Back in April of 2020, we did an episode about our life bucket lists, so today we are giving you an update on them. This topic was requested from listener Kelsey Ebling.

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Show Notes:

Listen to Episode #30: Our Bucket List

Bucket list items from previous episode:

Elsie – buy a home in Palm Springs (not on list anymore)

Emma,- publish a work of fiction (Did it!)

Elsie – be a crazy dressed old lady (wants to be a spooky dressed old lady now)

Emma – live in a comfortable, peaceful, beautiful home that others enjoy spending time (achieved)

Elsie – travel to Japan and India as a family (still on list)

Emma – travel to Antarctica (still on list)

Elsie – design a hotel or motel (not on list anymore)

Emma – learn to speak Spanish, possibly through an immersion program (still on list)

Elsie – build a ceramics and painting studio for my golden years (still on list)

Any new bucket list items you want to add:

Elsie – Finish writing her book

Elsie – Invest in a business in Springfield

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Episode 233 Transcript:

Emma: You’re listening to the Beautiful Mess Podcast, your cozy comfort listen. Back in April of 2020, we did an episode about our life bucket list, and so today we are giving you an update on them. This topic was requested by listener Kelsey Ebling. 

Elsie: I didn’t even remember that we did this, and every single thing on the list was a surprise to me. So I think this is such a fun episode to sort of see which things you’ve achieved, which things you don’t even care about anymore. You know which things are still on the list? 

Emma: Yeah, it’s always good to do a little refresher, and I also was just thinking back to April 2020. And I’m like, man, life was so different. It was such a time then and we do a lot of like seasonal bucket lists on this podcast, so we talk about like what we’re excited for this spring and I feel like that’s always like really fun, but it’s such a different thing from this episode where we’re talking about bigger life goals, so things that we want to do in the next five years, ten years, whatever you know. So, anyway, let’s get into it. 

Elsie: Yeah, this is exciting. Yeah, this is exciting. So we’re responding to things that we said. If I were going to buy a second home in another, like a vacation home I would be between. I do love Palm Springs still, but I also have this crazy attachment to this certain neighborhood in Brooklyn and I want to own a home there really bad. And I also have developed a big affection for Seaside, Florida, and that is very special now too, and my kids are into it. But also I don’t even honestly know if I need a second home at all, so I think I’m taking it off my bucket list for now. 

Emma: Yeah, yeah, because in April 2020, was it even on your radar that you might move to Springfield. 

Elsie: Yeah, no.

Emma: So it’s just funny how life goes. In some ways, yeah, there is this part of me that’s like, do I need a second home, or could I just rent a home when I feel like going to this place, Palm Springs or Seaside or wherever it is? I don’t have as much of a thing for Brooklyn as you. I love New York, but it’s just not as much on my radar. 

Elsie: So yeah, no, I mean, I think that probably someday I’ll buy some kind of beach house or something, probably, but it’s just not on my goals right now. Yeah, you know what I mean? 

Emma: Yeah, I do love the sound of the ocean. Yeah, it’s just really soothing, it’s magical, something special about it and I also I will say I still love the desert. 

Elsie: Jeremy went to Palm Springs last week and I was so jealous that I didn’t get to go this time, and I think it’s a bro trip.

Emma: Yeah, I was like road trip no, no, no, no, no, that’s way too far. I still have a special place in my heart. 

Elsie: Okay, you’re next, your first one. 

Emma: My first one was to publish a work of fiction and I did it. I bet you at the time I thought it would be cloud nine, which was the first book I wrote and I was writing that in 2020. I might have been close to finishing it in April 2020. I can’t remember the book I wrote. Yeah, and I was writing that in 2020. I might have been close to finishing it in April 2020, I can’t remember, but I wrote it then. Uh, but yeah, I read. I wrote a different book after that, called Handmade Murder, and it is out in print, electronic and audio. She did it, so I self-published it and I’m really glad I did, because the day after I self-published I found out I was pregnant and now my life’s.  I’m not writing a lot of fiction at the moment, but I definitely want to get back to it and I would say this is still on my life bucket list to definitely write and publish more fiction. I just love books, I love reading, I love audiobooks. They’ve been a big part of my life since I was in middle school, and so the thought of getting to write more thrills me yeah. And it’s definitely a thing I think about and daydream about a lot. 

