Episode #203: Our Autumn Bucket Lists

Fall is in the air, so today we are going over our autumn bucket lists. We have everything from rooms we want to decorate, food we want to make, and things we want to do with our kids.

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Show Notes:

Download your autumn bucket list here and learn more about using it here.

Elsie’s autumn bucket list:

Decorate a little bit every day for Halloween

Have a Halloween party

Host Thanksgiving (Check out Elsie’s Oatmeal Cookie Shots)

Watch Halloween movies (top adult horror movies and top kid spooky movies: The Addams Family, Hocus Pocus, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Spookley The Square Pumpkin for toddlers).

Keep up with her spooky free little library

Have a pie day (Check out Laura’s Apple Tart, Pumpkin Pie with Cheesecake Swirl, and our other pie recipes)

Get a Halloween manicure

Make the giant spider house decoration

Create a pumpkin fence

Emma’s autumn bucket list:

Host a clothing exchange (already done)

Have a kids baking party (already done)

Costa Rica trip

Publish Handmade Murder

Paint the library and sunroom (and maybe add some flying books)

Halloween costumes

Be a wedding photographer for a day

Host a soup & movie night

Do her own Halloween manicure

Potty train (Follow @biglittlefeelings on Instagram to check out their potty training course)

Put more dinners in her dinner rotation (Check out Emma’s Stuffed Peppers recipe)

Miss an Episode? Get Caught Up!

• Episode 202: Hocus Pocus – Comfort Rewatch
• Episode #201: Hosting a Party (Deep Dive)
• Episode #200: Let’s Celebrate 200 Episodes!

Episode 203 Transcript:

Emma: You’re listening to the Beautiful Mess Podcast, your cozy comfort listen. Fall is in the air, so today we are going over our autumn bucket list. Woo hoo! I always love doing the bucket lists, so I hope listeners do, too, because I love them. 

Elsie: I’ve never heard anyone say they didn’t like it. I think everyone loves it. I’m pretty sure. I’m pretty sure it is gonna be a winner and I think it’s just like such a fun thing because it makes me sit down and plan, you know, and think about the season and I hope that it makes our listeners do the same thing. Yeah. So we will put in the show notes a link to the printables that we always have. You don’t need it. You can just make a list on any piece of paper, but I know sometimes it’s fun to have a cute printable and you can put it on your fridge.

Emma: Yeah, I keep mine on my bulletin board and it just says the colors of fall and it’s fun. But you can also just make it on a piece of paper, it doesn’t matter.

Elsie: Yes! Okay, so before we jump in, I wanted to share something cute that happened that is bringing me joy recently when we moved here this summer, one of my main goals was to spend more time with family it’s kind of the whole reason why we moved here and my mom had like told me I’ll come over to your house and we’ll paint together and I thought it’s really cute but I wasn’t like sure if she would really do it or like how often, but she seemed pretty serious. So the other day it finally happened. She just randomly texted me and she was like, can I come over tomorrow and paint with you the whole day? And I was like, yeah, we can do it on Friday. And she came over and we painted together almost the whole day. And we talked about our goals, and we talked about, like, she was trying to discover a new painting style, and I’ve been doing the same thing, and it was just, like, such a nice, wonderful day. It was one of those moments, like, full circle, that made moving here make sense, and that and, like, being with our grandma all the freaking time. And we started doing like a little Sunday morning with Oscar like a little cousin hang. 

Emma: Essentially, I’m bored, and I’m like, can we come over? And he loves it. He calls it Goldie’s house. I don’t know why, because he loves Nova, and he plays with Nova more. But yeah, this is Goldie’s house. So, can I go to Goldie’s house? And I’m like, if it’s Sunday, yeah, we’re going. Anyway, it’s cute. 

Elsie: It makes me feel like the point of why we moved here is, like, all happening, it all feels worth it, and the payoff is, like, over and over and over again, so it’s sort of just, like, a consistent reminder of, like, why we’re here. And, you know, it worked. It’s good. We’re spending more time with our family. And it’s beautiful.

Emma: I love hanging out with Mom, too, because, I mean, she’s just like the most joyful person. But also, she’s a real storyteller. So, it’s like, I get more stories about, like, our Grandma Karina or, like, you know, just random stories from like her childhood growing up on the farm or like stories from our childhood that like I was too young to really remember. Yeah. And maybe we don’t have a photo of it, so I haven’t heard the story yet, but there’s like tons, you know, and then it makes me think about like one day Oscar won’t remember like all of this, but I have like all these random little stories of like we used to do this all the time, you know what I mean? I don’t know, so it’s fun to, like, kind of get those out of Mom when you’re hanging out, and she’s, like, a great storyteller. She loves telling stories. So, anyway, it’s fun. It’s very fun. 

