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Loving the House You're In
421 Plays11 months ago
Home is where the heart is - it’s a message near, dear and familiar to us here in the Modern Lady community! But sometimes, caring for our homes is not always easy - sometimes homemaking is challenging and sometimes, it can feel like our houses, rather than working for us, almost seem like they’re may be doing the opposite. In those moments, it’s time for a pivot: of heart, of hearth and of home! This week, we're chatting about loving the home we're in, our goals and ambitions in preparing and keeping a home full of warmth, love and joy, and what to do during the times when the challenge of it all requires hard work and perseverance!
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Transcript
Humorous Miscommunication
00:00:00
Speaker
Okay, go ahead. But first, oh nope, it's your line. You stole my line. Who am I today? And if you would like to get in contact with us.
Episode 144 Introduction
00:00:31
Speaker
Welcome back to the Modern Lady Podcast. You're listening to episode 144. Hi, I'm Michelle.
Challenges of Loving Your Home
00:00:39
Speaker
And I'm Lindsay, and today we are talking about loving your home when you're not even sure if you like it. Home is where the heart is. It's a message near, dear, and familiar to us here in the Modern Lady community.
00:00:52
Speaker
But sometimes caring for our homes is not always easy. Sometimes homemaking is challenging, and sometimes it can feel like our homes, rather than working for us, almost seem like they may be doing the opposite. In those moments, it's time for a pivot of heart, of hearth, and of home.
00:01:11
Speaker
But first, the best way that you can support The Modern Lady is by subscribing to our podcast on whatever app you use to listen to podcasts and by sharing us with your friends. We also welcome you to join us over at patreon.com forward slash The Modern Lady podcast, where for just $5 a month, you will get exclusive and extra content.
00:01:32
Speaker
If you would like to leave us a comment or message us about today's episode, the best way to get in touch with us is on Instagram at the Modern Lady podcast. But be sure to stay tuned to the end of the episode for other ways to connect because we would love to hear from you.
Social Media Etiquette and Authenticity
00:01:52
Speaker
But before we get into today's chat, Lindsay has our Modern Lady Tip of the Week.
00:01:58
Speaker
I think it's time we review some basic social media etiquette because while there is a lot to love about social media, and there really is, we love it, it continues to become a place where people exhibit behaviours that they would never do in real life and treat people in a way that they wouldn't dare if they were face to face.
00:02:17
Speaker
Now I know we've talked about social media before but I found a new article on social media etiquette on Reader's Digest and it can be found on their website rd.com and it shares 13 tips. Now I've chosen a few of my favorites to chat about today.
00:02:34
Speaker
The first one is, don't behave differently online than you would in person. I love this one because I think it encompasses so many things. First of all, be authentic. The last thing you want is your real life friends and family thinking, that's not how she is in real life. Now, I'm not a fan of filters, changing people's faces online. And of course, you can make that decision for yourself and some filters are just plain fun. But this idea of presenting a false version of yourself online, whether it's a fake face or personality,
00:03:03
Speaker
Just let it go. Be yourself, your real self. Another interpretation of this tip, though, is related to how you interact with people. Would real life you just go up to someone you don't know and not introduce yourself and then offer advice? Would you ask a stranger deeply personal questions and get upset if they don't share more about their lives with you? Would you criticize their weight, home, mothering, looks right to their face? Be the same person that you are in real life when you're interacting on social media.
00:03:32
Speaker
Now how about this one? Stay offline when you're angry. This one hits home because of my struggles with PMDD. I know that I can react very differently to stimuli when I'm feeling a bit hormonal. Things that I can normally shake off irritate me more and it's a little harder for me to kind of control my emotions.
00:03:49
Speaker
During that time, I have less impulse control, so I might say things that I wouldn't normally say. And it's normal for all of us to have emotional days, right? It's normal to have periods when we feel grumpy or sad, but it just makes good sense to limit our time online on the days when we might not be able to extend as much grace to people as we all should.
00:04:08
Speaker
And finally, this one's not from Reader's Digest, which is something I see non-stop, and it's a bit of a pet peeve. Just read through the comments under a post in which someone asks a question to see if someone else is already given the answer. Every time I read the comments, there are hundreds and hundreds of repeat answers all saying the same thing.
00:04:28
Speaker
But then I actually suspect that this type of engagement is what some accounts might be looking for. But just, it's a good sense anyways to give the comments section a quick scan before answering. Social media is a fun little escape for most of us, but it is increasingly becoming a place in which every little thing people do or say is torn to shreds. Don't be that person. Unless it's something obviously dangerous or hateful, scroll on past and let it go.
00:04:54
Speaker
Better yet, fill your news feeds with accounts that you really do enjoy and show them some love and be a model citizen both in the real world and in the online world.
00:05:04
Speaker
Those are good tips. I love that point right at the end, to be a good citizen of both worlds, right? And it does make sense that we would need to review etiquette increasingly more and more online because that is often the place where we engage most these days. Yes, you're right. Right?
00:05:26
Speaker
if you think of it that way that like that is where we are actually encountering people as opposed to perhaps in the past standing in line at the grocery store or being in more public places as a lot of our worlds move online that is going to be the new domain where we encounter people so of course etiquette is going to have to follow.
00:05:51
Speaker
Home is the nicest word there is. The immortal words of Laura Ingalls Wilder perfectly sums up many of our goals and ambitions in preparing and keeping a home full of warmth, love, and joy.
