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Show Notes:

Hobbies and Why They Bring You Joy:

Emma – Cooking, jewelry making, painting, and sewing.

Elsie – Painting, baking, decorating, collecting vintage, and reading.

How You Find Time for Your Hobbies:

Emma

• Break your hobby into small steps
• Find a hobby you can do while watching TV
• Limit your screentime and do your hobby instead

Elsie

• Schedule it in
• Work it into your job
• Become a professional multi-tasker
• Visualize what you want your future self to be doing

Check out our blog post about 15 Crafts You Can Do While Watching TV

Here is the link for the hypnotist that Emma saw.

Voicemail Question: How did you best keep in touch with each other as sisters when you lived long distance?

• Sibling group text chat
• Facetime
• Take vacations together

Miss an Episode? Get Caught Up!

• Episode #184: Decorating the Exterior of Your House
• Episode #183: Summer Bucket List & Book Club Selections
• Episode #182: Knives Out – Comfort Rewatch

Episode 185 Transcript:

Elsie: You’re listening to The Beautiful Mess Podcast, your cozy comfort listen. This week we’re talking about our hobbies and how they have brought joy into our lives. Plus, we’re also sharing how we find time for hobbies with everything else going on in our lives. Yeah, there are a few other things going on besides the hobbies, so I think this will be a great episode. We have a mega pep talk, it’s definitely one of our most asked questions. People always wanna know, how do you do it all? And we’re like we don’t.

Emma: Yeah and I just love hobbies generally. I feel like our whole life has just been doing hobbies and it just grew into our jobs at a certain point, which is really cool and lucky. But also just makes sense to me because I’m like, yeah, I don’t know what else there is, it’s just hobbies. Let’s just make stuff. Anyway. 

Elsie: Yeah. I feel like you can always have room for another hobby that’s for sure a theme of our lives. Before we jump into it, Emma has seen a hypnotist. She has undergone hypnosis and she wants to tell us about it. So I like have won induced my entire life. I’m dying of FOMO and I wanna hear every detail. 

Emma: I went to a hypnotist to try to work on changing my habit of biting my nails. If you’ve read our blog for a long time or been a listener you probably know I’ve been a long-time nail-biter. I don’t even remember a time in my life when I wasn’t a nail-biter. I started biting my nails when I was a kid, at some point, I don’t even remember, I just always bitten my nails. And I did stop for like a year and a half or something while I was pregnant. And the first little while that we had Oscar. And I think it was because it was 2020, I was pregnant and I was living in a pandemic as we all were, and learning about it on the fly like we all were. And I think I was just scared to put my hands in my mouth because I was like, I’m scared I was staying home, but I was still like, I’m just kind of scared, and I don’t wanna put my hands in my mouth. I’m pregnant, I’m nervous, I was very nervous about my pregnancy because I was doing it during that time. Anyway, sometime after Oscar was born, maybe around six months or nine months, I really don’t remember but I kind of fell back into the habit. And for me, once I get back in, it’s like I’ll be hardcore biting my nails for a while, and then I’ll usually have a little time where I get better and then I fall back into it again, and that’s just like what the habit’s like for me. And I think I’ve always kind of struggled with me why, like, why I wanna stop biting my nails or like putting a lot of effort towards it. And even talking about it just feels kind of silly to me at times. It makes me feel like it’s this very vapid thing. Like I’m just only caring about the way my nails look, and that’s so silly. I shouldn’t care how I look, you know. 

Elsie: Or you’re like responding to bully comments because people sometimes leave Emma mean comments when she has like her hand in a picture. I think that that’s hard too because we’ve sort of trained ourselves to ignore people like that. 

Emma: You have to. So I’m like, do I even care about this? I feel like I’ve struggled with even knowing that I definitely did wanna change this habit. So anyway, I’ve tried lots of things over the years, especially when I was growing up in like high school and college. There were lots of different kinds of products on the market, just little different methods. So most things that you can think of, I have probably tried, so some basic things, some kind of ridiculous things, and I was like, you know what? I feel like I’ve tried it all and I still wanna keep working on this I’m still optimistic that I can change and that things can change, but I think I need to try something new. And I was like, you know what, why did I get hypnotized? So I had heard of people doing this for like smoking or weight loss and I don’t know, I just thought, why not, it’s not gonna hurt. So that was pretty much my motivation. So I started looking up hypnotists in my city, and I found a few, and I connected with one. He seemed to get along, although he is in Springfield, Missouri where I live. We did everything over Zoom, so he could connect with you. If you’re interested I’ll put it in the show notes, but he could connect with you anywhere. Before my session, he gave me this worksheet that I filled out and gave back to him before the session. That was essentially, five to seven reasons why I wanted to do this, my goal, which for me was nail biting. So five to seven reasons why I wanna stop biting my nails and then it also had me fill out these sections that were like, one month from now, here’s what my life will look like. One year from now, here’s what my life will look like, five years from now and so I filled out that whole thing. I was actually getting my oil changed and I had time. I was sitting there and I was like filling this out about to get hypnotized while I was getting my oil changed. And I think that honestly just that in and of itself before even doing the hypnosis session was really helpful because I don’t think I’d really made myself sit down and really think through all the reasons I really did wanna stop biting my nails. At first, was like, oh, this is just gonna be like, I just want pretty nails. I just want people to not make fun of me on the internet. And then as I started writing more reasons, not all of them, I feel like sharing on this podcast, but I was like, you know what? Actually, some of these are a lot deeper than that, this actually is important to me. That even just gave me more like, hey, this is important to you and it’s okay that you want to make a change and it’s cool that you want to make a change. And even if you have a hard time with it, it’s okay, this isn’t just a vapid goal. This isn’t just a vanity thing, there’s actually some deeper things here. So that was cool. And then the reason he has you follow that out is kind of for the reasons I just said, it helps you, but then also he uses a lot of your language back to you during the hypnosis. Especially the goal section where I was like, a year from now it’ll look like this. So it was really a part during the hypnosis when he was like, and you can go to the nail salon with your niece and you can get your nails done and you won’t have to feel, he was using my language because I would like to take Goldie to get our nails done some time and I don’t really wanna do it while my nails are like tiny, tiny, short because it’s just embarrassing, and Goldie’s a girly girl, and I would like to get our nails done together. So generally, my review of being hypnotized is, it felt a lot like a guided meditation. I feel like most people have seen a movie before where you’re in a trance and then they give you a command and you just do it blindly, like bawk like a chicken.

Elsie: So there was nothing about it that felt different from meditation. 

Emma: No, I felt definitely awake the whole time, I remember the entire session. He also takes a video of the session, he tells you ahead of time, but he takes a video of it. It’s a screen recording type video and the reason is because then you can play it again like a guided meditation and you could do the hypnosis again. You just close your eyes and listen to it again because it’s really just him talking the whole time, you don’t really respond at all. He is watching you to kind of see what resonates and what doesn’t and he’ll kind of change the session based on that. I could definitely listen to it again right now and it would be helpful. So, yeah, it was really cool, it felt like a guided meditation. It felt very positive. It felt just like, I have more tools now for reframing this habit that I’m looking to change. For example, one of the things that he said during the hypnosis was, you don’t have to do anything to achieve this, just do less. So when you wanna put your hands to your mouth, just do nothing because to bite your nails is actually to take an action, I have to lift my hand to my mouth. I have to bite on my nail, whereas if I wanna stop biting nails, I literally just have to do less, do nothing and so it was just reframing something really. But I’d never thought of it in that way and it felt very powerful to me at the time, and still, because I’ve always thought, I’m gonna have to have all this willpower and to muscle my way out of this bad habit that I have, but it’s like, no, actually I just need to do less. So since then, every time I’ve gone to bite my nails, I just say, oh, just do nothing. And I just kind of relax and let myself calm and then I just don’t bite my nails. Yeah. It’s been about a month since I haven’t bit my nails. 

Elsie: I’m curious to hear a little more about how it’s been since you did the hypnosis. Has anything changed? How do you feel now? 

Emma: Yeah, I feel like I use the tools from the hypnosis when I’m feeling a moment of wanting to bite my nails. He also had this thing where he was like, you’re gonna notice the color red a lot, and that’s just gonna help you recenter on this goal and why you want it. And so now anytime I see the color red, he probably could have picked any color because it’s like I see all sorts of colors all the time, but when I see red it really does. I don’t know, it just reminds me, you’re not a nail-biter, you don’t wanna bite your nails anymore, and you need to do nothing in order to achieve that, it’s already happening right now because you’re not biting your nails right now. And it just kind of recenters me, which is nice. And I think using color for me really worked because I’m a very visual person, but yeah, it’s only been like a month, but I haven’t bitten my nails since then. I’m not really expecting that I will never bite my nails again after getting hypnotized one time. I don’t know, but I thought it was very helpful and very positive and I really liked it. It felt a little embarrassing in a way too, like hearing him say back my goals to me. I don’t really like a lot of attention. I don’t even like it when people sing Happy Birthday to me. So to have that hour and a half of someone focused on you. It was a little bit uncomfortable for me and my personality, but it was a very professional experience, and felt good and positive. I would also say for anyone who’s interested at all, It’s definitely one of those things, like most things in life where you probably get out of it as much as you want. You know, If I was gonna go to church, but I show up and I’m like, this is bull and I hate this and guess what, you’re not gonna get anything out of it. So in the same way, I would say, if you wanna get something out of it, you probably can, and if you think it’s bull you think it’s dumb, then you probably won’t. There you go. 

Elsie: Yeah, I think most things in life are exactly like that. I think it’s a glowing review of hypnosis and I definitely wanna try it. I’m definitely gonna check out the link that you put in the show notes. That’s exciting, I’ve always thought it sounded cool, probably. I thought it would be a little more mysterious than how you’re describing it, but still sounds helpful. So fun. 

Emma: I think there were more woo-woo parts and I think I just didn’t gravitate toward them as much because I was really in the mood to focus on the habit thing. But there is a part of the hypnosis where he had me revisit like little girl Emma, young Emma, and talk to her and tell her inside, not out loud, but that she’s worthy and it doesn’t matter that she bites her nails and it’s fine. Just different things and just basically go back to your childhood self and say that you love them and you love yourself, and that felt really powerful. Also, this was my own personal thing, I had nothing to do with anything he was saying, but I just had this moment where I was talking to my little girl self Emma. I don’t know why I keep calling her little girl self, it’s kind of a weird way to put it young Emma. So anyway, I’m talking to 12-year-old Emma, and all of a sudden I felt I was under the ocean and it was scary, and I felt like a shark was coming towards me. And then what I did was I turned myself into a shark and then I felt really powerful and I was just a part of what was happening, not like I was scared of what was happening. And sometimes I go back to that in my mind when I’m having a moment of feeling anxious or overwhelmed as I’m like, I’m a shark. 

Elsie: Hell yeah. Well, that’s kind of fun. I like that. 

Emma: I don’t even know what that means. I don’t know what has to do with the nail-biting but, there you go.

Elsie: Overcoming fears, maybe overcoming insecurities. I mean, I think with anything in life that you’ve tried to change before and failed at repeatedly, there’s a barrier there. Like a path of failure, it’s so much harder than trying for the first time. We’re all giving you the biggest cheer, Emma. I know everyone’s so proud right now, and I’m so proud. I just think it’s cool that you were open to trying something weird that you had never tried before. You have no idea if it’ll work, you just were open. I think it’s very cool. 

Emma: Thanks. That’s what I was going for. Love it. I was like, maybe it’ll help, can’t hurt. What have I got to lose, nothing. 

Elsie: Well, I think that’s an amazing story. I definitely wanna try it in the future and I’m sure we’ll probably get lots of emails from other people who try it because you’re review is very convincing. Okay, so this episode is about finding joy and hobbies. So, little teeny tiny backstory about our careers. So we did grow up, obviously, we’re sisters, occasionally people don’t know that. So we did grow up together in the same house. We were very like best friends in the junior high and high school era of our growing up phase, and we got a lot of the same hobbies. We went together to our little punk rock music festivals and the thrift stores and we made our own clothing. We had art shows where we just would go to a local coffee shop or a place that I don’t know, we thought would say yes and be like, can I have a gallery show of my art, and they would be like, sure. We just did a lot of stuff like that. Just like creative, and joyful, sometimes it was a big success. Sometimes it led to something, sometimes it was nothing. Sometimes it’s just something we look back and we’re like a little bit cringed out by it, it’s all over the map and I think that that’s a wonderful way to live, a wonderful way to grow up. It’s what I want for my kids and so in this podcast, we will try to sell you on the idea of it as well, that it’s something that could be good for you because my strongest belief in life, my strongest, I don’t know if you would call it like philosophy or a core belief that I have is that the most important thing in life is to never stop learning. And I think that if you decide that you’re done, you are. And if you decide that you’re never gonna be done, you never will be. And I just think there’s such a difference in people. I’m very, very inspired by older people who start new things. It’s something we’ve talked about on the podcast a lot of times. I would say that one of my biggest goals in life is that I want to keep trying and starting new things forever until I die. I read last week that David Bowie released an album the week before he died, and it was kind of random, it was not the music that you know him for, but just doing it up until the end, just being creative, not really caring about the result like that. I think that that’s a beautiful, beautiful way for the beginning, middle, and end of every single phase of life. 

Emma: Yeah, that sounds like a full life to me. Sounds like the good life. Probably when we talk about specific hobbies, Elsie and I are gonna talk about a lot of visual hobbies and craft-type things and reading because that’s what I’m into. But hobbies are also great, you might be musical, you might be really into fitness. There are all sorts of things and I just wanna put that out there, even though we might not mention some of your hobbies. Those are really valid and awesome too. Yeah. I think it’s obvious, but every now and then, I just think it’s nice to tell people like, Hey, we might not have your hobby, but if you’re like, I play piano every day, I’m like, that is so cool, and I know nothing about it, but that’s awesome. 

Elsie: That’s true. I think that we’ve only tried so many things, but obviously, the list is endless of things you can try like my brother-in-law is super, super into coffee and he knows like every single boutique coffee roaster in the US, he can talk about it for hours. He gets really into the things he buys and it’s just so fun to me and I always learn something new. And a lot of times I just do what he does. So I just think that being an enthusiastic person is such a beautiful thing. So the other thing I wanted to talk about before we fully dive in is the mom-specific part of it because I know a lot of people who listen to our podcast are moms or maybe you’re going to be a mom, maybe you’re a grandma. It’s mostly women who listen to our podcast, although I have heard of lots of men, which is exciting too. 

Emma: Mostly John. 

Elsie: There are some, my realtor, Daniel, shout out to my two friends who are men who listen to the podcast. But anyway, I guess this applies to being a parent in general and not just a mom, but the years of your life when you have little kids are so exhausting. The correct word is exhausting. It can feel like the energy is drained out of you every single day. They’re just so hard, and I completely understand now how people feel like they lose themselves, in those years, I get it. I think that it was a thing before I had kids, I looked at it as like, why are you making such a big deal? Or like, why don’t you just do something for yourself? I didn’t understand, but it’s just so extremely exhausting for so many, it’s not just days or weeks, months, and years at a time. The compounding effect is sometimes to go into like sort of a permanent survival mode. And so, in this episode, I wanna encourage you that if you keep even just the tiniest shred of your hobbies alive during these years, they will still be there for you later, and even if that ship is sailed and you feel like your plant completely died, you can still also start over. I just think that that’s something to acknowledge because it is so intense. 

