Now

What I’m Reading

The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen

We’re pretty into notebooks and all things pen/paper in our home, so I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this book. It’s exactly as the title says. A history of the notebook. It’s denser than expected; as much about the history around notebooks as it is the notebooks themselves. I’m not quite done yet, but initial assessment is that I’d recommend if you’re a big paper/stationary/notebook nerd. Otherwise, it may bit of an overload on names and dates. Full book notes to come. Get excited.

Projects I’m actively working on

The launching of this very website. I’ve owned my own domain name (laurenledonne.com) for more than a decade now, but never really done much with it, despite thinking about it constantly. Not to get too deep here on a casual updates page, but I think I’ve been scared to. Scared to show up as me, feeling like I needed to have a specific value proposition, or at the very least a nice tidy label of who I am in order to be worthy of a website.

To help myself push past it, Anth and I are doing a Summer Writing Project. Writing something every day, and publishing it.

Current creative obsessions

This isn’t current a current obsession so much as it is recurring: minimalist, typographic design. I’ve been fascinated and attracted to it for years, but always succumb to some strange internal pressure to make my own work not that. Partially because when I do client work, the authors I work with want lots of images, bright colors, etc. “Can you make the logo bigger?” And it’s not just authors. I work mainly with Squarespace and Showit platforms, and the most successful designers and templates seem to have a style the exact opposite of what I prefer.

But then I discovered Dead Simple Sites, which feels like it was made for me, or at least convinced me I’m not alone. Most of the examples are developers or web designers, less blogs/businesses, but the fact that there’s a two month waiting period to be featured on the site due to high submissions gives me hope that perhaps there’s a little niche for “my style” of websites after all. Or maybe I’ve just quit caring, and decided to start doing.

Watching

The TV is in storage (we’re happiest when this our apartment doesn’t have a big black rectangle as the main focal point), but the iPad does occasionally serve as entertainment. Golf is on most Thursday-Sundays during the season. In the evenings, if we’re in the mood for background entertainment as we putz on other projects … Criminal Minds. There’s something oddly comforting about shows that are on the air for more than a decade, even when the material should be anything but comforting. 🤷‍♀️

Digital Tools

I used to be quite fickle with my productivity apps, always eager to try the latest notes/task manager, dabble with Notion set-ups, etc, but I’ve been more or less settled the past couple years. Things runs my day, and though I’m forever attempting to walk away from Milanote due to their lack of offline access, I always come crawling back. Something about that app just works for me. I’m tired of fighting it on principle.

Quote I’m Thinking About

“I don’t say no because I’m busy. I say no because I don’t want to be busy.”

I saw it on Pinterest (no attribution, let me know if you know it) and I’ve never had anything sum up the inner working of my soul quote so well. My idea of the perfect day is one with nothing on the calendar. Same goes for my perfect week, month, etc.

My evenings

A Manhattan cocktail, my notebooks. If not the aforementioned Criminal Minds, then one of those “ambience” videos on YouTube that run for hours and play soft music and nature effects. The Hogwarts ones are my favorite, and I usually go with one that reflects the current season.

Mostly it’s journaling, and often stickers are involved. But I’m trying to force myself to draw something new every day, even if it’s just a tree or lamp post. I’ve always loved the idea of being “good” at sketching, only to get fussy and frustrated when I attempt it and it looks nothing like I envisioned. I keep telling myself that I’m getting better with daily practice even if the actual pages don’t reflect improvement. 🤔

I feel my best when I have a late lunch, skip dinner, and am in bed by nine. No, I wasn’t particularly popular in high school, why do you ask?

My mornings

I used to marvel that our dog woke up at 5am on the dot. Or at least, 4:59 - 5:01am. These days, it’s me. My eyes seem to pop open at 5:00am exactly more often than not. Pleasing. Mornings are my happy place. I’m not particularly social, but you’ll have much better luck coaxing me out of my cave with an invitation to a 6am bagel than an 7:45 dinner.

My morning routine is precious to me, and deserving of its own post, so I’ll simply say what’s changed lately: reading and writing. Anth and I (mostly) quit the news a few months ago and the positive effects are immense. The next stage for me has been avoiding my phone altogether. Opening a book instead, reading with the first cup of coffee, writing with the second. One “screen thing” I haven’t yet quit? The NYT crossword puzzle on my iPad. I suspect pencil and the actual crossword would be even more satisfying. Note to self.