Homemaking Challenges Across Seasons
00:06:05
Speaker
In the day to day though, that can often look like hard work and require perseverance, especially when things don't always go according to plan. Right, Lindsay? Yes. And this is a topic that you and I love talking about, and it's really what we built the earliest years of this podcast on. And it's something we're so happy to revisit because we have not mastered it. Right.
00:06:28
Speaker
in our own homes and it's something we're constantly trying to do and it is hard work and so we're like yeah it's time it's time to talk homemaking again. Yeah yes when we were chatting about homemaking earlier this week I remember saying to you I'm like
00:06:45
Speaker
that I'm currently in this love-hate relationship with my house. There are just these seasons, right? And this is where we're currently at, where everything goes at the same time. It's like they all talk to each other.
00:07:01
Speaker
at night times like on Tuesday 12 o'clock we're all going to break. So that's just where we're at and so I was saying like it feels like the house is not working for me right now which we're all busy in our busy lives like often that can be just very frustrating and you don't know how to get back on track so we were like you know what
00:07:24
Speaker
It's time for another home episode. And so here we are. Yeah. And I think in your situation too, right, you are still homeschooling. And so your house starts to close in on you, like emotionally and with items, right? Homeschooling comes with a lot of materials. And so you're there all the time. You've got like these, literally these growing stacks of books and half done crafts, right? And everything just kind of starting to kind of close in on you.
00:07:50
Speaker
right now the season as well as it's getting darker and colder in your home more. I just feel, I always feel so compelled kind of September and October to do an overhaul every year seasonally. It's kind of that return to school mentality still, whether your kids are at home or at school. It's to me, and we said this so many times, to me, that's the new year, not January 1st, when school starts to me feels like the beginning of the year.
00:08:16
Speaker
And this lines up perfectly with what I do every year, which is our pre-advent deep clean. Because that's what I'm feeling right now, right? It's like everything starts to kind of close in on you, and you want to get everything organized and ready leading into Christmas. Because if we are in for this long, dark, cold winter, I want a space that is cozy, that is peaceful, that you can really hibernate in.
00:08:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's exactly what it is. And then you were saying too, that as you use your house, and in my case with homeschooling, things just get used more and more often, right? And so it makes sense that things get worn out and used up much quicker.
00:09:01
Speaker
And you're right, I feel like this time of year, especially with Christmas looming, I know we just finished Halloween and All Saints Day and stuff. Which is yesterday in our recording role. We just trick or treated last night.
00:09:17
Speaker
I know, but you're thinking about it. I think as a homemaker, you think about it coming up in a different way. Oh, totally. You want your house to be set up well and nicely. And so all of a sudden, the to-do list just becomes a little bit more urgent, we'll say. I mean, one of the things that I'm really hoping to do before Christmas, just adding it right onto the running list, is to clean my carpets. Because I was telling you that
00:09:47
Speaker
I was sitting on the floor the other night, we were praying our rosary in the evening, and I should have been praying. I should have been focused. But my eyes could not help but fall upon my carpet. And I'm like, hmm, it's two different colors, depending on where people walked. And that's just one of the things, right? Sometimes the things just glare at you. They just shout for your attention and your
00:10:17
Speaker
keen to just get in there and get it done. Yeah. And I'm sure I didn't help with that when I was sharing constant videos of me using my little Christmas gift to myself that I opened early, my little smaller and more manageable carpet cleaner, which is the greatest thing I've ever bought, right? I have been washing carpets nonstop. And so yeah, I totally get what you're saying.
Perceptions of Home and Social Media Influence
00:10:38
Speaker
And so this led me into kind of the first point I think we should talk about. So this whole idea of you really want to love your house.
00:10:46
Speaker
We all do, right? We have this common thing where it's like, no, I want to love where I live, but there are certainly things we don't like or just seasons that we don't like it in, right? There are days where I'm like, nope, I don't like anything in it. And so how do we learn to love a space that we might not necessarily like at this time? And so for me, the first thing that you kind of need to do is see it and accept it, just like what you were doing when you were supposed to be meditating on the mysteries of the rosary. I know.
00:11:15
Speaker
Uh, yeah, I, I figure Mary also was a homemaker. Yes, she was. I was relating to her in that way in that moment. Yep. You were meditating on that. Absolutely. No, what you saw there is you're like, you saw it, right? You're like, okay, this carpet looks sturdy. And that's great because I think that seeing it and naming it, right? Just accepting what it is is really, really important. Now, why I think this is really hard for most of us to do
00:11:41
Speaker
actually goes back to social media, which makes me think back to the tip of the week this week. Social media, one of the downsides of it is it gives us a distorted sense of beauty. And I think that comes at different points of our lives long before social media. This isn't the first time this has happened to people, but I think social media has made it a thousand times worse, right?
00:12:04
Speaker
It's a thousand times harder for us to wrap our heads around what is beautiful, what is trendy, all these things. And I reflect now. I look back and I think back to the time when I canceled my beauty magazine subscriptions when I had my first daughter, I was like, oh, I don't want these magazines coming in my house and filling up her mind with like these unattainable beauty standards. Little did I know that within a couple of years we'd be holding a phone. That was a nonstop.
