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Embracing a Softened Life
1.3k Plays10 months ago
It's one of the social media trends du jour: #softlife - encouraging us to strive for a life of ease and comfort. For decades, “hustle culture” has been been top of the podium in terms of lifestyle goals. But in striving to get there, we are often left exhausted, depleted and run down - and a hardness begins to settle in our hearts. And the antidote to this may be found squarely within the “soft life” movement and the deep work it invites us to undergo for our own sakes and for those around us. This week, we are chatting about how and why soft living has gripped the imaginations of people all over the world, what it is (and what it is not!), and discuss what makes Advent the perfect time to soften ourselves.
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Transcript
Introduction and Humorous Antics
00:00:00
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, for sure. For sure. I just, one thing about the anthropomorphic animals, I never knew hedgehogs read that much. They are big book readers. They're big bookworms of those hedgehogs.
What is The Modern Lady Podcast Discussing Today?
00:00:24
Speaker
Welcome back to the Modern Lady podcast. You're listening to episode 147. Hi, I'm Michelle. And I'm Lindsay, and today we are talking about soft living. For decades, hustle culture has been the top of the podium in terms of lifestyle goals. But in striving to get there, we are often left exhausted, depleted, and run down, and a hardness begins to settle in our hearts.
Unpacking 'Soft Living': An Antidote to Hustle Culture
00:00:50
Speaker
And the antidote to this may be found squarely within the soft life movement and the deep work it invites us to undergo for our own sakes and for those around us. 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.
00:01:11
Speaker
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. We want to remind our listeners that we now have activated a free trial option on patreon. So while you can just follow the page for free, if you actually sign up for a free trial, you will have access to all of our extra content for seven days.
Support and Community Engagement
00:01:36
Speaker
And then you can decide if you'd like to join us as a paid member. If you can join us on Patreon at this time, a free way to support our show is by leaving it a 5 star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. It's a chance to tell us what you love about the show and it helps others discover it too.
00:01:56
Speaker
This week's shout out goes to Alba CB from Malta who sent Lindsay a message on Instagram and said quote, love the company during my chores and I always find myself learning a thing or two from you ladies. You choose truly interesting topics and I think out of all the podcasts along the same theme, yours really stands out. End quote.
00:02:20
Speaker
Well thank you so much Alba for your kind message and for getting in touch. We are so pleased to think that we can keep you company as you go about your day and we love that you're enjoying the conversations. And 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.
Exploring Different Types of Flour
00:02:54
Speaker
But before we get into today's chat, Lindsay has our Modern Lady Tip of the Week.
00:03:00
Speaker
Oh, I bet you have all been eagerly awaiting part two of this series on flour. The wait is over. Are you ready for this? Last week we learned about hard and soft flour, protein and what bleaching flour actually does. Today we are going to look at all of the different types of flour. Now, if you'll recall from last week, a quick Google search turns up anything from six types of flour to 20 plus.
00:03:26
Speaker
I have decided to stick with the info I found on the website KitchenAid.com. The first type of flower we will look at is the one we probably all have in our pantries, all purpose flower. This is a versatile flower and it is a staple in everyone's cupboards. It is a blend of hard and soft flowers with a medium protein content.
00:03:47
Speaker
It is this perfect amount of protein that makes it a good choice for many different baking projects. All purpose flour is best for cookies, cakes, pies and pastries and for breading meat. The next type of flour is self-raising flour. This meat flour has a leavening agent added during milling. This leavening agent helps it rise and it is baking soda and salt.
00:04:10
Speaker
It has a slightly lower protein content, but produces a nice rise for quick bread. However, it cannot be used for yeasted bread. And if you use it in the place of all purpose, which isn't really advised, you can leave out the leavening agent in your recipe. Self-raising is good for biscuits, scones, pancakes, muffins, and again for something called quick bread. You can also make your own self-raising flour. Google it for the ingredient amounts.
00:04:36
Speaker
Also, it is important to remember that leavening agents lose their potency, so you really should replace this flower every six months and your baking soda. What about bread flour? It is milled from the hardest wheat, which makes it a strong flour with a high protein content.
00:04:53
Speaker
And it is this high protein content that produces a lot of gluten which makes for a solidly structured bread. This is the flour you want to use if you are making a yeasted bread as it will produce a good crumb, great texture and crust. You can use bread flour for sourdough, baguettes, bagels and pretzels.
Soft Living: Definition and Popularity
00:05:15
Speaker
Then there is cake flour. This is made from soft wheat and it has been milled to a fine silky texture which lowers the protein content. KitchenAid.com explains that it's higher in starch so it absorbs liquids, fat and sugar better.
00:05:31
Speaker
KitchenAid.com explains that it's higher in starch, so it absorbs liquids, fat, and sugar better than all purpose, and this results in a tender and moist crumb. Use cake flour for angel food cake, sponge cake, madeleines, waffles, pancakes, and brownies if you like a cake like a brownie. And just like self-raising, you can make cake flour for yourself. Just Google the ingredients.
00:05:55
Speaker
Pastry flour falls in between all-purpose and cake flour in terms of milled texture and protein content. The website says it produces both a tender crumb and flaky texture desired in most pastries. But that it should not be used for baking bread because it produces too little gluten and yeasted bread made with pastry flour will be too dense and soft. Use it for danishes, croissants, baklava, pies and cinnamon rolls.
00:06:25
Speaker
The last type of flower that I'll talk about, but rest assured, I am just scratching the surface here. So if this interests you, there is plenty of information online, is double O flower. This flower is made from durum wheat, which is a type of wheat that is very suitable to making pasta. You will also come across the term semolina and semolina is the harder, coarser ground outer layer of the durum wheat. Semolina is great for hard pasta that needs to retain its shape like rotini and macaroni.
00:06:55
Speaker
Durham wheat flour is the softer flour left over after the semolina is removed and it is great for softer pasta like spaghetti and lasagna. So 00 flour is made from Durham wheat and it has been milled to the finest grind. This gives it a higher protein content which will help form the strong gluten bonds that are needed for good pasta. I also use 00 flour for my pizza crust and it is recommended for making crackers and pierogies too.
00:07:24
Speaker
So who would have thought that this podcast would turn into a flower podcast? I don't know about you, Michelle, but I need to make room in my cupboards now for multiple types of flower. Well, I'm just listening to you and thinking to myself, I'm like, wow, Michelle, you have been slacking.
