#261: Autumn Bucket List

WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.000
Elsie: Welcome back to The Beautiful Mess Podcast, your cozy comfort listen. We're back for our fall season with weekly episodes, beginning with our traditional Autumn Bucket list episode. This week we'll plan our seasonal bucket list full of fun things that we wanna try and do for the upcoming fall season. Yeah, it feels so good to be back. So, okay, before we jump in, we wanted to talk about sort of like expectations for the new season. I did see a couple people left us a one star review because they didn't like how we were taking breaks. So I have to address this quickly. So yeah, we are gonna be back weekly now and we are so excited. Say the new schedule. I think that's it. Yeah. Back weekly. We're back every week, so every Monday we're gonna rarely skip a week. If we do, it'll be like Christmas or like some kind of.

00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:02.000
Emma: I already know the schedule up until past Christmas. And we are not missing any Mondays. I think the only holiday is like a Labor Day or something like that and there will still be an episode. So good because sometimes Christmas does fall on like a Monday. Not this year. So great. Everything's good. We'll be here every Monday.

00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:03.000
Elsie: Well, that'll be fun. Maybe we can do a rewatch or something that week because that that's like a special week to have a podcast go up to like think about like, what mode are people in, because I know what mode I'm in that week and it's like a very different.

00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:04.000
Emma: Are we talking about Labor Day or Christmas?

00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:05.000
Elsie: The week of Christmas.

00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:06.000
Emma: I don't even know what Labor Day is. September something. Okay. Yeah, yeah. No, I'm in like in wrap present mode and like kind of frantic, usually. Crazy. Crazy.

00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:07.000
Elsie: Yeah.

00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:08.000
Emma: Frantic but happy.

00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:09.000
Elsie:But I'm also like cramming. Cramming the holiday magic because it's like your last chance to like, I don't know. I get really emotional about like, I really like coming downstairs and having my coffee next to the Christmas tree and when I know it's about to go away, I get like really weirdly possessive about it.

00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:10.000
Emma: You're just sipping your coffee. I love you, Christmas tree.

00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:11.000
Elsie: Yes. I'm so sad. You have to go away soon. And I got the, you know, the sparkly one now, so it's like, it's even better, it's even better than anything in the world.

00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:12.000
Emma: That sparkly one, I thought it was kind of a dumb internet girl thing, but then I saw yours and I was like, Ooh, I think I might be a dumb internet girl.

00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:13.000
Elsie: Let me, let me tell you a secret about life, things are popular for a reason. Most of the time. Don't be too cool for a Christmas tree.

00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:14.000
Emma: If you think you are and then you realize you're not. Well, welcome to my world.

00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:15.000
Elsie: Okay. So yeah, we are back for the season and we decided even though it's still August. We know it's still August. Please don't leave us one star review. This is one star review joke week. We can just say as many times as we want. We know it's still August. We know it's not fall, but I do feel like the very end of the summer, especially for those of us who have young kids, they start school in August. They don't start school in September. I know lots of people whose kids have already started this week. And my kids start next week. So fall basically comes early for moms. And there's like the whole pumpkin spice thing where they make a big deal at Starbucks, but then you're like well I gotta order an iced one.

00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:16.000
Emma: I drink hot coffee all year round.

00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:17.000
Elsie: Really? Anyway, I know that I rush fall, but it's kind of like my favorite thing in the world.

00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:18.000
Emma: I disagree. I've been in a bunch of stores that are filled to the brim with pumpkin stuff., all stuff, Christmas stuff.

00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:19.000
Elsie: And I mean, that's fine. I'm not mad about it.

00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:20.000
Emma: Yeah, I am gonna leave them a one star review. Just kidding.

00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:21.000
Elsie: Well, okay. I just like to dream about it. I will say this was the greatest summer. Should we do like a one minute summer recap or should we save that for.

00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:22.000
Emma: No, do it. One minute. One minute.

00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:23.000
Elsie: Okay, so I’m gonna recap. So my recap actually, this morning I was at the school with my kids and I was listening to my kids give their recap to their teachers. And they basically said, we spent our whole summer swimming and playing Legos. And I would say that is accurate reading. That was pretty much why we did the summer reading program at the library. That was a big achievement for us because it was our first summer. It's pretty cool to actually get there and they got their prizes and they loved it. It was very magical. It like brought me back to that, like, I don't think that they really do the miniature Pizza Hut pizzas anymore for kids reading a personal pan. But in the 1990s when we were children, and I know people, that was everything. It was like if you didn't have that at your school, and I remember like the one time it was called Book It that I didn't earn the pizza was like the worst day of my entire elementary school, and I never ever skipped my reading ever again. So I think it's also like a good life lesson because I had one kid that finished early and one kid that almost didn't make the deadline and it's like, it's a good life lesson. Right? Yeah. It's that they almost have uneven rewards.