00:12:33
Speaker
deluge of unattainable beauty standards, not just for our faces and our hair and our bodies, but our houses too, and our lifestyles in general. And we've talked about this before that it's almost like you can look at an apartment building and the front of it has been taken off and you're looking into everyone's houses at once. That's never happened before.
00:12:54
Speaker
It's not just like the perfectly styled rooms in a magazine where you could actually at that time look at it and go, yep, this is a magazine and you'd close it and put it down. You're seeing with like Insta stories into people's actual houses. And it's a lot harder to be like, but that's not, quote, real life. Like she looks like us. They look like us, but their house looks like this. And so I think it's really, really hard for us to have an accurate sense of beauty.
00:13:23
Speaker
That is so true. And even with magazines, now that I'm thinking about it, the editorial, like the longer articles a lot of the magazines have, they've grown a lot more personal, even them too, right? Often they feature, like it's about their house, but it's, the article focuses on the people living in the house. So it just, it, yeah, it just takes it up a notch being more and more relatable, but.
00:13:50
Speaker
Yeah, I was thinking about social media too, just the influence. What is the input into our minds, right? Whether it's TV or magazines or Instagram.
00:14:02
Speaker
It was just this realization of like, I have to figure out for myself here, what is my house for? And that helps a lot with acceptance because my house isn't for a display. For some people it is because that's their livelihood. But for me, that's not where we're at. And so it is lived in. It's very thoroughly.
00:14:30
Speaker
lived in and that is the reality that helps with the acceptance of the situation because then my house becomes more like a favorite pair of jeans almost or shoes, right? They're so comfortable. They're useful. They're what I reach for every day over and over and over again. They may be not what I would walk down a runway wearing, but they're the best because this is what I use in my life.
00:14:59
Speaker
And the person who talks about this the best is Paige Ryan, right? Yes. So people are following Paige Ryan and that's P-A-I-G-E-R-I-E-N on Instagram. She's the queen of this. She's written books on this. So definitely if you are going to fill your newsfeed with people who make you
00:15:17
Speaker
Feel better about your life and she's definitely somebody to follow about this because it's all about having a home because she's a designer by trade So she knows how that works. That's fine. She has a beautiful new kitchen and all that but she's all about saying but we live here and her current message is about like
00:15:34
Speaker
the whole cleaning up before people come over and just now being like, no, we live here. So these things are on the coffee table, et cetera. So you're right. I think part of acceptance is taking that step back and going, yeah, what is the purpose of this building, of these four walls? It seems like why should we have to ask ourselves that? But that's because we're being told it should be all of these other things when we look on social media. But no, it is where your family lives.
00:15:59
Speaker
And, um, but I think that the other message of social media is this newer trend of trying to normalize everything as well. And it kind of is the pendulum. The pendulum always swings the other way. It can never just rest in the middle, right? It goes so far one way and then so far the other. And this is like also like really saying, well,
00:16:19
Speaker
a normal house, and I'm using normal in quotes, is messy and it's sometimes really outdated and all that. But that also starts to make people think that's how it, quote, should be. And that's what Instagram and social media does, whether it's the far one way or far the other, it's telling you
00:16:38
Speaker
what your house should be. And so this key to acceptance is you and your spouse and your family taking that step back and being like, no, for us, what should our house be? Again, those voices in your head, we talked about in our motherhood episode, canceling that all out. And the only voices that matter are the people that live in that house. I love that. That's kind of like having
Developing Home Appreciation
00:17:02
Speaker
Humility of House. Yeah, that's beautiful. That's your book. Humility of House. Oh my gosh. Yeah, be on the lookout for my New York Times bestseller, Humility of House. Yeah, because we talked about humility probably a year and a half ago, at least now I think.
00:17:24
Speaker
And I remember defining humility as seeing yourself as you really are. Yes. Right? That was one aspect of it. And that was like Thomas Aquinas. He was saying humility means seeing yourself as God sees us and knowing every good we have comes from Him. So I was like, oh, we could practice house humility. Absolutely.
00:17:47
Speaker
In a detached way, just seeing our houses simply for what they are, like the good, the less than desirable, all of it, and trying to see it as God sees it and realizing that all the goodness we notice is a gift. Yeah.
00:18:04
Speaker
And I think that you have to learn to do this. Like so many things we talk about in here, this is a skill. I was kind of thinking back to all the places I've lived and between Jason and I and the 23 years we've been together, we moved a lot. Whether I lived with roommates and he lived with roommates or I lived alone and he lived alone or places we lived together, there was at least 20 moves over the early years of our relationship.
00:18:30
Speaker
I have lived everywhere, right? We have joked before about the place I lived in that was built like a castle. It was a luxury hotel at one point. And then when I was living there, the roof had collapsed in. There were drug addicts living in it, unhoused people and struggling musicians. And it was wild. I still cannot believe my parents let me move in there at the weekend. I turned 19. Wow. Right. So I started out there.
00:18:57
Speaker
And we have lived in all different places, but the truth is I have loved every place that I've lived.
00:19:04
Speaker
And I taught myself that from that, I did, I literally moved out the weekend I turned 19. And so I just, today is my birthday, right? So that was 24 years ago. So again, I've got a lot of experience under my belt in cultivating this mindset, but right from my first place, I would do little things like I would have Q-tips and a martini glass, like on my dresser. And I was so proud of just doing these little touches, right? And so I was always so proud.