00:07:41
Speaker
on your flower game with your little bag of all-purpose flour that I use for literally everything from loaves of bread to cake to pasta to pizza dough so yes I don't know where we're gonna put it all but you could have a whole pantry itself just dedicated to flour that's amazing
00:08:05
Speaker
Soft living is one of the latest trends and aesthetics to hit the social media scene, and it has gripped the imaginations and sentiments of people all over the world. But a lot of what is said and shown about the movement doesn't quite capture the whole story, right Lindsay?
00:08:23
Speaker
Oh, if that has ever been writer, show me a time because this has blown us away. So soft life as a term made its way onto dictionary.com and it is defined there as a lifestyle of comfort and relaxation with minimal challenges or stress.
00:08:43
Speaker
Some people use the term in reference to a life that involves and is a product of wealth and luxury while others interpret it as simply being a simplified life unburdened from stress and responsibilities. Now that's again how it's defined on dictionary.com but mainly it's a term often used in reference to moments that achieve this ideal even if one's entire life does not and it's used in like aspirational statements about the kind of life a person wants to live.
Cultural and Social Influences on Soft Living
00:09:12
Speaker
But we are going to reveal that it goes so much deeper than what that dictionary.com definition says. Yeah, we are kind of on a roll just thinking about it of like, we think we're talking about one thing at the start. And then halfway through the episode, we're like, but that's not what it actually is. And then we feel like we have to remember last week, we're like, we're just going to fade ourselves out.
00:09:37
Speaker
Yes. We're talking about dopamine detox, that's right. But yeah, soft living is another one of these things that's really making its round and it's easy to see why it's appealing, right? With a definition like that. But yeah, I guess time to dig deeper because there is more to the story.
00:09:58
Speaker
Okay, so I guess people have been saying it like soft life or soft living for a little while now But it did gain mainstream attention in 2022 This is where it really started to pop up on social media, especially on tick-tock So we're going to journey back to late spring early summer of 2022 all that time ago Which I guess is a lot of time in terms of social media trends, right? This could be ancient by the time 15 years in social media years
00:10:28
Speaker
So, we're going to just see how those earliest articles, and there's a lot of them, if you Google it, explain soft living. So, as soon as I started looking into the first mentions of it, I quickly saw many posts pointing to this aesthetic originating in the Black community. And an article on Mashable.com notes that it was first being used as a term by Nigerian influencers, and this is way before it made its way westward.
00:10:55
Speaker
Now, I looked deeper into that, and I discovered a lot of different Black influencers talking about it. And I pulled out just some of the words from one of them. This is Gloria Alamru. She's an Ethiopian Canadian writer, and she wrote this on Twitter.
00:11:10
Speaker
I want a soft life. I want ease. I want relaxation. I do not want to hustle. I do not want to grind. Grinding wears you down to brittle nothingness. I do not want to work my life away. I want enjoyment and rest, not as rewards, but as practice. My life will be a practice in joy. Now she shared that on her Instagram account, which is by Gloria Al-Amru. And then she added to that tweet writing,
00:11:38
Speaker
I think we're all just tired. I know I am. I'm tired of being asked what my five-year plan is, what my goals are, what my ambitions are, tired of scraping by, tired of being told to pretend that everything is back to normal when nothing is normal about our world right now. What are my goals? To make my son laugh every day. To be his safe place. To be my own safe place. I want to take up hobbies and be bad at them and not care because I'm having fun learning something new.
00:12:08
Speaker
And isn't that the point anyway? I want to love and to love and love and love." Okay, I loved all of that reflection and her poetry in describing what soft living is.
00:12:24
Speaker
It reminds me of something that I saw online. There's an article called, Is Living a Soft Life the Secret to Success? on a website called HerMoney.com. And it quotes an influencer named Jasmine or Jazz Turner. And she was saying, soft life means pouring into myself and then giving to other people into my work from the overflow.
00:12:50
Speaker
Yeah, so when she was talking about how all she wants is like to her goal for the day is to like make her son laugh. Yeah. And to do all those things. I like that idea of this reason, like there's like a deeper why. It's not just kind of like how we always talk about hygge not being just about the candles being lit or, you know, comfortable throw blankets like
00:13:18
Speaker
Why do those things matter? And that's similar to what Gloria is saying in her post about why she wants soft living and how Jasmine Turner is talking about why it matters. There's a deeper reason and you can't fill from an empty cup would be like a similar cliche saying to this.
00:13:37
Speaker
But I like this perspective because instead of focusing on your keeping your cat from running dry, the soft living movement from these words seem to focus instead on filling it so that it just keeps spilling over for the people and the circumstances that do need you at your best.
00:13:58
Speaker
Yes, and I think that, again, it's so important that we acknowledge that this really starts in the Black community. There was an article I read on Mashable.com, and there's this study done by Dr. Cheryl Woods-Gesombe, and it was a study for the National Library of Medicine, and she's examining something called the Superwoman Schema, and it says that it's the dual cultural idea that many Black women find themselves striving to be.
00:14:24
Speaker
The study found that to be a respected black woman today, many feel the pressure to manifest strength, thereby suppressing emotions and vulnerability, resisting dependency and projecting unyielding determination to succeed despite the circumstances. And they do this all while continuing to help others in the community, often putting their emotional needs last.
00:14:45
Speaker
Now this goes on further to say that I was listening to many different black women speaking about this and I was so interested in hearing it from their own voice and they were saying that there is this tendency within the culture that when black women actually say stop, slow down, I want to pour time into myself, I want to find peace, that they're accused of being lazy.
00:15:06
Speaker
That this is like a criticism that's awful often leveled at black women now We can't speak to that as white women But this is where this this idea where they wanted to create these day-to-day lives of peace this desire to do so without taking that criticism anymore of laziness and so they're speaking up and kind of paving the way for all of us and really putting forth this idea of
00:15:28
Speaker
creating a soft life and we're going to define it further we're going to get into how it's not about the externals and where dictionary.com kind of gets it wrong about luxuries and stuff it's really these women just saying no I want to stop this hustle I want to get out of the grind and I want a peaceful life day-to-day where it starts like you're saying like filling my own cup and my own heart being peaceful so that it overflows mm-hmm that is so interesting and I think
00:15:58
Speaker
Like you, I had no idea the origins, but I really think that it's interesting and important to acknowledge that there is so much of a cultural background to this. And like you said, that it's just incredible that how this path that they're paving is really starting to branch out in a big way into a larger landscape.
