Episode #228: Listener Questions – Sister Edition

A lot of you tell us that you listen to the podcast with your sister, so today we are answering questions about our relationship as sisters. Plus, we are doing our book report on The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi.

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Show Notes:

Some background on us:

Elsie is older

We are 2 1/2 years apart

We also have a younger brother

Were you close when you were younger?

Normal sibling fights but by high school we liked each other

What are your similarities and differences?

Similarities:

creative

loves photography

likes thrifting

Introverts

Differences:

Elsie is more into drawing and painting while Emma is into collage

Emma can bake and Elsie can’t

Emma is more literal where Elsie is more imaginative

Emma is an Enneagram 9 and Elsie is an Enneagram 7

Where do you see your relationship in the future (after your kids have grown)?

Travel grandmas

Listen to Episode #155: Step Inside Our Old Lady Creative Retreat

Miss an Episode? Get Caught Up!

• Episode #227: Collecting Art
• Episode #226: Ever After – Comfort Rewatch
• Episode #225: Easter Traditions

Episode 228 Transcript:

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Elsie: You’re listening to the A Beautiful Mess podcast, your cozy comfort lesson. A lot of you tell us that you listen to the podcast with your sister. So today we’re answering questions about our relationship as sisters. Plus, we’re doing a book report on The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi. Yeah, something like that. 

Emma: Okay, so let’s talk about being sisters. And it is funny. We’ve gotten like lots of emails over the years that’s like, I listen to this with my sisters or my sister who lives across the country listens too and we’ll talk about it or just different things like that. 

Elsie: People always ask us, how do I make my kids be close friends when they grow up? And we’re like, we don’t know. 

Emma: I don’t know. I’m not writing a parenting book. I don’t know what I’m doing on that one. So yeah, should ask her mom. Maybe she knows. We don’t know. Okay, so some background for anyone who doesn’t know. So Elsie and I are sisters. Elsie is older, much older. No, I’m just kidding. Actually, we’re only like two and a half years apart. Three years? Two to three years apart. When you’re a kid. I feel like it’s like a big thing. And when you get older, you’re like, yeah, she’s a couple years older than me. It’s like nothing, so, two, three years apart. We also have a younger brother, who’s two, three years younger than me. I’m the middle. And we’re very close with our brother Dorian as well. But we’re not going to talk about him in this episode, because he’s not here. So he doesn’t get to have his perspective and basically make fun of us, which he would do too too well, which is why he’s not invited to be here because he knows everything. So we’re very close with our brother as well. Anyway, so yeah, two, three years apart. My boys are going to be three years apart. 

Elsie: My kids are two and a half years apart. 

Emma: I hope they’re close too like us. 

Elsie: I love the age gap. Yeah, I think it’s a perfect age gap.

Emma: We could share clothes in high school. It was great. You got your license before me. I’m trying to think what else was good about it? I just felt like I had a lot of like, older cool friends because they were your friends. They were your age.

Elsie: Yeah. And then whenever you were in college, I had more younger cool friends because I was friends with all her friends. Yeah, so it’s true. 

Emma: It was a good age gap. Yeah. Okay. So one question. Were we close when we were younger? I’m assuming this meaning when we’re kids like growing up. 

Elsie: I think we were average, like kids where we were close but we were also fighting all the time. Like just regular. 

Emma: Yeah, kids who are like she took my toy and that or she wants to sleep on the top bunk. And I want to too. We have one story our mom tells a lot, she would tell it much better than us. Our mom’s actually a great storyteller. I feel like I’ve mentioned that before. She’s really a good storyteller. But anyway, we’re like, I feel like mom and I came home from school or something. And Elsie and I had shared a bedroom and Elsie had moved all of my stuff into the hallway. We had these giant Tupperware chairs that were like, kind of like a toy bin, you had a teal one and I had a pink one. And my pink one was in the hallway. And just all my stuff was in the hallway. And you were like, Emma’s moving out. She kicked me out of the bedroom. I don’t know how my mom resolved it. But it was just like, no. So we were normal kids who like back and forth. By middle school, high school we liked each other and didn’t really have any of that stuff anymore. 

