Janet Webb @This, That and the Other Thing🍃| PRIORHOUSE INTERVIEW August 24th, 2025

Welcome back to the 2025 summer interview series. 

Today’s interview is with Janet Webb @ This, that and the other thing

BLOGGING

Prior: I want to start this interview with the sentence starters:

Janet: Here are some of the sentences completed:

• Next year I hope to be able to say my husband is cancer-free and that we’re spending half the summer in Wyoming.

• The best part about life is spending time with family and friends, preferably outside a/o over coffee/tea.

• The difference between wisdom and knowledge is these days you can get knowledge off the internet, but you certainly can’t get wisdom there (at least much of the time.)

• The window seat on the airplane is better for sleeping but not good for getting out to use the bathroom.

• The best place to live is somewhere you love.

• One of the best flavors in the world is ….. dark chocolate

Prior: How long you have been blogging.

Janet: I’ve been blogging for about 13 years. I started doing mostly writing, my own or participating weekly in Friday Fictioneers for many years. Gradually I starting using more of my photos and started doing the Weekly Photo Challenge on Fridays, which I kept up for years.

• For most of those years, I blogged daily, until one day on vacation, when I was trying to get enough of a signal to send my post from the mountains of Wyoming, I thought, “This is nuts! I’m on vacation and I can write about it when I get back.”
• Then in the last year or so, I’ve cut back to about three days a week because life happens and I want to take time to enjoy it.
• But I don’t want to quit blogging because I love the community.

Prior: I looked at my blog archives and I think we have been connecting as bloggers since 2014! One of the earliest posts was sharing about the color pink with the Where’s my Backpack challenge. Can you share about the blog challenges participate in? 

Janet: Right now I only do Debbie’s Six-Word Saturday and One Word Sunday. In the former, I love trying to find a great six-word phrase to go with my photo and in the other, the perfect photo to epitomized the one word on Sunday.

• I’ve been doing Wordless Wednesday for a long time but it’s not a challenge hosted by someone else. I just do my own thing.
• Past Challenges: I joined in with Friday Fictioneers for years (a 100-word story to go with a photo chosen by the hostesss), I was a regular with WordPress’ Weekly Photo Challenge (which I loved, but WP stopped), and, until recently, Thursday Doors, which was one of my favorites. 

I also enjoy taking part in Becky’s Squares challenge, here,where you past any photo that fits the current theme, but it must be square.

Prior: I like your photo posts; I also like when you share fun tidbits, as in this post here, where you shared what you learned about watermelon. It shows your fun side as you also offer helpful information! Can you share some posts from your blog that readers can check out?

Janet: Sure. 

1) This blog post, which I shared during the run of The Weekly Photo Challenge by WordPress, garnered the MOST likes out of any of my posts and I love the photo taken with my iPhone. It has 270 likes and many comments.  Here is a smaller copy of that photo:

2) Here is the link to what is my second most popular post with 227  likes and many comments. This post offers advice and tips for new bloggers. I was frustrated by the number of bloggers who would make a somewhat random comment on my post, or not even comment, and then say “Please visit my blog” or words to that effect.  I just deleted those comments but felt a post like this one might help.  It was well-received.

3) As mentioned above, I used to join in with Friday Fictioneers and this post here was one I liked and evidently others did too. Also, my photo was used as the prompt that week and my fiction was a well-received story.

Janet’s photo for Friday Fictioneers

PHOTOGRAPHER

Prior: As a photographer, how do you keep your photos organized? 

Janet: I’m terrible about this! I just amass lots of photos, then put them in files on my laptop without even tagging them. I do delete some photos, but who knows when I might need a weird or somewhat out-of-focus photo for a challenge or just for fun? 🙂

Prior: Your photo of the Joshua Tree was used for the 2023 book, This is How we Grow.  Thanks again for working with us for that beautiful book cover. 

Janet: I was so pleased and honored when you asked if you could use the photo for the book.

Janet’s photo was used for the cover of our book, THIS I S HOW GROW

Janet: Joshua Tree National Park is an amazing place! It’s enormous and the Joshua trees are mostly in the northern and northwestern part of it, so there’s a lot more there than just the trees. I call them Dr. Seuss trees because they remind me of of something he would have created.