00:16:24
Speaker
that's starting so many great conversations revolving around this this mentality that that we should consider. That's right. So this article I'm referencing is from Mashable and it's written by a woman named Jenny Mae Nguyen and she says at the end these lifestyle movements can help create a
00:16:43
Speaker
cultural mentality that comes a little closer to collective health rather than collective productivity. Now, when you hear that language, it should come as no surprise that the soft living movement is often punctuated by anti-capitalist sentiment too.
00:16:58
Speaker
And it makes sense people especially women are tired of being defined by their level of productivity There's a quote from Kimora Brown in that Mashable article and she says soft living is about denouncing hustle culture. It's not about luxury and culture Capitalism is not soft living. It's anti soft living
00:17:19
Speaker
So this language of collective productivity versus collective health is evocative of a socialist approach in this. But in this case, I think it's an idea that we can all get behind this collective call to slow down. Yeah, this is all part of having just a really balanced perspective on the world. Right. And the ideals of what there is and those concepts of like wanting the best for everybody.
00:17:48
Speaker
You're right. Like, why wouldn't we want that? Yes, right in general. And I mean, depending on your cultures and historical context and geography, what have you, that might look different in different parts of the world. But yes, the concept of really wanting
00:18:07
Speaker
the best for everyone you come in contact and if there's a way that you can contribute to the well-being of everyone then for sure.
The Pandemic's Impact on Lifestyle Trends
00:18:15
Speaker
And we shouldn't be surprised either about when we learn that the soft life trend is often linked with another trend that's really big right now which is called quiet quitting.
00:18:24
Speaker
Oh, yes. I feel like coming out of this worldwide pandemic, and maybe this is again where it's a collective sense, right? Because the entire world has been affected over the last couple of years. So there's been a total upheaval and reimagining of the day-to-day lives of people, of women everywhere. And I think this is especially true for working women because us stay-at-home moms, yeah, of course our lives were impacted by the lockdowns and by everything that went on.
00:18:53
Speaker
But it was the working world that was significantly impacted, right? These people were able to stay home for the first time maybe ever in their adult lives. And we know, we know that this impacted how corporate offices are being run, who's returning to work in an office, who's still working from home. These things are still being figured out today as we're recording this. And this has really been a big wake up call for a lot of people who are reimagining their lives now going, maybe I don't need to give it all to the office anymore.
00:19:21
Speaker
And so this quiet quitting trend really goes hand in hand with this desire to have a soft life. And this is such an, I think, obvious push back against what was growing and about to burst, which was that like boss babe hustle culture that was really dominating social media.
00:19:39
Speaker
in getting stronger and stronger as we were moving towards what would become the pandemic. And so this slow living, we will talk about slow living versus soft life, but this response to the boss babe culture is actually, it has a new name, which stopped me on my tracks. It was so funny. It's called snail girl.
00:20:02
Speaker
I'm here for that. Right? Which is the least attractive sounding if you're just thinking about a trail of slime, I guess. But this snail girl movement, I first saw it in the New York Post, but it was actually coined by an Australian fashion designer named Sian.
00:20:19
Speaker
And she first uses this term as, um, when she was being interviewed and she was being like asked about her new era. And she was like, you know what, I'm choosing, and I guess eras are a big thing too, um, with Swifties, right? So like what era you're in. Um, so her new era, she's, she's slowing down at work.
00:20:38
Speaker
She's going to retreat when she needs it. She's going to go on her own path and choose happiness over busyness I think that this hustle culture boss babe thing women are finding that just taking a day off to relax or even going on a holiday just isn't enough they really want a total lifestyle change and I think that women have been told since the 1960s that they can have it all and
00:21:02
Speaker
But I think it's clear to see that women have exhausted themselves trying to make this feminist dream, this ideal come true. They're crashing. It's so true. It was like the promise that was sold with the feminist movement came with caveats that maybe were not expected. Right. And that you have to hustle to keep pace.
00:21:26
Speaker
with that kind of thing. And I really think that when you have to hustle, when we have to move that fast, that is kind of where we don't have the time to be vulnerable and open. And so it is a little bit of that hardening when you think about it. And so to see it kind of going in the opposite direction right now,
00:21:51
Speaker
where a lot of people are reexamining things a lot, as you said, because of the pandemic and the situation that that created with work and being at home and people reevaluating the work-life balance. I think it's very interesting that that is speaking to a whole new generation of women and to really kind of try to find what the new balance is going to be emerging at the other end of that time or that era, as it were.
00:22:21
Speaker
Yes, and I think that as you're saying this, it's also reminding me that not only did they physically have to hustle the women who are entering the workforce en masse in the 1970s, the hustle also became how they sold themselves. Women had to man up
00:22:36
Speaker
to deal with men in a corporate world like they had never had to before. This is even reflected in the way women had to dress at work. They started wearing those. That's when the shoulder pads came in. They wanted a business suit. They wanted to physically look like they could square off against their male counterparts at work so that they could compete, right? They had to shatter that glass ceiling that they were told about. This resulted in the hardening of a woman to more of a masculine type of
00:23:03
Speaker
way of conducting themselves in business. And while there are undeniable benefits about women toughening up in some of those ways, and I am a fan of that, there are other ways that you become too hardened and we'll lose some of the softness that is what women bring in such a beautiful way to everything.
00:23:21
Speaker
Yes. Right? So there's like the hustle in terms of life got a heck of a lot busier and the women who were so keen on succeeding at work also wanted to make sure that they weren't dropping the ball at home because everyone said to them at that time, well, how are you not going to drop the ball at home? Well, these women were like, I'll show you. And they did. They absolutely tried to burn the candle at both ends. And it's just, we've had a couple generations now where we've seen that this
00:23:45
Speaker
fallout of this exhaustion. And we're not to say that this is true for all women, but what is so interesting is a lot of these movements are being spearheaded by the youngest women, by the first women entering into the workforce right now who have this gift of perspective and looking back and going, wow, I'm really thankful for the women who paved the way.
00:24:04
Speaker
Like this? Wow. I'm so glad I have the choice if I want to work or if I want to stay home, but I certainly don't want to be burned out and crashing and exhausted. And so this younger generation, I think is so telling that they're the ones going, stop.
