Taking A Pause and Digging Deep

Our lives have seasons, and it's time for a hiatus from the podcast and a focus on family as we welcome many new shifts this summer. 

Join us for our last podcast for a while where we leave you with some questions to ponder and to determine what season you are in, and what might be time to pull back from as you give more elsewhere. 

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Well, it's time for a little bit of a hiatus.
This is our last podcast for a while, and we wanna share a little
bit about where we are and leave you with some
insights for maybe where you are. Let's jump
in. Mama says
namaste. Mama says namaste.

(00:25):
Making a family can be easy and fun. Oh, yeah. But
raising a family can be a whole different story. From spouses
to kids to the crazy daily grind, life often directs us away
from connection and more into reactive chaos. If you're tired
of that cycle and are seeking something beyond the picket fence blues, this is the
show for you. I'm Ashley. And I'm Nathan. And we're here to take

(00:47):
you from chaos to clarity by bringing awareness and intention into your
home, not waiting for one day, and highlighting how
The uniqueness in each of us strengthens all of us.

(01:13):
This has been one heck of a month, or maybe I should just say this
has been one heck of a week. Or maybe you should say a year.
Yeah. Things have been flowing and going. This has
been a a year of all years for
sure for our family. And we've talked a lot about
how our lives have seasons, and I really believe that that's how we

(01:36):
should look at our lives is is as a season. Sometimes our seasons are
fleeting, and it's something that's super short, muscling through,
you know, a certification course and having to work really hard like what
Nathan's had to do recently. And it's a short season
of I'm gonna be staring at a computer incessantly and
not eating well or exercising like you necessarily

(01:58):
do. Sometimes we have our short spurts of just crazy chaos.
We had a season of of dealing with the a very short
season of dealing with my father being ill before he passed away.
Sometimes there's they're they're fast, and they're
chaotic, and they're crazy. And sometimes, they're a long
stretch. And we go through seasons of

(02:22):
having children in our home for a long stretch, and then one day them
being gone and being a whole new season. Wait. What are you
saying? Not for us yet, thankfully.
And, you know, those seasons you have to you know, to me,
that is where the, choose to live as a river
flows carried by the surprise of its own unfolding. Because sometimes when we try

(02:44):
to define what those seasons are, it can
I don't know? Right. I mean Make it a little more
I guess I've enjoyed being excited by,
surprises. Yeah. So I guess we're we're kinda going with that. Like, we
have chosen seasons in our lives with with major intention, like, us
choosing to spend a month in Costa

(03:07):
Rica back in 2015 and the life changing experience that
was for our family, recognizing how much we loved traveling and adventuring
together or the season of RVing
that we did from October 2016,
I mean, full time until 2020. And then,

(03:27):
really we Really until about 20 Until this year. 23. We decided
to stop. So we were still we we kept thinking we would stop for and
we'd stop for, like, 5 or 6 months and then we'd go back out and
volunteer again. Right. So we were very involved with volunteering. So, yeah, we didn't
officially say, okay. We're we're kind of officially off until this
traveled during COVID, and then we started volunteering after that

(03:49):
as our travel. Right. So we changed in so from 20 to 20 to
2023, we were doing more volunteering. So we were still RV ing,
but staying put versus traveling more. What's the exception
of last year? Yeah. And then last year, we hit the road and we traveled
again. And we've so we've had all these, like, these these seasons of intentionality.
But also amidst it, we've been thrown into a different

(04:11):
season that was not man, I say
it it was not in our desire yet.
Again, when we live as the river flows, we found
beauty in the current. And so
this Beauty in the present. Yeah. Right. And so the the Yeah. I mean, I'm

(04:31):
finding beauty in the current that goes along the way. I mean, life is flowing
and and not everything has gone as we have hoped. I didn't
ask for my dad to get diagnosed with
cancer. I sure as heck did not ask for him to be gone in 6
in 6 weeks. I didn't
plan at the beginning of this year to

(04:53):
be looking at pulling back
from 48 days or from mama says namaste and
everything else. Yet when, you know, when when the
figurehead of 48 days when my father passes, it shifted
the focus of 48 days. And it shifted my
focus and where I really wanted to zone