FASHION TALK

Prior: This summer interview series had me looking up various holidays and there are two “fashion” holidays in the summer (July 9th and August 21st).  I am not much of a fashionista and I don’t really like clothes with ruffles. What about you, Janet? Anything to share about fashion? 

Janet: I like/need to wear deep, rich colors. I like yellow, but it doesn’t like me, at least not anywhere near my skin.

Prior: Yellow clothes do not work for me either. And on a side note, if anyone wants to check out a vibrant summer painting, check out Smitha Vishwanath‘s “The Lady in Yellow“ watercolor painting over at Always Write. 

Janet: What I really love are hats and I have a number of them.

Janet: I dress up for church, even here in Arizona where most people dress very casual, I still dress up – because I want to honor God and because I want to wear my dress clothes. When else would I get to wear all of my dressy clothes?!  But for everyday attire, I dress “nice casual” with work clothes for other times. For outdoor wear, I have a variety of name brand items, but again, often secondhand or on sale. I have Keen sandals and hiking boots because they’re so comfortable, Sketcher shoes (Costco or Dallas Shoe Warehouse.)

Prior: For a short time I ran a clothing series called “What to Wear Wednesday” and it was fun looking at quirky clothes and exploring fashion pet peeves.  Do you have any pet peeves when it comes to some of the fashion trends today? 

Janet: So many girls/women wear what I consider provocative/trashy clothes. How do expect people to take you seriously when your privates are practically hanging out or, if a movie star or influencer, has the private parts actually out?

Prior: Do you wear a lot of Columbia brand clothes?

Janet: I kept lots of my cool weather clothes when we moved to Arizona in 2020, but add a lot of sunshirts (rashguards, as my girls call them), all from Costco (best price by miles and SPF 50+). I buy most of my clothes from the thrift stores, Coscto, or sometimes TJMaxx/Marshalls. I have better things to do with my money than waste it on expensive brands. 

SHORT BIO

Prior: Can you share your mini bio?

Janet: I’m a Christian wife to my wonderful husband and mom to our two beautiful grownup daughters. I’m now also grandmother to a grandson and granddaughter. I was a high school teacher for four years before, at various times, working in a health club, demonstrating exercise equipment for The Sharper Image, starting my own small personal training business when that field was mostly on the coasts and doing that for sixteen years, and homeschooling until our daughters were out of high school. When we moved to Illinois, I worked part time for two years at a tea shop, then several more years part time at a pastry & chocolate shop. Now I’m “retired”, meaning I “only” do house things, church things, blogging things, etc. 🍃🙂🍃

• I love much about living Arizona, but I miss winter. This is, I know, inexplicable to many people. However, in winter I could put on enough clothes to go out and walk, take photos, etc., in all the but the very coldest weather (such as the -56 F with windchill on day in Chicago.) But when it’s 110F+ (or even 100/105+), despite the dry heat, I can’t go out to walk and take photos comfortably!

• I love to read and do so voraciously.  Until somewhat recently, I read mostly fiction, but I’ve been reading a lot of non-fiction now too. I’m thinking of having a post about books every so often, where readers can chime in on whatever the subject or question is. Nothing highbrow, just fun.

Prior: What is a significant lesson you have learned on your faith journey? 

Janet: Before WordPress “vanished” my “About” page, being a Christian was the first thing on it. Haven’t gotten around to re-doing the page. Everything in my life is based on my Christianity but, like you, I don’t look to convert anyone through my blog. I try to post and comment in ways that never contradict my Christianity and hopefully let it shine. For instance, I don’t usually say, “Nature is amazing.” Rather, I would say, “God does great work” or something similar.

Prior: What is one of your favorite bible verses? 

Janet: I think my favorite verse varies by where I am at the time I need a verse. I don’t think you can do better than the often-used John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. That verse says everything: Jesus is God, died and rose, so that we don’t have to do anything. Nothing. Just believe. Nothing else is that simple and it’s true for absolutely everyone, everywhere, any time.