Balancing Career and Personal Life in Soft Living
00:24:19
Speaker
We want to do things differently now.
00:24:21
Speaker
Well, yes, and that I think is what is so fascinating about this whole thing because these younger women are trying to find a balance of both, right? The women who are considering and embracing these sorts of trends, like the soft living trends, these women are not pushovers. They're not lazy. They're industrious. They're curious. They're interesting women. They're capable and intelligent.
00:24:50
Speaker
And it's so amazing to see they're like, okay, it doesn't have to be so extreme in either direction. I do feel like I have something to bring to the table here. But I also feel like I can just be me and who and how I was created to be. So we're in the process now culturally spearheaded by these women and these movements of saying,
00:25:13
Speaker
How does that look like in the feminine side? I think it's all a very positive thing. It just kind of takes a little while to get there sometimes. It's a winding path. Absolutely. And then there's one last financial aspect that I think we should make clear.
00:25:32
Speaker
All of the women who are talking about soft life or slowing down or the snail girl life, they all understand that it requires a certain level of financial privilege. I think this needs to be said. They know that if they're able to make those decisions to slow down at work, to turn down overtime or extra paid work, or to do something as drastic as quitting your job, right, or changing your job,
00:25:56
Speaker
They fully know that this takes a certain level of financial privilege and that that's not available for everyone But here's the thing what we discovered is the ultimate focus of the soft life isn't so much about controlling the outside world And the things that we can touch or buy but it's about healing our internal state. There's a great article by Tricia Sri Giri Rayu and she wrote this for medium calm and it's called slow life soft life What does it mean and how can we start living it?
00:26:26
Speaker
And in it, she writes, to live softly means to have confronted the parts within us that cling so desperately to hardness, to fear, to apathy and cynicism. It means facing the unhealed wounds inside of us and acknowledging the areas we are projecting onto others, the areas in which we begin to close our hearts and harden ourselves to the world and its people. It means acknowledging where and how we decided to stop being openhearted and caring
00:26:55
Speaker
and choose that path of cynicism instead." Now that kind of softening, this is something we can all do regardless of our state in life. Yes. Yeah, I think sometimes for me, and maybe this is just the most basic thing ever.
00:27:12
Speaker
But sometimes you write your brain automatically goes to the material. Right? I'm like, what is literally soft? And then that is soft living. Yes. Coaches. Because that's the aesthetic part of it, right? Like there's the aesthetic of soft life.
00:27:29
Speaker
That's right. And that is materialistic, which means you have to probably buy stuff to participate in the movement. But yes, what we're seeing is that it's not actually that kind of soft. And that also too, it sounds so...
00:27:47
Speaker
It really sounds like a call to be authentic, the authentic living, to do all those things that Tricia listed in that article and in that post.
00:28:02
Speaker
You'd really have to be honest about whether or not we're being authentic and not even to other people around us, but even just to ourselves inside, right? That's what we're talking about, the interior. And then I also found like just the definition of authentic, of being authentic. There was a great definition from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. And they're saying that for something to be authentic, it's to say that it is what it professes to be.
00:28:32
Speaker
Right? So, digging deeply into ourselves and being willing to be honest about our values, about our goals seems like a really important factor in the soft living movement. Yes, and this authenticity
00:28:47
Speaker
is being screwed up by influencers. So that's another part, right? So they are trying to sell the aesthetic, but the whole thing about it being authentic within yourself and that message is being lost by influencers.
Authenticity vs. Aesthetics in Soft Living
00:29:01
Speaker
There is a YouTube video called Influencers Ruined Soft Life and now it's just another grift.
00:29:07
Speaker
And it was created by a YouTuber called NappyHeadedHohoba. And she explains that it is now just another aesthetic, that it's all about rich girl life and luxury goods and travel destinations. And we know that that's not what it was about at all. She reminds her viewers that it was originally just about attaining peace.
00:29:27
Speaker
relationship piece, peace within ourselves, peace of mind. Now, this is what really blew my mind, Michelle. She also points out that there's a difference between influencers and content creators. And I've never actually thought about this. So she said, influencers are going to try to get you to spend money. Content creators share with you ideas and they educate you. So for an influencer, the product that they are selling that day is their content. But for content creators, their content is their product.
00:29:57
Speaker
So she goes on to talk about the Nigerian origins and how Nigeria is also experiencing its own cost of living crisis So the whole soft life movement couldn't possibly be rooted in spending more money to live this life of leisure so again, it's this idea that Influencers are trying to sell you on the aesthetic of soft life But what you can really look for are content creators who are explaining to you what it really is and
00:30:24
Speaker
That is such a helpful differentiation when you're trying to navigate online. And I love that the key word to look out for here is when someone's trying to speak about peace.
00:30:36
Speaker
Yes, right. And I know even from our faith perspective, right, like peace is the thing that we're really meant to seek and to strive for and peace in all those areas that she mentioned to peace with ourselves, peace in our relationships.
00:30:54
Speaker
I love that there's that connection with soft living, like that seems the soft demeanor that you're looking for. If you picture someone who is peaceful, there's someone that you can almost sink into, right? And that is the softness. That's what this whole thing is about.
00:31:15
Speaker
And just while we're at it, another thing that it is not, and this is what you're going to see a lot on social media about, because this is another growing trend, and it's the stay-at-home girlfriend trend. And it is not the stay-at-home mom whose purpose is to raise her children and to run a household.
00:31:31
Speaker
there's this new trend like the sugar daddy trend to be a stay at home girlfriend and they're really linking this with soft life with
Personalization and Inner Work in Soft Living
00:31:40
Speaker
the idea that her whole purpose is that she has time all day because she doesn't have to work to become more feminine and soft through beauty treatments, time doing yoga, decorating the house all pretty. This is a lot what a lot of people think soft
00:31:58
Speaker
life is right now and it is absolutely not what it is no okay yeah I see where we kind of got off the track there having talked about the definition of it and various interpretations and that's kind of what I was thinking too just in terms of reflecting on what soft living is not right and the thing I kept coming back to and all these definitions and it
00:32:26
Speaker
reiterations of it that we see online. I'm like, that is, at its core, it really is not laziness. Right. It's not. Right. It's not. And yeah, when we think about those soft things that I mentioned, like the beds and the pillows and the fuzzy things, it sounds good, but the soft life movement, it sounds like it requires a lot of hard work up front.