00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:24.000
Emma: It’s like there are consequences to our actions.

00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:25.000
Elsie: Yeah, it was good. We went to the pool with Emma a million times. And what else did you do this summer? What would you add?

00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:26.000
Emma: Hugo took his first steps. And he has a first word, it's dadda. Yep. He'll point at Trey and say dadda. So that was really cute. We went to the pool a million times. We went to the aquarium. Oscar's in a very strong shark era. We also got a library card for our 4-year-old Oscar, and we've checked out I would say close to every shark book that is age appropriate for him and a few that are way beyond from the library. And that's been great. It's really cute. So it's fun.

00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:27.000
Elsie: I need to get him in here someday to do a fact because he is spitting facts about sharks. They're really fun. I like the facts. I actually think sharks are really fascinating.

00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:28.000
Emma: Sharks are actually really fascinating. I've learned a lot.

00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:29.000
Elsie: The smallest shark. The biggest shark. The fastest shark. The oldest shark. The one that can go deepest in the water. Like, it's just like all these things.

00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:30.000
Emma: The oldest one's over 400 years old. It's crazy. It's crazy. Oh, doesn't even make sense. Anyway, don't get me started on shark facts, but yeah, that's been a lot of my summer. We didn't do a big trip or anything. But it still felt like the summer was really full and really fun and full of summer stuff. Oh, and Elsie got Oscar a matching swimsuit with the girls, so that was cute. Every once in a while they'd all have matching swimsuits with the pool. Now was really cute. So yeah, we're still in our matching cousins era and it's the best thing ever. Oscar kind of idolizes nova. Oh, he loves both his cousins. He loves all his cousins, his St. Louis cousins too. But yeah, he's Nova's kind of his special soulmate, so yeah.

00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:31.000
Elsie: No, they're definitely two peas in a pod. They're both the Enneagram one and two little narcs. Wait, wait, one more story and then we can jump in. But the other day we went to this like, you know, those annoying jump urban air places? We frequent these places. They both were yelling at kids, hey, you're not supposed to do a flip. Hey, there's a sign there.

00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:32.000
Emma: Oscar's like pointing at the sign and I'm just like, guys, you're embarrassing me. So it's really cute. I'm glad that we got two Enneagram ones. I'm not worried about them. They're gonna tell us exactly who's doing what wrong. They're following all the rules.

00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:33.000
Elsie: Yeah, that's true. Okay. So I feel like there's probably no one but if there's one person who hasn't heard our autumn bucket list or our seasonal bucket list episodes before, here's what they are. So in the olden days of our blog, A Beautiful Mess, we started putting up the seasonal bucket list to print out. I think we did it like maybe right when I became a mom is when we started. Somewhere around there. So I actually saw there's one right now on childhoodmagic.com. So just go there, download that one. We're not gonna put one up because there's already one there and it's perfect. It's cute. So anyway, you print it out, put it on your fridge, and write all these activities that you wanna do as a family, or you know, for yourself. You know, whatever season of life you're in, tailor it to that. Tailor it to your goals. Since we're in the little kid phase of life, we usually put one thing for ourselves, you'll know which one it is, and a bunch of things that are more like, you know, family friendly and things like that. And the advantage of why we love doing this is because it always gets you to do at least one or two things that you would've forgotten about because you know, like the seasons pass and like time flies. Like right now it's like the end of summer and we're like, where did summer go? You know? I think everyone has that feeling at the end of every season and the switch between Halloween and Christmas, at least for me is so harsh. It's harsh.

00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:34.000
Emma: It’s so harsh. That's why I think you can't start fall a little bit too soon because to me it's like, well if you wanna give Christmas, it's proper time, you pretty much gotta start right after Halloween. I think I like Thanksgiving in there.

00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:35.000
Elsie: September first, the two full months of Halloween, and then the two full months of Christmas. And then it's New Year's and then there's no more glowing trees and my life is ruined.