Elsie: Oh yeah, congratulations, and we are all cheering you on and so happy for you and so proud of you. 

Emma: Thanks. 

Elsie: Okay, my next one was to be a crazy dressed old lady also middle-aged, I think. I’m not as much on the crazy anymore. I think I want to be a spooky dresser now. I think that’s crazy. I have changed. It is crazy, it’s different, it’s what I do. I still would say I want to be eccentric, yeah, but I don’t necessarily feel like I want to be colorful and like maybe what you had in mind when you, yes, made. 

Emma: The skull has evolved different aesthetic yeah yeah you’re definitely more in your spooky, haunted dollhouse era yeah, okay, yeah. My next one was to live in a comfortable, peaceful, beautiful home that others will enjoy spending time in. Oh yeah, and I will say in apr of 2020, I lived in this house that was like in between Springfield and Ozark, which, if you don’t know, Ozark is a town. It is also like an area of the country, like the Ozarks is like a whole area, but there is a town called Ozark as well, and it’s right outside Springfield, and I lived in a house that was in between Springfield and Ozark. 

Elsie: It’s living on the highway. It was in between Springfield and Ozark. 

Emma: It’s living on the highway. Living on the highway, yep, and I hated living in that house. It was the house that had the snakes and I honestly didn’t hate it because of the snakes. That’s just a funny story. 

Elsie: It was kind of a dark house too. 

Emma: It was really dark. It was also just like the layout didn’t suit our needs. 

Elsie: It wasn’t small, there were so many spaces that just weren’t that useful to us. Yeah, and I didn’t really have any open floor plan office where you could like walk from her kitchen. It was too much of an open floor without walls. 

Emma: That’s too much. Yeah, and the neighborhood was not the best to walk in, like it didn’t have any sidewalks or anything. It was just like I just felt really lonely the whole time I lived there. 

Elsie: She knew she wanted to move and she was house shopping for like three or four years, right, like a long time, long time and so anyway. 

Emma: So I feel like I did achieve this because now the house I live in, I love it. If you’re a long time listener, then you know that we bought this home some years ago now two, two and a half years ago and we renovated for like nine months. So we really kind of gutted almost every space in the house. And it’s a split level which I never really split. Levels were never on my radar. I always kind of thought they felt kind of like a maze, but like in a bad way. 

Elsie: I think a lot of people want to avoid them because they have a lot of stairs. 

Emma: It does have a lot of stairs and, being as pregnant as I am right now, that is tough. When I’m going up and down with my laundry basket of clothes I’m like, oh my goodness, there’s a lot of stairs. But in general I actually love it. I think it works great for our family. Whenever we have snow days or times we’re home with our kid, like there’s just a lot of areas to play in, but it still doesn’t feel like the whole house is covered in toys all the time. Yeah, and there is an open area like our kitchen is kind of connected to this open living room and it’s a really nice feeling there. But then there’s a whole other living room that has, like, our tv and I have an office that has a door, that’s its own bedroom and our kids have their own bedrooms and it just feels like we have everything we need. Oh, you said our kids. 

Elsie: Yeah, that’s so cute. 

Emma: Yeah, it feels like we have everything we need and it has a nice little backyard. I love walking in the neighborhood. I kind of miss Elsie’s neighborhood, you have a free little library. We have a free little library. We have neighbor friends, these neighbor boys that Oscar loves to hang out with. 

Elsie: You can come to my neighborhood for Halloween and you come all the time anyways. Yeah, so it’s okay. 

Emma: It’s no big deal, but I do kind of miss your neighborhood. I always call ours the second best neighborhood in all of Springfield and I love it, it in all of Springfield. And I love it. It’s great. She lives in a mid-century neighborhood and it. 

Elsie: I think it’s the perfect fit for you and, like you, guys love it, and I think that your house is comfortable, peaceful, beautiful and others enjoy spending time in it. So you checked everything on your list. 