00:32:50
Speaker
doing that deeper inner work, going through the process of re-evaluating what you're going to be prioritizing and then cutting out the things and the obligations that don't serve those values, setting up boundaries, establishing yourself and how you want to be present in order to have peace. That's not always going to be simple or easy.
00:33:17
Speaker
much like anything else like enjoying a clean house right at the end of the day is going to take some elbow grease or being healthy is going to require you to exercise and plan nutritious meals to do soft living. I guess that's another thing to look into and look out for as we're learning more about it online is whether or not that inner work
00:33:41
Speaker
is mentioned or whether or not it is kind of a strictly anesthetic that's being presented. Yes, and I think that as we know it's a blend of the internal and the external, right? The internal or the interior life as we call it can inform the exterior
00:33:59
Speaker
and vice versa. But I think that you can have all those cozy, soft things all around you as much as you want. But if you haven't done that deep work inside, there's only so much the externals can do. But what I think is so clear is the hungering for the externals and the internals. But people want this more than ever.
00:34:21
Speaker
Maybe it's just my algorithm, but my feed, all it is are those beautiful classic illustrations of anthropomorphized animals in their aprons and they're living by candlelight in their cozy dens. It's no surprise that people, I guess especially women, I don't think many men are liking and sharing those images of animals living underground.
00:34:46
Speaker
But they're longing for this life. We want little cozy dens instead of skyscrapers right now, cozy nightgowns instead of like tight business suits, baking instead of boardrooms. Think about the Hallmark movie channel, right? Think about every Christmas movie. We can say that's not what women want as much as we want, but the numbers beg to differ of how many women are interested in the stressed out big city girl who ends up falling in love with both the handsome stranger and the
00:35:15
Speaker
cozy, small town that she visits. Clearly there is a huge cultural longing for a softer life in the internals and the externals. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, for sure. For sure. I just, one thing about the anthropomorphic animals, I never knew hedgehogs read that much.
00:35:36
Speaker
are big book readers. They're big bookworms of those hedgehogs. But yeah, no, that's such a great point. And that goes back to the authenticity thing, right? Are we being honest with ourselves about what we really want? And you're right. And I think, if anything, my algorithm matches yours because I see so much of it too. Or that so much of the videos
00:36:04
Speaker
You know those like a day in the life videos?
Practical Applications of Soft Living
00:36:09
Speaker
They're all like either morning or like my five to nine after my nine to five type of thing, right? I hardly see anything of that hustle culture we talked about anymore. So even if the conversation officially maybe hasn't quite caught up yet,
00:36:29
Speaker
You're right, the desire is clear through the actions and through the content that's being produced that this is really prevalent in a lot of our minds.
00:36:41
Speaker
Yeah, even if you think about all those ambiance videos that we play all the time, I have yet to come across like busy office ambiance. Stressful board meeting, presentation ASMR. So it does seem like everyone is longing for this. Okay, so we've talked about two communities, the Black community and the working world, and we're not a part of those communities, Michelle.
00:37:05
Speaker
So how about the soft life for us stay-at-home moms, for the homemakers and homeschoolers out there? So stay tuned until after the break to hear how we can create our own version of a soft life.
00:37:23
Speaker
Welcome back. So how can we create our own soft life? You mean besides carving little dens under the earth while the ground is blanketed in snow and we become fluffy little mole mamas who tuck their tiny mole babies into bed by candlelight?
00:37:38
Speaker
only then to sit by the fire and put our little mole feet up after a long day. I clearly wanna just crawl right into those illustrations, right? But here's the thing, it hit me when I was writing that, that those cute animals are doing human things, that they're actually mimicking our lives. So those artists are just taking the most basic human tasks often performed by women and moms,
00:38:07
Speaker
And they do make it look so romantic and you and I are big fans of the romantic life. Yes, very much so. So an article from the BBC said this, soft life asks us to don our most comfortable outfit and consider what day to day life of ease would look like for ourselves. Then it challenges us to put this into practice.
00:38:29
Speaker
Okay, so just again, this isn't really about spa days and expensive products and like a gossamer dress. Nope. It's about creating peace and a life in which we feel comfortable where we can take off the armor, right? The hardness that we've kind of clad ourselves in because we are at battle in this crazy world.
00:38:49
Speaker
It's about taking down the walls around our hearts. It's about opening up what has been sealed shut and softening towards the things that we may have grown hardened to. And it's about going with the flow instead of trying so hard to swim against the current right to swim upstream until the point of exhaustion.
00:39:08
Speaker
So this is where it goes beyond aesthetics and visual appeal. And it's about prioritizing yourself, which is not a bad thing. Sending boundaries and relationships definitely can be a good thing and reevaluating career goals and plans. And we think the first step in this is about figuring out what gives you peace in your day to day life.
00:39:28
Speaker
Yeah, that's such a great first step, right? To consider what that might be.
Meekness and Relational Peace
00:39:33
Speaker
And actually, one of the things I do like about soft living lingo, we'll say, versus hustle culture lingo, I do feel like a lot of it, even if it's trying to be inspirational, it's all like these imperative sentences, giving orders, right? Follow your dreams, shoot for the stars. But in soft living, it's all questions and prompts.
00:39:57
Speaker
What brings you peace day to day? What brings you joy? How can we work that in to the day to day? Like even the language sounds softer too. But I think it's so important to ask these questions because self living is so subjective, right? If it's really about carving out for ourselves a life that's unique to us, then we do have to ask ourselves, what is it that we specifically are looking for? It's not going to be like a metric or a
00:40:26
Speaker
plan that you can exactly follow. And there was a great suggestion from an internal medicine doctor named Dr. April Carter who suggests in an article on the website iambrownstyle.com where she says to create a vision board.
00:40:45
Speaker
for your soft living endeavors, to start help defining what soft life looks for you, which I think is a great idea and just totally goes along with that thought process of asking yourself, what is it that does give you peace just in your everyday day-to-day life?
00:41:06
Speaker
Yes, and I think this is great because although we keep talking about the interior life versus exterior life, we do know that when we work hard to surround ourselves with those things that help contribute back, right, to our interior life, those externals do make a difference. And those vision boards, let me just tell you as someone who just made one and laughed about having to do it, because I'm like, I've never done anything like this in my life, but I was advised to make one.