Elsie: I think I got a lot of ideas like that from the TV show Full House, or TV shows like that at the time. Like any show that had something that they did interesting, because I remember one time I saw someone on TV sleep in the bathtub, and then I had to sleep in the bathtub. 

Emma: Careful what you let your kids watch.

Elsie: But yeah, we were close. But I feel like when I got my driver’s license was when I felt like we started to bond over our common interests of like, thrifting thrift all the time. And we definitely hung out with the same group of friends for a lot of high school and college ages. And still now so yeah.

Emma: And the next question is like, what are your similarities and differences. And I feel like that was part of why we’ve always been so close as we aren’t really the same but we do have a lot of similar interests. Like we’ve both always been creative people, I think you’re more into drawing and painting, and I do collage and whatever. But we’ve both always loved photography. So we would take a lot of pictures of each other or do little photo shoots in high school and college of each other. We both have always loved weird clothes. So like thrifting and making things weird. Like you would decorate your room a lot more than me, just like repaint it, redo it. You’re just always like a lot more than me, but we’re very similar in a lot of our interest. And so I think that made us close because it was like someone to hang out with who wanted to do all the weird things you wanted to do. And actually didn’t have that many friends at school growing up who were weird like me so I at least had a sister who was.

Elsie: Yeah, no, it was definitely like a fun built in friendship. Okay, so similarities and differences. Well, Emma can bake, I can’t do that. I would say that’s my one thing that I’m very jealous of her ability to bake. And also you have different artistic talents than me. Like, I remember when we were younger, and we made an art show together. Your paintings were very graphic and edgy and cool. And I was very jealous of them.  I think that they stood the test of time a little more. I’m like a person who has to learn everything the hard way by making mistakes, or I don’t know, like, doing the same thing over and over and embarrassing myself until, like, magically I butterfly out of it, you know? Anyway, I think that Emma has a lot of strengths that are like, I think one of the reasons why we make really good business partners, is because Emma has some strengths that I just don’t have. And I have some strengths that I wouldn’t say you don’t have them. But like I have some superpowers that are extreme. So last year, we did the strengths finder, it’s like a personality quiz that helps you find your strengths, and one of Emma’s top strengths was finishing. And that was definitely like a lightbulb moment for me. Because throughout my whole career, I’ve always struggled with finishing things I start, and people are always like, how are you so productive, even though you’re a seven. I swear to God, it’s like Emma, Emma, Emma is the reason why I can do those things, because she’s very focused. And she always if we form a plan, she will make sure that we finish it. So I feel like that’s been very complimentary, because I’m very excitable and passionate, but I wouldn’t be able to, like, do all the things I set out to do without you helping. I think to like the way our brains work. I say this a lot. Like I’m a very literal person. Not that you’re not literal, but I think you can be more artistic and imaginative and just those types of things. And so to me, like, not finishing a project doesn’t even really compute. Like, that’s like, what kind of literal I am like, my brain is like, oh, I said, like I’m one of those people that had to learn socially, when someone says a party is at eight, they really mean it’s at nine or 9:30. And if they show up at 7:45, you look weird and it took me a long time to learn that, because I’m very literal. So if you’re like, hey, the party is at eight, I’m like, oh excellent. I will show up at 7:45 with mine, and that’s actually not how humans are. I like that I’m that way, like a finisher. I think it has served me really well in life. But it’s also like, at times really annoying. And like, makes me stand out as awkward in a way where it’s like, oh, and I think like you kind of complement it where you’re like this more imaginative artistic can be kind of out there. And so I get to kind of play this role of like, helping you be a little more literal, finish the dream. Also I think, a lot of times, like I have ideas, and I share my ideas with Emma, and she sort of like filters, which ones are the.

Emma: And I’m like writing it down. Like that one doesn’t sound like a real thing but this one we could do. And now I’m starting to make a plan of how we will do it.