(05:16):
into. And I was just reading, I was reading an
article that is by one of my friends, Holly
Sherr, and I'll link to it in the in the blog that goes along with
this. But I was reading in it, and she was talking
about how her life and how she's created a an incredible life
of ease for herself and her husband, Jer, up in Minnesota. And they do

(05:38):
hikes and travel all over and do tons of adventuring, and she gets paid to
take pictures and write about her travels now. And so
she, she was
writing about the 3 people that really changed her
life, and one of them was my dad.
And what she talked about with dad and what the biggest focus

(05:59):
was was that success was
not just seen in the bank account and the job status,
but that success was in pursuing so many different areas of our
lives. And I think that's where I'm really feeling like
that's my season. Right now, I have had
a lot of years of being focused

(06:22):
on work and, and still I mean,
in family as well, for sure. But having 48
days in mama says namaste as a part of that of
my constant week of of every week hopping in and
and writing blog posts and being online and
having the online world access. And I've done that for a

(06:44):
really long time. And we're in a season right now
where we're looking at creating something
new, with my mom as we look at
new, plans together and what we may cultivate
and create as we, look at a season
where we're gonna be living a lot closer together. And

(07:07):
in that time, I'm excited about the things that
I can create in the in the physical world right here, not online,
but plants. It's funny. Plants being the thing
because I keep seeing like, I saw a meme that, like, our our generation's
midlife crisis, like, it used to be. Yeah. I get it for a minute. Fancy
cars or cheating on your spouse, and now it's plants. It's like

(07:29):
obsessively getting plants. And I see so many 40 somethings that that's what they're
doing right now. That's interesting. You
did that this year? Yeah. I did. We came back to the house and we
inundated our house with plants that we hadn't been able to have on the road.
So, yeah. It's so we're looking at a new season, and I'm
looking at literally growing and cultivating with plants and animals

(07:51):
and everything else in in an area here in in
Sarasota and enjoying what we've got
here. So that was a really long ramble to just talk about the
fact that we have these different seasons in our lives and we're facing a new
season. And so, as we were going into this and I started to
have a little bit of hesitation about, what do we want to talk about this

(08:13):
week? Just got Nathan and me talking about maybe this is a time for a
little bit of a break. Yeah. I mean,
we have really gone, for a number of years pretty
solid and consistently and, you know, haven't really given ourselves
much of an opportunity just to breathe and take a break from, you know, the
the constant, I guess, interaction, which I've enjoyed.

(08:35):
But I guess we feel like in some ways we're, you know, I feel like
we're we're revisiting a lot of the same topics over and over again. So we
just thought we'd take a little minute and, and take a break for a little
while, see what comes in over those couple months and what comes into our hearts
and then go from there. We're at episode I mean, this is episode
340 4. We talked about making it, you know,

(08:57):
rounding it out to a solid 365 and having
365 episodes for a full robust intentional
family year. And, and so we're we're stewing on
ideas. We may come back and do a series and do something that's
more focused with, with this focus series, and we'd love to hear your
input on what things you wanna hear. I'm thrilled that at this

(09:18):
point, I have 344 episodes
curated of both blogs and
podcasts that we can share with people when they're struggling with
things. And when they say to me, hey, I don't know how to, you know,
help my teenager learn how to adult. And, hey, I'm struggling
with my child that doesn't know how to read. And, hey, I'm I'm struggling because

(09:39):
our marriage has taken a back seat. Or this child is bouncing
off the walls. And we have resources. We have free
content that we can share with you. So we want to
continue to have that available to you during this time, and
I still will send out emails periodically just letting
people know updates or maybe sharing a refresher

(10:02):
on one of the podcasts that are out there. But we're gonna take a break,
and we're gonna focus in on some big changes in our in our family. We're
super excited. We have 2 no.
3 new additions in our family right now.
And we are so excited about it. Yes.
First off, we are official foster failures. We have shared before

(10:25):
that we foster cats, and we have been fostering
kittens, for 2 years now. We've done it. So
let's see. 18, 1920, 22, 3, 4, 5, 6.
We've had, like, 28 cats, 28 kittens that have come
through. And one of those say no 28 times. And
one of those times, he just didn't say no.