00:41:33
Speaker
from somebody that I really trust. And she's like, nope, trust the process. Just do it. Well, let me say, as I was putting together a vision board, I realized that, yeah, what it does is it actually just takes the things out of your head and puts them in front of you. And apparently, studies have shown that we are much more motivated by visual stimuli in front of us than we are like a written list of things that we want to work towards. And so this idea of either doing it on Pinterest, which is what Pinterest is,
00:42:03
Speaker
Or physically cutting out soft living images from like a magazine or something. Both of them have a far greater impact it turns out on your brain than you would think it does or than I would think it does until I actually did it. So there are and it doesn't have to just be like pictures like we're saying of fuzzy pillows and blankets.
00:42:22
Speaker
It can be like the desired lifestyle that you want to have. That's, you know, there are images of that that you could cut out on your vision board that you can work towards. But yeah, having just done it and thought it was a silly idea. Nope. It turns out I was wrong. It's actually, there's a reason why a lot of successful people recommend doing that. There's a method to the madness. Yeah. Yes. Yes. So yeah, I just, I love that idea that, um, yeah, we can curate.
00:42:52
Speaker
soft life for ourselves. Yeah. And this question of what gives you peace, that is a very personal question. It's going to be different for you than it is for me. And I do firmly believe having been home with all four kids for 15 years without a single day off or a break or them going anywhere,
00:43:08
Speaker
that you can actually cultivate peace in the middle of that chaos. It is doable. It might not be peace what you think it is, like what that means, but there are definitely ways to do it and even the busiest life. So that really reflecting taking a couple days and being like, okay, what does give me peace? What does bring me peace is a great first step. And then a second step is then being softer with ourselves. We have to start with ourselves first.
00:43:33
Speaker
And this isn't like the, it is a bit of the be gentle on yourself, but this is deeper. This is psychological. This is reminding ourselves that we aren't measured by what we accomplish. It's reminding ourselves that our productivity doesn't always equal success.
00:43:48
Speaker
That self-care is a good thing, but even more than that, it's finally being ready to heal, to move on from our past. And it's about not living in anxiety in the future. It's about being really present in the moment. Being a soft person, soft with ourselves means, yeah, being really, really available in that moment. It's, yeah, it's that desire to heal. I kept seeing the word heal in terms of soft life. And I just, I love that.
00:44:19
Speaker
And I think that's such a big aspect to it that reminds me, I did come across an article from the Vatican of all places, where it was sharing a homily from 2015 that Pope Francis gave at one of the masses about what hardens our hearts.
00:44:38
Speaker
And that was one of the things, one of the three things that he talked about was that a heart can become hardened from painful or harsh experiences who don't want to be hurt again, right? I think that to have to mention that just means that it's probably such a communal, such a widespread
00:45:01
Speaker
thing that people are going to have to encounter as they look deeper into themselves is that there are places just that we all could use the softness of a healing touch. Right. And from a faith perspective, though, like going into that a little bit deeper, I do find it
00:45:19
Speaker
It takes an element of trust to be able to soften yourself enough to do that. So again, for us, from a faith perspective, the trust in God, and even just having trust that if you do that, if you open yourself up to explore those wounds that need healing in an effort to be softened, that like you said, to trust the process of it.
00:45:47
Speaker
And you know what, hearing that reminds me that maybe you're not ready to be soft with anyone else in your life. Maybe you're not ready to open up, remove those scales from your heart to soften your heart. But you can start with God. God is not going to wound you. He's not, right? He's only there to love and heal. And so maybe that is your first place is just opening up your heart to God after years of having hardened it towards him. I'm speaking from personal experience, right? I didn't open my heart to God until I was in my early thirties.
00:46:15
Speaker
So I had a very hard heart. Truly, I actually wore that hard heart as a badge of honor. I loved how tough I was, how you couldn't wound me. I really was proud of those aspects of myself. So having to strip that armor off my own heart, I wasn't ready to do that with the people in my life yet. So I had to start with God. And so here, this takes us right into the next thing that we think that we can all do.
00:46:39
Speaker
which is when you've been softer with yourself, then you can start being soft in your relationships, right? Yes. Healed people heal people. We talk about it all the time. And so this is one I'm still working on because I'm not naturally a soft person. I'm just not. I'm a hard person. So being soft doesn't even just mean being charitable and loving and like being willing to receive love.
00:47:04
Speaker
To me, it also means I need to work on my tone and my body language. I am not soft in those things. So yeah, this being softer in all of our relationships, I think is a great next step. Yes. Yeah. And that makes me think back to that analogy of soft living being like that overflowing cup that we talked about at the beginning of the episode that spills over to make other people's lives better. Yeah.
00:47:33
Speaker
I just think, and this maybe is where my thoughts become literal again with softness, but it's almost like thinking of ourselves once we get to that point of becoming a crash pad of sorts.
00:47:49
Speaker
for our families and for those around us, that when they are experiencing the harshness and the hardness of the world, that once we have done the interior work to soften ourselves, that we can be someone they sink into, whether that's emotionally, mentally, or otherwise.
Soft Living During the Christmas Season
00:48:08
Speaker
So you and I were talking and laughing about how like the
00:48:11
Speaker
Kind of like the opposite to soft time of the year. The most loud, garish, trying, excitable, joy-filled time of the year is coming up. It's Christmas. Kind of like the hardest time to try soft living is when the world is at its most joyful, chaotic loudness. Friendzied. Friendzied. And we've done an episode. What was that episode we did leading up to Christmas a couple of years ago? The friendzied frazzled and three F's.
00:48:37
Speaker
or something. Yeah, frenzied, frazzled, frantic. So it's so funny that, you know, just a couple of years ago, we were like, this is what we're feeling in this year. We're like, now try to be softer. But we acknowledge that it's almost naturally easier to work on that growing in that during advent, right? Especially if you've done like a pre-advent clean and you've done all, which I haven't, and you haven't done all of that work. We're saying that honestly.
