Perfection is an illusion sold to us a thousand ways a day. Join best friends, Jessica and Michelle, as they discover the beauty in the messiness of real life and find joy in the every day by embracing simplicity, creativity and a little sparkle.
Everyone needs some tools for remaining the adult in tense parenting situations. Jessica and Michelle go back and forth about the different stages of childhood and how to handle big emotions from someone going through it, and someone looking in from the outside.
Join us for a fun episode discussing all the latest: Barbiecore, Unexpected Red, Dumb Homes Paper Planners, Girl Dinner, Maximalism and more! We discuss these trends and whether we think they’re a bop or a flop.
We all need more fun in our lives: fun creates bonds and lowers stress. It can be easy to put on the back burner, but the truth is that fun deserves to be prioritized in our lives. So we’re strategizing for incorporating more fun, and giving out some free (or nearly free) ways to have more fun with your spring break!
Have you ever heard of the Pennebaker Method? It’s a protocol of using expressive writing to move through traumatic or stressful situations in order to find more peace and hope in their aftermath. It’s completely free and available at anytime to anyone, which is one of the reasons we recommend it - no matter what you’re going through it could help! People who use the method widely report feeling much better in body and mind after the practice. Here we discuss it in detail and share our personal ...
When you are grieving the loss of a loved one, a dream, a job or a home, your brain enters an anticipatory state seeking resolution. This process requires neurological rewiring and is painful and chaotic. But, when we understand what grief is, we are also better able to move through it effectively, finding peace and hope. As humans we are united in our fragility, and all of us either have or will experience grief in our lives. Knowing a little bit about what grief is in our brains and bodies can...
Reframing is a powerful tool that allows us to expand our perspective and grow from our instinctual response to stimuli in order to create actions, thoughts and habits more in keeping with who we truly want to be. Our automatic response to a situation or season may not serve us or our futures very well, so we discuss 6 scenarios we are currently practicing reframing in our own lives. We talk about expansive gratitude, romanticizing our season of life, and being generous with our love. We also an...
It is increasingly easy in our culture to neglect our need and desire for rest - a break from all our striving to simply be in the moment, whether to enjoy what we are doing, process events and emotions or build relationships. But what the heck even is rest? Why is it so difficult for us to allow ourselves to rest? On this episode, Jessica and Michelle discuss all this, plus ways we can prioritize and sanctify rest, giving our minds and bodies the relief we need and crave. Plus, practical ways w...
Michelle is joined by her sister, Georgia, to talk about how they incorporate the 5 Ss of Emotional Well-Being into our lives every day: Sunshine, Sweat, Sleep, Social and Synergy. We got these 5 Ss from this episode with Joy Bouchard . And if you want to hear more from Georgia Filler, you can here . She recommended the Bryant Ferate Podcast which you can find here !...
Christmas Break can be a time of magic and memories, and also chaos, contention and disappointment. We asked our audience for questions on common Christmas Break issues and are answering questions about how to work through entitlement with kids, boredom when stuck inside for long periods of time, and why everyone feels the post-holiday blues (and some thoughts on how to change that). We're putting our theories about prioritizing peace into practice and sharing tips on what to do during that lull...
Entertaining can be such a focus of the holidays, but what if we shifted our focus to gathering. Gathering our loved ones together for the community we all crave. Our main goal is not to wow, but to give people a place to be loved. We’ve got simple ideas for inviting and delighting, plus no nonsense food ideas, too. This episode is partly inspired by an episode on Hospitality featuring Shauna Niequist. You can find it here!...
We're applying our home organization method to the holidays - helping ourselves reflect on holidays past in order to set our intentions for the ones ahead, identifying sticking points and things we really want to recreate. Then, we're installing the system, making sure we make the big things the big things, so we know what we can say yes (and no) to. And of course, we're talking about beautifying our homes without getting buried under the clutter or buying everything advertised to us. Follow us ...
Today we're getting our homes organized before the chaos of the holidays sets in! We're re-evaluating sticking points in our homes, decluttering, sharing our favorite everyday storage solutions and thoughts on how to maintain the systems we have in place. And if a system isn't working, that means it's broken, not you! Join us as we make our homes a sanctuary of calm and joy for the coming months of cold. A few items mentioned in this episode: Some no-nonsense hooks for just about anywhere (entry...
Fall is here and whether you love or hate it, the changing of seasons invites us to pause, reflect and allow for rebirth. In this episode we discuss fall activities and Halloween plans, rain-proofing our hair and whether or not Travis Kelce is as big of a deal as Taylor Swift.
It's been 100 episodes of Pretty Over Perfect and we're debriefing where we started, what we've learned and some of our favorite things we've picked up along the way! Thank you for being here with us - it means the world to share this journey with you! Just a few of our favorite episodes mentioned here: Home Design According to Your Energy Type Dressing Like the Protagonist of Your Own Life Our Favorite Parenting Books Emotional Wellness Habits with Joy Being Thrifty and Industrious Just Like Ou...