(10:48):
He tried. He protested. But having a 17 year old daughter
who's extremely responsible and has every intention of adopting said cat and
taking it Makes it a little bit harder for us to have an argument for
it. And, oh, so, our sweet
oh so Pogo, Grayson J Logston,
is a little black cat that will peer deep into your soul with his

(11:11):
sweet eyes and run up to you with a little bear hug
and lovingly cuddle. And he's such a great addition
to find another cat. Because you don't wanna give this one
up. I just walked in before we started recording this
episode to see him holding OhSo in a little baby
cradle hold and just they're looking in each other's eyes while he's while

(11:33):
OhSo is dozing off. So yes. So we have a new little black
kitten into our house, which makes a total of 3 cats in our home
while we have 4 feral foster kittens outside that we're
working that again? Feral foster kittens. Yes.
That we are working to rehabilitate to be a little bit more friendly for
adoption, so that those can be adopted out. And

(11:55):
my mother just got a cat and I have to say her name of
Kitty Scarlet is pretty cute. That's cute. And so
Scarlet is getting adjusted to my mother's house. And
on that same day, we also welcomed in a
new baby, a human baby. My our
niece and nephew, had their little

(12:17):
their first baby boy, and, he is right here
in the area as well. And we are so excited to get to see him
soon. He was born on, on
4th. So, my birthday is June second, Nathan's is June
3rd, and baby Ezra's is June 4th. So we got a lot of
birthday celebrations. Very exciting for them. Yeah. That makes a

(12:39):
total of, 6 birthdays and 1 anniversary
in June for our families. Alright. Just to make things easy. Yeah. I wanted it
all in June. Yeah. There we go. Alright. So we wanna
leave you with some wonderful questions to ponder
this, this summer as you maybe take a hiatus
from things that maybe have been consistent in your life and and

(13:01):
aren't necessarily a bad thing, but maybe a time where that season has
come to a close for a time and to take a break to focus
in on other things and focus in on some of the other areas of your
life. We're excited to focus in on family.
Like I said at the beginning where Holly was talking about how my father
impacted her, it was really on that aspect of

(13:23):
seeing beyond just that paycheck and that job title,
but what does the rest of your life look like? So
taken from Holly's blog post, here are some questions to ponder. What do
you value? What are the most important aspects of your
life? And this is a question that is
important to ask yourself, not what you think others want you to

(13:45):
value. And it's a big difference there.
Something that I learned very you know. You're you're right. And it's
important to ask yourself that and then to weigh in with those that are the
most important in your life that are you would you are most
impacted by because that that makes a difference. If we're all
standing on our own value mountains, but not sharing it.

(14:07):
Truth. That can cause a lot of friction at home as well.
The next one is, how do you want to live your days? What does the
perfect day, week, or month look like to you? And I would add to
that, how does it feel? What does it really look and feel like?
What are you doing? How are you being?
It's easy to get lost in the chaos of life and just assume that that's

(14:29):
the normal. Now how well does the life
you're living today align with the answers you just gave?
What would you be willing to sacrifice to create better alignment?
And what one small change will you commit to
today, that your future self will thank you
for? I'm committing

(14:53):
to doing my stretching daily instead of randomly
every once in a while. My foot has recovered. I have been
slowed down for having some foot issues where I haven't been able to walk as
much. I'm ready to get active, and I'm ready to
commit today to starting with the stretching that goes
so far beyond just the physical and what it can

(15:14):
do for me mentally and emotionally as I take a moment
to just stretch more in the morning. Amen.
What am I gonna do? Mhmm.
I'm gonna encourage you to continue to stretch along with me every day
because it feels so good.

(15:35):
Alright. So go forth this summer. Have fun. Play
with your family. Be loved. Look at
how you can be that change you want to see in the world.
And remember The uniqueness in each of us strengthens
all of us. Namaste. 2, 3.