Emma: Yeah, for sure. And if we’re moving into sort of the first part of our outline, which is let’s do it, hobbies and why they bring you joy. Because I feel like that kind of segues with what you were just saying is I feel like one of the reasons I feel so passionate about hobbies is because, I like all humans and by nature kind of a problem solver, and so I feel like hobbies for me is me solving a problem that I chose and that I want to mess around with. So if I’m working on a recipe, cooking’s definitely a hobby for me, even though I do it for work too. I just really enjoy it, that’s sort of part of it. But I do a lot of jewelry making and painting and sewing, even though I’m terrible at sewing, and a lot of that does not show up on our blog. And for me, it’s kind of like problem-solving. I’m like, oh, I wanna make a necklace that has these three colors and I want it to feel really big and exciting. Or, I want this one to feel calm and chill and you’re like kind of solving a thing. And I think whenever you’re raising young kids and there are other times in life when you’re overwhelmed too, by the way, but that’s one of ’em for both of us that we’re in the phase of. You do a lot of problem-solving when you’re raising a newborn or a baby or a toddler or a little kid. You do a lot of problem-solving all day with them, because it’s like they’re crying, what do they need? Something smells, that one’s pretty easy to solve, diaper time. Making snacks, cleaning things up, figuring out things for them to do that are safe but entertaining but not gonna rot their brain, but is going to challenge them, it’s a lot of problem-solving. I think there are lots of other things in life that are like that too. So sometimes I think we’re using that muscle so much that we need a hobby that’s like chill. It has less problem solving or we might need no hobby for a little bit if it’s like, no, I completely have no brain cells left. I’m in newborn times, so my only hobby is skincare because I don’t think about it. I just put stuff on my face, go to sleep. But for me, most of my life, even though having a newborn and a toddler, I have a certain amount of capacity. Where I wanna solve problems and I want to make that a positive part of my life I actually heard this quote one time and I should have looked it up because now I can’t remember who said it. It was in a book, I think. But they basically said, I’m an artist and if I don’t create, I’ll probably become a hypochondriac because I just want to solve problems. 

Elsie: Oh, that’s funny. 

Emma: And I was like, that’s an interesting perspective, and the more I thought about it, I was like, yeah, I think I get what this person is saying. They’re saying this thing about our humanity, problem solving, we can channel it for good, we can have hobbies, we can build things with our careers, we can care for children. Or I could use it as something that’s kind of like making up problems. I think that’s what they’re trying to say with a hypochondriac comment I can kind of use this to kind of harm myself a little bit or distract myself in a way that’s maybe not positive. I think that’s kind of what they were getting at with it and for me, hobbies are like filling my time with something positive that excites me and challenges me the right amount, and that I just find enjoyment from.

Elsie: That’s a really interesting point. I think that for my personality, it’s like I need to have a lot of projects all the time. So when I’m busy it can go from like very productive to like very self-sabotaging, it can be either one. It just depends. Yeah. That’s something I’ve kind of never really thought about before. Is like keeping life full of healthier, more productive hobbies so that I don’t get too bored basically and have to go to the hobbies that are more self-destructive or the ones, there’s just ones that shouldn’t be done in excess or whatever. 

Emma: When it comes to choosing hobbies, I think about what kind of person you are as far as an introvert, extrovert or visual learner, auditory learner, or things like that. Because Elsie and I, we’ve mentioned this before, we’re both kind of introverts. I like to spend a lot of time alone. So for me, crafts and art projects that I can do by myself as also reading and writing are all things that are very much like I’m in my own head, I’m by myself. I could be sitting by other people, but these almost help me escape. When I’m reading on a plane, I’m trying to handle my boredom and anxiety by escaping and being alone, but I’m not really alone, I’m on a plane, you know? But that’s sort of part of it for me I’m often looking for hobbies where I get to be alone because that’s how I recharge my batteries so that I can then hang out with people and have social interactions and be a mom and all the things I want to do in my life as well, and also bring me joy. But for some people, they might be like, I’m an extrovert. So maybe you should think about joining a theater group or a band or something where you’re gonna be interacting with other people. And that’s part of the hobby is building something together. 

Elsie: People like to work out in groups of people maybe.

Emma: Yeah, things like that. I think there are lots of ways to do hobbies with others and that might be really appealing to you if that’s how you recharge your batteries. 

Elsie: So I wrote down my most joyful hobbies that I have found through the years. The first one is painting. I don’t know if I’m the most productive painter, but it’s something that I’ll always come back to, it always brings me joy and it’s just so relaxing and there are endless ways to do it. So I feel like it would never get boring. The next one is baking and my baking hobby is definitely seasonal. It’s a winter hobby that I love, a seasonal hobby pretty much. It’s pretty much completely gone this time of year. My little five-year-old always wants to bake and I’m like, eh, let’s make a smoothie. I’m just not in the mood to bake right now, it’s definitely a mood thing. As soon as it turns, not even September, like August 20th, I would say is the exact day when my brain turns to cake pops for the rest of the year, and then decorating for sure is my forever hobby, it’s my own space, it’s for myself. I think a lot of people have the misconception that I do it for the internet. There’s no way for me to prove this like off the internet cuz then you just wouldn’t see but when I don’t post things, I’m still doing it at home. Can you vouch for me, Emma? I still do it all the time. Even if it’s something I never show. It’s like my dearest grandpa. 

Emma: Yeah, you redecorated your room however many times our parents let you like growing up and we didn’t even have the internet. You just like seasonal decorating, but also just Interior design, decorating stuff, you’ve always done that. It really has nothing to do with other people. You’re just like that. 

Elsie: Okay. I have two more. Collecting vintage, the thing I love about collecting vintage is that it can mean nothing. It can be just junk. It can be stuff that you shouldn’t have bought or it can mean everything, it can be the most special thing in your entire home. And I think honing that skill where you learn to tell the difference between the stuff, like leave a lot behind. I go out of stores a lot without buying anything, although not as much lately because I’m on a project right now. I think becoming really, really picky where you’re collecting for a certain aesthetic for a certain like I have a dream house in my mind that is at least half full of antiques. So I know that to achieve that dream house, I have to spend years just popping into stores and looking on Facebook marketplace and I think it’s a joyful thing. It’s definitely a hobby. It’s something that I enjoy like the front end of it, the searching, and then I enjoy the back end of it. Having the special thing like, the swan fireplace that I’m obsessed about. I will keep that till I die probably because it’s kind of like the one way that we get to experience the past, besides reading, I guess. Is like you can live with, you can use the same dishes and I just think that’s really cool. So it’s something that appeals to me is the idea of using a lot of old things that have been used by people a hundred years ago. 

Emma: Yeah. I also think something about it, because I feel this way when I thrift, I just feel a little bit more proud that I picked something out that works for me. Just because I feel like it’s easy to go into a really well-curated store, and pick out a couch or pick out a dress, whatever you’re doing. And it takes a little bit more skill and eye and knowing your own style and taste to go into a flea market or a thrift store and pick out something like that. And also you said, there’s a lot of times you go flea market shopping and you don’t come out with anything. In that sense, you really are hunting for something. It’s not like you’re going to kill a deer. It’s not that kind of hunting, but it’s like you’re not always going to get the thing you’re going for. It’s like you really have to look around. Whereas if you just go to a well-curated, nice store, it’s not really exactly the same. And there’s nothing wrong with buying new things from stores obviously, but there is something about flea markets and thrifting, so I get that. And I also think collecting is just a cool hobby. It’s very interesting. 

Elsie: I think that it’s a love it or hate it. I have lots of friends who have no interest in having a bunch of old stuff, and that is fine. But I think that if you love it, then it’s kind of like nothing’s better than that. So for me, there’s nothing I can buy at I don’t know, a nice store like William Sonoma or Craigen bro. There’s nothing I can buy at that store that’s better than something I could find in a flea market, which I love that feeling, I think it’s cool. 

Emma: Just sparks joy. 

Elsie: Yes. And my last one is reading. So currently I am presently in my audiobook era, and Jeremy had the cutest, dumb thing to say, he said that we should change. So our blog, A Beautiful Mess, we call it ABM sometimes and he said that we should change it to where ABM means audiobook mom. This is perfect because A Beautiful Mess, I’m not so sure even applies. Audiobook, Mom is kind of my whole personality. I am just walking around my house, packing boxes, cleaning dishes, taking walks, and going to Target. There’s no time when the audiobook is not in the ears. 

Emma: I should see if audiobookmom.com is available and just start putting reviews on there. Buy it. 

Elsie: Genius, genius. We need it. We need another website, for sure. So anyway, it brought me a ton of joy. I only started a little more than a year and a half ago reading fiction, and it has been completely life-changing. So if you’re a person who is never, you’re just like, I only like non-fiction. I was you a year and a half ago, and I am telling you you’re wrong. You’re just, you’re straight wrong. There’s a better way. That’s my opinion. 

Emma: It’s true. I tried to tell Elsie this for a decade and she finally listened. 

Elsie: I was like, no, I’ll just listen to Atomic Habits, for pleasure, and it’s like, well, okay, atomic Habits is great. It’s very great, but there’s just a whole nother universe. It’s like If you enjoy movies but you only wanna watch documentaries, it’s kind of sad. 

Emma: Yeah and it’s like, that’s cool, but What about Ever After or something? I don’t know, it’s fun. Try it. You’ll like it. 

Elsie: Yes. Okay, so let’s talk about how to find time for your hobbies, which is definitely an important thing for anyone in the busy mom era. Anyone who is, working and doing family life or whatever else, going to school, maybe. I think most people think they’re busy, even when they’re not, we all feel busy, right? It’s just a thing you say and feel. I think the saddest thing in the world is when people talk about something they wanna do, but then they never do it, it’s heart-wrenching. So how do you go from being someone who has something that you know, you wanna try to being someone who actually is doing it? 

Emma: Yeah. So after you’ve identified your thing, you’ve figured out like, oh, I’m an introvert. And also by the way, sometimes you really need to consider budget when it comes to hobbies, because not everyone can buy a kiln for their house at least maybe not this year. 

Elsie: I knew you were gonna pick on my Kiln. I knew you were gonna call me out.

Emma: I’m always gonna make fun of you, that is my role in life. 

Elsie: My kiln is part of my rich life, okay? 

Emma: I didn’t say you shouldn’t have it. I said not everyone could buy one, that’s fair. 

Elsie: That’s true. 

Emma: It’s not even a dis to you. 

Elsie: I bought it for myself for my 40th birthday, and I definitely couldn’t have afforded it when I was younger.

Emma: You don’t need to justify your kiln to me, I think it’s awesome that you have it. I’m just saying, if an 18-year-old happens to be listening and they have no money, they might be like, I can’t do pottery. But it’s like, hold on, there are other options. So think through those things too. So I would pick something that’s just gonna fit well with your lifestyle and your interests and all of those things. But also, when you do, you can break down your hobby into small, small steps. So this is the same thing as goal setting. So let’s say you have a big career goal or a big life goal, usually what people will tell you is to break it down into small little pieces, small chunks. Same thing with hobbies. So for me, I try to think through like, how can I work on my hobby tonight for one hour after my son goes to sleep or less? Sometimes I work on it for like 20 minutes. For me, I’m into jewelry making right now, I make a lot of necklaces. Last night I started working on this necklace that has seed beads, so it takes a lot longer, they’re really small beads. I probably got like a sixth of a necklace done in 30 minutes, and then I was like, you know what? I just wanna focus on this episode of Succession that we’re watching, so I’m just gonna stop.

Elsie: Oh, a succession night last night?

Emma: It was succession night last night. Yeah, so then I stopped working on my necklace, but I still feel like I got to do my hobby a little bit. I’m working on finishing this one, that’s for a friend I have in mind and I haven’t worked with seed beads in a little bit, so it’s just like fun for me. I’m always trying to do different styles with my jewelry making. That’s my whatever, what I’m interested in. So think through, if you have a really small amount of time, then I would do that. And I also think about how can you store your hobby in a way that you can get it out and put it away. If you don’t have a roommate or any kids, then maybe this won’t matter to you because you can leave your stuff out. But if you have a toddler who’s gonna mess with all your jewelry-making stuff, Yeah. Or a partner who might be like, why is our entire living room your painting studio now? You might need to think through, okay, how can I work on this, but then fold it up and put it away, or have my own little space for it, or whatever it is that you need. I have a caboodle for my jewelry making, and I put everything back and fold it up and tuck it away so that my toddler doesn’t get into it and swallow my beads because that would be tragic for a number of reasons. I personally love hobbies that you can do while watching tv. Not all of my hobbies fit into that I love reading and I cannot be sitting near a TV and reading at the same time. I just don’t have the focus for that. I’m not a person who can do that. So I have hobbies that I cannot watch TV and do them at the same time too. But I do think that’s fun, and we’ll link this in the show notes, but we have a post, oh my gosh, I couldn’t think of that word. Post, I’m a blogger, I couldn’t think of a post, wow. We have a blog post that is a whole bunch of different crafts that you can do while watching TV. So we can link that if you’re interested in crafts, I assume you probably are if you’re listening to this podcast. 

Elsie: Yeah. I do the vast majority of my decor planning while we’re watching TV and also sourcing for weird stuff like art or I don’t know, I’ve had to do a lot of home sourcing lately to get ready for moving. Just finding the perfect quilt or finding art for a certain spot or finding copper pots that aren’t a thousand dollars, things like that. I think those are, for me, that’s like really good tv. I feel like I’m very good at multitasking, those sorts of things, and then I don’t have to waste my time doing them during the day. 

Emma: Yep, exactly. So yeah, just finding ways to be a little bit more efficient. One other thing I did a while ago, this is just my own lived experience might not apply to you, I don’t know, but I started tracking my screen time every week. Which iPhones, if you have an iPhone you have an app that’s called Screen Time or whatever. It’s calling everyone out and gives you a report every week. So I think they have it on Android, I really don’t know. But at any rate, you can probably find a way to track how much time you’re spending on your phone and what you’re spending it on. And for me, a lot of time goes to the PBS app because I let my son watch Sesame Street on my phone. But also, obviously, I have a lot of time on Instagram and there’s nothing wrong with Instagram or TikTok or whatever else. If it’s bringing you joy, cool. But if you’re just wasting time on there and it’s actually not bringing you joy, then maybe take a peek at that report every week like I did and I realized, hey, there’s an extra two hours in here that you could be reading or painting. So then I kind of like giving myself permission. And for the record, I do work for myself, so this may not work for everyone, but I gave myself permission. I was like, if you don’t waste your time on Instagram during your workday, you only get on there to do work and you don’t scroll it the rest of the time, then you can bow out early on Fridays and either pick up your son early or read for an hour before you pick him up, whatever you wanna do. But that’s the deal. And for me, that kind of thing really works, but might not for you and your lifestyle, I don’t know. But just like finding creative ways to basically waste your timeless on things that aren’t filling you up with joy so that you can waste your time on things that are filling you up with joy, like hobbies.

