Monster Cookies
    Chock-a-block cookies as big as the hands that lift them!
  3. Mary Berry Cookbook Club
    Revisit the chicken pot-pie and beef-Bourg of our baby nesting days
  4. Peking Duck, Pumpkin Pie & Cider Donuts
    Or, cider donuts, pumpkin pie, and peking duck…
  5. Canning Catharsis
    Jams, chutneys, sauces to make up for summer’s too-busy-to-do-the-canning-ness

Needles

  1. Hollyhock Block
    Reproduce the Frank Lloyd Wright Hollyhock House carpet swatch (left) we photographed this summer as a quilt block or in a garment
  2. Vintage Jean Jacket
    Upcycle or embroider a thrifted denim jacket
  3. Nikko Dress
    Make the long sleeve turtleneck True Bias Nikko Dress
  4. Denim Sailor Pants
    Time for a denim pair of the tried-and-true Romero Trouser, with a secret floral lining, and heart-shaped buttons?
  5. Smoking Jacket
    You saw that nod to the smoking Jacket in Hitchcock’s SoaT in the recent Netflix Ripley! Make the damn smoking jacket already!

Tinctures

  1. Monthly Spa Days
    Saunas & cold plunges on the regular
  2. Cheap & Cheerful Skincare
    A minimalist’s fall regime
  3. Stronger Lifts
    Shorter sets, heavier weights
  4. Beach Sunrise Yoga & Meditation
    Focus on deep stretches, measured breathing
  5. Long Fat Books
    Including Moby Dick with a friend

Broomsticks

  1. Fall Garden Cleanup with Witchy Audio
    Plant bulbs, overseed, prune shrubs & mulch while listening to audiobooks feat. witches, magic, or the occult
  2. Signature Pumpkin Streak
    Carve the 2024 iteration of my signature ? pumpkin
  3. A Crime-Scene House is So Last Halloween
    Tiktok how to get handprints off the walls & how to make unavoidable house-cleaning deeper, faster & easier
  4. Forage for Fall and Winter Greenery
    Forage, swap & recycle items for the front-porch urns
  5. Plan Advent 2024
    No better excuse to break out the eggnog

Spells

  1. Museum “Office” Days
    Bring client & creative work to the AGO & other museums
  2. Finalize Finder
    Take the novel down the home stretch
  3. Budget for Conferences, Workshops & Retreats
    Freelancers need professional development days, too.
  4. Memorize the Poulenc Intermezzo
    Keep a few pieces from last year’s piano repertoire in the rotation by memorizing them, especially the Poulenc
  5. The Poem as Oracle
    Fall Sundays: write poems as prophecies of things to come

Covens

  1. Apple Picking with Nimue
    Bring the canine sorceress & eater of apples directly to the source
  2. Ladies Weekend at the Cove
    Call the Corners!
  3. Live Music
    Once a month, at minimum
  4. Exquisite Corpse Leaf or Flower Walk
    Collect photos or specimens for a very specific collage
  5. Stargazing
    Preferably in a dark-sky preserve like Torrance Barrens

Cures

  1. Tarot & Tea Leaves
    Boil the water, whip out the cards, and make magic happen
  2. Candlelit Suppers
    Four hands, two tapers, one plate, one bottle
  3. Horror Films or Hitchcock Fest
    Severed heads, twisted blondes, or both?
  4. Bloody At-Home Manicures
    As in Chanel Vamp or Essie Wicked
  5. Handwritten Correspondence
    On really good paper, in really good ink

Now go to!

Note: All photos in the post, aside from the Hollyhock in “Needles,” are details from my own photographs taken of modern art on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Modern Art (LACMA). The Hollyhock is a detail from a photo I took of a rug sample under glass in the Visitor’s Centre of Hollyhock House in Los Angeles, California.

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