00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:36.000
Emma: It’s the sad two months that you just make it through. I'll also say for anyone joining us on a bucket list. So ours tend to be longer than what we share on the podcast or mine do anyway. And I don't think of it as a, I've gotta do all of these, and if I don't do them all, I didn't get an A and I've overwhelmed myself. That to me is not the goal. The goal is simply like if I have a random Saturday where our play date plan fell through and I'm like, well, what do I do this afternoon with my kiddos? Obviously, do whatever you want. But I might take a look at my bucket list and be like, oh, we now have time to go do this thing. Cool. And I probably wouldn't have totally forgot about it if I didn't just look at my little list. So I think just having a list of things you wanna do around your house, seasonal things that are fun. You know, whatever is just nice to have because maybe your brain works way better than mine. I hope it does. But I need a list that I can refer back to whenever I have free moments, free time, free afternoons with my kids. So that's one way that this gets utilized.

00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:37.000
Elsie: Yeah. I love it. So we're gonna go back and forth and we're each gonna share five things from our bucket list. This is so fun. I love thinking about fall. Okay, so my first one. I am gonna do an episode about our renovation two episodes from now so I won't go into it, but let's just say my kitchen still is not a kitchen, and so you can see where it's going and it’s gonna be gorgeous. It's got some bones, it's got some stuff in there now. It has one sink in the corner, which I'm so thrilled about. Like you have no idea. In the next few weeks maybe, hopefully we are gonna be getting like the rest of the counters and the range and be able to like actually move in. So my plan for fall, and this is how I've been getting my kids, especially our younger daughter who's seven loves baking and this renovation has been zero stars for them. They hate it. So anyway, I promised her our fall goal is baking, baking and more baking. So the moment we get an oven, we're just gonna bake all the time, all the way through Christmas. And I feel like that will hopefully set things straight in the world.

00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:38.000
Emma: Plus you can do that all winter when you're bored, it'll be great. Okay. My first thing is updating Hugo's room a little bit, our 1-year-old.. Tiny backstory, before he was born, I got some wallpaper hung on one wall, one accent wall of wallpaper. Oscar's room has one accent wall of wallpaper. I don't have a ton of wallpaper in my house. I have a little bit here and there. That's sort of my vibe.

00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:39.000
Elsie: She's a minimalist.

00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:40.000
Emma: Minimalist, but I do like wallpaper. Anyway, once it was hung, I just didn't love it. It was hung really well. That wasn't the issue. It was just like the colors were slightly different than I was thinking and I could never find anything that went with it. So it was one of those things where like, I don't know if you've been in this position where you paint a room or you do something like that, and it's not that it's that much money to change it, but it just feels like, wow, I just did this. Should I really change it, you know? So I was like, you know what, I'm gonna wait till he is one and if I still don't like it, then I will change it. And he turned one and I changed it like two weeks later.

00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:41.000
Elsie: So good. Now he has different wallpaper, so describe the new wallpaper.

00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:42.000
Emma: New wallpaper is like green and blue, but they're very muted tones. It kind of has like two different color greens, two different color blues.Not really pastel, but just kind of dusty. It's sort of a checkered vibe. Oscar's room has kind of an abstract checkered vibe too, so they're sort of similar in a way. Anyway, I really like it. It's also a lot lighter and his room's like a little bit smaller and it only has one window. Oscar's room has two windows because it's on the corner of our house. So it's just a little bit naturally darker in his room, which is great for sleeping and not quite as fun for playing. So anyway, it made the room a little bit lighter, so I like that. So I was really happy with the wallpaper. So now he's also at a phase, like I said, he took his first steps this summer. He's really in mobility mode these days. So I've been wanting to make his room just a little bit more fun. We tend to play in Oscar's room a lot more, I've noticed because I think it's just more fun and Hugo's room, up until now, has been a little more geared towards a newborn who doesn't really move that much. So like it has this little kind of bohemian looking swing that you gave me and we used the sh** outta that last winter. So it was great, but now he's almost a little bit too big for it. So I think I'm gonna take that out and kind of rearrange the room a tiny bit, get a little more storage that's low down for toys, but mainly Hugo just likes to take things out of bins and put things in bins and like take things out of drawers and put things in drawer, like that's fun for him at this age. So just more stuff that he can do that with. So it really will take me like two hours once the things I've bought come in the mail this week. It's not like a big deal, but I'm just looking forward to it and I'm trying to make his room a little bit more of a play destination because it feels like we're always in his brother's room. Kind of messing up all his stuff, which is fine. I just want Hugo's room to feel a little more like this is a fun place to be, not just a sleepy place to be.

00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:43.000
Elsie: Yeah. So you can never tweak kids' rooms enough, like as soon as you finish it, there's always something about it that's like changing or they're changing or their interest and you're making space and then there's things they're not using anymore and it's a process.

00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:44.000
Emma: So I feel like now is a good time to do a little bit of that for the coming season.