00:19:34
Speaker
And then when Jason and I bought our first home, it was a 1970s townhouse. It was not in a good area of town and it was riddled with wildlife. We had squirrels and bats and like full colonies of ants and so many mice. I can't even count. I remember my boss was over and we were doing a movie night and she screamed and she's like, a mouse just ran across your kitchen floor. And I'm like,
00:19:58
Speaker
Yeah, I know about those. It wasn't just one, we had lots. And I loved that house. I loved that house. And so when I tell you that it's truly possible to love whatever place you're in, I firmly believe that. And then as things get better, they don't always get better for people. They have gotten better in our life. We've gotten increasingly better places where we've lived.
00:20:24
Speaker
I'm able to appreciate whatever we have now because I deeply appreciated what we had back then as well. So that's like the other side of acceptance, right? Acceptance and appreciation. But you can't appreciate things. You can't have that gratitude until you've kind of let go of the angst
00:20:51
Speaker
of trying to be somewhere where you're not at the moment and accepting the process for what it is. And then you can almost, as you're saying it, feels like a relaxing into appreciation. I love that.
00:21:06
Speaker
concept. And it's funny you say that because I actually have in my notes and I actually wrote it twice in this section because I wrote, the truth is the house you have right now is the house you have right now. And that is that acceptance, right? Like I could sit there and look at it and be like, yep, it's this and this and this. And I'm all of these things are not good things about these houses where I've lived, right? Like literally a roof collapsed and birds were living in the upper floor of the place I was living in.
00:21:33
Speaker
So I accepted all of those things. I saw them all. It is what it was at the time. And so there was that total level of acceptance. This, the house you have right now is the house you have right now. And then you're right, that acceptance then makes way for being appreciative.
00:21:50
Speaker
And I think too, we probably look at our own homes with the most critical eye, like of anybody else, which is good in a way. It lets us be meticulous in our work, but probably it highlights the negatives far more prominently than the still really positive things about our houses.
00:22:16
Speaker
and our homes right and so to be able to balance that out a little bit too of noticing the really good things that are still there even though there are other parts of our homes that aren't working for us right now or they're not quite up to our what we hoped they would be our expectations or standards
00:22:36
Speaker
to also acknowledge that there are still really wonderful parts of the house too that probably just gives the reality a little bit more clout in that it's balanced. Yeah, and I still go back to I think that this is an ever growing problem. It's in a lot of ways a new problem and it's ever growing because of social media. Like again, when I go back those 24 years ago to today, 24 years to today of me moving into that first place,
00:23:02
Speaker
because there was no social media. And everyone I knew, back in the day, everyone moved out very young. And so all of us have these combined stories of these horrible apartments. And we loved it. In many ways, it was deeply romantic. If you know what I mean, right? The idea of, oh gosh, the stories we could tell, right? We had a radiator explode. We had all these things.
00:23:25
Speaker
And that's just not the way life is right now. There's a lot of reasons for that. Obviously the current housing situation in Canada and the United States. So youth now, the truth is young people stay home longer and they have more money when they do start out. So they expect to start out at a certain level. And for my generation, our parents' generation, everybody else starting out before it started out, not like that. So it was all hand-me-down furniture.
00:23:52
Speaker
Um, and it was these little one bedroom crazy places And so that was kind of a shared experience and you kind of moved on that trajectory upwards upwards mobility I'm going to talk about that a little bit later. Um, and now you it is different So I just want to acknowledge that and I did just talk about this on my instagram because I do feel like sometimes my generation and the generation before me
00:24:14
Speaker
when we were able to so easily get into the housing market are like, you just start out where you start out. Come on, people, pull your bootstraps up. You can do it, but it's simply not the same market right now. So that's a whole different aspect of this. But this idea of starting out in these little places, you do get a really great appreciation right from the beginning of your young life.
Balancing Home Criticism and Aspirations
00:24:36
Speaker
And then
00:24:36
Speaker
it gets better and better. Okay, so whether you're of my generation, you started out like that and you're slowly making your way up the property ladder, or you're starting out in your first home or wherever you're at, there is still that desire to improve things. And whether that fire is stoked by social media, or just your own internal desire to make your space more beautiful, this desire to improve things,
00:25:02
Speaker
I think it's still within all of us. And I do think that that's always been there. And so let's say you've accepted your property. To me, the next thing to do now is improve your property. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I was just going to say like acceptance is good. And as we were just talking about, clearly necessary.
00:25:23
Speaker
But you don't have to stay there. And we shouldn't in a lot of ways. We're called to be good stewards of the things that God has put in our lives and given to us. And that's part of homemaking too and growing in our duties and our ability to cultivate our proper desires within our homes that our homes reflect like who we are, what they're
00:25:47
Speaker
being needed for and all these things. So I do love the idea that you progress kind of in this mindset of like first you just have to take stock of where you're at, humility of house, the reality and appreciate what you have and then go forth and let's see what we can do with what we have. Yes. Yeah, because I think we should be clear here that there's actually nothing wrong with wanting a nicer place.
00:26:16
Speaker
There's nothing wrong with having that desire, whether it's improving the place that you currently live in or dreaming of a new home. Having those dreams, it's totally okay too. And this is that idea of upward mobility. Now, while this concept is relatively new, it's like a post-war idea where they were able to build homes that were affordable for soldiers coming back for World War II. This happened throughout Canada and the United States.