Elsie: It’s magical, yeah. Ah, it’s like the best of the best. Okay, so we are going to go back and forth. We each have 10 things that we want to do for our autumn bucket list, and I think I’ll probably really do all 10 of these. Mine are not very aspirate. Oh, it looks like I forgot one.

Emma: I think I have more than 10, but I’m like going to combine some. Anyway, we’re just going to go back and forth and whatever, you know, you get it. 

Elsie: The number is not important. 

Emma: It really isn’t because you can put whatever you want on the list. Okay, so one thing that I’ve already done, is because I have a few things highlighted already, because my method is, instead of checking the box, I like to highlight it. I just visually, it’s like bigger, and I just prefer that. Anyway, so a couple of things I’ve already done, because I was trying to do some things before our trip, which I mentioned in our last episode. I already hosted a clothing exchange with a bunch of my friends from my book club and then I called it my kid’s baking party. But it was like my nieces and one other little gal. And I talked about both these things a little bit in our episode about hosting, like hosting parties. They were both just really fun and it was a great time. It was really fun to hang out with the kids and, like, do some baking and, like, I think I really impressed the girls with my unicorn ice cream, too, which was just a bonus. And then the clothing exchange, it was the first time I’d hosted it at my house with Oscar there. Like, he’s asleep upstairs. So I ended up setting up a space in our basement, which is the least decorated area of our whole home. But I, like, put all these blankets on the floor and I put a coffee table down there that had the cheese plate and, like, a little dessert board and I put all these pillows on the floor. So it was, like a sit-on-the-floor hangout zone, which I’ve never done before. I had this really, maybe too-strong pumpkin candle burning. But it was good vibes, and 

Elsie: I kind of think that all pumpkin candles are too strong once they start going, but I like it. 

Emma: I had it upstairs before, and I feel like it was just getting more spread out. And then when I put it in the basement, our basement isn’t necessarily small, but it’s also not, like, huge. So I feel like all of a sudden I was like, oh, it’s yeah, this is very strong. Like, it still smells like pumpkin down there. And now it was like two weeks ago. That’s funny. So maybe it was too much. Whoops. But anyway, that was really fun. And those were things I really wanted to do this season because they just feel like. It’s not that they’re even necessarily fall-related per se, but I can be such an introvert, so I like to put things on my bucket list that are like, remember to host your friends, you like that, you just will forget and stay home and watch movies and be an introvert if you don’t ever make goals. So, anyway.

Elsie: Oh, yeah, I love that. The cookie party was such a big success. My kids loved it so much, and Emma got them each a cookbook. It was just adorable. Okay, so my first one is, so we’re living in a new home this year, which we kind of have been every year. 

Emma: Story of her life. 

Elsie: But this is the last time that we’re living in a new home.

Emma: Maybe when you die we should put you in a different grave every two to three years, like move you. So, you’re always moving. This is a Halloween time. I’m just like, on the Halloween train. Okay, forget it.

Elsie: Yeah. No, I’m just gonna pretend you didn’t say that. Okay. So, one of, my first goals is, this year since it’s our first year in our new home, the last home it was really hard for me to decorate for Halloween, for some reason. It was so big, and the more I renovated, the easier it got. But it was like, the first year in it, I did not do a good job. I did a good job on the front porch and that was it. So anyway, this home, it’s like really, really, really easy to decorate. And I’m going like, crazy. I’m loving it. I’m having so much fun. And so, my strategy has been that I decorate. I do one thing a day, and I’ve been decorating now for, like, a week, and I’ll probably do, like, another week or two of just each day I’ll spend like 30 minutes or something like that because I don’t really have time other than that and it’s like also kind of fun this way. I think it’s like enjoyable to like do a little area and then you feel good, and for me, it’s like I feel really productive when I do things like that and it gives me a good mood. So yesterday I did the Harry Potter candles. Today, I was telling Emma tonight, I’m planning to do our Halloween Christmas tree.

Emma: Black Christmas tree. 

Elsie: A black Christmas tree. I mean, it’s like a black Halloween tree, but. I can’t call it a Christmas tree because it is a Christmas tree. Anyway, I’m just decorating for Halloween way more than usual. That’s my first one. 