00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:45.000
Elsie: Yes. I need to do that too. Okay. My second one is I wanna do some rereading of my cozy favorite fall books. So this season I wanna reread Magic Lessons, which is Alice Hoffman, prequel to Practical Magic, and it's my favorite one. There's four books in the series, and it's my favorite because it's like the origin story. Although I will say there's like more than one that are really, they're all good. Whatever. And then I wanna reread the Secret History by Donna Tart because Emma's reading it.

00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:46.000
Emma: I'm reading it right now. Yeah, love it.

00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:47.000
Elsie: And then one of my other close friends promised she would read it this fall. So I'm like having this reading circle.

00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:48.000
Emma: It's feeling very fall too. I'm loving it.

00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:49.000
Elsie: It really puts you in that fall like tweed jacket type of mood. And I just think it's so fun. So I am excited to read it again because it's been a couple years, I think, since the first time, and it just feels like a good time.

00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:50.000
Emma: My second one is, I'm going to deep clean our couch.

00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:51.000
Elsie: Ooh. Yeah. So say more.

00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:52.000
Emma: In the past I've had Missouri rug, I think is the name of the company, here in town clean the couch. So when we moved to this house, which was like three years ago now, two and a half years ago, whatever. So they take the couch to their place. So they'll come pick it up, they take your couch somewhere, they clean it really good. I don't even know what their process is. They bring it back and it looks really nice.

00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:53.000
Elsie: And this is a cloth upholstered couch.

00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:54.000
Emma: Yeah, cloth upholstered couch. And I'd like to do that again but we have a dog who sheds. That's the main thing. And then also just our kids eat on the couch and it's just a little catchy stained and stuff. And I spot clean it, but it'd be nice to get it deep cleaned. But I just don't feel that we can do the like three to four days without a couch. We just use it so much. So I was like, you know what, a few years ago I bought this. I wrote it down. It's called a Bissell, little green upholstery clean.

00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:55.000
Elsie: Oh yeah. Cleaner.

00:00:55.000 --> 00:00:56.000
Emma: You've probably seen them. I feel like it's a big influencer thing. It's on Amazon and you can find them.

00:00:56.000 --> 00:00:57.000
Elsie: There's a big green one and a little green one. I have a little green one. I was reading about carpet cleaning recently. Yeah. And you can use clean carpets.

00:00:57.000 --> 00:00:58.000
Emma: But I've never used it to clean. We don't even have carpets. We have some rugs, but anyway, so I'm just gonna use that and give it a really good clean one day and it's kind of fun to use. It's sort of like power washing a little bit but like for upholstery things. So I'm gonna do that. And then I also have my little shark vacuum cleaner, like a handheld vacuum cleaner. And I'm just gonna really go for it. Like give myself two hours during a nap and just really, really clean the couch as best I can, and then just be happy with that. Because I really thought about it. I was like, oh, maybe I could schedule it for this time or this, you know, and I was like, I just think it's gonna be a huge pain, so I'm just gonna do it myself and it'll won't be as good, but it will be fine. I'm just gonna listen to a murder podcast and my earbuds while I clean that couch.

00:00:58.000 --> 00:00:59.000
Elsie: So the good thing about cleaning is like there's a YouTube for everything like that and you can learn. You can do it.

00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:00.000
Emma: Yeah, I think I can get it pretty good. I'm gonna do that.

00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:01.000
Elsie: Okay. My third one is to host a Halloween party. So this is part of our goal of we have to finish renovating first, but it is still kind of like almost two whole months away. So yeah, we obviously have to finish renovating and then deck our house out for Halloween. And then I wanna have a party because we did the first year we moved here, kind of our housewarming party was a Halloween party and it was really fun. And then last year we didn't do it because I don't know, I was overwhelmed or something. So this year I'm excited to bring it back and try to do it again. So it was a pretty epic party. It's fun hosting parties.

00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:02.000
Emma: You made that weird, like meet guy.

00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:03.000
Elsie: Yeah, so I made, his name is Pinhead, so if you've ever seen, he's like the horror movie guy that he has a red face. I don't even know what movies he's from because I don't know, I don't watch that kind of movie. It's somewhere in the seventies or eighties maybe. Anyway, he looks like he has needles all over his face. So I made him out of little smokies and I think cured meat, and I think his eyes were garlic and then it was toothpicks sticking out everywhere. So it was just like a foam head underneath all that.

00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:04.000
Emma: That was the scariest charcuterie you've ever seen. It was great. I think people were afraid to eat him, which was kind of sad because, you know, it was terrifying. It was fun. He was also a work of art, so you kind of didn't wanna grab a little smokey off it because you're like, well, he was a work of art.