Elsie: Yeah. My methods are, the first one is scheduling. I think that scheduling, especially for me, for my pottery and my painting stuff, I have to just have a time that I know I’m gonna do it because it’s getting a lot of stuff out, making a mess, there’s cleanup. I have to hide it from my kids or else they want to help, which is its own job and usually not something that I wanna do when it’s a creative time for me. So it’s two separate things. Another thing that works really well for me is multitasking. So in the past, I will admit, this is kind of like my whole life, but I think it’s part of what made A Beautiful Mess a good job for me. I would just find a way to always work anything I wanted to do into A Beautiful Mess. So that’s why we’ve done so many weird things through the years. So I guess finding a way to integrate my job hours and my creative life together has been good. And then as far as the audiobook thing, I think just becoming a professional multitasker. So a lot of people always ask me, how do you read so many books? And the truth is right now that I read hardly any paper books. I read a paper book if I’m flying if I’m on vacation, which is almost never. And I have one by my bed that takes months at a time. So on my good reads, sometimes you can see that there are books that I read in two days, and there are books that I read in six months, those are the paper books. So they just are, but I found that audiobooks can basically fill my mind when I’m doing mindless things. So like washing the dishes, I do a school pickup line every day that takes about an hour. So I listen to a book during that time, every single day, and things like that. And I think that just finding a way to squeeze things in and use the time that you do have, if you’re someone who wants to read more and you haven’t tried audiobooks, I kind of think you have to, it’s life-changing, especially if you’re, I mean, you’re listening to a podcast right now. You obviously don’t hate to listen. You just kind of become a professional multitasker where like I never grocery shop without my headphones in. 

Emma: I also think if you’re ever hesitating about starting a hobby because you’re worried that you’re not gonna be good at it, that it is not something that’s useful, it’s not practical. So like why are you wasting your time and money on it? You probably have other guilt trip things that run through your mind. We’re all experts at making ourselves feel bad or stopping ourselves from doing things because of social anxiety or whatever your thing is. Let me just put out there, I think hobbies are really good for you. I think you should prioritize them. Yeah, and there are so many different kinds. You don’t have to make crafts. We love that. You don’t have to go to the gym, you don’t have to play an instrument. You don’t have to read, you don’t have to listen to audiobooks but find something that is just for you and you can be bad at it, and it’s fine. It doesn’t matter and you should waste however much money fits your lifestyle and your budget on it, because it’s just for you and it’s fun and it’s good to do that and it’s okay to do that and you’re worth it. For sure. Trust me, and so are we, and so am I. So find something that means something to you. 

Elsie: Something that helps me is to visualize, I think a lot about 10 years from now self and even like 20 years from now and think like how I wanna live, basically, the lifestyle that I’m aiming for. And I’ve thought about it a lot, so if you haven’t, please do, please, spend a week on it. It’s so, so, so worth it. So for me, what I see myself doing is having this life where I’m like kind of a writer and also an artist, and I am spending a large part of my day doing creative stuff every day and then I like to think that I could do a few things that I feel I can’t do now, like have a garden or something. A few things where it’s like right now is not my season, but it could be in 10 years. This is probably true, just like how much time you have in your life, free time as a young parent compared to how much free time your parents have, there’s a big difference. In 20 years could make a huge, huge, huge difference in your schedule for me at this stage to just keep building my hours towards those things that I wanna do. You know, that Malcolm Gladwell thing where he says that everyone has to spend 10,000 hours before he can be truly great at something. I just like to think that I’m always building my 10,000 hours. So just enjoy it, just do it for fun. I am a big believer that no creative act you can ever do is ever wasted. Even if it’s something like a painting that you throw in the garbage or an entire cake that you throw in the trash because it’s gross. The other day I did my very final kiln fire before we had to unscrew and unplug everything to move and every single thing in it turned out wrong, and it did. It was basically like a batch that didn’t turn out, and I definitely did learn something that day, and it was sad. I was mad about it, but at the same time I’m still glad I did it and it’s still definitely one more notch in my creative journey. So I think, I don’t know. I think that it’s a perspective that’s worth having. If you’re focused on the finished product, you are going to be discouraged very quickly if you’re focused on putting in hours building your creative skills, I think that that’s a much more sustainable way to stay encouraged and always feel like everything’s worth it. 

Emma: Yeah, and I definitely do have goals with my hobbies and things that I’m making like final pieces I’m wanting and things like that. But I also just really think of it more as like, let’s imagine you could know how much time you have in your life and it’s 60,000 hours. I don’t know, I have no idea. So I don’t feel like I’m gonna get to the end of my life and be like, I’m so happy I spent 50% of it watching tv. I’m like, there’s nothing wrong with tv, I like watching some tv, but I really like the idea, for me, I like the idea of getting to the end of my life and knowing how many great books I read and how many delicious dishes of pasta I made at eight. And how many beautiful necklaces I made and gave out to my friends. And I don’t really think it matters to me though, if I spent hours and made something crappy, to me it’s like, that was part of the making, it’s just a part of it and I wanna spend my time on doing things that are interesting to me. So it’s not, every second doesn’t have to quote-unquote count towards the final piece. Like it all does, even if it doesn’t feel like it because you can’t have that big picture perspective until we’re actually at the very end of our life. I just try to imagine that I can now, and I feel like that’s good enough. 

Elsie: It definitely is. I feel like no one loves TV more than I do. I love TV. TV is bad, but I do think it’s good to make sure that you have your top things in the top spots of your time. Okay, so we have a voicemail question this week.

Linsay: Hi Elsie and Emma. My name’s Lindsay. And my question for you was how did you best keep in touch with each other as sisters when you lived more long distance? I’m obviously so excited to hear about all the men mundane activities you do once you’re back in the same town, but I have a sister that I’d like to make sure we stay close and keep in touch while we’re entering the phase of our lives where we’re having kids and things like that. Can you share tips? Thanks. Love you both. 

Elsie: Hi Lindsay. I think this question is so sweet. So Emma and I have a siblings text chat with our brother and our sister-in-law, and I feel like that’s been so wonderful. We didn’t start it that long ago, maybe a year or two ago. It’s been just such a great way to keep up and share small things that are happening. And then for Emma and I, we’ve lived in separate states for eight years now. We work together. We don’t talk every day, but I would say we talk, would you say three days a week at least? 

Emma: Yeah. We probably text every day, but we probably FaceTime, which is our main method of talking at least once or twice a week. Maybe more on a week we have more time. Some weeks I’m like, I’m sorry, I have to finish my thing. 

Elsie: And sometimes we usually when we FaceTime it’s at least an hour, and sometimes it eats up the whole day. But obviously, the good thing about it is we’re staying really connected and I think we just have to have that. I love FaceTime. I think it’s wonderful and I think regular calling is so awkward now compared to it. Yeah, I think that those things have really helped. Is there anything else you would, Em? 

Emma: I don’t think so. Obviously, we email, but that’s really more for work. I don’t feel like we email to stay connected, but that would be an option if you enjoyed writing, and felt like you could express yourself better. I don’t really know, everybody’s different. 

Elsie: I get sick of emails, so it’s not my preferred mode of keeping up with someone. I would way rather FaceTime. Also, another thing that’s been good is going on vacations. Like last year we went on a silly vacation where we didn’t really do much, we just kind of hung out and it was really good. So I think we’ll do more of those. We’ve been planning this train vacation for two years.

Emma: I wonder if you’d mentioned the train. I can’t wait.

Elsie: Oh yeah, I mean, I think living in the same town is going to be better, but I think that the eight years we spent living in separate states, wasn’t bad. It still worked? And I don’t think that it made our business worse. I think probably made our photo shoots worse, but not the rest of it.

Emma: No, I got a lot more done because you were outta my hair.

Elsie: That’s true. I think when I left we were still working kind of in an office together and we both started working from home alone after that. And I think we both just prefer to work at home. That has nothing to do with anyone, it’s just like some people get more done when they’re alone, and I’m definitely one of those people.

Emma: Me too. 

Elsie: Working in an office, I was definitely like a water cooler person, you know what I mean? It’s just like getting stopped from chatting with people absolutely constantly. 

Emma: And I am like borderline like rude about it because I’m like, I really don’t have time, make a lunch date with me. Make plans for me after work if you wanna chat because I’ve got to really get my stuff done right now. Now I’m even worse about it, I can’t imagine if I was in the office now, because I only have so much daycare time. So I’m like, if I wasn’t planning on having a 20-minute conversation, I’m like, I cannot have a 20-minute conversation. I must go finish my thing, so yeah. It’s just like where it is for now.

Elsie: Okay, well, I guess it is time now for a joke or a fact with Nova. All right, here’s Nova this week. Nova, do you have a joke or do you have a fact? 

Nova: I have a fact. 

Elsie: A fact. Okay. What kind of facts do you have for us today? 

Nova: Did you know that our state animal is a raccoon? 

Elsie: Which state? 

Nova: Tennessee. 

Elsie: Okay. Do you know any more Tennessee facts?

Nova: Also, did you know that our state bird is a Mockingbird? 

Elsie: Oh, that’s a good one. I didn’t know that. 

Nova: And the state vegetable is a tomato. 

Elsie: It’s the state vegetable and the state fruit. Right? 

Nova: Yeah. 

Elsie: That’s kind of cool. Okay. Thank you for the facts. She’s so proud. Okay, we will be back next week with our comfort rewatch episode. This one is going to be Emma’s favorite movie of all time, Stranger than Fiction from 2006.

You can stream the episode here on the blog or on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, and Stitcher. You can find the podcast posts archive here.

Thanks so much to our sponsors for supporting our podcast! Be sure to check out Canon USA, and our offers from Grove and Calm!

Show Notes:

-Check out my blog post How to Hygge

-Linking the hygge books I’ve read and loved:
–The Little Book of Hygge
–Dwell, Gather, Be
–Hygge: Unlock the Danish Art of Coziness + Happiness
–The Book of Hygge

-Elsie recommends: this buttercream frosting tips set. This is SO much fun! It’s more of a craft than a cooking adventure.

-Emma recommends: fairy lights and faux fiddle leaf plants

-Elsie recommends: collecting pjs! One of my favorite places to shop for pjs are Madewell, Nordstrom, Target, J.Crew, and Hanna Andersson. Also linking to my fake furry Birkenstocks.

-Emma recommends: this rice heating pad. Here’s Laura’s DIY one.

-Emma says she’s freaked out by electric blankets, but Elsie LOVES them.

-Elsie recommends: anything GLOWY! A pink salt lamp, pink salt night lights, faux candles and my favorite essential oil diffuser.

-Emma recommends: making endless SOUP. Her favorite soup recipes and immersion blender.

-Elsie’s favorite soup cookbook.

Guilty Pleasure Treasure:

-Elsie’s favorite self tanner. Be sure to get a glove as well.

–Emma’s new croissant love.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for supporting our podcast! We are so grateful for you!

Miss an episode? Get caught up!

• Episode #70: We’re Back + A Big Catch Up Episode!
• Episode #69: NY Goals Episode + Goodbye 2020
• Episode #68: Our Favorite TV + Movies of 2020

Episode 71 Transcript

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Elsie: You’re listening to the A Beautiful Mess podcast, it’s officially that awkward season between Christmas and spring.

Emma: Some people call it winter. (laughs)

Elsie: (laughs) This week we’re doing a full deep dive hygge episode and we’re each sharing three things that make us feel cozy this time of year at home.

Emma: Yeah. Alternative title is “How to Survive Winter.” (laughs).

Elsie: Yes, actually, last year I think we did…

Emma: Mentally.

Elsie: An episode that was about surviving winter…

Emma: I think it was like hibernation tips…

Elsie: Hibernation wisdom. Yeah. So let’s link that one in the show notes. But yeah, we’re back with more hibernation wisdom. So this time of year, I normally survive by fantasizing about traveling…

Emma: Right, yep.

Elsie: And that ship has sailed and I’m no longer surviving in that way. Although this year is my first winter of my life to be the owner, the proud owner of a hot tub. So I’m surviving in a different way. (laughs)

Emma: Woo hoo!

Elsie: Yes.

Emma: I’m excited for you.

Elsie: Woo! I know. I’m so excited, too. And I’m stealing your dream left and right. (laughs)

Emma: You really are.

Elsie: Because Emma loves a hot tub. She always has talked about it so much.

Emma: I’m a hot tub evangelist.

Elsie: Yes!

Emma: That’s me.

Elsie: Yes. Well, I’m so excited. I always knew when we would like house shop in the past and I would see a house with a pool. I always knew that the ones with a hot tub would be the really good Tennessee pools because, you know, so much of the year you can’t swim in your swimming pool unless you’re like…

Emma: Yeah.

Elsie: …an ice bath enthusiast, which I’m not. (laughs)

Emma: Right. Yeah, that seems cool, but I haven’t gotten into that phase of life, so. (laughs) Aright. So we’re each going to do three tips, three things we’re doing to be cozy. So what’s your first one?

Elsie: Ok, so it’s cooking/baking season. And more than ever in my whole life, I’m loving cooking and baking right now. It’s very hygge, I should say: before we get too deep in that, I will link all the hygge books that I’ve read in the show notes. They are amazing and they each have something a little bit different, although I think if you just want one quick read and you’ll get the full idea of hygge I recommend The Little Book of Hygge. It’s so good. So anyway, I am in my cooking and baking zone and I’ve been baking a lot. It’s so fun. It’s just more of a hobby. Like people are always like, I don’t know why so many people ask this, but they’re like, “who eats all your cookies and who eats all your cupcakes?” And I’m like, does that even matter? Like, the joy of making them is really like what I’m there for, you know?

Emma: Uh huh.

Elsie: Yeah. Normally I would give a bunch away, but I feel like in COVID times it’s a little bit awkward.

Emma: Yeah. When I made treats for friends, I seriously like wash my hands a bunch of times and also wore my mask.

Elsie: Yeah,that’s good.

Emma: …while I did it because I was like I don’t know. So just in case here. So yeah.

Elsie: Anyway so I decided over the last few years learning the royal icing has brought me so much joy. So I decided that I want to add a new skill this year. And so I bought this set of frosting tips and it’s like fifty tips for seventeen dollars and I will link it in the show notes. When it came in the mail, it comes with a little chart of what each tip does, and my mind was like exploding with ideas, just a very joyful, exciting little thing. And Emma and I had a very strong cupcake phase. But it was a really long time ago, you know…

Emma: Yeah.

Elsie: …it was like more than ten years ago now.

Emma: Yeah. More than a decade.

Elsie: When we had our, like, a little cupcake shop and our little bubble tea shop. That’s another story for another day. But anyway, so, yeah, learning this skill — in my whole life, I’ve made cupcakes so many times, but I’ve never done anything beyond, like, piping it through, like maybe a plastic bag from the drawer in my kitchen. So this is like a whole new level of crafting excitement for me. It’s very joyful and I, I think I’m just going to become a cake decorator for the rest of quarantine. However long it lasts is cake decorating time.

Emma: I love it. I love it.

Elsie: What’s your first one?

Emma: My first one is so with putting away all your Christmas decorations or for me putting away all the Christmas decorations, there’s so much sadness there. And so I was trying to identify a few things that I could potentially keep, you know. So basically what I’m doing is taking all my Christmas lights. Sometimes people call them fairy lights and kind of repurposing them in the house because I really liked them. Yeah, well, I love the glow and I also just like turning them on at like 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. when it’s getting dark and just feeling like, OK, now it’s, you know, after work, I mean, after five is after work, after work, you know, glow time. And that just because I feel like when it’s really dark, like your finish working five, five thirty, six, whatever, and it’s completely dark.