Emma: I love it. So another one is my Costa Rica trip, which I talked a little bit about in our last episode, and by the time you’re hearing this episode, I will be there. It will be kind of the tail end like I’ll be wrapping up, but we won’t be home yet because obviously, we had to record this before I leave. Yeah, so that’s on the list. That’s been on my list for a while. We kind of thought it would happen in the summer, so it got moved to the autumn bucket list. But it’s happening and it’s exciting and it’s not really autumn, it’ll actually be like the end of their rainy season there, which is the end of their winter quote unquote, it’s not really winter, but it’s rainy season. So it’ll be like just starting their summer season, essentially. So it’s kind of the opposite of this. Anyway, but I’m excited for a change of pace and a little adventure with my family and to show a giant sandbox to my son, aka the beach.

Elsie: Oh, that’s perfect. Okay, my goal for October is to have a Halloween party and I decided that I’m going to have like my Halloween Housewarming party. Yeah, so it’s just like a housewarming party, but also you get to see my Halloween decorations Because we’ve been renovating since the day we moved here. We’ve actually been renovating since like Last February. And it has been a long and tiring road, and now we’re like to our last few steps. And I’m telling my wallpaper people, that it absolutely must be done before my Halloween party, and that’s sort of like my end game. I’m trying so hard. I still have like a month, and I wanted to have a housewarming party cause I never had one before and I always regretted it. I think it’s hard when you first move into a house to feel ready to have a party right away, but I think it’s a good thing. to do what I want to do, so I’m going to try this time.

Emma: I love it because, one your house, like, is really put together. I know you have more goals for it in the future and all that, and that’s great, but it does feel very put together. But I actually like seeing people’s houses earlier in their process, and then you get to see what their house looks like years later, if you stay friends with them, I guess. So, I like to see it earlier on. I think it’s fun. It never makes me feel like, oh, your house isn’t done. You shouldn’t have let anyone come in. Like, I never feel that way. 

Elsie: No one ever thinks that about someone else’s house. It’s just something we all think about our own houses especially if you’re a person who likes to renovate. It’s so hard to not be like, when I do this when I do this, when I do this, but I definitely agree with the idea that you shouldn’t put off hosting or having people over or kind of anything fun until your renovation’s over because it might never be over. That’s what I learned from my last home because we moved and it was never over. You know, we were always renovating the whole time we lived there.

Emma: Well, I’m excited to attend. 

Elsie: Thank you.

Emma: Very excited to attend. Okay, the next thing on my bucket list is to publish Handmade Murder. Woohoo! My novel. My murder novel. 

Elsie: Everyone is cheering. Everyone is so excited. 

Emma: So I’ve got it proofread, and I’ve had a lot of editorial notes from first readers, as well as my proofreader. And right now it’s being laid out, and the cover is being finalized. I did do the thing where I let people vote on Instagram, and we went with the one that got the most votes. So that’s going to be the cover. 

Elsie: Cool! Which one was it?

Emma: It was the maroon collage one. 

Elsie: Ooh, I love that one. 

Emma: If you saw it, you probably know what I’m talking about. If you don’t, you will see it. 

Elsie: Was that my favorite one? I think it was. 

Emma: It was your favorite one. 

Elsie: Nice. 

Emma: Yeah, it was my favorite one, too. So it really worked out. I don’t know if I swayed people somehow. I don’t think I did. Maybe I did. I don’t know. 

Elsie: I think it was clearly the best one. 

Emma: I think it was the best one. I mean, it was my favorite. Anyway, it’s very in progress and it feels like it is gonna come out in October, like be available on Amazon. Oh, I don’t know exactly when. So, when I do know, I will let people know as much as I can. I also am planning to, as part of my marketing for this, is I would like to read the first chapter in a podcast episode so that you’ll get a little taste. And I think the first chapter is a great taste of the book. So anyway, when it’s available, I will have an episode where we do that. It might even be after Halloween, though, because we’ve got to get our ghost stories in. But it’s also kind of a spooky book, there’s murder. So it’s got those vibes in it. So maybe it’ll be before Halloween. Who knows? I will say I am planning to do an audio version that will not come out at the same time because I’m self-publishing for the first time and I’m learning a lot of new things. So it will not come out at the same time, but I am hopeful that it may come out before Christmas, so we’ll see. 

Elsie: Amazing. Well, I’m going to buy so many copies and I know everyone has seen my whole free little library is going to have them like every day. We’re going to celebrate. It’s going to be great.