00:26:41
Speaker
We still have these neighborhoods with these small wartime houses, which are just incredible. This idea though of upward mobility, it's a good one. It's what pushed our grandparents to work hard and to take care of their homes. And it's funny because I love how you're talking about house humility because the next phrase I have here is house proud.
00:26:59
Speaker
right? I have that too. Yeah, right. So we're like going, okay, talk about the pendulum. But the spectrum here. But here's the thing, we don't really mean pride in the sinful sense, or in a theological or spiritual sense, right? This idea, this concept of being house proud in the post war era,
00:27:16
Speaker
Meant working hard to get and acquire nicer things because that's a good thing Like it makes your quality of life better and it isn't about keeping up with the Jones's and it isn't I see back in the day again No social media. It wasn't about trying to put nice pictures on Instagram It was because you wanted a pleasant home to live in and
00:27:38
Speaker
You worked hard for it. There were plentiful jobs at that time for the middle class. You could make a decent income. You could afford a decent house. You could raise your family on one income. And then you would you would work very hard and you'd want to take care of those items. Right. And after two world wars, a Great Depression, the Dust Bowl in the United States, I mean, people had never had it so good, which was actually a quote from England. That was one of the
00:28:02
Speaker
The motto going into post-World War II England was, we've never had it so good. The economy was booming. And so people were just really enjoying this idea of finally having a really, really nice place. And again, we're not talking richness. We're not talking mansions. We're just talking about the middle class and this idea of being house proud. When you think of a doily on a coffee table at your grandmother's house protecting the wood, that's house proud. That's what we mean. And there's nothing wrong with this.
00:28:31
Speaker
Yes. Well, I'm glad you said there's nothing wrong with this because I very firmly entered my into my Marie Barone era. That's a reference to the show. Everybody Loves Raymond. That's his mom where she covered the couch in plastic. Do you remember that? And they were like daring her to take the plastic cover off to protect her couch.
00:28:54
Speaker
Well, I've just recently bought plastic tablecloths to put over my dining room table. Yes. And then most recently over my kitchen table because... And next week over your couches, right? It's going to be to your couches. Oh, that's coming. Okay, yeah.
00:29:11
Speaker
I decided to wait for after summer so that we don't stick to the couch, and I'm just kidding. But yes, so I love the idea of House Proud 2, and the Britannica dictionary has a great definition of it. They wrote it. Oh, they do? Oh, cool. Tell us. Yeah, I didn't know that there was an actual definition.
00:29:32
Speaker
Yeah, apparently, I think it's like officially part of all dictionaries, because even like, yeah, Merriam-Webster had one, the Cambridge dictionary had one. But the Britannica was my favorite, because it defined house proud as being, quote, proud of your house because you spent time and effort cleaning or improving it, end quote.
00:29:54
Speaker
I don't like that's exactly it. The other dictionaries like the Collins dictionary adds like to excess under its summary. The Cambridge dictionary notes that some can get overly worried or anxious about it and that's true.
00:30:10
Speaker
But I think the Britannica's acknowledgement that it's a sense of accomplishment after putting in the work. And from experience, I know that that's the most accurate, precisely for the reasons our grandparents would have really put effort into their homes too.
00:30:27
Speaker
And probably our parents as well, right? Because social media isn't us thing. That started with us. But you're right, the cleanliness and the order that they put into their houses, you're right. It really was for no one else but who lived there and who those people would be inviting into their home as guests. And so it really does have less of a performance aspect, the house pride, and more of a consideration aspect.
00:30:55
Speaker
Yes. And I love that so much. And obviously I 100% agree because that's how I run my house. And let's go back to Marie Barone. That was it, right? Marie Barone. Yeah. Okay. So her house, which they all laugh about though, is a house that's frozen in time because they decorated it once and for all. This is good. And this is not, I'm not weighing in necessarily on that, but that's because they, they put their money in. It was an investment and then it was maintained.
00:31:22
Speaker
It isn't how our world works now but I remember my grandparents moved into their dream home in 1967 and I was born in 1980 and they lived there until 1992 and so from 1980 to 1992 I was there all the time and it was an absolute time capsule of 1967.
00:31:40
Speaker
It was immaculate. Everything was, so it was exactly from that time period and it was perfectly decorated and they didn't feel like they needed to update things all the time. They just took care of it, right? You invested in the furniture and then you took care of it. And that worked for that lifestyle back then.
00:31:57
Speaker
I will get into what's different about now, but I do think that that's kind of fascinating to me. And I think I've talked before on here about how Jason and I have entertained doing that on purpose. Our house isn't quite done to where we want it to be done, but we've thought about when it is actually never redecorating it again, like just leaving it as an intentional time capsule for when our kids come home with their families, it will look like it does right now. And I kind of drawn to that idea.
00:32:24
Speaker
Well, there's something comforting about it, right? Like there is a stability to that idea for your family coming home, right? Like this place is how I remember it, it's familiar, and that's such an interesting idea.
00:32:41
Speaker
Okay, so we can improve it by just keeping it clean, maintaining what you have.
Sustainable Home Decor Trends
00:32:46
Speaker
That alone, if you haven't really been in the habit of doing that, of taking care of what you already own, that to me is a first step of improvement. But we can talk about redecorating, right? This would be the next level. So redecorating has never been more affordable. It literally has never been more affordable than it is today.