00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:05.000
Elsie: So, yeah, that's part of why I wanna host the party is just because it's so much fun. Like making Halloween ideas on Pinterest. It's like there's so many amazing ideas. And what do you do them for if you're not having party?

00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:06.000
Emma: I make like a tiny charcuterie cheese board and I put spiders on it, whatever bull I want and we don't even have a party. We just like to eat and watch half a movie or whatever because we're old. We never finish a movie, but you know. And it's fun because it's like you wanna do all those things if you don't have a party though. But you're having a party and I can't wait to come. I'm so excited.

00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:07.000
Elsie: Yeah. What's your third one?

00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:08.000
Emma: A third one is a family Halloween costume. So as long as my kids will let us keep doing a family Halloween costume, I'm gonna do it someday I'll be uninvited and I'll be fine with that, but I hope it's many, many years from now.So, anyway what I'm tentatively planning so far, because our 4-year-old has ideas. And so I have room to change this, but I'm thinking that Trey and I will be the Wild Kratts brothers.

00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:09.000
Elsie: Okay.

00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:10.000
Emma: Which Chris and Martin. Okay. And if you don't know what that is, it's a PBS show. It's brothers who have a cartoon slash real show where they teach about animals. And then Oscar's gonna be a shark. So far he's requested a tiger shark and Hugo will be whatever we want. So probably an octopus. There's a lot of episodes where they have sharks and octopus and we watch all sorts of episodes from the show, but those are kind of like, like I mentioned, this summer has been the shark summer, so I think he'll be into being a shark for Halloween, and I like to plan Halloween costumes that can be fairly warm. That's sort of like always something I'm thinking about too, because here in Missouri, there's some years it's like freezing for Halloween and then there's some years it's not too bad. It's fall and it's chilly, but it's not insane. And I am always bummed if I plan some kind of costume and then I have to put a giant winter coat over it because it's just so cold. So I try to plan like, could this get some layers under it? Could this still work even if it's freezing? So that's sort of part of my planning with it. But anyway, yeah.

00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:11.000
Elsie: Amazing. Wild Kratts. Yeah. I love family Halloween costumes. I love Halloween. So fun. Okay, my next one is, this is my dream. This is all I want in this whole entire world, is to spend a whole week organizing the new kitchen. So, I don't know when it's gonna happen, but at the time when we have like fridges and cabinets and it might not be all aligned at the same time, you know, when you're allowed to use it or put stuff in there. But whatever happens, I just kind of have been getting through because we have had our kitchen gutted since April and it is August at this moment. The way I get through is like dreaming about this week that I'll spend in maybe like September when every day I'm just gonna like, play the Adams family play, like Halloween movies because there's a little TV in the kitchen. And just like really, really, really spend the week organizing. It would be the most amazing, like, it would be better than a vacation for my brain and my soul.

00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:12.000
Emma: I love organizing spaces in our home. Oh my gosh. And then like, Trey will come home and I open up the closet and I'm like, look we can find everything. It's amazing, you know?

00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:13.000
Elsie: No, I think it's like one of the top, most like cleansing activities that I found that just like, feels so good. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:14.000
Emma: I love it. My fourth one is to go apple picking. So every fall we do it. I think last year we didn't because it was kind of hard to manage with basically a newborn. So I think last year we missed it, but anyway, most years, we'll say most years, 90%. Anyway, we're gonna go apple picking. We usually go with some friends, so maybe they'll be available this year. I hope they are. And I found this new place that I went with Oscar. It's called Gardner's Orchard.

00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:15.000
For anyone who's in the Springfield area or surrounding. But it's a farm. They have like berry picking, apple picking depending on the season. And I went in the spring because a friend of his had a birthday party there. But it has just like kid games. So it's like a farm that has kid games and then it has food and it has a petting zoo. And it was really, really cute. And Oscar had so much fun and I was like, oh, okay we'll definitely come here for Apple picking. It's a little bit out of town. Like anything that we wanna do, it always takes a little bit to drive there, so you have to really plan it around the little guy's nap schedule if he's coming. But it'll be fun.

00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:16.000
Elsie:Yeah, I haven't been, wherever you're going, I wanna go.

00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:17.000
Emma: It's really cute. I think it's the best one in my opinion.

00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:18.000
Elsie: Nice. Sounds fun. In Tennessee, it was always really, really hot still when we were Apple picking, so I wasn't sure.

00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:19.000
Emma: But is it still like, it depends when you go, it can be kind of a mixed bag here, kind of like Halloween, how it can be like freezing or it could be just, it's cold. Yeah, but it's not that bad. It just kind of depends on the year. And if you go early September or late September, you do usually wanna go as soon as you can because it'll get picked over. But my kids are at an age where they don't really pick that many apples. We usually like to do it and then we just buy some that have already been picked.