00:49:05
Speaker
But let's say in a perfect world for the four weeks leading up to Advent, you've done all your hard work. You've done your Christmas shopping, your house is clean. Well, Advent is a perfect time calling us towards softness. And then in the post-Christmas period, in the deep, dark winter, as you're doing hygge in your external life,
00:49:26
Speaker
that softening of your heart is perfect for those winter months, right? And so we're like, but there are some things you can do to practice being softer during the chaos of Christmas. You can set boundaries. You can listen to what gives your family peace during that time and as a family talk about it. And this one, we've talked about this before, but it's a great reminder that you don't have to do this year all of the old traditions you've always done. If they are not giving you peace,
00:49:54
Speaker
or giving your family peace and have a continual conversation about this, you don't have to beat yourself up for going, I can't do it all. I can't do all of the things that I'm supposed to do this Christmas. That's how you can soften during Christmas. And then finally, you don't have to feel bad if you're indulging in the treats and an extra little
00:50:15
Speaker
drink. I like to have like a creamy liqueur during Christmas. It's the only time of the year I have them. You can be soft about enjoying those things, right? And just embracing Christmas and all of its tacky and cheesy wonderfulness.
00:50:30
Speaker
Yeah, and because even if we stop to consider the reason for the season, right? And just what Christmas is all about, which is that Jesus, our God made man, is born and he's born as a baby. If there's anything that I think
00:50:52
Speaker
personifies literally, like the softness that is indicative of the soft life movement and goals, it would be the God of the universe coming to us as a baby, as an infant, right? And modeling for us this openness, this vulnerability, this trust and acceptance,
00:51:17
Speaker
For the rest of us to follow Christmas is actually the perfect time to consider it we I think when we talk about like we should try this trend we Like we expect it to be an immediate 180. Yeah and upheaval of our whole lives But maybe part of soft living is just to lean into things slowly as it comes and
00:51:40
Speaker
I was even thinking about this time of year that even if there aren't a whole lot of practical changes we can make to start embracing soft living, that it's a great field research season, right? To observe ourselves and to see how and where soft living might benefit us, how we can bring that about, and then
00:52:03
Speaker
that idea that you just mentioned, Lindsay, about asking your family what brings all of you peace. That's something I also saw a couple of times just yesterday on Instagram too, this concept of, have you asked
00:52:18
Speaker
the people in your life, what it is exactly this time of year that brings them joy and that they anticipate because there's no point in trying to burn yourself out. If no one particularly cares, right? And so all of that, it's still that internal work, it's the asking questions, it's about being honest and authentic and that's going to pave a
00:52:45
Speaker
away and a space, create a space for you to soften and the world needs a little bit more softness right now. So one of the, I guess, character traits, perhaps personality things that
00:53:01
Speaker
pops up all the time within the Catholic Church is this this concept of meekness or what you and I were talking about a soft strength. This is a time where we can practice this and and you just had me thinking too like we are we're coming through Christmas and we can have family meetings about this but this is also a great time to figure out what your word of the year is for 2024 and what you want to your resolutions to be right so keep all of that in mind as well as as you're listening to this episode but meekness
Virtue of Meekness and Cultural Reflections
00:53:30
Speaker
I think it's gotten a bad rap from the culture to be meek, right? It's often being confused as being weak. But Michelle, you just found a great definition of meekness as a virtue. Yeah. Yeah. That meekness, you're right, has this impression that we all have of it in culture, right? Of being a little bit weak, right? But there's just one line in this article on the virtue of meekness from the Catholic Education Resource Center.
00:54:00
Speaker
that talks about how the irony is that quote meekness indeed a virtue is the one virtue above all that allows us to remain ourselves in the midst of adversity end quote and I was like oh that is exactly what goes along with the soft living movement and what we're trying to say we're trying to do this work
00:54:23
Speaker
and we talked about how that could be challenging and so you're going to need to be strong and you're going to need to be honest and humble about what you find in that deep work but that it's going to be what keeps us grounded in truth and in the present moment to be able to withstand no matter what the externals are.
00:54:44
Speaker
So I love the idea that soft living can be this tie-in to the virtue of meekness where in our strength we seek to become soft in order to remain authentic and to find peace with who we are in the midst of whatever else is happening.
00:55:04
Speaker
And we are going to turn our minds back in our hearts back to Pope Francis again, because he had some really great things to say about meekness. He says, those who are meek are patient, gentle and merciful, drawing people together and salvaging relationships. Meekness entails tenaciously holding onto one's trust in and a relationship with God and protectively guarding his gifts of peace, mercy and fraternity.
00:55:33
Speaker
And this is actually so beautiful. Actually, I'm going to give a bit more time here to what Pope Francis says about the third beatitude, which is, blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the land. Pope Francis says, people who are meek are people who are merciful, fraternal, trusting, and hopeful. To talk about meekness, it is important to talk about the sin of wrath.
00:55:57
Speaker
A moment of anger can destroy so many things. You lose control and you don't evaluate what is really important. And you can ruin a relationship with someone, sometimes irreparably. Pope Francis continues,
00:56:13
Speaker
no longer speak with each other or are cold with each other because of anger which always divides, while meekness gathers together. Meekness conquers many things. Meekness is able to win over hearts, salvage friendships, and much more.
00:56:29
Speaker
It's natural to get angry, but then people should calm down, rethink it, and get back on track, and this is how you can rebuild with meekness. There is no earth more beautiful than the heart of another person. No land more wonderful to win over than that peace.
00:56:47
Speaker
So he's referring back there to the blessed are the meek because they will inherit the land. He's talking about the land being the hearts of other people, right? And winning that over. And so I don't know if meek life has the same potential to trend as soft life.
00:57:08
Speaker
So as we've been saying, the soft life, soft living is anything but lazy, right? Or weak, just like meekness, it's anything but weakness. And so we just see here how those two things can work so beautifully together.
00:57:22
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. And I love the point that he makes about meekness gathering together. Yes. People, right? And that's what we were talking about for the movement in general, how it brings peace in all those situations, but also this time of year, like moving into Advent and then the Christmas season where you gather together a lot.
00:57:45
Speaker
and how this softness, especially when thought of in the context of meekness, can really benefit and make our holiday season and this beautiful sacred time really and truly a wonderful time altogether. Yes, and how great would this be, right, for our families and friends if we all just softened a little bit?
00:58:08
Speaker
Now, what happens with age, I'm definitely softer in my body and in my mind, but I'm definitely a softer person now than I was in my 20s and 30s. But this world is hardening young people, and it's a sad thing.
00:58:24
Speaker
But I think a soft woman softens life around her, and a soft life is a wellspring of goodness, and it's a balm for everyone who encounters a soft woman. And I know I'm done being a hard woman, living a hard life.
