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Show Notes:

Well, today is my last episode before I take a month off of the podcast in July so I'll look forward to connecting with you again here in August. And I thought I'd end these fun summery episodes with just a mix of lighthearted and some serious recommendations of sorts, sharing 10 things that are saving my life right now. I hope you enjoy.

I got this episode idea for my friend, Emily P. Freeman, and I enjoyed her podcast episodes so much I'm going to leave a link to it in the show notes in case you're curious about what is saving her life right now. But the idea that she presented it simply to look around at the good, to not focus on the things that are challenging or hard in life right now, but to stop and say—these are the little things that are saving my life right now, it was such a good practice for me just to prepare for this episode, to sit and think and write out the things that are saving my life.

So if you're looking for a fun challenge, to write in your journal or your planner, or on a napkin or wherever this week, I just encourage you today to jot down 10 things that are saving your life right now, and then try to do more of those things this summer.

So here are my 10 things.

First, the gym.

I joined the gym last year, my husband got a gym membership for me. Oh, when was it? I think around Mother's Day. So it was like a couple of months before I had Benji, I was very pregnant and so it's taken me quite some time to get into the rhythm of going regularly through, you know, I took like a leave of the gym during postpartum days. Like several months there and I've been trying to get into a groove at the gym, but specifically I have landed on one time a week that I really look forward to and that is my hot yoga Friday mornings. And every Friday morning I get the kids up and we leave the house around 8:15, to head to the gym. I drop all four of then off at gym childcare and I take my hot yoga class and it is so good. I know some of you listening are like, yeah, no thanks, no hot yoga for me and that's okay.

A couple other things I've done at the gym, is just run on the treadmill, also I absolutely have put all my kids in childcare and gone and sat by the pool—and that's lovely. These are the things that just kind of helped me as a mom, to kind of take a minute, take care of my body, do something for me while all the kids are safely being watched. So that's number one for me is my gym, specifically hot yoga Fridays.

Number two is starting my morning off with some alone, quiet time with the Lord even if it’s just five minutes.

Now I'm trying to get into the habit of waking up before my children, but my kids get up at about 6:15. So getting up much earlier than that is getting challenging and sleep is of utmost priority. I'll get to that in a little bit, but I do want to say this recently, as my kids have been the ones to wake me up, I have made a rule that they're not allowed to come downstairs until 7:15. And oftentimes I'll go up and I'll feed the baby, then I will set him down in the playroom with the other kids and they'll watch him and kind of play.

I love that they're at the age where this can happen right now and they have a Safe to Wake Clock that we have named Betty. And so we say, if Betty's awake at 7:15, which is when she wakes up, you can come downstairs and so they'll always say, mom is Betty awake.

I'm like, “Hey, go check, go see if she's awake and when she wakes up, you can come downstairs.” This allows for a quiet moment with the Lord who clearly saves my life every day and just a minute for me to pray and reset my heart and kind of reorient towards him and then plan my day and do all that before the kids come downstairs. That small practice is saving my life right now.

The third thing is sunshine.

Now that the warm weather is here, getting out, getting my skin in sunshine is just so good. I don't know if you feel this way, but I feel like my mood changes. I mean, there is an actual correlation when we are in sunshine and we're getting that vitamin D, the serotonin that happiness hormone inside of us. We get more of a boost of that and so just getting in the sunshine, getting outside every single day is absolutely saving my life right now.

The fourth thing is grocery pickup or delivery.

Guys, what did our grandparents do? I know this sounds crazy, but really what did they do? I can't imagine taking all four children into the grocery store and trying to grocery shop.

Obviously they would have to go maybe when, I don't know in the evenings, when dad gets home and then they go out grocery shopping, but I am just so thankful that I live right now in 2022 and I can place an order and either run, go pick up my groceries from Target or get them delivered to my front door from Shipt it was just amazing or Instacart or whatever it is that you use. It really is amazing.

I will say this, the cheapest grocery pickup options that I've enjoyed, if you’re like “No, I just want to save the money and go shopping.” Let me just like solve that issue for you real quick, because the cheapest grocery pickup options are Nuro and Target. They don't charge anything extra for you to place the order and drive up and they put it in your trunk. Number two, Aldi, you can go pick up your groceries from Aldi and it's a $1.99, and you definitely save a $1.99 if you're buying your groceries from Aldi. So both of those pickup options are so cheap. I think the third cheapest is Food Lion because that's a $1.99 and Food Lion is also super cheap.

Okay, so there's that tip if you're like, “No, no, I just still need…” No it's 2022, just go at least pick up your grocery orders. Grocery delivery can happen via Shipt or Instacart and I personally prefer Shipt because they text me directly to my phone instead of trying to like use the app and they say, “Hey, is there anything else I can pick up for you at the store?” And of course my answer is, “Yes, you can totally go to the freezer section and get the individual servings of blue bell ice cream for all my kids, because that's what we need today. I need some more diapers.” Like whatever it is, they're great. There's some flexibility there, which I really, really love and I just like the interface of the app better.

You know, there's pros and cons to Shipt and Instacart and it depends on what they shop in your area. So do some research, but man, we do grocery delivery probably once a month and then I try to do pickups for the rest. It's just the best, it's just the best really is.

Number five, sleep.

This is such a no-brainer but after having a baby, you really know sleep saves your life. Like if you can get some consecutive hours of sleep, holy cow, I feel like a new person. So prioritizing getting to bed and getting eight hours of sleep every night has been totally saving my life.

Number six, having a loose summer schedule to follow.

Now we have a loose daily schedule this summer and weekly and I say loose because I really like the flexibility to change things. But when we're home, the first thing we do is get outside before it gets too hot. Whether we take a walk, we go outside and play, come in have lunch.