Fall is calling and with it, we're back in the kitchen (whether we want to be or not). This week we're talking all about meal planning for busy schedules, visualizing our needs and grocery lists for the week and assembling quick meals so our families can eat together and be satisfied. Jessica's favorites from this episode: White Chocolate Chip Cookie Butter Cookies Muddy Buddies Cafe Rio Sweet Pork Recipe Cafe Rio Creamy Tomatillo Ranch Sheet Pan Greek Nachos Great Value Smoothie Blends Michelle...
Jessica's back and we're talking all our favorites: summer memories, go-to meals, outfits and mantras. Plus, things what we're letting go of, what (and who) is inspiring us and how to make the mornings go smoother. We love the book The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days by Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie . These are Jessica's favorite running shorts. Unfortunately, the linen pants she's been enjoying are all sold out! Here's a podcast episode with Steve Martin that Michelle ...
Everyone is handling some kind of big project right now, whether personal or professional, concrete or intangible. Michelle is joined by her husband, Steve, as they debrief a big development project they just tackled and share their takeaways for organizing projects of any kind. Michelle mentioned this podcast about how our projects define us Adam Grant and Brian Little , Steve mentioned the book The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter. And if you’d like to take a look at the cabins they’re talking...
Michelle is joined by her husband, Steve, today and they talk about rituals they’ve formed over the years to protect and enjoy their relationship through all kinds of seasons.
We’re re-sharing this episode from last year all about how memories are made, how we can reframe experiences and why perfection is antithetical to happy memories! It’s always helpful to get reminders about what makes our lives truly good, especially when we have constant distractions trying to convince us we can buy or polish our ways into a good and meaningful life.
Life is throwing us a lot of... life lately! So we're re-running this episode from a couple of summers ago all about PLAY! Play brings joy to our days, but is also a great way to learn, bond, grow and pursue real life, which is often messy and amateur, but a whole lot of fun!
Michelle brings back Dennis McGreevy, a fan favorite and conflict resolution expert, to chat more about navigating the ups and downs of relationships: specifically communicating with each other, healthy conflict, and loving people when they aren’t easy to love. For the video mentioned, “It’s Not About the Nail,” click here .
A change of seasons often brings a change of pace, and when we approach those changes with some intention we are able to get more out of that time. Michelle dives into the idea of “Expansion and Contraction” as a way of setting rhythms in the summer, a season that can become listless if left to it’s own devices. For more on Expansion and Contraction, check out this episode of Simple Families....
It’s the Adventure Episode, just in time for summer! Michelle is joined this week by Jessica’s sister, Whitney, and they’re talking all about adventuring with kids: with everything from prepping and planning, to our mindset as we go, and how to encourage our kids and ourselves to expand horizons, grow through challenges and experience the wild wonder of the world around us.
We spend about half our lives in transitions of some kind - big transitions that shake up our lives and the little ones that come up all the time. Some transitions are joyous and others painful, but they all require us to become someone new as we embrace the change upon us. Let’s look our wolves in the eyes with creativity and courage, and practice growing in transitions.
We can choose creativity as an avenue of joy and agency in the big and little moments of life - and it is not limited to arts and crafts. Join us as we discuss multiples forms of creativity available for anyone!
We are all creative beings in some way - the whole earth has been stamped with the human desire to create. And yet, we can find ourselves having all the creativity sucked out of us these days by the need for everything to be purposeful and productive, or the pressure to perform for an unknown audience. Or maybe it’s simply a matter of feeling like we don’t have time to create anymore. Whatever it is, we’re discussing how we’re fighting back to recapture the joy of creativity in our own lives. Th...
Being a happy family is not just about smooth systems and joyful moments, but also about sticking together through the chaos of life, learning to repair and having resilience. We’re diving into family mission statements (and how they can help us simplify our goals) and how telling stories helps us pass on values and hope through the oscillating nature of life.
What are the secrets of happy families? We're diving into a few things that really seem to make families happier: holding weekly family meetings where everyone evaluates how the community is working and what can be improved, and creating systems the entire family can maintain and benefit from. These are crucial steps in creating environments with less friction and more joy, and our conversation about them is inspired by The Secrets of Happy Families by Bruce Feiler . We highly recommend it! We r...
"If you're in a conflict-free relationship, you're not in a real relationship." We all know that conflict of various kinds is a part of healthy relationships, and some relationships, especially partnerships, may have a lot of conflict as they figure out how to work as a team. Dennis McGreevy teaches leadership and development in the corporate world, and he is with us today to teach us about how we can offer constructive feedback and engage in conflict in a healthy way that allows both parties to...