Emma: My plan for like, just kind of for fun. I guess it’s a little bit of marketing because I’ll show it on Instagram. But mostly it’s for fun. I want to take the collage pieces from the cover of the book. And kind of like use them to make a collage onto the outside of champagne bottles, like mini ones and a big one. And I’m going to open the champagne on my publication day for myself. And then the little bottles I was going to give to some of my first readers and my proofreader and my designers who laid out the book. And you know, so you’ll get one. So that’s my goal. Hopefully, I’ll have enough time. I think I will. But that’s just like in my mind something random I wanted to do to celebrate. Make a weird craft. 

Elsie: I love a weird craft. Yeah. And you know, I won’t say it because it’s in the plot, but you know what I think you should put, and you know what I think you should give people as gifts?

Emma: I know. 

Elsie: Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. After you read Emma’s book, there’s one household item that you will never think of the same ever, ever ever. 

Emma: You may not want to use it again. 

Elsie: Yeah. I won’t. I won’t. I can’t wait till we can talk about this openly when people have had a chance to read it. It’s going to be so fun. Yay! Yeah, we’ll have to do a celebration episode, and I know everyone’s cheering you on. It’s so exciting. 

Emma: Yeah, I’m excited. I’m also nervous, but I’m just happy to be moving forward on a goal of mine. And whatever the results are, I can’t control that, but it is on my list to publish it. So I can control that. So I will move forward. 

Elsie: Yeah, that’s the move. I like it. My next one is, I’m going to host Thanksgiving this year. And yeah, I am so excited. Actually, we haven’t even told our mom yet. 

Emma: I was like, did you tell mom? I guess she’ll hear this.

Elsie: I guess she’ll hear this. But yeah, Emma, for some reason, didn’t want to host Thanksgiving, and she was like, would you want to? And I was like, I really want to, very badly, and it’s like really important, and I was going to ask, I was going to beg. So, I’m so excited. I am going to really decorate for it. I think it’s like making a kid’s table, all the things. It’s gonna be amazing. So yeah, I want to make Thanksgiving a very magical, like, you know, just like put a lot into it. I think it’s fun to like go all out for things like that. When we lived in Tennessee, we did Trader Joe’s Thanksgiving. So pretty much we bought every single, you know, they have sides. They have a ton of sides that are kind of like almost already made. And then they had this like turkey thing that was kind of like pastry thing, and that’s what we did. And it was fun, but you know, it was always a little bit sad. So, this will be really, really good. And I’m excited. Oh yeah, and the last thing I wanted to say is, I will link this in the show notes, but I just wrote a recipe for oatmeal cookie shots, and it is the Thanksgiving shot, to just make everyone just one for like, either your dessert or for like the beginning of the meal as like a cheer. I think it’s so fun, and it’s a really delicious shot. Like, there’s kind of like No one who wouldn’t like it. 

Emma: Maybe we could make oatmeal cookies and the kids could have a cookie to cheer with us. 

Elsie: Yeah. I should make them little cups of chocolate milk. 

Emma: Yeah, I was like, could just be milk with a little bit of cinnamon in it or something. It’s like, here you go. 

Elsie: In our household, there’s a thing called kids wine, which is Martinelli’s, and my kids are obsessed with it, and they ask for it all the time. So, and sometimes if I don’t have it, I just mix, like, whatever I have in my fridge, like, a little bit of La Croix and cranberry juices, and that works, too. But yeah, kids wine forever. 

Emma: Goldie always asks me for kids’ wine, and I just am like, here’s some juice with La Croix. Here you go. You know, they just like it. It’s fun. 

Elsie: Yes. It’s special, with a special glass. 