00:33:04
Speaker
Up until recently, there was a handful of stores where you could buy furniture and home decor. I remember you'd go to Sears, right? Your mom would drag you to Sears and you would get the bedding down in the basement and the bedding department. And that was it. Like there was not any of the home decor stores that we have now. Our parents would save up or in my dad's case, sell his motorcycle when they got married so they could buy a dining table when we still sit at the dining table. He's like, that was my motorcycle.
00:33:33
Speaker
43 years later. But that dining table is still in their dining room 43 years later. And our generation, is it a good thing? I don't know. We tend to get rid of things so much quicker because it is far more affordable to redecorate your house.
00:33:52
Speaker
Back in the day when you buy those things, that was a good thing because that money went back into local manufacturing, little mom and pop furniture stores, quality goods. It was better for the environment. You were not a mindless consumer, right? Trends didn't really matter. You picked timeless pieces, all of those things.
00:34:10
Speaker
That being said, if you still want to have a lesser impact on the environment and not, I guess, feed into the capitalistic mentality of trend setting, you could still go to thrift stores. In fact, we were driving through the city and there's a brand new Goodwill going up, a big one. And I was looking into it and Goodwill is booming. It's having its biggest financial thing ever.
00:34:33
Speaker
Thrift stores are more popular than ever. Some of that's the economy, but some of it's because it's trendy. So that's a good thing for social media. You see a lot of people who, I guess, maybe economically don't need thrift stores, loving the experience of finding those treasures, of repurposing things. So that's a good thing right now. So I was going to say, if you want to buy some new things for your house, but maybe it's not in the budget, or maybe you don't want to contribute to poorly made cheaper goods,
00:35:02
Speaker
go to a thrift store. And we all have our local buy and sell Facebook groups. There are even groups where you can get free items. So if redecorating is the thing you want to do, you've taken care of everything as long as you can. Maybe you've done a good deep clean, you've gotten rid of stuff that no longer serves you. There are ways to redecorate that could cost you almost nothing and make a huge difference in your home.
00:35:25
Speaker
Yes, I've been following this boom of secondhand shopping with much interest. I especially notice it during the Halloween season when I'm trying to pick up like inexpensive items for my children's costumes and I'm like,
00:35:43
Speaker
Why is it? It's a little more expensive because of the trending but it's still far far less than you would buy brand new at a retail store for housing goods and for furniture So I and I do love the idea that you repurpose things because buying secondhand feels a little bit more personal maybe Heartwarming less cold It's just nice and I like it
00:36:09
Speaker
Well, I think it also lends itself in a design sense to like that feeling that your house has been curated. It maybe looks like you picked up that piece a long time ago or whatever, right? It doesn't look like you walked into HomeSense and you just bought all the modern farmhouse stuff that all matches and you just plopped it in there. So that idea, I try to, um, okay. So Jason likes antiquing, but he doesn't like thrifting. And I'm like, you know, it's the same thing. One just
00:36:33
Speaker
charges a little bit more right like a lot of the times the same stuff is at the stores but we try to because I do like having a house that feels curated that feels like we've added special pieces I'm quite minimalist in our home so the pieces I add I'm very careful about so like we need new wine glasses right now I've broken all of our wine glasses
00:36:52
Speaker
And so I could go to HomeSense and I might, I might end up buying some from there, but I will definitely scout out secondhand first. Um, so then they look like, right, that they've been in our cupboard forever or maybe handed down from a family member. I love that.
00:37:07
Speaker
Yes, I love that. Our wine glasses were just from the thrift store too and I just bought them during the pandemic and I remember sitting there thinking for me whether I wanted to spend the money at the thrift store on the wine glasses. But anyways, just a couple from our church happened to walk by an older couple and they were like, just buy the wine glasses. We will have people over again soon. And I was like,
00:37:36
Speaker
Okay. And I just love the whole set. It's unique. They came from someone else's curation. But I was going to say that the thing with curating and making your house personal, it occurred to me, is patience.
00:37:52
Speaker
And the whole idea of being okay with slow accumulation, right? Because I find, I know for myself, sometimes I'm too impatient for that. I would like my house to look amazing today. And I'll go and like, I would love to go buy everything all at once. But if we can just reframe just being like, my house is a curated,
00:38:18
Speaker
gallery. Yep. Of our life. And when you go shopping with that mentality, sometimes you'll come home with something and sometimes you won't. But at the end of the day, your home will be something really special and unique. Oh, 100%. And I love that because my next line here was figure out your style and you do that by taking your time right and seeing how your family lives.
00:38:39
Speaker
There's nothing wrong again with I think the beautiful spaces that we see on Instagram My feed is filled with beautiful luxury spaces that I will never have But I love that I can take what I love from those spaces and carry them with me And then when I go to those stores, right? You can pick up a piece here a piece there and I do love that most of the things that we've bought in my life Have a story attached to it
00:39:03
Speaker
And so it makes for great little conversation starters when you have people over and they're like, I love that little cow. I have a bunch of cow creamers, right? Like a cow where the grain comes out of the cow's nose. An unexpected collection. I never anticipated collecting those.
00:39:19
Speaker
But it's like those little whimsical pieces when you bring them out with company. I love that there's a little story attached. So figure out what makes you happy. Again, it's your house and you live in it right now. And I'll say it again, the house you have right now is the house you have right now.