00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:20.000
Elsie: I don't care. I just like the experience of it.

00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:21.000
Emma: Yeah. I like the experience of it. And they'll play games and things like that. Oscar loves the petting zoo.

00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:22.000
Elsie: Sounds really fun.

00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:23.000
Emma: So if they have that open, we'll go in there and pet animals and that's fun.

00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:24.000
Elsie: Yeah. I am getting really in the mood for Autumn from doing this. So this is Joy. This is a joyful week. Okay. My final one is to go to Italy with Emma. So Emma chose for her 40th birthday.

00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:25.000
Emma: This is my final one too, so we can talk about it together. We'll be together.

00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:26.000
Elsie: Yeah. It's not till January, but we always travel in January for her birthday and sometimes the weather is like off or you can get stuck or January birthday kind of sucks a little bit. It's kind of ice storm month in Missouri. So we decided to do this one earlier because we're going to Italy, so we're going to Florence and Venice and we wanted to go when the weather was really nice so you could walk. So we're going with our friend, third sister Elise and also Sherry from Young House Love. So that is our special little traveling, what do we call it? Like sisterhood of the traveling pants.

00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:27.000
Emma: Yeah. I've never read that. I don't know what it actually is, but it's cute. I saw the movies. Yes, it's gonna be fun. I've been like, so we've been working with the travel agent and the emails say like Emma's 40th celebration. And I was telling my friends, it makes me so anxious because I don't usually plan things for my birthday. And I also feel like everyone's doing this big trip for me. Of course everyone's just going to Italy with their friends and it's fine. It's totally fine and I know that, but it just has been making me feel like, so I don't really like a lot of attention. It makes me kind of feel anxious. It's part of why I like my introvert time is because I know no one's looking at me. There's no attention on me whatsoever. So I can relax anyway. I'm very excited for it. There's this combination bookstore movie theater that I just have dreamed of seeing, and it happens to be in Florence, so great. We're going to quite a few art museums in both cities. That will be fun. We're obviously going to eat a lot of amazing food and honestly just walk around somewhere beautiful talking to my friends without our children near us sounds amazing to me. It stuck so much fun just to have space to chat and hang out and be adults for a little bit. And Elsie told me to do something big for my 40th, even though I usually don't plan on anything big for my birthday. So I took her advice because I think you should just take people's advice when you hear it and you know it's probably right. And so I did and I don't think I'll regret it.

00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:28.000
Elsie: Oh no, no, no, no. You won't. This is amazing. But it is a few months early.

00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:29.000
Emma: But that's just how it works because my birthday's at a weird time of year with weather.

00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:30.000
Elsie: No, it's gonna be amazing. I'm so excited. So yeah, we'll definitely do an episode about Italy when we get back. So that'll probably be around November-ish. Yeah. So wait, so you don't have any anymore?

00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:31.000
Emma: No, that's it. That's my fifth one too. Okay. Because I feel like it's, so we're leaving like on a Saturday and we get back on a Friday, so we're gone for a whole week. And just for the age of my kids and like I feel like it's hard to do a trip like that. I both feel like I will miss them so much and if you're not a person who travels all the time, it's just sort of a big change for your partner. So I'm like, this is my big trip for a while.

00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:32.000
Elsie: Yeah,

00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:33.000
Emma: I don't really, definitely for the year plan to do another huge, so this is a big thing to me. So it's definitely on the bucket list because I'm like, this is a big, big deal for me in my world.

00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:34.000
Elsie: No, I'm so excited. We're gonna go antiquing and we're gonna get tiny tattoos. And we're just gonna do all of our silly stuff.

00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:35.000
Emma: Yep.

00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:36.000
Elsie: Magical.

00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:37.000
Emma: But in Italy. We don't want a walking tour. Anything else on the list? We're doing the canals.

00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:38.000
Elsie: Yep.

00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:39.000
Emma: In Venice. We gotta be a little bit touristy. We're doing a lot of touristy stuff, but you know, weird stuff too. If we have some downtime, maybe we can find a tarot reading. Who knows?

00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:40.000
Elsie: Yeah,

00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:41.000
Emma: Who knows what we'll get up to. It's true.