The second part of our daily schedule that I loosely like to stick to is that rest time in the afternoon, I try to get like two hours of rest time when it's just super duper hot and I'll let them play in the playroom for an hour while the baby sleeps. And then they can come downstairs and watch something for 30 minutes after that, and then chores and tidying the house, setting the table, making dinner, dinner, and then going for a walk after dinner when the sun goes down a little bit.

It's just lovely to follow a loose summer schedule and we also have a weekly schedule where we go to church every Sunday, we try to have Sabbath on Saturdays, we really rest. And then Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday I try to just choose depending on that week and the schedule we have going on that week.

Maybe one day is for cleaning something out. Maybe another day is for going to a museum. Maybe another day is going to the pool. Maybe another day is going to the gym. So whatever it is, I just try to choose like one little activity to do, try to get out the door first thing in the morning and then come back and still have that rest time kind of in the afternoon. So just having a loose summer schedule daily and weekly to follow is so helpful.

The seventh thing that's saving my life right now is my AirPods.

Guys, I love my AirPods. They allow me to listen to audio books or podcasts or Marco Polos from friends or talk on the phone with the kids. And here's a little hack that I've done in our minivan. It still takes CDs and this is just, this is such a like random side note. So just bear with me for a second, but we love to listen to music in the car. We don't watch a lot of TV in the car, even though we have a little TV player, we love to listen to music in the car and listen to audio books and stuff but it's always connected to the Bluetooth on my phone. Well, my little hack is I bought a few little CDs off Amazon that are cheap and I'll pop in that Sing 2 soundtrack or The Lion King soundtrack and I'll be able to listen to whatever I want to on my phone because it's not connected to Bluetooth.

Okay, that was so random, but truly just having a minute to communicate and connect with my people and my things has been saving my life.

Number eight, popsicles.

Popsicles, they have been saving my life. Fruit popsicles, there's this brand called Outshine. It's like actual fruit in the Popsicle, I have loaded up on those bad boys all summer.

And whenever my kid wants a Popsicle, they get a Popsicle. It's a serving of fruit, it's a delicious treat, it's the best summer snack ever. And I just tell them, go outside, eat that Popsicle and they do. And we do Popsicle baths, it's so delicious. Highly recommend just loading up your freezer with popsicles this summer.

Number nine, brace yourself—my Walmart shorts.

I'm not a fan of Walmart, I just never have been. It takes so long to get all the way through the store, I just never do it. But let me just tell you, my sister said, please go get these shorts from Walmart and I did. I want to wear them every day this summer. I'm going to tell you about them. I think it's called Avia, I don't know A-v-i-a running shorts, they're in the athletic wear section. They have biker shorts underneath some like running short material. They're so comfortable, they have a pocket with a zipper on them and I just put those on with a t-shirt and my sneakers and I am ready to go. They're comfortable and they are active and I can go on walks with them, I can do stuff around the house. They fit great, they're $12. They're wonderful. Those are saving my life right now.

And my last, number 10 what’s saving my life right now is my California Beach Company Pop-up Tent.

Okay so this thing, this is very baby specific. So I'm just going to preface that if you don't have a baby, sorry, you can tune this one out, but I have never had like a playpen for a child. This year my mom bought this for me and I was like, “Mom, you don't have to get that for us, we don't need a playpen. It's huge, it's clutter. No, thanks. Like I'm good.” And she was like, “Just trust me. You're going to want to use it.”

She buys it and sends it to my house, as like a baby gift. Okay, I'm thankful but I'm also like we haven't had this before, we don't really need it. I could not have been more wrong, I love this thing.

Will and I talk all the time like, what did we do without this thing before Benji? We use it for him all the time. We have it popped up in our kitchen most of the time. We put him in there with some toys to play with, we take it outside in the yard, we can let him crawl around there. He also is our mouthiest baby.

As in like, he puts everything in his mouth and eats it off the floor, everything, everything all the time. And this allows us to set him down and get his little exercise and crawl around and play with some things while still being able to see us and not eat everything that he sees. It's wonderful. It has like a mesh side so the bugs don't get in and you can cover the top with this like shady thing. It's so great. It really is saving our lives right now.

So that's it. That is my list of 10 things that are saving my life right now. I hope it's encouraged you to think about the things that are saving your life right now.

Okay, that's it for now guys I'll see you in August. Thank you so much for being a listener of the Work and Play podcast. This show is always made possible by my loving and generous Patreon community, I'm so grateful for you. So many of you joined in for the July photo challenge, I'm so excited to do that alongside of you starting next week.

And this is just a reminder, if you join Patreon by July 4th, you'll get access to $30 off the Legacy Photo System. So whether or not you do the challenge, whether or not you get the Legacy Photo System, no matter what, if you enjoy this podcast and you’d like to support my work for as little as $1.oo a month, I would be so grateful.

You can head to patreon.com/workandplay to get started and this just allows me to keep this podcast coming to you weekly, free of ads and to produce some bonus episodes just for my patrons. Like how I use the notes app on my phone, which is waiting inside for you already as a bonus episode if you join, I'm so grateful for you.

I'm grateful for you listening. I hope you have a wonderful summer and I'll be back in August. I'm going to close with words from Barbara Brown Taylor. She's the one who gave me and Emily P. Freeman this idea of what is saving my life right now. And she says,

“What is saving my life now is the conviction that there is no spiritual treasure to be found apart from the bodily experiences of human life on earth. My life depends on engaging the most ordinary physical activities with the most explicit attention I can give them. My life depends on ignoring all touted distinctions between the secular and the sacred, the physical and the spiritual, the body and the soul. What is saving my life now is becoming more fully human, trusting that there is no way to God apart from real life in the real world.”

Thanks for listening, I’ll see you in August!

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