Prior: I know we both like some Toby Mac music.

Janet: Toby Mac and Casting Crowns are my two favorite contemporary Christian artists/groups and they have very different styles. “Move (keep walkin’), “Help in on the Way”, and “Faithfully” come to mind for Toby Mac favorites, but there are others and I love to crank them up and sing along. I admire the faith that got him through his son’s accidental overdose and death and allowed him to come out stronger.

Casting Crowns? “Praise you in this Storm” is one of the best ever, but they have so many wonderful ones, with great words and harmonies.

Janet: I like Toby Mac’s Elements album and enjoy so many songs on that album – and one I have liked lately is Hello Future:

Janet:  I like the Hello Future song because I think we need to have more joy about tomorrow and what is coming. 

Prior: That is one of my favorite albums too.

Janet: Not to ramble too much about faith, but sometimes I just see the enemy trying to fill people with dread about tomorrow – and I really think – even with stressors and problems, we need to not dread what is coming. If you don’t believe in God and an afterlife, what hope and joy can you possibly have living only for today and yourself? Is it really easier to believe that everything came from a speck (that you don’t know where it originated) and then somehow turned into the incredible variety of life on earth than it is to believe in God (or god) that created everything? Everyone has some religion, whether traditional, atheism, belief in a political party, or something else.

FAVORITES 

Prior: Can you share some favorites from the list I sent?

Janet: Sure

• Favorite drink: Tea (every day), mocha, espresso

• Favorite way to travel: Road trip. I love seeing all the places along the way and as driving is one of my superpowers, that make it easier. And I love to travel!

• Favorite sports to watch: Rugby, cycling, and hockey (ice). I also love Shohei Otani:

  Shohei Otani is a pitcher for the Dodgers and he’s proved my often-expressed belief that there’s no reason pitchers shouldn’t be able to hit!!

• Favorite podcast: No Agenda, the best podcast in the universe

• Favorite place: Mountains

• Favorite Subject to Photograph: Nature mostly, but I love finding small things others might overlook or something quirky (**below is a collage showing some of Janet’s wonderful photos)

• Favorite game to play with groups: I don’t like playing games with groups. I’m too competitive. I played softball “for fun” once, but never again. I played competitive fast pitch until I was out of college and slow pitch until about 40 or so, so playing for fun for me means playing your best but not obsessively. It doesn’t mean not throwing hard or just messing around. 🙂

• Favorite puzzles: One of the best things about COVID was my husband and I started doing puzzles together, generally 1,000 piece ones that I got at Half Price Books. We’re still doing them and have a LOT!! We’ve kept them and will rework them again.

CLOSING NOTE FROM JANET

Janet: One of the joys of blogging is getting to meet other bloggers in person. I’ve met bloggers in different parts of the US and even in France. We have a lovely group of bloggers here in Arizona who get together regularly.

Above photo from a 2022 blogger meetup: Left to R: Janet, Donna @Wind Kisses, Marsha @Always Write. Back row is Journey with Johnbo and far right is John’s wife Lynn.

It’s so much fun meeting with bloggers. I recommend it. Find other bloggers near you and make the effort to get together.

~Janet

Readers, here are some questions for you:

1. Do you have a fashion trend you love or a “pet peeve” related to clothes? Anything to share about fashion? 

2. Janet has been blogging for 13 years. How about you? How many years have you been in the blog world? 

3. Janet said she mostly prefers to photograph nature. What about you, what is a top subject for you to take photos of?

4. Do you have any comments about this interview or for Janet?

Thanks for joining us for this post.

The summer 2025 interview series so far:

• Clive’s interview here,
• bushboy’s interview here,
• Donna’s interview here,
• Rochelle’s interview here,  
• Midwest Mark’s interview here,
• Laurie’s interview here,
• Barb’s interview here,
• Dawn’s interview here,
• Carol’s interview here
• Tierney’s interview here
• JT Twissel interview is here 

Upcoming interviews:

• Janis
• Esther
  
• Pete
• The full list of completed Priorhouse Interviews can be found HERE.
• Please leave me a message if you want information about the 2026 interview series.

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