Elsie: Yes.

Emma: It feels like your day is over. And that’s kind of a bummer, you know. And I just feel like not very motivated, don’t feel very excited to do hobby stuff or anything other than watch TV, which is cool. But if you do that every night, if I get a little depressed, if that’s what I do every night. So anyway, so I feel like having the lights and the glow just makes the house feel a little more exciting and cozy and makes me feel a little more motivated to like, oh, now it’s glow time so I can still do things. This is just what it’s like now in the evenings. So anyway, so what I did was I have these two giant they’re like six foot tall, faux fiddle leaf plants at my house. And so I basically turn them into Christmas trees where I wrap them with the lights and I turn them on. They don’t have ornaments or anything, but they have the lights and I turn them on at night and they’re in my living room, which is also where my office is at the moment. So those, and I’m going to hang some here pretty soon in my bedroom, too. And I don’t leave any of them on when I sleep, but it’s just something. So when I’m walking around the house at night, which by night, I mean after five p.m., it just feels like kind of a glow, which feels nice, feels like a cute little restaurant or bistro or something. Kind of Christmassy, but no Christmas.

Elsie: I absolutely love where you’re going with this. And I’m going to do it too. I’m going to copy that. One hundred percent. Love it.

Emma: It almost reminds me of like a dorm room because I feel I can do this kind of thing like in your first apartment or if you had a dorm. I didn’t have a dorm, but your first apartment. But I’m like, actually this is a great idea and you should do this your whole life. Turns out!

Elsie: It’s true putting Christmas lights around your bed. It’s such like early 20s thing, but I actually kind of want them now. Yeah, me too.

Emma: Ok, we’re going to take a short break and then we’ll be right back.

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Elsie: Ok, my second one is collecting PJ’s. So in the past I would sleep in just like any old t shirt old or you know, like just old, old clothes and like I never cared. And I do still have this one like cut up tank top from like fifteen years ago. It’s still my favorite one. But overall for some reason in the last couple of years, I think it’s because I just bought one set of matching PJs a few years ago from Madewell, and I was like, oh my God, I love this. And I felt like more put together and just more, I don’t know, I like it. It feels very special having matching PJs. And so I just started collecting them and now I have a whole drawer full of them. And I recently reorganized my closet and I kind of have a drawer full of like the tiny ones that are little shorts and little tank tops that you would like sleep in and then the like bigger ones that you would wear if you were like, like if people were over, (laughs) you know what I’m saying?

Emma: Right.

Elsie: Like if you’re having guests or whatever the long pants and long, you know, whatever. So anyway, collecting PJs has brought me a ton of joy. I think it’s very hygge. I will link to a few of my favorites, but yeah, like Madewell has great ones. She has great ones. Hanna Anderson, which is a kid’s brand, but they make the matching mommy and mes and they’re great. And then I also got, my friend Kaitlyn posted they’re fake Birkenstocks like they’re clearly like fake Birkenstocks. They’re furry, like not just furry on the inside, like the other ones I have. They’re furry on the outside, too. They have gold hardware.

Emma: Nice.

Elsie: They’re from Wal-Mart and I use them immediately as soon as I found them, because, you know, Birkenstocks are like one hundred and fifty dollars I think. And these are like twenty dollars. So I’m going to link them in the show notes. But I got them and I was like, these are going to be my new house shoes. They’re very, very cool and comfy and cozy. And yeah, I’ll link to them in the show notes, they’re definitely a highlight, I’ll show a picture, too.

Emma: Yes, please do. I’m very intrigued.

Elsie: Yeah, you have to get some.

Emma: I’m like, twenty dollars! I’m not interested, (laughs) so.

Elsie: Yeah.

Emma: OK, my second one. So normally I am a big hot tub person. I also have dreams of I already know like where in the holiday house, my house, where I want to put my sauna should I ever get enough money, which I’m kind of like maybe next year, you know. But that’s a bigger project so we’ll see. But anyway, I just love — what I love about hot tubs and saunas is you can just get nice and warm and then go to bed and you’re like, stay warm under your covers. Like your…my fingertips, my toes. I just feel like I’m often very cold by the time it’s time to go to bed at like 10 p.m. or whatever. And so I just like something that kind of warms me up. So I don’t have my hot tub, I don’t have a sauna. So what I do have is my rice heating pad. (laughs) I use like every single night. It’s like, I’ll link it but it’s so dorky. It’s one of these ones…I wore at one time on Instagram just to show people how cool I truly am. But you warm it up in the microwave, you could probably do it in the oven if you wanted. But I put it in the microwave and then it goes around your neck and your shoulders. And I will also kind of like lay it on my bed and like, lay on top of it for, like, my lower back and things like that. And I love it. You can buy one. You can make your own. We have a tutorial that Laura did years ago that it looks like a cat. It’s really cute and it goes around your neck so you can make your own you don’t have to buy one, but I have one. I’m kind of also, put it out there, I’m kind of scared of electric blankets. Some people love electric blankets, and I feel like that would be a similar thing. Yeah. And I, I don’t know why. I’m just kind of scared of them because every now and again I have my rice heating pad in the bed with me because I’ll be reading a book and it’s time to go to bed. And I fall asleep with it sometimes and I’m just kind of scared of falling asleep with my electric blanket. I know they have them where they’ll shut off automatically. But what if it doesn’t? I don’t know. I just something about it makes me kind of anxious. And so I’m like, no this is for relaxation. (laughs) I just don’t want to…so if you’re an electric blanket person, awesome. But I just can’t I don’t know. It freaks me out too much. So it’s like leaving a fireplace on to me just stresses me out. So I’m into my rice heating pad. It’s very grandma and I’m very into it. I use it like every night I’m serious. Like towards the end of the day I’m like looking for it. I’m like, oh, it’s almost rice heating pad time. I like looking forward to it. (laughs) So, yep!

Elsie: Aw! Yeah I am definitely not afraid of an electric blanket and I think they’re wonderful. But yeah, I am afraid of microwaves. So we are exactly opposite on that one. (laughs)

Emma: Oh yeah we are.

Elsie: Oh OK. So my third one is kind of similar to what Emma already said, but I hate taking down my Christmas decor. It is one of the worst days of the year in my opinion.

Emma: Yeah.

Elsie: Because it makes your house where you feel like you filled it with joy to the maximum. You have to like empty that joy back out. And if you’re someone who loves, like, the clean slate of it, I can see how that is joyful. But for me, it just mostly feels like I’m losing something, like this year I left my paper snowflakes because I was like I think I can leave this part up a little longer because it’s just wintery.

Emma: Right.

Elsie: So anyway, as soon as we took down our decor, I started looking for glowy stuff that I could put in place, and I will put links in the show notes, but one of the things I found recently that I’m really loving is, so I have had a pink salt lamp for a while and it’s really nice. Like it’s just like this nice glowy pink lamp. I personally don’t really subscribe to, like, the health benefits of it as much as maybe some people do. I just think it’s pretty and that’s good enough for me. But they make night light versions of these and I first got them for our kids’ rooms and they love them. They put off a good amount of light and it’s pink glowing light. So there’s one in their bathroom and then there’s one in their bedroom and they have to have a night light to sleep. So I love having that. It’s also travel friendly. If you have kids like mine who have to have a night light sleep, then you don’t want to forget it. Yeah, like our sound machine, and our night light are our most important things when we’re packing to go somewhere. It’s like essential. And let’s see. Ok, and then the other thing is faux candles. So the LED faux candles that last a long time, you can put them inside of little like what do you call it, like a candleholder with lots of holes, you know?

Emma: Votive or, like a votive holder or whatever.

Elsie: Yes, that’s nice. And then obviously, you guys know I love my essential oils, so I have my very, very favorite diffuser is the supernova diffuser. Can’t say if it’s from the name or how beautiful it looks when it’s lit up and glowy but I’ll link to that in the shownotes too, it’s pretty affordable for a diffuser because they can get kind of pricey for the nicer ones. And I will say for the price, it’s the best diffuser hands down. Yes. And I love essential oil. Like I’m not against candles. We have a few candles. Recently our power went out and we like lit a bunch of candles. And I was like, this is kind of like a nice feeling. But I feel like in an every day, like on an everyday basis, I’d rather do the essential oils than candles and candles are more of like a special occasion thing to me.

Emma: I like candles. I’m a candle person. I definitely prefer like soy based, but I am just generally a candle person.

Elsie: Yeah, she is a candle enthusiast and I think I am an essential oils enthusiast, although not crazy! (laughs) to draw the line somewhere. Diffusing only!

Emma: Mmhmm Mhhmm. Cool. Well my third one is a kitchen thing so you’re into the baking which I’m, I’m into baking too. But my, my third one is soups, it is soup season and so at least once a week I make a big pot of soup and I make it for dinner and then I’ll get to eat it for like two or three days after that, either at dinner or like a quick work lunch. You just warm it up and it’s the best. It’s a great like meal prep thing, but it’s also just fun to make a big pot of soup at night. It just feels cozy. And I think of soup, kind of like the winter version, like a winter smoothie, basically, where it can be full of good stuff for you, vegetables, all sorts of things you can even use like bone broth if you want to get more protein in there or whatever. So there’s lots of ways to make it super healthy, but it can also be super like decadent and comforting too, like I have this on the blog, there’s a potato and broccoli cheese soup. I make that all the time. I have this kind of creamy cauliflower and leek soup and those are both pretty comforting. And like you can add cheese, you can add crackers and it feels just like great. So, soup season. I love it. Yeah, I love making new soups. So I’m always trying other people’s soup recipes from cookbooks I see or other food blogs or whatever because I just love soups.

Elsie: Yes, Emma got me the best soup cookbook ever, so I’ll link to that in the show notes too. And then let’s link to like the immersion blender that you like because I use my vitamix but I know the immersion blenders are way, way, way less expensive, right?

Emma: Yeah, they are. And you can just you blend it right in the pot, which I kind of like, feels like less dishes and it’s just, I like it. It’s easier. There’s less like transferring of hot liquids from one thing to another. I feel like every now and again I’ve spilled a little bit when I’ve done the blender method and I tend to like burn myself, because I’m like “this soup’s hot!”. So the immersion blender’s a little easier in that way, but they’re both good. They’re both whatever you have will work on those.

Elsie: Yes. Alright. Let’s take a quick sponsor break.

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Elsie: Ok, so before we go, let’s do a quick guilty pleasure treasure. We haven’t had one of these for a while, and I love a guilty pleasure. Me too. Woo! OK, so mine is fake tanning. So in the past, in the before times as we call it now, I would go…

Emma: BC before covid. (laughs)

Elsie: Right before covid. I would go pretty frequently to this place in Nashville and get an organic spray tan, which is awesome because you go in there and you know, you’re like totally naked and then they spray you and they get you all perfect and it’s like they’re airbrushing you, you know what I mean? And then it was like my — it kind of is like my ultimate confidence booster, like more than like any kind of other little thing I could do. I just, like, love the feeling of having a spray tan. So anyway, obviously I’m not going to appointments right now and I don’t know how you would even do that anyway if you were like wearing a mask or like if, you know, like maybe it would be worth it to someone, but it’s not worth it to me. And so what I’ve been doing is straight up at home, self tanning only and my favorite one, I think I’ve probably blogged about this before, but it’s been a long time, is called Vita Liberata, phenomenal tinted tan mousse. And it has some — so you can buy it online, I think on Ulta and I’ll link to it. Yeah, it’s a mousse. So it comes out as like a foam and then you have to use a glove with it. So just the mousse and the glove is really all you need and then just put it on to clean skin and take a shower, you know, like that night or whatever. It works really well. It has some bad reviews. And I think the reason it has some bad reviews is because in the product title it says like two to three week, like tan. And I think that’s a little ambitious to say that. I think it’s like if you want to have the tan…

Emma: Maybe if you don’t take a shower.

Elsie: Right. I think if you want to have this tan, you kind of have to do it every shower, every other shower, depending on your frequency, I guess. But.

Emma: Right, right.

Elsie: It’s really not that big of a deal. A lot of times I just do my arms and my legs because, you know, like the middle of your body, like kinda doesn’t matter. So I use the medium and my skin is quite light. So it’s not a very, this is why I like it. It’s not — it’s not very aggressive. Like sometimes I’ve tried a lot of fake tanning products and they can be sticky orange, just like too much. And this is a little bit mild. So that’s why I like it. I feel like it’s hard to mess up. It’s hard to get like a really bad line because when you use the foam, you can see the color going onto your skin. So you it’s like if you can see that you you can see whether you blend it in or not at the moment you’re doing it. So anyway, I’m probably overtalking about this, but if you feel like a fake tan would help you through this, like, annoying winter season, try this out. I highly recommend it. I’ll put the exact one I get and the exact tanning mitten and hopefully love as much as I do.

Emma: Love it. Love a fake tan. Mine is, so as people know, one of my guilty pleasure treasures generally is that I like to have croissant Fridays every Friday I set out. It’s like frozen croissants that I usually get from Trader Joe’s. And you set it out the night before and then Friday morning, and I have had numerous podcast listeners email me and say, “we did that too, but we do it on Monday”. So I feel like people get this as a guilty pleasure treasure.

Elsie: Yes.

Emma: Anyway, I haven’t been to a Trader Joe’s in some time because I haven’t been traveling and we don’t have them in Springfield, Missouri, where I live. So for Christmas, I bought myself a box of Williams-Sonoma. They’re called like Galaxy Chocolate Croissants. So they’re croissants, frozen.

Elsie: You mailed yourself frozen croissants.

Emma: I did.

Elsie: I have never loved you more than I love you in this moment, Emma. (laughs)

Emma: I would have stocked up at Trader Joe’s probably when I was in Nashville visiting you, but I didn’t visit you. So I was like, well, where can I buy these online? So that’s what I’m doing now. So it’s kind of the same. Still doing the croissant Fridays, but I have a new brand because I had a mail order myself some croissants. (laughs)

Elsie: Well, that is also a great gift idea. We’ll put that link in the show notes and I think I’m going to send that as a gift sometime.

Emma: I love that it would be a really good like Mother’s Day or I don’t know, just a friend’s birthday to send them a big box of frozen croissants. They have different. They have chocolate, I think they have almond, they have a bunch of different ones on the Williams-Sonoma site. So these ones I got are really good.

Thanks so much for listening to the A Beautiful Mess podcast. We are so grateful when you share our podcast on Instagram and we love receiving your questions. So e-mail us. You can email us at the podcast@abeautifulmess.com

Elsie: Have a great week!

Emma: Bye!

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Don’t get me wrong, I look forward to eating at restaurants and having playdates and flying as much as anyone. I’m not trying to sugarcoat how extremely difficult this year has been. What I am trying to do, mostly internally, is to make the most of it!

Since our time at home currently has no end in sight, I’ve been thinking towards the fall and holidays, trying to get my brain around how different things might be this year. I’m also working to embrace this time by doing things that are helpful for me, which is staying busy with projects and distractions as much as possible. I hope this post is helpful and I would LOVE to hear some of the things that are bringing you joy as you continue to stay home.