Emma: I’m excited because I love hosting, but I honestly just love cooking. And so I’m happy to just cook a bunch and bring it somewhere. It doesn’t really make a big difference to me where we have it. So it won’t be really fun to have it in your house since it’s your first year here, but I’m still cooking a lot. So. Oh yeah. Okay. Speaking of house stuff, something on my list is I have this little room off of our main bedroom. Used to be, that the previous owner had a little sewing machine in there. I think it was her little sewing nook. Anyway, I’ve turned it into a little tiny library because there is another closet, so we didn’t really need a second closet or anything. So anyway, I turned it into a little library and my goal is to paint that library. And I also, the way the bookshelves are, my husband installed them for me for my birthday last year, but they cover like half the wall. And so I was going to do something where some of the books are flying off the shelf and like they’re kind of open. We did like a headboard look in my Harry Potter house, my Florida house. So I could link that in the show notes, but it’ll be something kind of like that where the books are open and they’re flying off the shelf. I want to just make it like our house is very Modern and eclectic, I guess I would, I don’t really know what to call it, but it’s pretty plain and I like that. Trey and I both kind of like minimal, but my office has this crazy wallpaper in it, and then I want this little tiny library to be a little bit whimsical, which is kind of different from the rest of our house. Just something fun. I just like, you know, weird stuff sometimes. And then I also am going to try to paint our sunroom. We have this like, sun room that we didn’t renovate at all, and it’s not climate controlled, so it gets really hot in the summer and really cold in the winter, so we’re not really using it all that much. Our dogs, like, food and bowls are in there, and like, when you go in the backyard, you walk in through this tiled room. It’s kind of nice because especially since we’ve done a lot of sandboxing this past summer, it’s like an area where the tile floor gets a lot of sand on it, and I can just Sweep that up, and it’s really easy. So it’s been nice, but it doesn’t have a vibe at all. We didn’t do anything to it. So I’m at least going to paint it the same color as our dining room. And I kind of like, in my mind, my goal is I’d like to like, buy a little sauna and put it in there. Just one that you like, plug it in, like you buy them at like, Home Depot or Lowe’s. Not really necessarily anything super fancy, but I’m just not sure we’re ever going to get a hot tub. It’s just, I don’t know if it’s in the cards for this house. 

Elsie: You can come to my hot tub. 

Emma: Yeah, so I’m like, and I have some other friends that we go to their hot tub sometimes, so I’m kind of like, you know, I think a sauna would be nice, and this room, I don’t know what else to do with this room, because like I said, it’s not climate controlled, so there are big parts of the year, because of our four seasons, where you can’t really do anything with it. So anyway, that’s what I’m kind of planning. So just trying to give it a little bit of a vibe for now. So I have some painting goals. These are just things I’m going to paint in the evening while I listen to podcasts or whatever. 

Elsie: Nice. I think that that room is so cute. That’ll be fun to work on.

Emma: Yeah. Then I’ll feel like the inside of the house is pretty much done ish. You know, it’s never really done, but you know. 

Elsie: Sometimes, like, the smallest things can make this big, huge difference. So I think just keep going, you know, on little things. 

Emma: Yeah, just little things. Yeah. So that’s on my list. 

Elsie: Cool. Okay, so every fall we do horror movie season, and this is one of my favorite things to do with my husband. It’s like our special thing, and then we also obviously watch kids’ Halloween movies as well. Yeah, so I will put the lists on the show notes of sort of like my top favorite adult horror movies and kids’ spooky movies. Some of them were like really little kid movies. Yeah, they’re so fun, and we do it every year. We like to try to find new, my favorite era is the ’60s and ’70s horror movies. So every year we find a couple, like, that we never watched before, and it hasn’t failed us yet. So I’m surprised we can still, like, keep finding them. And then I also usually do some re-watching of my favorites each year. And I don’t watch them all every year, but, like, it’s kind of like a cycle, you know what I mean? So there’s always, like, one you haven’t seen in a while. And I always watch my favorite.

Emma: And I am scared of horror movies. 

Elsie: Ha ha ha.

Emma: Okay. Another thing on my autumn bucket list is Halloween costumes. We’re still in the era where we’re obviously doing family Halloween costumes and I get to pick because Oscar isn’t really at an age where he has ideas. 

Elsie: Enjoy it while it lasts. Oh my gosh. 

Emma: Yeah. And when he does that sounds great to me too, but anyway, so what we’re doing this year is we’re gonna do a family Curious George because Oscar loves Curious George. He calls it Monkey. If he wants to watch it, he’s, like, monkey and he has a lot of Curious George books we read. So he’s gonna be a monkey. I already got his outfit and we tried it on because it looked kind of big but then he tried it on and it fit and I was like, oh no. Anyway, so it’s very cute. It looks pretty warm because sometimes Halloween is, like, very cold and sometimes it’s mild. I don’t know what it’ll be this year but he has his little monkey outfit. He really likes it. I can tell he feels comfortable in it and, like, he’s not going to be, like, I don’t want to wear this, he’s good. And Trey’s going to be the man with the yellow hat, and I was debating if I was going to be another man with the yellow hat, because basically I have a yellow jumpsuit, my big, bug breast jumpsuit, and I was like, that would be perfect. But I think I’m going to be a banana, because I just feel like it’s cute and funny, and I think Oscar will think it’s kind of funny if I’m a nana, cause that’s what he calls bananas, Nana. I want a Nana. He loves bananas. He’ll go through phases where he’ll eat tons of them, and then he’ll have a week where he eats none. You know how it is with toddlers. But, so I just feel like that’s the move, so I’m just gonna get like a banana outfit off Amazon or whatever, like spirit Halloween, whatever, and wear that, and I think it’ll be a funny little Halloween outfit for the family. So anyway, that’s what we’re doing for Trick or Treating. 

