Everyday magic
My Grandmother Never Called Them Spells
The old rituals tired women are quietly bringing back
I caught myself humming over the stove the other night.
Nothing special. Just a wooden spoon and an old song I didn’t know I still remembered. And halfway through the second verse, I stopped, because I suddenly knew exactly who I sounded like.
My grandmother hummed over every pot she ever stirred. She said it made the food taste happy. She kept a bay leaf in her purse “so money remembers where you live,” and before every exam, she pressed a coin into my palm and said, “Now you’re lucky.”
I laughed at all of it for years. Old habits. Grandma things.
Standing in my kitchen with that spoon in my hand, it finally landed. My little spells didn’t come from nowhere. She’d been casting them my whole life. She just never called them that.
What our grandmothers knew
Our grandmothers didn’t have wellness apps or morning routines. What they had were small, stubborn rituals, repeated so often they stopped noticing them. A wish stirred into the soup. A blessing at the door. A coin kept for luck.
None of it was about fixing anything. It was about meaning. Every one of those tiny acts said the same thing: this home is looked after, and so am I.
When I started sharing my grandmother’s habits on Notes and in my letters, so many of you wrote back with your own. A nana who turned the teapot for luck. A mother whose whole philosophy was “kind is best.” A grandmother who took her granddaughter along to hair appointments and visits with her sisters, and knew exactly how to live.
I think that’s why these rituals hit so hard right now. We’re not tired because we’re doing too little. We’re tired because so much of what we do has no meaning left in it. The old ways put the meaning back.
A spell, the way I use the word, is just a ritual someone loved enough to pass down.
Five grandmother spells worth bringing back
1. The humming spell. Hum while you cook tonight. Any song, even one you only half remember. The food tastes like whatever you were feeling when you made it, so feel something good. Somewhere, a woman who loved you is humming along.
2. The bay leaf in your wallet. Tuck one dried bay leaf behind your cards, “so money remembers where you live.” It won’t pay the bills. But every time you see it, it reminds you that you are looked after, even on the tight weeks.
3. The lucky coin. Keep one coin in your pocket for luck, or start a small jar for the coins you find on walks. Every found coin is the world saying, “There’s more where that came from.” Grandmothers always knew where the luck was hiding.
4. The kind word at the door. Never let anyone leave your home without a kind word. “Mind how you go.” “Come back soon.” And when you leave yourself, touch the door and say, “Keep this place safe until I’m back.” A goodbye can be a blessing if you want it to be.
5. The letter with a stamp. Our grandmothers wrote letters. Real ones, with stamps. Write one this week to someone you love and put it in the post. Picture her opening it. It’s the slowest spell on this list, and maybe the most magical.
Every one of these is in 100 Spells for Tired Women Who Forgot Their Magic, along with 95 more. You can grab them here if you’d like the whole collection.
Find your own family spell
The most powerful spell isn’t one I can give you. It’s the one already in your family. To find it, ask yourself three questions:
What did she always do? Every Sunday, every evening, every time someone left the house. The thing you could count on.
What did she always say? The little phrase you can still hear in her voice.
What did her kitchen smell like? Cinnamon, bread, soap, rain on the windowsill. Smell is the fastest way back to someone.
Pick one answer and do the smallest version of it this week. That’s your family spell. Keep it going and one day someone will laugh at you for it, and then, years later, catch themselves doing it too.
I used to think magic was something you had to go looking for. Now I think most of it was handed down to us, quietly, in kitchens and doorways, by women who never once called it magic.
It was there all along. Some of us just stopped humming.
Want 100 more?
I gathered 100 tiny spells like these for the woman who used to believe ordinary days could be magical, and now mostly works, worries and wonders where her spark went.
There are spells for a hard day, for rest without guilt, for money worries, for Sunday resets and the long dark evenings, and for the girl you used to be. Every one takes less than five minutes. No candles required and no way to get it wrong.
It arrives instantly as a 65-page PDF you can keep on your phone or print at home. It also makes a lovely gift for the tired woman in your life who forgot she was magic.
Get 100 Spells for Tired Women Who Forgot Their Magic here and start tonight 🧡
Now tell me yours. What did your grandmother, mum or nana do that you’re only now starting to understand? Leave it in the comments. Let’s keep their spells going.
A gentle place to begin
Take the Whimsy Audit, a gentle 2-minute quiz that shows you what's been stealing your spark.
And when you would like company on the way back, The Whimsy Academy is a gentle membership where women come back to themselves one tiny ritual at a time.
With warmth, Laurie ✧