1. Organizing

At the risk of sounding extremely cliché, organizing my home makes me feel like my brain is somehow more organized as well. It’s extremely therapeutic for me to take a messy space and make it nicely organized. There have been many times when a little organizing project has somehow created mental space for me, in addition to physical. It’s a helpful way for me to feel more at home and more at peace with my surroundings.

2. The Outdoors

I haven’t been one of those people who has worked out every day in quarantine. In fact, for the most part, I haven’t been consistent in any type of physical activity besides watching little kids (which is extremely consistent, haha). However, what I have done is go outside. It’s been extremely helpful to me to take walks outside or sit on the porch to have my coffee. Even walking to our mailbox has felt like a treat and a chance to breathe fresh air. Being outside is an instant mood lifter!

3. Making Stuff

Little projects, whether with my children or for my children, have been incredibly helpful for me. One positive thing 2020 has taught me so far is that I love to make things! I love making things that have no purpose—just for fun. Currently I’m making holiday ornaments with my girls every day. It’s something that really, we don’t NEED to be doing in July, but it’s bringing me joy during a challenging time. I find that sometimes when I am overwhelmed keeping my hands busy is helpful. Also crying—haha. Crying always helps. I love to cry!

4. Food

I probably don’t need to tell you how incredibly helpful good food can be in pretty much every season of our lives. It’s a great time to try a dish over and over—I’ve made so many variations on noodle dishes for our girls (their favorite) and I finally feel like I have a few that are keepers. It’s a small thing, but I value feeling productive, so testing out recipes and honing our favorites is something fun that I look forward to.

5. Family Movie Night

We just started an official Sunday night tradition of family movie night. Last week, we watched The Parent Trap (the 1998 version—I love them both, though!) and now I’m so excited to continue sharing movies from my childhood with my little girls. It’s so special and it’s something to look forward to every week!

6. Guilty Pleasure TV

I’m currently watching The OC (for the first time). It’s so bad … it’s horrible actually! But it’s bringing me a smile at the end of every marathon day and a way to connect with my husband. I look forward to our “bad TV” before bed, so I guess it’s fulfilling a need right now. So I say—embrace all the guilty pleasures you can!

7. Loungewear and PJs

I definitely miss wearing “real clothes,” though I am not one of those people who is going to put on a jumpsuit and heels just to hang out at home. Although I occasionally put one on just for a minute!

For the most part, I’m living life in a rotation of yoga pants, cozy pjs and the occasional comfy dress. I don’t think I’ve worn any shoes besides Vans and Birkenstocks since March. It’s so funny.

That said, comfy clothes are definitely bringing me a LOT of joy! For the rest of 2020, I will only be adding comfy clothes to my closet since that’s what is getting a lot of mileage right now!

8. Books

I’ve become super into listening to audiobooks. I use the Libby App, which you can use for free as long as you have a public library card. You do have to wait for books in a queue, but it’s completely worth it in my opinion and I reserve so many books that there’s always one available to listen to. My favorite book I’ve listened to this year is Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. What I am currently listening to is The Danish Way Of Parenting by Jessica Joelle Alexander.

If you prefer physical books, I recommend The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield. I have it at my beside table right now and it’s really perfect for when you need a pep talk and motivation!

9. Decorating My Home

Few things bring me more comfort and joy than planning a space and decorating it! When we first started to stay at home in March, I noticed right away that our hardware store was WAY more busy than normal. It got to the point for a while where we wouldn’t got there unless it was a weekday because it was so ridiculously busy. But I totally get why! Completing a home project, whether it’s landscaping or painting a room (or painting some cabinets) is so incredibly fulfilling!

Planning and completing projects is probably the number one thing that brings me joy in our home, well besides snuggling our babies. So for the rest of 2020 and however long we feel safer at home, I’m going to have a continual list of projects in the works!

10. Resetting my Expectations

On a practical note, this is probably the most helpful things I’ve done in 2020. I’ve lowered my standards on really almost everything. It helped! Honestly, I don’t need to run a half marathon this year—I don’t need to finish my side project and I definitely do not need to compare myself to other moms on the internet.

What I actually need is to drink more water and go outside and hide my phone while I’m playing with my kids. Other things can wait. This year is physically and mentally exhausting. I don’t see anything wrong with lowering the bar.

OK, it’s your turn!!! I’d love to hear what is bringing you joy!! Please tell me everything! xx- Elsie

Related: For more kids activities and printables check out Childhood Magic

1. Sticker books: Elsie talked so much about these books that I had to get one for Lola a few months back and they are really fun! They also have animal versions which are really cute and we love these reusable sticker ones as well that I usually bring out for car trips (they have some large scale versions too).

2. Do kids yoga together: We usually take Lola to a free yoga class at the library on Mondays, but now that that’s out I found this fun series of kids yoga videos and she loves them! So far, the farm and jungle ones geared towards smaller kids are her favorite and we can either do them with her or they’ve also been helpful when I’ve had to make dinner to help keep her engaged for a bit.

3. Scavenger hunt walk: Get outside in some nature if you can! While playgrounds are out for now, being outside in general isn’t off limits. Whether you are in your yard or going for a walk around the block (with appropriate distancing if you pass someone), take a printable list with you and check off all the items you can find! Rainy day? Don’t worry, there are indoor versions too!

4. Make pet rocks: On your walk, keep an eye out for some good rocks and bring them back to paint, add some google eyes, or glue some yarn hair onto and keep as a pet (maybe come up with a food they like to eat and have them feed it every day and eat the snack when they aren’t looking). If you can’t get out for that walk or are short on supplies, you can also get a kit for this idea too!

5. On-demand coloring pages: Lola loves to color, so I find free coloring pages online and print them for her to color. If it’s one I know she’ll want to do multiple times, I print off two of them and give one to her to color and keep the other one as my “original” so I can quickly copy it on our printer (it has a “copy” function) without having to go and find it again online. There are a million free coloring pages sites, but this one is a good place to start with and you can do a general search online for specific characters as well.

6. Craft kit for their particular interest: There are so many craft kits online for specific things, so it can be fun to order a few to stash away for when you’ve run out of ideas and really need something new. I got Lola this robot kit and she’s going to love it! The nice thing about kits is that they come in all age ranges, so you can get things for older and younger kids to fit their development level. Jewelry kit? Dinosaur kit? So many to choose from!

7. Make cards for friends/people they miss: Lola asks several times a day about her friends from daycare that she misses, so we made them a card to send them and I think it was helpful for her to do something to let her know she was thinking of them (if you’re concerned about potentially mailing germs you can always text them a photo of your kiddo with the card).

8. Get dirty and have a popsicle bath! If you can get outside and dig in the dirt or run in the rain and get a little messy (and get those wiggles out), come back in for a popsicle bath! We definitely have a lot less complaints about bath time and hair washing when a popsicle is involved … or a lollipop … or whatever!

9. Start a music jar: Elsie started a music jar last year and it’s kind of been a “thing” that’s spread out to a lot of other families (ours included!). Todd is in charge of our jar and he’s usually the one that decides when to add in a new artist (the Queen week was my favorite so far), but you could do this daily with kids and maybe have older kids look up the artist and find out a fun fact about them as well.

10. Puzzles: Lola has gotten really into puzzles so I ordered a few inexpensive puzzle packs so I could bring a new one out every so often and she gets so excited to try a new one. Puzzles are also great because it’s another thing you can get in different skill levels and keep harder ones for younger kids to do as they get older. And for extra fun, two words—floor puzzle!

11. Sensory bins: I’ve shared it all in this post, but that table set up in the photo above is so fun and a great indoor activity that you can customize in different ways. If you don’t want to go the full table route, you can just buy some dried rice and beans (or make some rainbow rice!) and put them into bins or large bowls, throw in a few spoons, sand shovels, scoops, little cars or animal figures and have fun! You can modify this fitted bedsheet hack to contain the mess as well.

12. Make nature/food stamps: Find rocks, flowers, sticks, etc., and dip them into paint to see what shape they make when you use them as a stamp! Same goes for things like celery, potatoes, and other hard veggies (am I the only one who made potato stamps as a kid?).

13. Have a dance party: This is a HUGE one for toddlers especially who need to get those wiggles out at some point or, well, things just don’t go well. When I can tell she’s getting a little crazy with energy, we have a dance party to her favorite upbeat songs and it’s a great way to expend some energy if you can’t get outside! Right now, Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti” is her jam.

14. Have a new “friend” come to visit: This is actually my favorite thing we’ve done so far. If your kid is still in the stuffed animal phase, try ordering a new stuffed animal (or get one down from the attic that you had as a kid and you’ve been saving to give to them) and have it come to visit/live with you guys! You can totally hype up this event for days or weeks and receive calls and letters from the new friend coming to visit until they show up at your door (extra points if they bring a little suitcase with them with their belongings). You can even host a little party when they arrive with decorations and snacks! We did this for Lola and it made her SO happy!

15. Make a racecourse: Grab some cardboard boxes or large sheets of paper and draw roads to make your own racecourse for cars or anything with wheels! You can make bridges and ramps with the cardboard and things like paper mailing tubes from your recycling pile make the perfect tunnel as well.

16. Bake a treat: I think we are probably all eating our feelings a little bit right now, so let’s make it an activity with the little ones to bake some cookies, make some gummy bears, or some sticky buns. Cooking is a great activity for kids to learn as it teaches them patience and how to be a helper—we use these kid’s knives with Lola and she gets so excited to help with cooking.

17. Have a family movie night: Popcorn, snacks, and their favorite film … grab a cozy blanket and just relaaaaax for an hour or two. Snuggle those little bodies and take a few breaths. You earned it.

18. Paint! I know it can be a bit messy, but let’s face it—kids of all ages love to paint! I just got this easel for Lola that’s similar to what they use at her daycare (and it’s something I’ve wanted to have for her at some point at home) and I like that she can paint/draw with the paper roll attachment as well as have a chalkboard and whiteboard side. You can use paint dot markers or paint daubers, acrylic paints, or watercolors (these are Elsie’s favorites for her kids) and a waterproof smock like we have helps cleanup be a lot simpler as well. Throw in a mat for the floor as well if you have flooring you’re concerned about.

19. Make an animal craft: Pretending to be animals is a great imaginative play option and you can make it more fun (and fill up more time) by making a mask or costume to actually be the animal. There are lots of free animal masks online you can just print and cut or you can download patterns to sew masks as well (Lola and I have been working on this fox mask and I can’t wait to see her wear it!).

20. Outdoor chalk and bubbles: If outside is an option and the weather is nice enough, a driveway/sidewalk with some sidewalk chalk and bubbles is basically a pop-up party to a toddler! Here’s a DIY bubble recipe with wand ideas …

21. Play “library” and read books: Especially when kids reach the play acting age, it can be really fun to pretend you are a library with all their books (especially if they are sad their library is closed like we are). You can set up your library station in front of their bookcase and have their stuffed animals or other family members come through and pick out books to check out. Give them a stamp (and some ink if you want) and let them stamp the inside cover of a book when it’s checked out and make some library cards with the name of each borrower. When all their checking-out duties are done, sit down and read for a bit!

22. Video chat with loved ones and friends: Probably one of the best things about this happening in 2020 is that we have the video chat capabilities, so use it to your advantage! Do some Skype playdates to say hello to their friends, call their grandparents or cousins—let them feel connected to people they miss. It may help you feel not so alone and stir crazy to talk to other people too.

23. Learn a new skill: Is there a new skill milestone that you’ve been planning to do with your kid soon? Maybe now’s the time! Being inside a lot may make it a good time to potty train if they are ready, learn to ride a bike in your driveway, start some online music lessons … anything that will fill up some time and check a new skill off the list is a double win! We’ve been night potty training Lola and transitioning her to a big kid bed the past two weeks, so that’s been a nice distraction and something she’s been excited to learn. Now, just a note here that it should be something you are excited to do (even if it takes some effort and planning) and not something that will totally stress you out more!

24. Make your own playdough: While you can just buy it already made, why not make it an event and make your own? It’s really fun to make it yourself, kids love to help, and you can choose whatever colors you want to make as well.

25. Dress up party: Whether you already have some items in your dress up box or you just let them wear some of your clothes, choose a theme and have a dress up party! It could be a fancy tea party, you could get out swimsuits and pretend you are at the beach, or just have a silly category and try to look as mismatched as you can! My mom always had a big trunk full of thrift store prom dresses and whatnot that we loved to play with, so I have some pretty good memories from dress up play. Things like this mask kit can also be fun for dressing up and it’s a craft too, so it’s a double win. Or try making a Easy Superhero Cape for Kids!

If you haven’t used a visual chart with kiddos before, that can be a really helpful way to organize your days! Hope some of these ideas will not only help fill your time but also help make some happy memories along the way! xo. Laura

You can also check out 10 Fun Things to Do As a Family on the Weekend!

In this post, I will share all the books I read (there are so many great ones!) as well as things I’ve changed up in our home to create a more cozy living space.

From a young age, I have always been attracted to a cozy home. I remember in junior high I took a bubble bath every morning. Haha—like, I got up extra early every morning just to enjoy my bath.

I have always been obsessed with candles, essential oils, baking, blankets, slippers … all of the cozy things! So learning about the Danish concept of hygge really resonated with me and I wanted to learn everything I could.

The definition of hygge is “a quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being (regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture).”

Things I incorporated into our home/life:

–More lighting sources. I have been slowly adding lamps, twinkle lights and other sources like a my favorite essential oil diffuser. I have several of these in my home.

The holidays really inspire this for me because I LOVE the feeling of walking into our living spaces to the glow of the Christmas trees and the twinkle of our outdoor lights through the windows.

Although nothing will ever be as magical as the holidays, I aspire to add more twinkle year round because it makes our home so much more cozy at night.

–Candles and oils. I don’t use as many candles as I used to, but a few unscented candles do make a big difference in the vibe. It’s a part of the ritual!

For creating a cozy scent, I rely on essential oils. My favorite oil combo is lavender, fir needle and some sort of citrus, like orange. So nice! Holiday Season is my favorite blend. I diffuse it year-round.

–Minimizing. This is HUGE. I still would never consider myself a minimalist, but I have learned the incredible value in clearing out my home—donating, selling and generally just having less stuff.

–Neutral colors and texture. This is my personal preference for decor that feels cozy to me. While I love to gawk at photos of colorful tile, bright sofas and wild patterned walls, I feel most at home in a neutral space.

It somehow provides balance to my brain. At the end of a long day, what I really crave is a simple, neutral space, clean countertops, uncluttered surfaces and textured cozy blankets and pillows. (To be clear, my home is not always clean … I just crave that!)

–Natural materials. This is SO big for me. A few years back, I started the effort to stop buying so much plastic and instead spend my money on items that are from nature—woven baskets, things made of wood, ceramics, and vintage wool rugs instead of new synthetic rugs.

It takes time. But over time, you can improve the air quality in your home and the longevity of the things you buy. Hygge teaches that being surrounded by natural materials is good for us on a deeper level as well. It may sound silly to some, but I swear it has made a big difference in my home.

–Saving special purchases for special occasions. I read about this in the first book I recommend below. I love this concept. Since I heard it, I have begun to save special purchases and get them as a reward for milestones and celebrating goals achieved.

It has made a massive difference to me in how much I appreciate these purchases and it feels good to have happy memories tied to items in our home.

–Planning the hygge factors in each room. In the past, I would plan the decor for my rooms, but I didn’t put much thought into the emotional side of the decor or the memories I wanted to create in these rooms.