Elsie: Fun. Okay. My next thing is I am working on keeping up my Spooky free little library. So at our pink house just because it’s like a better walking street, we put the free little library and we painted it pink to match. I’ll put a picture in the show notes It’s my favorite I just love it so much.

Emma: It’s well stocked. It always has good stuff in it. 

Elsie: Yeah. And other people have been contributing spooky books, too, so it’s not just my books. It is such a, like, yesterday there was a candle in there. Like it is, it’s getting kind of weird, but I love it. So yeah, I’ve been ordering a ton of extra thrift books, just like my favorite books, used copies, and then putting them in there and just like kind of keeping it going all the time. So I will keep doing that. I think it’s just fun to kind of go along with the season. And so yesterday I saw a copy of Magic Lessons in there and I thought that was so cool. 

Emma: I didn’t know if you put it in there. I was like, because I went over to see grandma again and I was like, Magic Lessons? 

Elsie: Can you believe it?

Emma: I know. So on my list for this autumn is I’m going to be a wedding photographer. I put this on the list because it’s something I’m doing. Yeah, it’s just kind of different. So some friends of mine are getting married and they asked if I would take the photos at their wedding and I was thrilled to do It but I will say I haven’t done wedding photos in a very long time like almost two decades, that’s how old I am. So yeah, I’m pretty nervous about it every now and again, you know, people know that I do photography. I take pictures of food every single week, sometimes every day, depending on what we’re doing. But like, I take photos for work a lot, but it’s mostly food photography and then a little bit of crafts and things, which is very different from taking portraits of people. Yes, you still use a camera and you have to know how to set a camera, but it’s a very different skill. So, I always get nervous when people ask me to do some portraits because I want to do a good job. You know, and a wedding is like, you know, obviously I want to do a really good job, and these are good friends of mine, so I’m very nervous about it. They’re, like, the sweetest, funniest people, so I know they’ll be happy. It’s just I’m putting a lot of pressure on it. But I’ve definitely, like, already, like, on Pinterest, like, looking at wedding photos and thinking about, like, because I haven’t thought through, like, a shot list. 

Elsie: She’s gonna do amazing. 

Emma: Like, it used to be, like, second nature back when we were wedding photographers. You’re like, you gotta get this moment, this moment, this moment, and all of a sudden I’m like, Oh yeah, what happens at a wedding? I haven’t even been to a wedding in a while. So I’m like, okay, remember, pay attention at these parts because you want to get these special moments if you can, you know, they’re not going to be upset or anything if I miss something. They haven’t like giving me a list or anything. I’m just putting a lot of pressure on it because I’m a psycho and I don’t usually do portrait photos. So I’m nervous, but it’s going to be great and it’s going to be fun. They’re getting married on the beach. So it’s going to be a wonderful time and I’m excited to do it.

Elsie: Cool. Okay. I want to do probably like some time, a day or two before Thanksgiving, pie day. Like pies all day. I usually do cookies and that’s really important to me as well. But this year I thought it would be fun to make like, I don’t know, maybe five different kinds of pies. Just like go for it, you know?

Emma: Can we do cobblers too? Or do you just want to do pies like cute tops? 

Elsie: No, we can do cobblers.

Emma: I’m just curious. 

Elsie: Yeah. I think I wanted to make the apple tart that Laura just made for the blog, because it’s really beautiful. So yeah, I’ll link a bunch of the pies from our blog in the show notes, but there’s this pumpkin pie with cheesecake swirl that like, I’ve made that a bunch of times. It’s kind of hard to get the swirl looking as good as your pictures, but it is so delicious.

Emma: I have food photography skills. 

Elsie: I think I made it like cupcakes once too, you know, like minis or whatever. 

Emma: It’s a little bit thinner than a classic pumpkin pie, which I like. And then the cheesecake swirl in it just kind of gives it a different dimension because I love classic pumpkin pie. But this is the one that I tend to gravitate towards, not just because it’s on our blog. I just feel like it’s a good mix. You know what I mean? I don’t know. It’s more balanced, I guess.