Emma: Yeah, we’ve had a few parties and I feel like it’s been a great space for that. Like, yeah, I feel like it’s kind of the perfect house. I think about it all the time, like when I’m in my house just like working or whatever. I’m like I love my house and I didn’t feel that way for so many years and it’s such a relief, it’s such a load off to feel like I’m not looking. I’m not like hoping to make a change and wondering when that will happen. It’s like nope, I’m just living in that dream that I wanted of just like a nice house that I love, that suits our family, everything’s great. So I love that, yep, and I’m just going to try to not fall down the stairs with my newborn. 

Elsie: So far, you got both of your list and both of mine. I was like never mind. 

Emma: It’s about to take a turn, so don’t worry. 

Elsie: Okay, my next one is to travel to Japan and India as a family. So I am still very into this and we have actually been working on it. We’ve been doing Ramit’s Rich Life Journal and I recommend that, if you want to just be like I want to prioritize my life, it’s now or never type of vibe. Anyway, we are planning to start next year to travel once a year on a big overseas trip with our children for the next 10 years. So we decided that the best fit for us. Like I admire, I had a friend who traveled the world with her kids for like a year. I admire that type of thing so much but we decided that the best thing for us was to do it a little bit every year. And that sounds better to me. It’s just what we, it’s just what fits for our personalities and our work and just like, like, I don’t want to travel for a year, like you know that type of thing. So yeah, we’re gonna do one country a year and try to cover you know all the. Definitely Japan and India will be in there. Those have been at the top of my list for forever, and probably many others as well. 

Emma: So I’m very excited. 

Elsie: Yeah, and our kids are definitely at the age now where they are old enough to anything that people say when they’re like I don’t want to travel with kids. My kids are like. They’re old enough to remember it. 

Emma: They’re old enough to be on a long flight without a stroller. 

Elsie: They’re old. Yeah, they’re very good, good little travelers. So I feel like this will only make it better. 

Emma: Yeah, no, I love it. I look forward to that era. I am in the baby on a plane era and I am not so interested in going on long flights. 

Elsie: Yeah, no, I was just thinking they should invent baby flights, they should Like baby. 

Emma: That would be a load off for parents, for sure. 

Elsie: And everyone’s just supporting you. Yeah, and everyone gets it and everyone’s just understanding putting on their headphones. Yeah, exactly, okay, say your next one. 

Emma: Okay, my next one is to travel to Antarctica. So this is still very much on my bucket list, but I don’t know tons and tons of research on it. But my understanding is how you can travel to Antarctica as a non-scientist is you have to head down south and get on a cruise ship that will go around Antarctica, and some of them you can do little excursions off the boat, and some you can’t. There’s a few different ones. There’s not a ton. It’s not like there’s tons and tons of options, but there are a few, and my understanding is that it’s kind of a two week thing, okay so, and it’s rather expensive, as you could probably guess. Yeah, so it’s something that I really want to do. It sounds so fun. I’m very drawn to cold places. I don’t really want to live somewhere freezing, but I’m just always very drawn to places that just seem kind of rugged. I have no interest in going to space. By the way, I feel like someone was posting about there’s going to be this space hotel at some point in our life or whatever, and I was like I have no interest in space. 

Elsie: I cannot say that enough. I like space books. 

Emma: Love space books, love space movies, do not want to actually go to space but like cold places on the earth I’m very interested in go to space but like cold places on the earth I’m very interested in. So Antarctica is still on my radar but at the moment the price of the trip and mainly the duration of the trip, two weeks away from my kids, just isn’t something that I’m interested in. But it is something I will be very interested in later in life. 

Elsie: Let’s revisit that one in a couple more years, because I want to go with you and our daughter, Nova, wants to come. So, yeah, if they allow I don’t know if they allow kids to come on those cruises, but I feel like that would be kind of fun. 

Emma: I don’t think it’s overly hazardous, like I think you can get older and you know, go. So I also have some friends, Nathan and Jenny, who really want to go. Oh cool, and I believe they will. They will. They are like world traveling people. But he just got a new job, they just moved. This year it’s really probably not the year for them. So I’m like, okay, great, probably maybe in like five or ten years we can all go together and Antarctica sounds like it will happen. 