The biggest difference the concept of hygge has made in my life is that I now plan my rooms around the hygge elements, not the decor elements.

So for example, when in the past I would be worried about which wallpaper to choose for our bedroom, I am not concerned about how nice it is for reading at night and for morning routines, etc.

In my kitchen, I once would have felt incomplete without a big design statement or a major color moment, but now I am planning for the parties we will host, nights at home with our kiddos and holidays.

It’s a different perspective and one that is more based on making everyone FEEL at home rather than decorating for visuals.

Hygge books I’ve read and loved:
–The Little Book of Hygge
–Dwell Gather Be
–Hygge: Unlock the Danish Art of Coziness and Happiness
–The Book of Hygge

Each of these books are a quick read. I read most of them in 1-2 airplane rides. Although there will be some overlapping information, I felt that each author had a different emphasis and I liked learning from more than one person.

If you are interested in the idea of hygge, I would LOVE to hear what changes you made to your home and what has been the most rewarding for you.

xx- Elsie

You can stream the episode here on the blog or on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, and Stitcher. You can find the podcast posts archive here.

This week’s episode is sponsored by Grove Collaborative. We introduced our new offer with their team a few weeks ago, and if you haven’t taken advantage of it definitely check it out! If you’re a first time Grove customer you can get a five-piece set to help you swap out plastics in your home! Visit this link to learn more. We talk more about how and why we use Grove in this week’s episode.

Show Notes:
Our mom’s artwork—she’s a really talented painter (among other things). We look up to both our parents for modeling creativity to us when we were growing up.

Here are just a few great photos of us from high school. Ha.

Here’s a link to the kid’s safety knives Elsie talks about, the USA puzzle, and The Best Nest book.

Guilty Pleasure Treasures:

Emma is watching Shrill and Elsie is getting into TikTok (our name on there is abeautifulmessblog)

New Year’s goals update:

If you missed us talking about our New Year’s goals, click here.

Emma has been working through The Curated Closet Workbook and also working away on writing her first novel.

And Elsie has been working on her photography goal.

Thanks for listening! xx. Emma + Elsie

Miss an episode? Get caught up!

• Episode #20: Our Clean Skincare + Beauty Favorites
• Episode #19: Elsie’s Forever-ish Home Update
• Episode #18: Making A Mood Board For Your Entire Home

Episode 21 Transcript

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Emma: You’re listening to the A Beautiful Mess podcast. Over the years, we’ve had folks ask us questions revolving around how we were raised and how our parents instilled a love of creativity in our lives. Elsie is already well into her journey as a mom and looking add magic to her daughters’ childhoods as well. So we are dedicating this week’s episode to this topic and at the end of the episode we are sharing some guilty pleasure treasures as well as a New Year’s goals update. This episode is sponsored by Grove Collaborative. We’ll talk more about them later in the episode.

Elsie: I feel like this is kind of our first episode about parenting, huh? Yeah, I think it is. So I am excited because obviously I love parenting and I love talking about it. But…

Emma: I had thought about this coming out maybe around Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, but then we were like, oh, let’s just do it. You know, now because we’re excited about it. But yeah, I definitely think it’s in a lot of ways gonna honor our parents because I do think they did such a great job and I had such a happy childhood.

Elsie: OK. And I want everyone to know, because this is the cutest thing ever. Our mom told me that she and my dad listen to the podcast together like they they play it in the living room and they listen to it together and they make popcorn every Monday night.

Emma: It’s like a radio show.

Elsie: Oh, just like — that visual. I will hold that in my heart until the day I die.

Elsie: Yeah, that is relationship goals right there. Yeah. Yeah.

Emma: But yeah. So childhood magic. I think this is like to me what I’m meaning when I say that is positive experiences that you have in your childhood that you remember that meant something to you that maybe instilled a sense of self worth, of creativity, of happiness, you know, being a good person, just happy childhood stuff that, you know, you look back on and appreciate as you age. So that’s really what I mean by childhood magic. So it’s really pretty broad. But yeah, we have had lots of people over the years, kind of be like what did your parents do to get you guys to be so self-confident and creative, which I don’t even always feel like a self-confident and creative person. But I totally get from the outside looking in why people think that. And I do think our parents did some things right. So that’s the perspective I’m going to come from on this. And Elsie, I hope you share from that, too, but also share some stuff that’s working in your life from being a mom. And we’re gonna give some practical stuff at the end, too. So…

Elsie: Yes, totally. This is one of my favorite topics. So we each put down sort of three things that are important and we’re just going to kind of go back and forth and talk about things our parents did and things that we’re trying to do.

Emma: And just for the record, there’s a number of things on here. If you’re not a parent like I’m not a parent, I still think a lot of this stuff is super valuable because if you didn’t learn it when you were a kid, you maybe want to learn it now. Also, I think a lot of these behaviors and different things we’re gonna talk about can be beneficial in all sorts of relationships, not just a parent and a child. They can be good in your friendships and your marriage and you know. So anyway, I…

Elsie: Emma is aunt of the year. So yeah, you can use this for any relationship you have with a child or honestly, even if you’re babysitting for one day, there’s probably something magical in here that you could implement into your experience.

Emma: Yes. Don’t feel left out. If you’re not a parent, I don’t. So anyway, I’m just inviting everybody.

Elsie: I did want to give one disclaimer before we start.

Emma: Oh, okay.

Elsie: Because I feel like any time I try to give like mom advice, it makes someone sad and I understand why. Because being a mom is so hard. Being a parent I should say. So hard. And there are days when you feel like a piece of your soul has been chipped off. Never to return. There are days that are that hard. They really, really are. So if you’re a mom or a parent having that day today and you hear all of these cute ideas, don’t let it make you feel sad about yourself, please. Because this is a big picture, a big zoomed out picture of all the good things our parents did from the time we were little babies until we graduated high school and beyond. And no one’s, you know, day is this perfect ever.

Emma: Oh, yeah. And a lot of them are just like little things. So if you’re feeling like, oh, today was a bad day and things did not go well or I did something, I lost my temper. Or I…you know, there’s always tomorrow. There really is.

Elsie: Right.

Emma: So, like, don’t fret.

Elsie: It’s so easy to be hard on yourself when you’re parenting. So, yeah, I just wanted to give like a teeny little pep talk because I know I’ve been through the wringer lately and I really, really, really do understand. And we never, ever want someone to, like, look in and think that it’s somehow like magically easier in our life than it is in your life…it’s not.

Emma: It’s not. And you are awesome and you are doing great. So don’t worry. OK. Let’s get let’s get into it. So my first one is one thing I saw our parents do is they modeled a lifestyle of creating more than consuming. And what I mean by that is, you know, we had a TV growing up and my parents watched TV and, you know, like I love to read books, like there’s nothing wrong with consuming. But I definitely watched my parents do a lot of making and creating, too. My mom loves arts and crafts. She’s a painter. And she also was she’s a really great cook and enjoys cooking. And I think there’s a lot of creativity in cooking. And then my dad is actually a super talented musician. Not everyone knows that about him. He plays quite a few instruments, but especially guitar. And I watched him play a lot of guitar and singing growing up. And he’s also a really great gardener. So in the summer, watching him bring his garden to life was always interesting. So I think they really modeled the importance of having hobbies as an adult human. Like, it’s good to have hobbies and it’s good to have things you’re interested in that bring you joy and that you should be making stuff and doing stuff. And that’s part of a healthy, good life. And I think I’ve brought that with me into my adulthood because of their example.

Elsie: I absolutely agree with all those things. And my first one kind of goes along with that. So I have down they let us get bored and gave us the space to figure out how to make our own fun. I really believe that this is a huge reason why Emma and I run a DIY blog today because we stayed home a lot. We would like go to the swimming pool in the summer and things like that. But we did not leave the house a whole lot. We didn’t leave the house every day. Whenever, like years when we were in school, we didn’t do a lot of things at night. We were never in a ton of extra curricular things. Like we would do them, but, you know, like one here and there, we were never the family that was busy every single night. And although I can see Jeremy has a brother who has kids that do sports literally every single night, and I see value there for them. But for me, I think I want to do it the boring way. I really feel like we got something out of it. That is just really super beautiful because, you know, we would get to the place where we started digging around and making things out of shoe boxes and writing our own stories, you know, and just really sweet things like that. We have like, you know, turn our living room upside down and make our own Peter Pan. You know, we did all these things that we wouldn’t have done if we had other options. And I think that that’s really like where a lot of our creativity was born. And at a young age, learning that like you can, you know, make something out of a box or in high school, we had a small allowance and we would buy clothes at thrift stores and cut them up and kind of sew them back together. And like maybe now we kind of laugh at them. But I think at the time that experience was really valuable and gave us a lot of pride in what we could do with our own two hands.

Emma: Yeah. Taught you that you can like do things. And also like if you’re bored, you can solve that yourself. You know, you’re not looking to somebody else to do it for you. Or like some organization, you’re like, oh, I’m going to find stuff to do. It’s like that whole saying, like, only boring people are bored. You know, I really do kind of believe in that. So any day that I feel a little bit bored, I’m like, well, Emma, what are you making? You need to make something. So, yeah, I agree.

Elsie: Absolutely.

Emma: I love it. OK. My second one. So my second one is our parents let us be individuals. So an easy example of this is Elsie went to like three or four different high schools. (laughs) And you know, if you listen to this podcast or you’ve read our blog for a while, you probably understand Elsie is Enneagram 7. She gets very excited about things and she hops around a lot. So she went to like three or four different high schools. Our parents totally let her. They facilitated it. And you even graduated a year early because you just, high school couldn’t contain Elsie. No. And then I went to one high school for four years, a public high school. And I loved it. And that’s where my parents left me. Like, we had a semester where we all started going to a private school.

Elsie: And you went to one college. I went to like four colleges and I didn’t even graduate.

Emma: I did graduate a year early so I was like chomping at the bit to get out of college. But yeah, we had this semester where all of us all three kids, we went to a private school. And I told my parents after one semester, I was like, I just want to go back to the public school. And I’m sure my parents a little bit were probably like, sweet, we’ll save some money because I’m sure it wasn’t cheap to send us all, you know. But also they were like, open to us being individuals and being different. I’m sure it’s frustrating as a parent. I’m not one, but I can imagine it might be a little bit difficult if you have multiple kids. I mean, it’s nice when one solution works for many different things because then you have solved the problem one time and you don’t have to do all this extra stuff. But I really appreciate that our parents let us be free to be different. You know, all us siblings, we have different personalities and different things that lit us up. And they like let us explore that. So I really appreciate that.

Elsie: So true. OK. My second one is they almost never said no to our creative projects and ideas. And I put the word almost because I know someone out there is gonna be like my kid ask me to paint today…

Emma: You did ask for like, a killer whale. And you had like a shoebox diorama of how you going to have this tank for him in the backyard. So they did say no sometimes.

Elsie: Watches Free Willy one time. Right?

Emma: And then a monkey, you really wanted a monkey. Remember that phase? Monkey Trouble?

Elsie: Mmhmm.

Emma: So they said no sometimes, but we had a lot of hamsters. (laughs)

Elsie: So, yeah, they almost never said no. And what I mean by that is, like through high school, I was a crazy dresser, like crazy. I will put a couple pictures in the show, notes that will shock you and amaze you. And our mom only told me to change clothes before I left the house one time.

Emma: Do you remember what it was? Because it must have been outrageous because they were pretty accepting.

Elsie: I do remember and I don’t know why this one time was different, but I was going to wear to the mall a full head to toe yellow look of polyester. And for some reason that day she said no. But I mean, I wore polyester to our school dance. I had one of those duck tape prom dresses. I had a kind of Chinese prom dress that is probably considered very fairly offensive now.

Emma: Yeah, definitely.

Elsie: Didn’t know at the time. Yeah, no. You know what? I just I only wanted to be different. So bad, so bad. That was like my number one priority. And they let us do that. And I think that that is amazing. And I’m going to try to remember that anytime that my kids want to wear something that makes me cringe.

Emma: I love that. Yeah, they I have plenty of. You can put any photos you find of me too, feel free. Put those in too, because I got some pretty great outfits…

Elsie: Oh, Emma.

Emma: From High School as well that my parents never said anything about because they are super, super nice. OK. My third thing is I always knew that if I tried my best. It was enough. I always knew that with my parents. And I think this the whole point here is just like unconditional love. That’s so important in all our relationships, like finding ways to give each other unconditional love. And I don’t mean, that means you love them no matter the behavior. It means you love the person. No matter what. Because, like, I got in trouble, like our parents. You know, I remember one time I had lied to my mom. I lied to her, and she caught me in the lie. And I got in so much trouble. I was grounded. And she was just like, Emma I’m disappointed in you. Which I was a very sensitive child. So I like wilted immediately upon hearing that. But I earned it because I lied. And so it wasn’t like they never punished us or anything like that. But I just always knew, like, if I really do my best and if I’m being a good person and I’m, you know, doing everything I can. My parents are gonna think I’m amazing. And I’ve I felt that way my whole life. So. And I think it’s such a gift because I never felt like — there’s definitely times I put a lot of pressure on myself because Emma wants Emma to succeed and Emma wants Emma to be… You know, whatever. Like, I put a lot of pressure myself. Sometimes I let the external world put pressure on me, which is my own problem. But I’ve never really felt that from my parents. I never felt like I had to impress them. I had to like earn enough money or get a good enough job or buy a big enough house. I’ve always known my parents thought I was awesome. And I think it’s such a gift that I just will always be in debt to them for.

Elsie: I totally agree. Okay. I’m gonna say my third one. But first we need to take a break.

Elsie: This week’s episode is sponsored by Grove Collaborative. Cutting down on single use plastic and swapping to cleaner options in your home can be an overwhelming goal. Something we found helpful is to swap one thing at a time over the course of years, instead of trying to do it all at once. Grove makes it easy with the most beautiful reusable bottles, cleaning solutions, scrubbers and sponges. Grove makes swapping to reusable items a treat with well-designed pieces that you won’t mind sitting on the counter. We here at A Beautiful Mess love Grove and have used their site for years to source environmentally friendly items for our homes. Grove carries everything from cleaning essentials to vitamins, probiotics, diapers and wipes and even things for our pets. As a working mom without much free time, it’s so helpful for me to do a big haul here and there and have everything we need on hand. Make your home more sustainable this year. Now for a limited time, when our listeners go to grove.co/abm, you’ll get a free five-piece set from Grove so you can swap out plastic in an easy way. Plus you’ll get free shipping and a free 60 day VIP trial. The offer includes silicone straws, reusable and washable sandwich bags, a refillable hand soap dispenser, gel hand soap and a walnut scrubber sponge that go to grove.co/abm To get this exclusive sustainable swaps offer: grove.co/abm.

Elsie: Oh Emma that was so sweet. Oh my heart feels a lot of feelings.

Emma: I try to do that for my husband. I try to do it for you. What a gift to give unconditional love. You know.

Elsie: Yeah, I totally agree. Okay. My last one. I feel like this is directly from our mom. So mom, if you’re listening and I know you are…

Emma: Eating your popcorn!