00:01:41.000 --> 00:01:42.000
Elsie: Okay, so we decided this season that we're gonna try doing a weekly book report. So we're just gonna have a book talking section instead of the book club for the reason that it was hard. The book club was hard for us to like sync up on. And we have slightly different taste in reading sometimes. And then also like, you know, when someone didn't finish their homework and you know, all of that. So I think this will hopefully be just as good for our listeners because we'll be talking about books every week. We love talking about books. We love books. Like we wanna promote books. Reading is probably our number one hobby, so it's like a thing we wanna talk about regularly. But yeah, I think that hopefully it'll be better. Maybe I shouldn't have said we're not doing the book club, one star review.

00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:43.000
Emma: No. Stop.

00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:44.000
Elsie: Why You guys kinda give us the one side. I have to learn how to present things correctly.

00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:45.000
Emma: You know, this is an exciting opportunity.

00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:46.000
Elsie: Okay. I don't know. So here's my first book report. Then I'm just gonna do what I'm reading and then if I'm not, if I already, you know, whatever, then I'll do something I've read in the past year that was really good. Just like kind of anything. And it could also be like something we read a long time ago if we really need to, but I think it's just like a way for us to get in all the books we wanna talk about.

00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:47.000
Emma: Yeah. Sometimes I feel like I might've mentioned something, but then I get to go deeper on it later or vice versa. I hope you're not annoyed by that. I'm not. I like hearing about things over and over. One star. One star. You already mentioned that one time in a list and now you're talking about it again. I hate it. I don't know.

00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:48.000
Elsie: Okay. I'm sorry for the jokes. Please, please, please leave us a nice review. Please, please, please. I'm begging. I'm gonna cry. Okay. It's okay. So we're totally chill. So my book this week that I'm reading is called Wool and it is a part of the Silo series. So there's like a Silo TV show right now. You might've seen that or you might've seen these books. I had never heard about it because it started off as independently published, like a self-published situation. So until it got like the TV show and it was on the shelf in Barnes and Noble, like that's just kind of like where I get my book news from.

00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:49.000
Emma: Okay. A one star review. What a loser. Now I'm writing a one star review.

00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:50.000
Elsie: Okay. Anyway, I heard about this book and I was very intrigued. So we watched a couple episodes of the TV show and the premise was so good that I just like had this, like, sometimes you just know like the book is probably better. Like, I had that feeling about this TV show, like it was good. But like the book is probably like, definitely amazing. So I started reading it and it is a three part series, so I'm gonna try it this time. Emma recommends spreading out your series.. I always like bang, bang, bang. But this time I'm gonna try it, spreading it out, I think. But anyway, so this is the first one. I'm almost done with it. And the writing is gorgeous.The premise is it's like a community of people who live in a silo that's underground and they're kind of discovering what the world is outside of it. And I can't give spoilers, but like, they discover other things and, you know, they're just kind of like making sense of their reality. And the community's been like living in this place for hundreds of years. So they have no history, they have no context of like, humanity outside of what they've been presented with, which is like small amounts of information. Anyway, it's a beautiful story. It checked all my boxes. It's like a really interesting, like well-paced story that has a lot going on, but like the writing is so pretty. And it's kind of hard to find those. I love it when I find a book like that where the stories like pulling you by its own currents, but also the writing is gorgeous and you can just kind of like lazy river yourself.

00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:51.000
Emma: It's my favorite. It's fun too for sci-fi because I feel like it doesn't always get. Like, I don't know, people don't always think of it as very literary, even though it certainly can be. To fair, I love science fiction.

00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:52.000
Elsie: To be fair, I haven't read that much sci-fi and all of the sci-fi I've ever read was probably on the literary end of the shelf. So I think it's like a wonderful category. I don't know. It's a wonderful category.

00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:53.000
Emma: This spring, I will be not shutting up about Project Hail Mary as I anxiously await the movie.

00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:54.000
Elsie: As soon as I saw, like on my Good Reads, it popped up and, well, you guys, I definitely use Libby more. My Good Reads is my backup. Okay. So anyway, sorry, not good reads. Audible. Oh, Audible. Okay. Anyway, I feel like there's a lot, how many book things can we mention? There's a lot of rules anyway, so as far as when I saw Ryan Gosling's picture pop up as the project Hail Mary cover, I screamed in my car. Like I was so happy and I can't wait. I have not anticipated a movie in this genre ever so much.