00:39:36
Speaker
But let's say you can renovate and it's in the budget or you're going to do what we did. We borrowed against the equity on our home. I'm not embarrassed to say that. A lot of people do that. That is how we afforded our renovation. That in addition to Jason working about a year of overtime nonstop to try to put some money in. And in addition to me being the grunt laborer for the entire renovation. So we saved money on me doing the work every single day with the contractor.
00:40:03
Speaker
But we made that decision to stay in the small house that we're in because we love it. And I don't need anything more, but I did need a kitchen that was more functional for us. And that was something we could do at that time. Again, we have almost 24 years in this relationship and having lived through many different houses and stages. And this worked for us right now. We didn't have it up until a couple of years ago, but we were able to do it.
00:40:26
Speaker
If and when that time comes around for you to do an actual renovation, if you have already put in the time of learning to accept what you already have and improve what you can, you're in a really good mindset for when you do something like a renovation. You're deeply grateful.
00:40:43
Speaker
And you have likely figured out what is best for your family based on how your family works and needs it instead of being swayed by what you're seeing on social media. So that's a wonderful thing that you can do if you can do it. But when we finally did ours, it's been three or four years. I still walk down every morning and I pinch myself because I'm so thankful for it.
00:41:06
Speaker
I've always loved every kitchen I've had. So it's just, in my head, it's just like a slight improvement over the mice that lived with my pots and pans in our last kitchen. And then, oh, in our other kitchen, all of the cupboard doors were taped on. Yes, and literally being held together by tape. So this one, yeah, it's a little nicer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, maybe it's not the aesthetic for you, Lindsay. Maybe it's just sinks in general.
00:41:34
Speaker
yes it's just that it actually works yeah oh but i love where this is going though because i mean any one of those three options we were just talking about in terms of improving your your house and your home none of them are ultimately going to make you uh feel better about your house or make you happier or feel satisfied if you don't
Practicing Contentment in the Home
00:42:00
Speaker
practice, like what you were saying, contentedness. Yes. And just, you know, it kind of goes full circle back to the beginning again in a way. Yeah. Like you've gone through this whole process, but you're kind of landing back at seeing your house for what it is and appreciating it and having gratitude. Absolutely. Gratitude makes all of the difference, right? And I think that, again, that is a skill that has to be practiced. It's a muscle that has to be exercised.
00:42:30
Speaker
And I think that finding true contentment in your home, which we do feel is like the kind of final step, if you can do nothing else right now, work on being content, right? One of my favorite quotes about finding beauty is a song written by Bruce Coburn, but sung by the Bare Naked Ladies, where it says, I'm gonna kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight. Now I know it seems a bit powerful, but I actually think about that all the time when I'm in my house, I am going to,
00:43:00
Speaker
do whatever I can to find beauty wherever I can. I take this very seriously. It is a mindset I decided on years ago since that very first apartment and it's something that you can train yourself to see the beauty in your space wherever you are. Trust me, I've done it. Like it's really, really possible. And so that takes me into the definition actually of contentment, which is a state of happiness and satisfaction.
00:43:27
Speaker
And I love I love all of those words. It's a state. So you're like.
00:43:32
Speaker
in it, like you're in it of happiness and satisfaction. And then just to further that definition, I found this awesome line on goodtherapy.org and it said, if you are not at peace with what you have achieved at your current point in life, it can be difficult to be motivated to work towards a better future. So there's a lot actually being said in there about being accepting, like as we were already talking about finding peace in that, but then that place motivates you to do those little improvements.
00:44:01
Speaker
I just, there's so much going on in that little point. Yes. There's a lot of layers to contentedness. Oh my goodness. There so is. And I don't, did we ever do an episode on content, like being content?
00:44:15
Speaker
I feel like we did. I think so. We've been doing this a long time now. I know. But needless to say, I did a little digging and I came across something really, really interesting. So there was research done on a group of nomad peoples and they're living way up high in the Himalayas.
00:44:33
Speaker
And researchers showed these people who have very little contact with the outside world, videos and photos that showed like different human emotions, very obvious ones like being scared or sad or happy. And they listened to videos with like vocal changes and they were able to recognize and identify the emotions, right? Like they were like, yeah, I know what this is. They could pick up on those social cues. But then one gave them pause and it was contentment.
00:45:01
Speaker
And the guide, who was kind of explaining things to the professors from Berkeley, where I found this article. It was from Berkeley University. And the guide, his name is Dr. Dorji Wangchuk. He said, quote, in our culture, this emotion, contentment, is very special. It is the highest achievement of human well-being. And it is what the greatest enlightened masters have been writing about for thousands of years, end quote. Their word for contentment is choksha.
00:45:28
Speaker
which basically translates into the knowledge of enough the knowledge of enough and this obviously stopped me in my tracks yes and so this article from berkeley university goes on to explain the difference between happiness and contentment and the author says
00:45:43
Speaker
If I offered you $1,000 right now, I'm sure you'd be happy." And that's okay because I'd be happy too. He's like, the only problem is the next question. How long does that happiness last from the moment of receiving the money? As soon as you put the money into your pocket, the happiness starts to diminish and shortly you'll be finding yourself needing another hit. And so this temporary boost in wellness,
00:46:06
Speaker
is not contentment, right? That's the up and down of those emotions. And then he goes on to explain that there are 20,000 titles of books with the word happiness, like self-help books available on Amazon. So they finish it by saying, contentment is described as unconditional wholeness, unconditional. So regardless of what's going on around you. And it comes from the Latin for held together, intact, whole.