Elsie: I hope that I do this justice for you. So when we’ve asked her, like, how did you raise us more creative than usual or like, how did you do so many art projects and so many, you know, like crazy decorations. Like in high school, they let me take my whole bedroom out of my room. I don’t even know where they put it. They bought me Astroturf for my carpet and then I had a camping tent. And then I painted my walls blue with clouds with glitter on them.

Emma: With glitter. I don’t know what the glitter was.

Elsie: And yeah, it was just all these little…

Emma: That was a magical bedroom, man.

Elsie: It was magical. I mean, it was a vision. It came to life. I really believe that I got my love of decorating when I was in high school. And they let me redecorate my room so many times and they tried to never tell me no. So it’s unbelievably wonderful. Okay. So our mom always says, like, it wasn’t hard. We just let you be kids. We just let you, you know, do stuff. So I put down: trust your instincts. Don’t overthink everything. Cause I feel like if there’s one theme about parenting nowadays that’s unhelpful, it’s just overthinking. And remember, like when our parents were parenting us, they didn’t have the whole Internet telling them what they were doing wrong and they were still great parents. So sometimes we just need to kind of clear out all the noise and just trust our own instincts. We know our children best and we know how to be their parent best.

Emma: Love it. That’s awesome. Okay, so moving on from lessons we learned from our parents. I thought it might be fun to hear from Elsie since she’s mom. Some maybe like practical things are like activities you’ve done with your daughters or things you’re wanting to try. Really whatever. But just I thought it might be more fun to have some practical stuff for listeners in addition to basically us talking on and on about how we love our parents.

Elsie: Yes. No, totally. So the thing that has helped me more than anything is the seasonal bucket list. And we usually put downloads up on our blog in the sidebar pretty often at least. If not, you know what you don’t need to download because you can just use a piece of paper any day you want. You don’t need anything. So all it is, is saying, and I know some people think you shouldn’t use the term bucket list constantly because it’s supposed to mean before you die, I don’t care though, cause I use it to…

Emma: You can say whatever you want. That’s what I say.

Elsie: So it’s pretty much just a to do list of what we want to do in the next season. Or if it’s a holiday season, maybe it could be just for the holidays or something like that. So right now, I should probably be making my spring bucket list because it’s getting pretty close to the beginning of spring. It’ll be Easter soon, everything like that. So my ideas are mostly for little kids because that’s the people in my life. If you have teenagers, I’m sorry, I can’t help you, but you know your kids best and just customize these ideas…

Emma: Comeback to this podcast in 10 years and then Elsie will have some teenagers and you get the tips.

Elsie: Yeah. Gonna need a time machine for that but…so here’s some ideas that are just things you can always do to have fun with your kids. Like I said before, I personally believe that having a bit of a more empty breathable schedule is key because if your kids are going from activity to activity to activity, at least with my kids, it’s harder to get them excited about some of these things. But if you let them get a teeny bit bored, all the sudden these things sound really fun. So we keep a craft stash, we just have one closet in our home and on top of it is filled with craft stuff. And our mothers often will get us like craft kits. And so I just put them in there and pull them out on a rainy day when we need one. And I love that. Always have a craft ready. And it doesn’t have to be hard. Like at Nova’s age. She really does just like cutting with children’s scissors, just cutting up paper with scissors. That’s all the craft is. And we can do it for 20 or 30 minutes.

Emma: That’s a great craft. I love it.

Elsie: OK, so cooking stuff that children can do. This is a little bit tricky. And is one of those areas like painting where I totally understand why you don’t want to do it, because it does make a big mess and feel borderline not worth it at times. So the first day of preschool, we made one of those little boards for a photo and it said When I grow up I want to be…because I saw one of our friends do that and they do it every year and I just thought it was so cute, I wanted to do it. And she said, I want to be a cook. And I couldn’t believe it because I’d never heard her say that before or express any interest in cooking. So we got the kids safety knives. And ever since then, a couple nights a week, when she’s in the mood, we put the little IKEA step stool up to the counter and she just cuts cucumbers or mushrooms. Cantaloupe or mushrooms. Yeah, that’s all it is. It’s very simple. They’re basically just plastic knives that are…they’re pretty little pastel colors. I will link them in the show notes and they’re safe for kids. They can’t hurt themselves at all. And it’s something that she is so proud of. And one time for a brunch, she did technically make the fruit salad by herself.

Emma: Yes. Go, Nova. No need to wait till you grow up. You are a cook.

Elsie: Yeah. And we let her help a little bit with like baking and other things like that. But it is — you do have to kind of pick and choose. Our kids know that they’re not allowed to be on…there’s a rug in front of our stove and they’re not even allowed to touch the rug. They’re not allowed to be near the stove at all. Right. And yeah, that can be a little tricky. But she is so excited for when she’s Bella’s age, which is our twelve year old niece. She knows she’ll be able to cook and use the oven and she’ll like sometimes ask older kids, are you allowed to use the oven yet? (laughs)

Emma: Yes, rite of passage.

Elsie: Mmmhmm. Ok. So simple skills, learning simple skills like I probably will never be a home school mom, but I understand why it’s appealing because I love teaching my kids things. So we have a United States puzzle and we’re so proud because she knows a lot of states now and she knows where they go. So she knows a lot about geography. She is learning to read a little bit. That’s really exciting. She has a little workbook we do together. She’s learning math on her fingers where you can say like what’s 3 plus 1 or what’s two plus two? And she can figure it out. All those little things are so magical. And there’s something that if you just keep doing it, you know, a little bit each day. I can’t wait till she starts reading. It’s going to be another level of parenting. I just know it is, because right now she reads me books she’s memorized and is probably my favorite single experience as a parent. It’s just she’s reading The Best Nest right now. Do you know that book?

Emma: I think I’ve seen it at your house, but I don’t remember.

Elsie: I love my house. I love my nest in all the world. My nest is best.

Emma: Oh, yes. I think I actually saw her reading it. You put it on Instagram one day.

Elsie: It’s so cute.

Emma: I need to remember to read in front of her next time I’m in town so she can see that it’s cool to read when you’re older, too. You know, I mean, I know she was excited about reading, but, you know.

Elsie: Oh, no, she’s gonna love it.

Emma: Aunt Emma’s got lots of books don’t worry.

Elsie: I’ve been trying to teach her about Harry Potter. And she’s always like, is he a witch? Is he scary? Does he put spells?

Emma: He is witch, he does spells. He is not scary.

Elsie: And then my last one I had done was imaginary play. So this one is so important because I always forget that kids don’t need toys and we’re gonna do a future episode about semi minimalism. I’ve been having a lot of feelings about it because we cleared out almost all their stuff. So their rooms are, they’re not really minimal — minimalist bedrooms. It’s probably not minimalist approved, but it’s a lot more minimal than it was before. And all the sudden, guess what? They’re playing with everything more. They’re engaging with the rooms where they’re staying in there alone, just like excited to be in there. It’s crazy what the difference it makes.

Emma: That’s interesting.

Elsie: Yeah. So I wanted to say imaginary play because it’s hard to kind of remember how magical little kids are. But right now we have these tiny imaginary monkeys that we hold in our hands.

Emma: Princess Taco?

Elsie: Yeah. They sit on their heads while we dance. There’s one in her backpack today that she took to school.

Emma: Oh, I hope he didn’t get out and cause mischief!

Elsie: Mmhmm. They. Yeah. They kind of try to wake you up in the morning. And these imaginary monkeys are the greatest toy in our house right now. And guess what? You know…

Elsie: Free.

Emma: Zero dollars. Free.

Emma: I love the imaginative play. Makes me think of Mary Poppins and how she would like get into it with the kids. You’re like, oh, that’s the nanny I want. Yeah. So…

Elsie: Yeah. Mary Poppins is the greatest inspiration. So anyway. And for our bucket list, it’s usually a combination of fun places to go, some crafts, some seasonal things to bake. Try a few new things that you’ve never tried before. It doesn’t have to be anything…it can be mostly things you maybe would have already done. But all it is is a reminder that keeps you moving on from thing to thing to thing.

Emma: Yes. Yeah. I’ve done it just like, not for kids, just for myself to like do more stuff with my husband. And I really it just serves as a reminder of like, oh, I already wanted to make sure we did this the season. But, you know, sometimes you get busy and you don’t plan to like have that good life that you want. So you just need to, like, make a list. So I love it.

Elsie: Should we do Guilty pleasure Treasure?

Emma: Yeah.

Elsie: I have a good one this week.

Emma: OK. I’ll go first. Mine’s real short, so mine’s good, but short. Mine is I am watching the TV show Shrill. Have you seen that yet?

Elsie: Oh! No, I haven’t. With Aidy Bryant, right?

Emma: Yes Aidy Bryant, yes. And the only reason I’m making it my guilty pleasure is because I feel guilty that I didn’t start watching it sooner. It’s been out for a while. And I’m like, oh, this is so up my alley. It’s hilarious. And I just love all of the actors in it. And it’s also very like uplifting and empowering in a certain way. And I also, like, love all her outfits. So love it. Love it. Watch Shrill if you haven’t yet.

Elsie: OK. OK, here’s my guilty pleasure is TikTok. We started a TikTok for A Beautiful Mess and I also started a personal one so I could post a bunch of stuff about my kids and not feel guilty. And it has been. So much fun. I don’t totally understand it. When I go on the page where it shows like the popular page or everywhere, it shows everyone’s videos and I still feel like…Hmmmm?

Emma: Yeah I’m like what?

Elsie: What’s going on here?

Emma: What are we doing?

Elsie: Yeah, it’s very, very different from Instagram. And I think that’s what I love about it. It’s just something different. And I am already planning a video to make this weekend. So it’s a creative outlet. Like if you’ve heard of TikTok, but you’re like, I’m definitely too old for it. I’m not going to do it. Listen to this from a 37 year old woman. Just try it for fun and don’t care what anyone thinks because it’s actually kind of fun. So real quick, before we go, I think we should do an update on our New Year’s goals, which…what episode was that?

Emma: Don’t know.

Elsie: We’ll put it in the show notes. We did a whole episode about our New Year’s goals and we shared everything we were going to try. So tell me how yours are going so far. We’re recording this at the end of February.

Emma: I’m doing quarterly goals and I felt like I got a real jumpstart on my first one. So I’ve kind of started on my second one already, but I’m a little ahead of schedule. But that’s also kind of like I have to get ahead of things. If I’m like on schedule, I start to get anxious that I’m going to fall behind it’s just my own neurotic way anyway. So what I’ve worked on is the first one I worked on was my personal style. And what I did to work on that was I was doing the Curated Closet workbook and I’ve worked my way through most of it and I love it. Here’s my…since this is not super, super…this could be a whole episode. But just I’m going to make a short. What I’ve learned is that I really want to have just like basically a uniform or a formula that I stick to with my outfits that have a couple of kind of iconic pieces that make me feel excited. And I want them to fit me really, well. They don’t have to be expensive. But I do want them to fit me really well. And I feel a lot of bonus points when I buy them second hand or from a company that like I know is a little bit more caring about the environment or, you know, just giving a shit about stuff that matters. Bonus points for that. So yeah, I feel like my winter wardrobe right now is great and I love it and I’m super happy with it and I feel like I have everything I need in my closet, which is a great feeling.

Emma: Can you like describe your uniform or share some pictures with us maybe in the show notes?

Emma: Yeah. I’ll put some pictures in the show notes of like me doing the two weeks before you start the workbook and then I could just show like some outfits. But basically it’s like different jeans. And my favorite jeans are Good American and Uniqlo. I feel like they fit me well. I have a kind of big booty, which is I like, but also small waist. So it’s kind of hard to find jeans sometimes that are like skinny fit or whatever because they just don’t fit me as well. But yeah, those two brands I really, really love. So I just have like five pairs of jeans that I love and then I always wear a plain t shirts and I have a lot of them for made well and I have like necklaces I wear with them or I have like five to six sweaters and that’s pretty much it. Then I have like three cardigans because I get cold at my house, I wear those and I have like five winter coats. So I really have like a good amount of clothing, but it’s very much just like a formula of like I wear this with either this or this. And I can get ready very quickly. But I feel like put together and that everything in my closet is something that I like and that I want to wear. But nothing is like very extravagant or why I have a very, like, basic look, which I find I like. But for some people, they might find it boring. I really enjoy it, though, and I feel like I have a lot of fun with like my eye makeup or wearing different headbands…like that’s like where I spice it up. So anyway, so that’s been great. But I am kind of putting it on pause now because I feel like basically I achieved what I wanted to do. Not like, oh, everything’s perfect…

Elsie: Wow that was fast!

Emma: Yeah. I felt like I was already kind of close and the Curated Closet workbook put me over the edge. But I’m going to pick it back up this like late spring, because here in southwest Missouri, where I live, it’s very four seasons. So right now, all my uniform looks are very much kind of around cardigans or sweaters. So in the summertime, I think I’m still gonna be doing kind of a jeans and T-shirt thing, but I’m a little worried that might feel too boring because I won’t have the cardigans and jackets just to make it different. So I’m going to pick it back up then and kind of work on my summer uniform, a little, you know, a warm weather uniform. So I have cold weather and then I have warm weather. So, yeah. Yeah, that’s where I’m at on that. And then the second goal that I’ve been working on is I am writing my novel that I’m working on. Feels so like…*sigh* I have been writing it and I’m about 20 percent done and I feel like it’s…God I feel dumb saying this. I feel like it’s pretty good when I read it back. I’m like. I think this is good. If I had picked this up at the library, I think I would really enjoy it. I think it’s good and fun to read.

Elsie: Oh my gosh I can’t wait to read it!

Emma: But I also feel like a lot of I find myself really procrastinating when I’m like when I’ve blocked off time on the weekend or whatever to write. I find myself finding all sorts of things to clean in my house or errands I need to run. And really what I’m doing is I’m like nervous to do it because I’m like, I don’t know if I’m good at this. And I think a part of me, like, really wants it to be good. I really want to, like, write a book that I could get published, you know? And so I just kind of like getting in my head about it a lot. And it’s it’s very silly, but I am doing it. It feels like I’m going at a snail’s pace. So that’s part of why I’m like kind of starting it sooner than I thought in the year. But anyway, I am excited about it. And I think it’s a fun story if I ever do actually finish it. I think people will enjoy reading it. But man, do I feel like I’m writing, like so slow because I’m just like just basically nervous about it. So that’s my update on my New Year’s goals. What about you?

Elsie: OK. So I have also been doing the Curated Closet, so fun and I’ll probably be doing it all year. But I actually feel like I’m going in the opposite direction a little bit from you, like. But it’s…part of it is because I already started off because I did the capsule wardrobe a few years…

Emma: I feel like you already did what I’m doing now. Like you’re ahead. You know what I mean?

Elsie: Yeah. I’ve worked on it for several years. Like there’s nothing in my closet that doesn’t fit me. There’s nothing in my closet I hate. I clean out all the time, but lately I’ve started wanting more like fun and crazy clothes. So, and that’s kind of new. Yeah. Because for a while I was just like Madewell lady. So yeah, I’m kind of feeling in a new phase with that. I think it’s also because I’m like thinking about my new home and I don’t really want this big pink statement room or, you know, I want I think I feel like a better place for my love of color is in my closet than in my home if that makes sense?

Emma: Mmhmm.

Elsie: So I’m kind of exploring that. And honestly, just moving and then working with my contractors has been a crazy two months and we’re about to put our house up for sale.