Elsie: And it’s interesting, because in our young career, like when we were probably like, the first five years of blogging, this is something that we fought about a lot. I think I was always trying to overpower her finishing machine. And like, I was sort of like a control freak when we were younger, about everything being my idea of what perfect was, which was obviously like, nothing special. Anyway, but then as we grew older, I think we understood, like, I definitely came to understand the value and importance of the finishing. And I don’t know how, if any you rebalanced for me but at least it helped me. I think that it broadened my perspective a lot. And now, I think I am like a little bit of a finisher and before I would have been 0%.

Emma: You definetly are. You’ve had do a lot of things without me. Like I think whenever you had to do like your adoption, that’s a big paperwork and just a big thing. And I didn’t do anything for you with that. Obviously, that’s like not a part of my life in any way other than I get to be cool aunt. And so like, yeah, there’s a lot of things over time.

Elsie: I can do things by myself. I just don’t want to. 

Emma: You definitely can. Yeah, I think for me, I really needed a time in my life where I just went and did my own thing. And I did that right after college. I moved to LA and pursued acting for a while which was not something Elsie was interested in. And you didn’t move to LA. You did help me move out there. And you visited me a number of times when we stayed really close the whole time. But I think I needed a little era where I just like, basically went and found myself without you. And also learn to appreciate myself without you. I think I did need that when I was younger. And then once I kind of had that era, I think I felt a lot more secure. Like, Elsie has these strengths and I have these strengths. And we could just build something together. And I don’t need to feel like I’m half a person without her because I’m not. I’ve been on my own now. And I’m a whole person without her. But also, I like what we do together. And I think that there’s a lot there of value. 

Elsie: That’s true. And once you returned, I also think I appreciated you more. And that’s when we became 50/50 partners. You know, instead of like Emma being like my sidekick, you were like my partner. And it’s always been like that ever since.

Emma: Another funny thing about us is, I think we’re both introverts. And I think that, that serves us well. Like when we traveled together, or just like also growing up together. I think we’ve never really felt like pressuring each other to go out. We’re just very comfortable with, like, oh, you gotta go have your time or oh, we’re gonna sit in the same room, but not talk for a few hours or whatever. I think we both are very comfortable being around another introvert and being an introvert. I never have felt pressure from you to be more fun or go out more. And whenever I have friends like that in my life, I sometimes get a little anxious. 

Elsie: I don’t like fun people.

Emma: I don’t want to be a fun person. And so someone needs me to be that I’m like, oh no, you’re gonna discover I’m not. I don’t have to do that with you. I know that you’re like, yeah, you do whatever. I’m gonna do my thing. I don’t need you. I’m an introvert too. It’s so whatever. So I think that like works well for us too.

Elsie: That’s true. Jeremy’s an introvert too.

Emma: Trey is like a half half I would say. And then I think we’ve talked about Enneagram a number of times, but not super recently. So I’m an Enneagram nine probably with an eight wing. And I kind of look like a three sometimes when I’m healthy, which is a good amount of time, but not always.

Elsie: I think that she is a three and that she’s an accomplisheder but she’s not a people pleaser. I don’t think you have that trait as much like in the nine part you do. You have the part where you can be patient to a fault. 

Emma: A little bit of a doormat. 

Elsie: Yes, yes. Which isn’t good sometimes. But I also think that nines are like the easiest to be around people. And just like generally, like, people who I think find happiness easier in life than maybe some of the other numbers.

Emma: Yeah, I think we naturally seek peace, which to me makes a lot of sense and feels very balanced but Elsie’s a seven. So she’s fun. 

Elsie: I’ll tell you what a seven is. A seven is like, every year you wake up and you have a new business idea. And you do at least half of them. So it’s like a personality built on trying things all the time. It is a good thing. And it’s been a lot of fun. I feel like my life has been an adventure. And I don’t have regrets, which I’m proud of that for myself. But I think that it can be hard to live with so many ideas all the time, and so much FOMO all the time. And a lot of times I have to like contain myself. I have to rein it in all that, like it’s too much reining in basically. So that can become annoying. If I went by all of my impulses, I would have a mess of a career. So yeah, just like reining it in all the time takes a lot of self control. But luckily, I’ve found ways to stay interested in our blog business. But in different ways, all the time. Because I think that’s one thing that’s hard for sevens is like keeping the same job. So I’ve been lucky in that way.