Elsie: Yeah, I agree. Yeah, that’ll be fun. I thought maybe it could be a new tradition with the girls, too. I also really like, you know, making the little, like, pop tarts or hand pies, you know, it’s just like, that’s really cute with kids because you can just use cookie cutters and it’s fun. 

Emma: Yeah, and you use puff pastry and it’s just easy and fun. Yeah. No, I love that. Well, on the food note, I want to do a soup night. We’ve talked about this before. I like to have friends over and have a soup night. Honestly, I’m probably going to have two because I want to have one with you and Jackie and maybe a few friends. And then I thought I would have one with this other group of friends I have. Maybe we’ll combine it, but I just have a feeling everyone’s schedule probably won’t line up. So I feel like it’s going to end up being two, but who knows? But anyway, I love to have friends over and make a few different soups at least, depending on how big the group is, but at least two. At least two soups and you watch a movie, so you can wear your pajamas, I will.

Elsie: I love it. 

Emma: Yeah, so that’s the plan. Gotta have a soup night, it’s soup season. 

Elsie: However many soup nights you have, I’ll be there. That sounds fun. Okay, I want to get a Halloween manicure. I can’t believe I haven’t done it yet.

Emma: This is on my list, too. I’m going to do it at home, though.

Elsie: Oh, okay. 

Emma: Because I just got this, like, LED. 

Elsie: Not me. I’m going to go to the place.

Emma: Yours will be better. 

Elsie: Yeah. I’m excited, though. I mean, I do want to get just, like, black French tips for my first one, and then when it’s a little closer to Halloween, I think I’ll do more like something really Halloweeny.

Emma: Yeah, because there’s, like, kind of more subtle Halloween manicures, and then there’s some that are like, whoa, the day after Halloween, you’re gonna be like, oh, I gotta get these off, you know? They’re, like, all the way to Halloween. 

Elsie: It’s not something I’ve been able to, like, maintain where I always have cute nails, but I would like to it’s definitely like something that brings me joy.

Emma: I love it So another thing on my list, it’s not necessarily autumn, but it’s like a goal slash I’m putting it on there so that I can mark it off because I will be proud when I do the work of it, is we are gonna potty train! Oscar is just at an age where he’s interested. He’s in the age range where it’s a good fit. They have a good setup at his daycare, so once we kind of get things in place, they can help me follow through while he’s there. So yeah, it feels like the right time. He just seems like he’s kind of ready. I’ve only been putting it off because of our trip because I wanted to be very consistent right at first because I don’t think it’s fair to him to expect him to learn something new and then change it up on him. So I wanted to be very consistent, so we were waiting until after that. And I decided to take this course, it was an Instagram account that I’ve kind of casually followed for a little bit called Big Little Feelings. Have you ever seen them? I don’t know them, but I really like their account. It has a lot of encouraging parenting tips, and they had a potty training course and I’ve been taking it, and I really liked it. I think I checked into a different course, or a different book, it’s very famous, but I didn’t love the vibe of it. It felt a little condescending at parts, and it just wasn’t a good fit for me. So, I was looking for something else, and I’m the type of personality, by the way, you don’t need a course or a book to potty train, but I am personality, I like to research something and have a plan, and then if we need to be flexible from the plan, that is fine. But I don’t like to go into things with no plan. That stresses me out and makes me feel anxious. 

Elsie: I like to always go into things with no plan, and then fail at least twice.

Emma: And then go find a book. Well, that’s a method, too. It doesn’t matter. I mean, parenting is like, it’s all a crap shoot, but I just like to feel prepared even if I kind of know in my brain, I’m not, I’m still gonna have to just figure this out with my kiddo. But I like to read books and research a little bit. It’s just my personality. So, anyway, I’ve been doing that, and I feel like I kind of know what we’re gonna do, and it is kind of a lot of work. Learning something new is hard for anyone, and he’s gonna learn something brand new for him, and I just wanna be there to support him in it, and to help him do it, because it’s a really important skill, pooping and peeing in the potty, and that’s where I’m at in life.

Elsie: Yeah, you’ll get there. 

Emma: Yeah, it’s gonna be great. 