Emma: Yeah, that’s a lot.

Emma: That has all just felt like a blur. And then the goal I remember I shared in the episode was that I was gonna take a photo every day, not with my phone. So how I’m doing on that. I definitely have not done it every day at all.

Emma: What’s your percentage, if you had to put a 50 percent, 70 percent?

Elsie: Not that well, it’s probably like 20 or 30 percent. But it’s so…it’s like twice as much as last year. You know, whatever. It’s a lot better than last year. And the photos that are on the camera, I mean, I’ll put a few of them in the show notes. But like last night at dinner, Nova made all her fingers have olives on them. And I got a picture of that. I got a picture of them sitting on the counter, brushing their teeth together, just like a couple things that like for some reason, like your phone, you reach for your phone when you feel like an Instagram coming on. And this is just different stuff and it feels different and it feels really good. And I’m glad I made the goal. And even though it’s not going like perfectly percentage wise, I still feel like it’s going well and like it’s something I want to finish throughout the year. So, yeah, I guess that’s like something I want to encourage people on is like if you start a goal and you don’t do it perfectly, that doesn’t mean that you can’t still do it.

Emma: Yeah, I think like to me that’s like a normal for goals. It’s like they start off kind of rocky and you got to like work through that part of it, you know, and like keep pushing. Or you realize you’re not into it. You know, that can happen, too. But it sounds like you’re into this. It’s just you’re kind of like easing your way in a little bit and also finding like, oh, yeah. We’re also moving and I have other stuff going on.

Elsie: I could probably do better. Like, I think if I put my camera in a more prominent location or something. But at the moment, I’m just I’m thinking that when they do something just like so exponentially cute. And then I go and run and get my camera and yeah, it’s I’m still really glad I made the goal because these months are really going by fast for us and they’re really cute ages and it feels like I’m getting more real life photos right now. So.

Emma: Well, I can’t wait for the olive photo (laughs).

Elsie: Okay so thank you so much for listening. And if you haven’t yet remember to hit subscribe because that’s how you get an update every Monday when our new episode comes out.

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We adopted her in July from Jiangxi, China. She accepted us right away, but over the past two months we’ve gotten to know her and bond with her in a deeper way. Her and Nova’s sister relationship is truly one of the most special things I’ve ever experienced.

For example, last night we were all hanging out in the living room listening to music and Nova was playing with a puzzle and she suddenly said, “Hey mama, I’m so glad we have a sister!”

Though our new life with two children isn’t without hiccups and tears, I go to bed every night feeling full of love and so grateful.

Emma joined us for the first half of our trip to China and was there when we met our little golden girl for the first time. It was so incredibly special to have her there with us. One of the most special moments was after we got back to our hotel for the first time. Jeremy and Nova went to grab lunch and Emma and I just sat on the bed and tried to make Goldie laugh—and it worked. It was so surreal! One of the happiest moments of my life.

Many people have asked how our adjustment has been. It’s a tough question for me to answer since every day has been a mix of highs and lows. I think that’s just how being a new parent is—you never feel 100% solid. Every day is such a roller coaster.

BUT LOOK AT THOSE EYELASHES!

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your love and support this year … and last year—AUGH adopting two kids in under two years is a pretty BIG life change. I’ve appreciated all the kindness along the way! In some moments, it made me nervous to fulfill such a huge dream and become a mom so publicly. But it turned out to be the most bonded I have EVER felt with our blog readers … our family felt overwhelmingly supported and it really was the highpoint of my entire online experience. Thank you.

For now, our family feels complete and we are excited to experience Halloween and the holidays with Marigold for the first time. There’s so much to look forward to as she has just started to say her first words and she hasn’t yet taken her first steps.

If you want to read more about our adoption stories, I have some archives here.

Love you all! xx. Elsie

For so many reasons, it’s the right time for me to let go of some things—mostly internal things that were weighing me down.

Letting go of what people think. 

I’m sure at one point or another we’ve all overanalyzed what people think. As an online personality, there’s another layer to this too. Through the years, I’ve learned that people can invent all kinds of extra perceptions about me, a lot of which are totally untrue.

I used to spend a lot of energy trying to prevent people from taking things I said the wrong way and adding little disclaimers to all kind of things.

These days as a working mom there just aren’t as many hours in a day for me to worry about what people think. Whether they think I’m pretty or ugly, smart or not, talented or lucky, a good mom or a bad one … I honestly just had to let go altogether.

People can think what they think. I take comfort in knowing that those people close to me seem to love me and are very loyal. I can’t control everyone’s perceptions beyond that, and I’m no longer trying to.

Augh … sigh of relief.

Overcoming my own imperfections. 
I don’t have a perfect body or perfect skin and I’m finally at peace with that. It’s no longer something I’m pursuing. In my 20s, I was so into photoshopping myself and trying to “fix” my imperfections. It’s crazy how now, in my 40s, I am so much more comfortable with a raw photo of myself than I was then.

I truly can accept my physical imperfections, and own them. I’m not ashamed of them. It feels SO GOOD to be OK with my appearance.

When it comes to my heart, it’s a whole different matter. I’ll keep working there and always try to grow and be better.

Overcoming haters. 
In the early days of blogging, I didn’t know how to handle “haters.” Now, after more than a decade of experience, I’m able to read them pretty well. There are times to ignore and block. There are times to open up to an honest conversation and ask questions and really listen. And there are times to fight back.

It took time to know the difference.

I used to be so afraid for Nova and wanted to protect her from bullies and ugly comments. Now, I can see that it’s an important part of learning to be a confident woman. I don’t need to protect her, I need to teach her to deal with it just like everything else adults deal with. It’s necessary.

I no longer give it more power than it deserves.

Overcoming guilt. 
The big one. Guilt for being behind on my emails (for two years, haha). Guilt for saying no. Guilt for having 10 things on my to-do list today and only getting seven of them done.

It’s an ongoing process for me to overcome guilt, but it’s important to face it and not ignore it. That’s what I’m working to do every day. It feels good to own it instead of run from it.

If you’re successful in your career it’s likely going to come with a fair amount of guilt because there are never enough hours in the day to please everyone and do everything you’d like to do. Accepting that is step one.

I am grateful for the perspective that motherhood has forced on me at times. It’s definitely made my shortcomings all that much more obvious, but I’m grateful for it since at times all that really needs to happen is letting it go.

It feels good to work through some of this stuff! I honestly didn’t realize how much guilt and shame I was carrying around for no reason in years past. I hope this was helpful to some of you. xx – Elsie

Related: How I Save Money, How to Hygge, The Art of Letting Go

It was during the first season we were home with Nova. It was, by no means, the first time I had started a healthy commitment, but in a lot of ways it was my “breakthrough” that I had been wanting for so long.

Today, I want to share some of the things that helped me to achieve my goals.

First, I want to say this isn’t a post about weight loss, although dozens of “how did you lose weight?” DMs are what prompted me to write this post.

This post is about how I changed my WHOLE life and if you read it all the way through you’ll see that it was not just one thing (such as a diet or exercise routine), but a compounding effect of a lot of healthy changes.

What people saw on the outside was that I lost 20 pounds, but what those closest to me saw was that I changed my whole life. Last year was, by far, the biggest year of change I’ve ever had.

Becoming a mom felt like the right time to face my “demons” and focus on being the best version of myself I could. It’s a lot of responsibility to have a little person watching every single thing you do, and it changed my life.

I know many people (myself included) can feel triggered by weight loss posts, before/after photos and promises of what a 30-day plan can do. This is not that.

One of the reasons I have struggled to explain, even to my best friends, how I was able to lose weight is that is a very long story and it’s not all about food or exercise. For me, a huge part of it was internal work that I needed to do.

Before I begin, please understand that this is my personal experience and story, not an advice post. Maybe it’s something that could help you, maybe it’s just a story. That’s OK.

It started with a 100-day challenge.

One hundred days is a long time. Time enough to accomplish a series of small goals, but short enough that if you don’t make the goals you’ll feel like you blinked and the time has passed.

I drew 100 squares on a piece of paper. I made a list of things I wanted to change. Some are too personal to list, but my list included having better spending habits and saving money, losing some weight, having a more organized home (this list was extensive), and many things on the list were things I had been putting off out of fear or laziness … but the kind of things you stress about when you wake up at night.

As the days began to pass and I would color in a square each day, I felt motivated to face each thing on my list. As I began to cross off items from my list, I felt more and more in control of my life.

These are some of the things I changed in different areas of my life during that time.

Doctors.

Before our adoptions, I hadn’t been to the doctor or dentist in around 10 years. With each year that passed, I became more panicked, but also more avoidant.

It was a big deal for me to begin seeing a doctor (I took care of the dentist at the same time just to leverage that momentum) as we were preparing for our first adoption.

It was a requirement for the home study to get a basic physical. After that was over, I was so happy and relieved that I kept going to my regular appointments, vowing to not be afraid of them anymore. It’s been such a great feeling to stay on top of these things instead of avoid them!

When I started my 100-day challenge, I had a few appointments I was still putting off. I wanted to see a dermatologist to get a skin cancer screening and begin a yearly regimen for that.

And I wanted to see a chiropractor (as soon as we adopted Nova I developed extra back issues due to becoming an instant parent to a toddler and all the physical stuff that comes along with that).

I did both these appointments right away and felt like a NEW PERSON.

After that, I faced another kind of random fear, which was to get massages. I don’t know why I was so weird about it; I had a few massages in the past, but this past year I began to get them regularly (usually during Nova’s weekend nap time) and it was a huge self-care step forward for me!

I know these may seem like strange fears to you, but facing them gave me so much new confidence!

Money.

Becoming a parent put a lot of things in perspective for me. For the first little bit, I barely even thought about money, I was pretty overwhelmed.

ButI began to feel irrationally panicked about money, savings and our future. It wasn’t all the time, but when those feelings popped up they were strong.

It wasn’t until we began talking to a financial planner that I was able to relax. I think that having that outside perspective really helps to feel like we are on track and keeps me focused on our next couple goals, not too many goals at once. 

Money is never going to be my favorite thing or my big passion, but having a plan that we work on with a professional helped me feel at peace with it.

Parenting.

This one was easier in some ways because I was literally from scratch. I didn’t have to fix years of bad habits as I did on some of the other ones.

Seasonal bucket lists have been HUGE for us. They help to remind me to do fun things and a bigger variety of things than I would think of without the list. I also make a list before every weekend of 2-3 fun things to do for each day (so 6ish things) and we usually get to about half of them.

Having that plan for doing things like crafts, going to the library, scheduling outings with friends or going on a picnic to the park helps me from defaulting to easier things that I don’t want to default to.

I’m not a perfect mom, but these simple habits have helped me to give Nova the most magical childhood I can.

The other thing I feel like I am really good at is not comparing myself to other parents—especially other moms on Instagram. I really believe that is a mind game you can’t win.

Most importantly, there’s nothing to compare because comparing reality to someone’s Instagram photos is not a fair comparison. It’s a losing game, so don’t fall into that trap!

Food.

I realized that the best diet for me was the one I could stick with long term. That’s it.

Over the years, I tried a lot of extreme diets that didn’t work for me, or only worked temporarily. The big changes I made last year were surprisingly simple. I found super healthy foods that I loved and stayed on a path of eating healthy for longer. It wasn’t any one diet or plan.

Some of the time I counted calories, which my husband does, so it came easily to me. Some of the time I did my own version of Weekday Weekend where I stuck with my super healthy soups, carrot juice and vegetable dishes during the weekdays and had some fun food on the weekends.

During this year, I still ate pasta and had cocktails and wine, but I also had long periods of time where I skipped all alcohol, all sugar and ate vegetable-based meals.

The only new thing I did last year was stay on my healthy streaks for longer. There is no secret. Unless the secret is broccoli.

One last thing I want to say about food—at one point I hadn’t had alcohol for two months and people started asking me about my skin constantly. It was a great feeling (if you haven’t entered your 30s yet, skin compliments become like GOLD), but I always felt like I had to tell them the truth.

There is no skin serum in the world that can do what a couple months of no alcohol can. It’s sad for someone who loves a strong cocktail as much as me, but it’s the truth.

Exercise.

This one is tough for me. I have been through a lot of different fitness obsessions, but I still struggle to stay consistent all the time. If you’re already good in the fitness department, just skip this next part because it’s kind of embarrassing.

I realized that the number one reason I was struggling was because I kept choosing workouts that I “dread.” Now I know this is different for everyone, so I wont get too specific. But I kept starting and quitting after three days over and over again.

The thing that helped me is that I gave myself an easy workout. And my goal right now is to just do the damn workout without dreading it.

I feel like I can work up from there, but at least I am moving my body every day instead of feeling guilty for not working out for weeks at a time.

Again, the same as food—the best workout for me is whichever one I will actually do.

Lowering my bar + letting go.

In addition to all these new habits, there were other things where I simply just lowered my bar, or decided to let some things go. A few examples:

I used to feel bad all the time when I didn’t get dressed during the work week (I work in my pjs a LOT) or when I didn’t have time or feel like getting “cute” before we went to brunch on the weekend.

This was an area where I was feeling guilt and shame for something that I didn’t actually want to fix. So what I did instead was change my perspective. I let go of the guilt. Now if I do hair and makeup for our brunch on the weekend, I feel like it’s a bonus, not a necessity.

And if I realize it’s now 6 p.m. and I’m still wearing what I woke up in, I feel grateful that I had a productive day working from home. No guilt!

Time management was another big one. I finally got to a point of accepting how many hours there are in a day, both to be a mom and to do my work. I learned to be more protective of those hours and more realistic.

This will always be something I struggle with, but learning to say no (a lot) more and to focus on a few important tasks each day is how I live my life now. No going back! It’s simple math. There are only so many hours in the day and so I use them the best I can each day.

I still have things I want to work on and change, and I know I always will. The big difference is I know I can do it. I know there is no reason to put things off or avoid making an appointment.

And though it still scares me, I feel more able to try something new and commit myself to something without the fear of failing. We all fail! The key to my success was trying longer before I gave up.

It sounds so simple now, looking back, but it changed my life. Thanks for reading! xx – Elsie

-Make art and crafts. Marigold is so little I know it will be completely different from making art with Nova, but I’m so excited to try different things like finger painting and making art with her handprints for family.

-Cook at home. I’m excited to try all kinds of new recipes, especially breakfast recipes!

-Take family photos. I mean … we obviously need new family photos, right?!

-Stay in our pjs all day (at least once).

-Play in the pool and sprinklers.

-Go to the downtown library.

-Visit family!

-Try new restaurants. We need places to go explore just for the sake of getting out of the house or breaking up our day. So, I have a list of spots in Nashville we’ve been wanting to try. Coffee shops, pizza and tacos—we’re coming for YOU.

-Play in the grass with Marigold. Nova has always loved the feeling of grass, but I’ve heard a lot of kids hate it. We’ll see!

-Go walk around fun neighborhoods just for the hell of it. This is something I always want to do, but we never get around to it. Just walking around with our strollers and stopping in little local shops, ice cream, etc. Sounds so fun this time of year!

If you have any suggestions I’d love to hear them. Even though this is our second child, I feel like it will be a completely different experience because of the age difference (from when we got Nova) as well as the season. I’m so happy we have this time to bond when it’s warm outside—WOOO! xx. Elsie