Elsie: It’s oh yeah going to stay on the list. It is going to happen and I think that it’s totally normal that you don’t want to do it with a newborn. 

Emma: No, no, I don’t know if you can and the longest I’ve been away from Oscar is four nights. And that was kind of enough for me, like I think that’ll change over time, but I’m just not interested at the moment? Yeah, so you know, life. Life will keep going, though, and eventually. I’ll be like yeah, I’m good, I’ll be like, yeah, I’m good, I’ll see my kids in two weeks. No big deal, have fun at grandma’s. Yes. Yes, but at their age now not so much. Okay, what’s your next one? 

Elsie: Okay. My next one was I would love to design a hotel or a motel. Okay, this is another one where I’m going to say eh, it sounds appealing. It sounds like if someone offered it to me as a job, I would consider it. It’s not that I don’t want to do it, it’s just not something that’s on my list right now, and I think this was coming from my Airbnb era, which I’m not in anymore. We don’t have any Airbnbs anymore, and that, for me, was a phase. 

Emma: Yeah. 

Elsie: So yeah, I think that it sounds fun. But actually a lot of people ask me, probably more than any other thing, if I would do interior design, and I just don’t see myself in that professionally at all at any point. I actually don’t really want to do that. It doesn’t sound fun to me, so let’s just take it off the list. That sounds fun to me. 

Emma: Yeah, I think you love interior design, but I don’t see you loving working with clients. 

Elsie: I like designing my own houses. 

Emma: Yeah. 

Elsie: But I didn’t even have fun making a house for Casey Musgraves, Like I don’t really want Poor Casey. No, I had fun. I had fun, but I was like, oh, this is like pressure work. A little stressful. It’s not. It wasn’t as fun as making my own house. You know what? 

Emma: I mean, right, yeah, because it’s for someone else, and you’re like, are they going to love it? You know just. 

Elsie: Yeah. 

Emma: A little anxiety. 

Elsie: I’m just not the right person to do client work. That’s not the type of work that I’m drawn to in this lifetime. 

Emma: Yeah, no, I get that. Okay. My next one was to learn to speak Spanish, possibly through an immersion program, so this is still on my list. I don’t know about the immersion program because, again, tricky with young kids as far as like how that could work, but my husband’s actually been taking Spanish lessons almost every day during the week for the past like year and a half, maybe even almost two years now and I’ve met his Spanish teacher before. When we were traveling to Costa Rica, we actually met her in person, Obviously. I’ve met her on his video calls, but, like we got to meet her in person and she’s lovely, and so I have it in my mind that, like, after my maternity leave and once I return to life, you know, from that time maybe I will start taking Spanish lessons online like him, because he, like, basically speaks Spanish. Now, like I don’t know what, how you can say, like I don’t know, like if there’s a test you take, it’s like I am fluent. You know, like I don’t know what the level is, but like when we’ve traveled and been somewhere where they don’t speak English, they only speak Spanish. 

Elsie: He can communicate and like get us where we need to go. That’s really inspiring. 

Emma: But he’ll tell you like, oh, I still can’t talk about fun things or it’s harder for me to keep up with, like you know, just like a casual conversation, like a social interaction, yeah, and I think that’s. You know, that takes a lot of time, so anyway. So I think that’s really worked for him. But, like I said, he does it almost every day. It’s about an hour every day during the week, not the weekends always, and his teacher’s lovely. But I think there is this little part of me just being honest, it’s totally my ego. It just feels embarrassing to have to learn a new language in front of someone and like she’s lovely and she teaches people all the time. That’s what she does for a living. So like she’s never, she’s not going to be. She’s so encouraging and great, but I almost wish there was like an AI chat bot that could help teach you Spanish, because then I just feel like I could get over this little, really very stupid ego hump of just looking. So I know I’ll have to talk so slowly and I’ll make all these silly mistakes like a child, because I don’t know the language and you’re learning, you know. So I think there is a little piece of me that’s like oh, I don’t want to have to do that in front of another person. It’s so embarrassing, but I would love to learn Spanish. We’ve mentioned it before. Our mom’s from Venezuela originally. We have a lot of Spanish roots in our family and I just think it’s a beautiful language. It’s very like, almost kind of dancey. 