Elsie: Okay, so I decided for our exterior Halloween decorations to do the giant spider house. I might have mentioned it before. I was between that and a witch theme. So we’ll see, maybe in future years I’ll go back and forth because the giant spiders do not take up very much space. They’re very easy to consolidate for how much of an impact they make on your house. You can fit them all into one little tupperware, which is nice. It does kind of rain frequently here so I’m not sure we’ll see how it goes. But I’ve never done it where it was like on two stories before. I’ve usually just done the entryway. But I was working with brick houses in the past. And now I have a clabbered house, so I think it’ll be much easier to get them hung, and I’m excited about that. Yeah. I am super excited to get the Halloween done. So, there’s this beautiful pumpkin fence in, I think, Connecticut every single year. I see KJP, like, videos, and photos of this adorable fence. So, I recently got a picket fence on the front of our house, and the one thing special that I asked for was flat tops on the posts so that I could do a pumpkin fence. And I just knew that and as soon as Emma saw it she like made a joke about my pumpkin budget, and I was like that is such an Emma thing to say. 

Emma: I make no apologies.

Elsie: It’s so cute. And it is right kind of out by the street and we do have people walking by so I am keeping track of how many pumpkins get stolen throughout the season. So far it’s at two. And I’ll see by the end of the season, like, if it’s a significant number or whatever. But, I don’t know, I think it’s adorable. It’s just, like, I don’t know, it makes me happy. 

Emma: Oh, I love it, yeah. And Oscar saw it from the car when we came to visit last Sunday, and then we went to Grandma’s house, the pink house, like the next day or two days later. And we drove by it because it’s like on the way to the pink house, and he immediately was like Goldie’s house. Like he saw the little pumpkins again, and he knew. 

Elsie: He recognized the fence. 

Emma: Yeah, I was like, you remembered the fence. Yeah, so he’s, he’s into the pumpkin fence, too. 

Elsie: Oh, I’m so proud. Yeah, and please send me a suggestion. I’ve been trying to think if there’s any other time of year I could put anything on the flat fence post because I love it so much. Like, is there anything at Christmas time that could go out there? I’m just curious. But the pumpkins, whatever, they’re the main thing, and what they are is the, not the mini pumpkins, but they’re the pumpkin pie pumpkins. So they’re like kind of small, but they’re the ones that you can cut up and use. They have seeds and the smallest version of a pumpkin that you can cut. Yeah. So yeah, I love it. I’m so happy. 

Emma: Okay. Well, here’s my last one. And it’s like autumn related, but kind of just like homey is I want to get a few more like dinners in our rotation. I tend to do this thing where I get into a little bit of a rut where it’s like we make the same things all the time. Cause you’re just like, you know, grocery shopping, you go on autopilot. You’re like another week time to buy this again and this again and this again. To be fair, like, we’re not really sick of our dinners, but I just thought it’d be fun to have a few, like, fall things or just something. It doesn’t even have to be, like, a pumpkin thing. It’s just something different. And since I put this on the list, I’ve already added one. We made stuffed peppers, which I have the recipe on the blog now, too. And it’s honestly a really simple recipe, but it’s a delicious dinner. And we love it, like, in the peppers, it’s like meat and rice and cheese and it’s just really flavorful and good, but I will serve it to Oscar just like the filling without the pepper because he can’t cut up the pepper and like he could chew the peppers. They’re not hard or anything. 

Elsie: He doesn’t give a crap about the pepper. 

Emma: He doesn’t care about the presentation. He just likes the filling. He just likes the meat the rice and the cheese. So, I kind of like save some of the filling and just give it to him that way. And so it’s actually a great meal for all of us. And some of our dinners are not very toddler friendly like we eat a lot of like chicken wings and that, like steak, these aren’t really like things that he wants to eat and he’s not totally ready for the bones of the chicken wing. You know what I mean? So it’s like we try new things with him, but we’re not really on that level yet. So anyway, it’s fun to have things where it’s like I serve it to him and then we have our own version. So I’m looking for a few more, that’s the only one I’ve done so far. But hopefully, by the end of the season, I’ll have some other things in rotation. just to spice it up. 

Elsie: Yes. That’s fun. Okay. Well, that was all I had. I don’t have anymore. 

Emma: That’s the autumn bucket list then. 

Elsie: Okay. Then it’s time for a joke or a fact or a meditation with Nova. All right, Nova, what do you have for us this week?

Nova: A joke. 

Elsie: Okay. I’m ready. 

Nova: What is the kind of music that all balloons hate? 

Elsie: What kind? 

Nova: Pop music.

Elsie: That’s a good joke. Thank you so much for listening. If you have any questions or podcast ideas, please email us at podcast@abeautifulmess.com or you can call our voicemail at 417-893-0011. We will be back next week with our Halloween favorites.