00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:55.000
Emma: Yeah. I'm so excited that this book's a movie. So excited. I never would've pictured Ryan Gosling as the main guy, but I also think he's a great actor and that's great. I was thinking more like a Tom Hanks vibe, very handsome. I was thinking someone who wasn't quite so Hollywood handsome, but. I think he's a good actor actually. Very good. So, I cannot wait for the movie because I love that book. It's in my top five. Love it, love it, love it. So yeah, very excited. Okay. My book report is Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier. So this is a YA. It is probably romantic, I guess so it's a fantasy book. It has romance. It's not super heavy on the romance. I'll also say this could definitely be read by a middle school or high schooler. There's nothing in it that's like super heavy anything. There's a scene where she might get sexually assaulted, but then she doesn't, this is early on in the book so it's not a spoiler. So it's really a very, really good literary, wonderful book. I think it won some awards. You can look it up, but totally would be appropriate for a middle schooler, high schooler two. I loved it. It was beautiful. It's kind of set in like an alternate Hawaii type place like it's like islands. And they're sort of, all the characters have this kind of interesting language and dialect and dragon fruit is what they call dragon eggs. And they have magical powers, things that they can do. So the story kind of centers around trying to save someone by getting some dragon fruit. And there's sort of the tension of should they even steal a dragon egg or not. And the dragons are really beautiful in the story. They're also very fierce and very scary. Yeah, it was a really fast read for me and really fun. Very interesting, very different. A world I'd never been to and I really enjoyed it. And the cover art's really pretty too. So, anyway, just a bonus there.

00:01:55.000 --> 00:01:56.000
Elsie: No, I remember she was reading it when we were in New Orleans. And she was like, so, so, so, so into it.

00:01:56.000 --> 00:01:57.000
Emma: Yeah. Elsie kept trying to talk to me and I would just look at her like. dude, I'm reading my book right now.

00:01:57.000 --> 00:01:58.000
Elsie: That's true. Oh my goodness. Okay, so before we wrap up, I wanted to give a reminder that we would love to hear your ghost stories. Email them to us at podcast@abeautifulmess.com. So every October we record a full episode that's just your listener ghost stories. So we do ask that they be first person, like they happened to you, or second per like someone you directly know. So not like a story that you, you know, whatever. But like, we can't enforce that. Whatever. Do whatever you want. And I don't know, but I like the feeling. I like the feeling that we believe that they're all real and they're kind of like a group project from our podcast.

00:01:58.000 --> 00:01:59.000
Emma: Yeah, I kind of like that too, you know?

00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:00.000
Elsie: And last year the stories were incredible. So if you're thinking of sending one, maybe go back and listen to that episode. And so we ask for like, kind of like a page, like three paragraphs is like a good length if you can. And if you can't, that's okay.

00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:01.000
Emma: We do make them shorter if we have to, we can do that for you.

00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:02.000
Elsie: Whittle it down. But yeah, just send us your amazing ghost stories, and we love to do that every year. So, yeah. So now it's time for us to introduce the bell of the ball, Nova’s segment. Nova's Time. Hey Nova, what do you have for us this week?

00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:03.000
Nova: Well, mommy is going to ask me some questions.

00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:04.000
Elsie: So the first question I had is, what was your favorite part about the summer?

00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:05.000
Nova: My favorite part about the summer was seeing my family and getting to play.

00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:06.000
Elsie: Okay, nice. And my second question is, what are you excited about most for Fall?

00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:07.000
Nova: Being an Owl Ambassador

00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:08.000
Elsie: Ooh. Do you wanna tell them what an Owl Ambassador is?

00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:09.000
Nova: Yes. So an Owl Ambassador is basically like a leader in my school where we get to pick some decisions and I'll go ahead and say, one of my biggest decisions I'm going to get to make is the whole Owl Palooza with my friends. It's kind of an owl celebration where we get to pick what kind of things. Even last year there was a porcupine there but they had stuff on their quills so it wouldn't poke us. And I even saw, I think, I don't know, a horse or something, I don't know. I saw weird animals that I'd see on a farm or something, or outdoors. So I really loved that. And there was like, like slides and all that, and it was just really fun. I just can't wait to have my ideas put on the table and see if any of them get used, which they probably will for Owl Palooza because I get to go and celebrate there and it's just so fun.

00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:10.000
Elsie: Woo. We're cheering you on.

00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:11.000
Nova: And I would also like to wish everyone a happy week. Meanwhile, I'm doing Moana camp this week.

00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:12.000
Elsie: Oh, that's true.

00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:13.000
Nova: And my sister hopes you have a good day and week. Bye.

00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:14.000
Elsie: So join us next week, we're gonna do an update episode about what we've been reading and writing since we last talked. So it's like our big novel writing update for the season. And we hope you have an incredible week. If you're enjoying the podcast, if you're happy, we're back to once a week schedule, please consider leaving us a five star review. I do think that we mentioned that a few times in this episode. But yeah, I would really appreciate that always means a lot and it does. All right. Have a great week.