Elsie: Yeah, it’s really pretty language. 

Emma: And a lot of the world speaks it, and so it seems like useful and fun. So I would still. This is definitely still on my radar and my bucket list. I don’t know about immersion program, but seeing the success my husband’s had from doing his lessons online, I’m like, okay, that works. You just have to be pretty committed. So anyway, yeah, it’s fun to learn new things too. It’s just kind of embarrassing when you suck at something at first, but that’s part of it. 

Elsie: True, you can do it, for sure. 

Emma: Yeah. 

Elsie: My next one, or last one, was to build a ceramics and painting studio for my golden years. I feel like I’m already doing this now. People ask me all the time about the ceramics kiln because I had it like basically, it takes a lot of time and money to set up a kiln in your home and I did it in my last home, like the day before we figured out we would move. Now my kiln is safely in our garage just being stored and it cannot hook up to anything because we have to do some building projects before that can happen. But 100% it’ll be. I’m not really worried about it or anxious about it and I think some people think that I’ve given up on it just because it’s sitting in the garage. But that’s just kind of how renovating is Well and also you’re in your painting era. Yeah, and I’m in my painting era right now. So I got a painting studio last year and I just had my first show. It was. It’s been a great year. So I feel like I’m like my goal for the year with art was to begin creating an art career for myself that I can enjoy later on, like in 10 years. I see that as like the main thing I want to do and right now I’m very much squeezing it in and I’m fine with that. It feels like building something for the future and it is worth. It is exciting. I think I worried at first like would it be worth it to have a studio if I can only go there a few times a week? It’s still completely worth it to me and, yeah, I’m happy I’m doing it. So hell yes to that. Still into it, your first show is beautiful. 

Emma: Thank you, I don’t feel like you’ve bragged enough about how many of your pieces sold. 

Elsie: Thank you, we’re going to do an episode soon about my art journey and I got a lot of questions on Instagram so that’ll be one of our summer episodes. So, if you haven’t subscribed, we’re doing Surprise Summer, where we are going to have three pre-recorded episodes go up this summer, but at random times, very random. So be subscribed if you’re not. 

Emma: Yep, okay. So is there anything new that you want to add to the bucket list? 

Elsie: Yes, at this time in your life Of course Do you. 

Emma: Do you have new ones? Because, yeah, you kind of took a lot of things off, which, as a seven, I feel like makes a lot of sense for you. Yeah, like I don’t really even view that as like I don’t know. Hopefully you’re not viewing it as like oh no, I did, it’s like one who knows the future. 

Elsie: I don’t view it as a failure at all. I think it’s the manifestor. I think it’s the manifestor, yeah, yeah. Anyway, the main thing that I learned from that was it was like you learn every single thing in your life through making mistakes and I was like that is true and I like I feel like I can own that now. 

Emma: Yeah.So why not yeah? In a way, it really takes the pressure off. Yeah. Because it’s like I’m not failing, I’m learning. Yeah, you know, but anyway, what new things do you want to add to the bucket list? 

Elsie: Okay, so presently, this happened after 2020. I think this happened starting in 2022. But I am presently writing a novel. It’s a historical fiction novel and it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It’s really, really a big learning curve compared to anything else ever and it’s wonderful though it’s great to have such a big challenge. So I love it and I want to do a few, because I feel like if I have to go through this process of learning how to do it the first time, then I might as well do a bunch. Yeah, is what I’m thinking. So, yeah, I’m still in the early phases of writing it and I’m hoping to be done by the end of what year is it now? 2024? I’m hoping to be done with my draft this year. That’s my only goal for the year. Yeah. Other than that. My other bucket list thing I want to add is so since I moved back to my hometown, I’m kind of inspired by Emma on this one. So Emma is like a part owner of a rum bar downtown. It sort of became like, unofficially, like the cool gay bar of our town also, and it’s just like it’s. It’s very, it’s a very good cultural moment and needed thing in our town. And so a goal I wanted to add was that at some point I’m not worrying about this right now, but at some point I would like to contribute something to our hometown, just like something that the town needs. And it’s not that I want to start a business by myself or anything, but maybe just help someone else along or just something. But I feel like I love our hometown. I’m glad I’m here. I’m obviously like mainly here for our family. There’s lots of wonderful things, but there’s a lot more. There’s some missing categories is how I like to put it Like there could be more good businesses, like more, just like things to do and like dining experiences and things like that. So at some point I would like to contribute financially and do what Emma did and sort of just like help something start. 