Ending Reflections and Personal Favorites
00:58:39
Speaker
And again, this isn't based on the externals or finances or circumstances. It is working on our interior life to soften things from the inside out.
00:58:47
Speaker
So, it turns out everything we thought we knew about soft living is actually wrong. And honestly, thank God for that, because the true meaning of soft living, which originated in the desire of Black women to create a more peaceful life, is far more beneficial for all of us than just hashtag softlife and hashtag spa day and hashtag cozy vibes.
00:59:08
Speaker
There is nothing radical about going on a nice little weekend getaway, but it is totally a rebellious act to choose peace over chaos and to remove the hardness from your heart. There is nothing about the easy life and the soft life, and there is nothing weak in being soft. The world could use a heck of a lot more soft if you ask us.
00:59:31
Speaker
And so this is where you'll find us, polishing away the rough edges in our lives, being careful with your hearts and with our own, and choosing soft in a hard world.
00:59:52
Speaker
Okay, 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've had a movie in my must watch pile, which is just a digital pile on Amazon, right? For a long time now. And I mentioned it to my dad and he was all, oh my gosh, that's one of my favorite movies. And I was all, okay, time to watch it.
01:00:13
Speaker
And I wrote that in all caps in case my voice isn't registering the all caps. So time to watch it. And so I finally sat down and watched the 1990 classic, The Hunt for Red October, starring Alec Baldwin and fresh off my James Bond kick Sean Connery. Have you seen it, Michelle?
01:00:33
Speaker
Yes, I remember watching it a few years ago, but I don't remember too much about the details of the plot. Okay. Okay. Well, Jason also, he watched it when he was a teenager when it came out and he was like, oh, that movie was stupid. And then he started watching it. Do you know that reel of dads watching movies where they're standing across the room?
01:00:53
Speaker
Yes. And then they stand closer to the TV as they're like slowly eating popcorn and they don't want to commit to sitting down. That happened for like the first half hour of this movie. And then before I knew it, Jason was fully on the couch going, this is a great movie. I didn't understand all of this when I was a teenager. Okay.
01:01:09
Speaker
For people who aren't familiar with it, it's the first of the Jack Ryan movie adaptations. Jack Ryan is a fictional CIA analyst and it's written. The character comes from the Tom Clancy novels. So he's later played by Harrison Ford, who is my all time favorite. And then he's currently played by John Krasinski, right, in his new show on Amazon, which I have not watched and don't know anything about. So can't can't vouch.
01:01:33
Speaker
Anywho, it's a great Cold War movie that's set in 1984 with Connery being the captain of a new type of Russian submarine that can go totally silent and slide up unnoticed off the coast of the USA. Well, Jack Ryan has a crazy idea that Connery might actually be trying to defect to the USA versus trying to attack the US. And it's a good thing if the US can get a hold of that sub, right? If they can bring that sub with them so they can get that technology.
01:02:01
Speaker
So it's a classic game of cat and mouse and it's a thriller like only the 1990s can produce. We muted the language a few times. I think there was about less than 10 times of blasphemy. I wish it was zero, but it's far less than many other movies. And so I would say it's suitable for teens and would make for a great like adult movie night.
01:02:21
Speaker
Yeah, I do remember really liking just the whole storyline and the wartime era, the Cold War era movie plot line. And yeah, I mean, can you really beat Sean Connery in any movie? No, no. I don't think you can. So a win on all friends. Yes. And so, Michelle, what have you been loving this week?
01:02:45
Speaker
Okay, so November is typically mine and our family's busiest month of the whole year. And so with like, we have family birthdays on top of like the just the usual school extracurriculars and stuff. So needless to say, my leisurely consumption has taken a hit over the last few weeks.
01:03:07
Speaker
But I was thinking about, you know, is there anything that I do anticipate or I look forward to getting back to? And I did think of an Instagram account that if I log in and see that red ring around her avatar in the stories section, I get immediately excited because I just I love her content so much.
01:03:28
Speaker
And that account is Stems and Forks run by Betty Shin Binan. So she is a video content creator. She has history in floral arrangements. She's also a fantastic chef and she's an amazing videographer and producer of video content.
01:03:49
Speaker
And the first thing that I love about her account is the aesthetic of it. Like everything about her videos sensory wise is my ideal aesthetic. It's dark, moody, high contrast, vivid colour, a lot of drama, like so much dramatic flair. And if you've ever checked out or enjoyed the Friday Finishing School episodes and you hear the intro,
01:04:15
Speaker
that we put on the front of every one of those episodes. I think you'll know that I really resonate with Betty's use of epic music to really help set a scene. The more epic, the better. But beside the aesthetic of it all, which I could binge an entire YouTube channel if she was ever inclined to start one,
01:04:36
Speaker
I do love her messaging too and her storytelling is very good. Like there are videos where she speaks in monologue style about her own thoughts and reflections on life. There are videos where the storytelling is purely visual. Like one of my favorites is where she builds an entire elaborate gingerbread castle.
01:04:54
Speaker
And then smashes it all to pieces and just imagine it with like slow motion and intense Baroque music It's just it's so interesting And then there's just her willingness to show both sides of herself and her process these highly produced gorgeous final product videos and then she also sprinkles in like blooper reels and
01:05:20
Speaker
and spontaneous recipes that were made from failed attempts at the things she was trying to cook to show on her page. So it's honestly one of my dreams and goals to attend one of her photography and videography workshops.
01:05:38
Speaker
And because she's a fellow Canadian girl based pretty nearby us in Toronto, I have high hopes that one day maybe I can meet her in person and just tell her how much I appreciate her work. So check out Stems and Forks on Instagram and just enjoy the free fall into the creative world of Betty Shin Pinon.
01:06:01
Speaker
So I looked her up while you were talking, because I'm like, this sounds amazing, and found out I'm already following her. But because of the darn algorithm on Instagram, you don't see what you follow. You only see what you interact with. So if I haven't liked a post of hers from forever ago, I didn't even know she's in my feed. And so now I'm going to go through and like a bunch of posts so that she can be front and forward in my feed, because yeah, it is a beautiful account.
01:06:25
Speaker
So gorgeous. And then we'll take a road trip. Yay! To Toronto. So we're coming. We're coming for you, Daddy. We're coming. Not a scare. That's not a threat. No. In the best way. Yeah.
01:06:43
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.
01:07:02
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.