00:46:32
Speaker
And it says it's that true contentment. It doesn't require any external input and it's sourced entirely from within. Well, if we haven't done an episode on contentedness, that was it. That was all so beautiful. Oh my gosh. The knowledge of enough. Wow. Oh, I just love it. And that is, you're right. Like that is what we're all striving for to feel.
00:47:02
Speaker
in our lives as a whole, but in particular to this episode in our home. I think that's why we put so much of this work in and thought and consideration into it is we want
00:47:14
Speaker
We want to feel that it's enough, but we're already there if we can cultivate contentedness. Home is not a static concept. It teams with life right alongside us and embraces the activity and essence within its four beautiful walls.
00:47:33
Speaker
With acceptance and gratitude, we can practice appreciation and contentedness, the kind that inspires us to improve and create all while knowing that the house we have is the house we have and how beautiful a thing that is. No matter what season we're in or what our days bring, may we never forget there simply is no place like home.
Hosts' Current Favorite Things
00:48:08
Speaker
OK, it's time for our What We're Loving This Week segment of the show. So Lindsay, what have you been loving this week? Well, I'm revisiting a past love because I still love it so much. And every time I put it on, I'm like, I love this. And I want to talk about it again for our newer listeners. So I know you love her too. I am just still loving Jonah Jinton.
00:48:29
Speaker
And so she, as I was writing my notes, I got the pop-up that she released a new video today. And every time I see that, I get butterflies, because I'm like, oh, perfect, a new Jonah Jinton video. So for those of our listeners who don't know her, she is a YouTuber. She's an artist, musician, filmmaker, jewelry designer. She's wife to Johan and dog mama to Nanook. And she lives in a very small town in rural Sweden.
00:48:56
Speaker
Her filming, her film technique, it's breathtaking, right? It's exceptional. It's exceptional. And she's won awards for it. I feel like there's a lot of YouTubers now who have tried to copy her style, but I can't say this conclusively, but I feel like she was the first one to do that sweeping drone footage in terms of YouTube over snowy woodlands and the mountains and lakes, or as she says it, mountains. I love the Swedish accent. Yes.
00:49:25
Speaker
She expertly captures the northern lights dancing over her house and like the long polar nights and the midnight sun. And she just takes her lucky viewers along with her as she like does these little adventures through northern Sweden. She also just has the sweetest and most down to earth personality. I think she's the hardest working person on YouTube, right? She's always looking at trying new skills and trying to grow creatively, which is really inspiring. And you get these little snippets of her marriage and
00:49:55
Speaker
I know we've talked about parasocial relationships before with people who are online, and no one else I feel that way about, but I feel that way about Jonah Jinton. So if people have not watched her yet, it's Jonah, and that's J-O-N-N-A, Jinton, J-I-N-T-O-N. They must look her up. Right. You've got to... Oh, yeah. Yes, I know exactly what you mean. That is the word to describe it is.
00:50:25
Speaker
It's like a hygge in a video. I think she's the best hygge in a video. And I think it's very rare to find that level of down to earthness with the level of talent that she has. And that's one of the many things that is so fascinating and very delightful about watching and enjoying her creative work. I totally agree. And what have you been loving this week?
00:50:52
Speaker
So, what I'm loving this week is actually pretty relevant for today. As we're recording, it's the Feast of All Saints in the Catholic Church. And so this recommendation is a shout out to our heavenly friends, really.
00:51:07
Speaker
I was just driving to Mass this morning at an All Saints Day party for the kids and we picked up some friends along the way. Everyone was a little bit quiet on the drive and I felt like we were all just still waking up from maybe some trick-or-treating the night before. A little sugar hangover. Perhaps. So I was like, you know what, I'll just put on this podcast that I've been meaning to try out. I've been hearing a lot about it and it's called the Saints Alive podcast.
00:51:36
Speaker
So we just started at the top of the list. It was like part one of the story of Pope St. John Paul II. And we were all mesmerized. Like we were blown away by the writing, the producing, the storytelling, the acting. It's radio theater. So everything is just excellent. And we flew through that first episode. We binged the second one on the way home. And the kids and I are already trying to plot out when we're going to be able to put on the third one.
00:52:06
Speaker
Just finished the three-part series on John Paul II's life. So I went on their website and they have about 24 professional quality episodes about saints like Maximilian Kobe, they have an episode on Mother Teresa, St. Joan of Arc, St. Thomas More and many others.
00:52:29
Speaker
Needless to say, we here at the Saks House are deeply impressed with this new podcast. And if you are in the market for really well done radio theatre, served up with a generous helping of inspiration from the Saints, then the Saints Alive podcast is going to be for you.
00:52:51
Speaker
Okay, that's going to do it for us this week. If you want to get in touch and chat with us about our topic today, you can find us on our website, www.themodernlady1950.wordpress.com or leave us a comment on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at The Modern Lady Podcast.
00:53:10
Speaker
I'm Michelle Sachs and you can find me on Instagram at mmsax. And I'm Lindsay Murray and you can find me on Instagram at Lindsay Homemaker. Thank you so much for listening. Have a great week and we will see you next time.