Emma: Yeah, and I think it’s fun to partner with other people and like watch how other people run businesses and our other partners. Their names are Josh and Rogan and they’re just really cool and very different from the way I approach things. And Rogan’s just it’s really his bar. He’s an incredibly talented bartender we’re in love with him. I’m in love with him. So just watching his passion and how it’s just never really strayed from drinks and from food and hospitality and Josh as well it’s really. It’s really fun to like work with other people and watch them be passionate people. So it’s a treat, you know, because I really don’t even do that much with the Rum Bar, but it is an amazing bar and I’m really happy that it exists in Springfield. 

Elsie: Yeah, it’s been really important for our city to have something like that, so I think it’s special. Yeah, it’s very special. 

Emma: I love that. That’s a cool bucket list item. Investing in your community, basically, yeah, I love that. That’s awesome. I don’t really have anything to add to my bucket list at this time. We had some friends in town recently and we had this night where we did like this meditation. We’ve talked about it on the podcast before Future self-visualization. Yeah, where you basically visit yourself 20 years in the future and like see if you have any advice, see what you’re up to that kind of thing. And we did it once before, right after Oscar was born, and we were doing it this time with our friends, and I am really open to guided meditation. I love guided meditation. It reminds me a lot of hypnosis. It’s very similar, reminds me a lot of hypnosis, it’s very similar. And so like I’m a very woo-woo, open to woo-woo person, but for whatever reason, I just like could not do it again and I think what it is is I’m about to have another baby and I think I’m just in this little phase of life where I’m just not thinking about five years or 10 years from now. I’m really focused on the now, and probably other parents who have young kids go through this. I think parenting is generally like this. 

Elsie: I was definitely like that when Nova was two and three years old. When they’re really little. 

Emma: There’s just so much that you’re teaching them and they just they know nothing and they need you so much that it just is a big part of your life. And I think life opens up more and more as they age. And I love little kids. It’s great. But I also am not so interested in filling my plate with much more, because I just recognize that it could overwhelm me. I like a lot of peace, I like feeling like I have a lot of things under control and that’s honestly really hard when you have little kids at times. And I think, too, like I don’t like feeling disappointed when I’m not achieving my goals. So I’m like I think less goals right now is good for me, because I just have a lot of parenting goals and I’m still working. I’m still doing my job and I’m still writing and you know I still have a lot going on. But I also think not adding anything is like the right fit for me right now it’s called clearing your plate. 

Elsie: And I think that it’s like the thing you need to do sometimes in life, especially when you’re about to go into a big new season. 

Emma: Yeah, and it feels weird to me because I’m a very goal-oriented future thinker type person, so it makes me almost feel like not myself that I don’t have as many big goals right now in my life. But I also am kind of like I think you do, Emma, it’s just like raising little kids. And that’s a whole thing and like it’s cool that you got a lot of space for that, because it’s going to be a lot so and it’s fun so anyway, so I’ll add more once my kids are a little bigger. 

Elsie: Yeah. 

Emma: This is not my era for that. 

Elsie: Yeah, no, we’ll add more later. We can do another one someday, but I think that I’m good with this list for now. It’s exciting to think about the future. I love making bucket lists. 

Emma: Oh yeah, me too. Okay, well, now it’s time for a joke or a factor meditation with Nova, or a segment with Marigold. 

Elsie: Thank you so much for listening. If you have topic requests that you want us to cover on the podcast, you can email us anytime at podcast at a beautiful mess dot com. We’ll be back next week with a comfort rewatch of the sound of music.