Emma: Yeah. Well, I think because our career is like it is the same job. But it has morphed so much over the years. And we always let it if it makes sense. And that serves you really well and I think honestly serves me well because honestly, there’s a lot of times in my life that I feel like a little bit bored. And then I’m like, I need to go hang out with Elsie. I need some new ideas. I just like I’ve finished all my things on my list. I’m just a little bored. What else do I want to do in life and I’m honestly like, I need to go hang out with my sister for a while because you re energize me to like dream a little more and dream bigger. And I think that’s really fun. I tend to gravitate towards sevens because I think they are so fun and they can just like be full of different ideas and inspiration. I have a certain level of that but not to the extent that you do and so I think it is a really enjoyable. Yeah, I think it makes life an adventure. But I could see how for you it can be a burden at times because it’s like too much FOMO. But I don’t really have that piece of it. I just get to enjoy the good parts.

Elsie: No, that’s nice. Thank you. Where do you see your relationship in the future after your kids have grown? That’s such a nice question. I think we’re going to be travel grandmas, for sure. We talking about it all the time. Right now, our life is very about parenting so we’re doing that together. And we’re on slightly different schedules, but it’s lining up enough to where we can just do kid stuff together all the time. And it’s a wonderful time in life. And I think it’ll be that way for the next 10 years or so. And then yeah, I’m planning to be a travel grandma, I think Emma is too.

Emma: Definitely, a hot travel grandma.

Elsie: She always describes her elderly self as hot, like, it’s really important to her.

Emma: I’m not even that vain. I just feel like we don’t do it enough, talk about how hot you can stay for how long and so I’m like, I’m just, that’s just my eight wing. That’s like, I’ve got to fight against this because I think that women are like, we become invisible. And I’m like, not me, I’m gonna stay hot for a long time. I’m gonna get hotter because I got more times right now I gotta get ready fast. I got a toddler. But one day mark my words. 

Elsie: I like it. I like that for you. I like honestly kind of don’t give a sh*t. But I love it for you.  I think that’s fun.

Emma: I don’t even really care for other people notice, it doesn’t matter much. It’s just like my own internal.

Elsie: I think working on your style. And like feeling good about yourself is something that’s important and good for every single age of a woman’s life. It’s always important.

Emma: I think it’s my own personal middle finger at some of the sexist stuff that women have gone through in the past of like, oh, you’re old now so you’re not beautiful anymore. You’re only beautiful in your 20s or whatever. And it’s like, middle fingers to that. I’m gonna be super hot 50 year old lady, take that world,

Elsie: Don’t worry about it. I’m not worried about it. I’m just gonna watch the idea of you and not worry about it. Okay, so yeah, no, I think that the future is bright. And we get a lot of messages about our idea of having like an old lady’s home, where we have all the crafts and all the you know, we did an episode about that. And it’s such a happy, fun idea. And I think it’s likely to happen. With just like the mortality rates of men and women. I’m like, 90% sure. I’m like on my last husband.

Emma: You hear that Jeremy, she’s  90% sure. Watch your back.

Elsie: Well, I’m just like, would I rather date again or would I rather become a travel grandma with our own swimming pool in our own like grandma club? I think I know where my path is leading me.

Emma: Yeah, I’m kind of the same. Like, we’ll see what real life goes. I’m open to whatever. But yeah, I’m also 90% sure, I don’t know. There is just bored to life though. I think when you’re young, like falling in love, and getting married does feel like such a big part of life. And it is. And it really is, and it’s so special. I think there is kind of like, there’s more. I didn’t realize that when I was younger. And now I’m like, oh, yeah, there is. There’s so much more. Cool. I’m interested in exploring that idea in my mind. And like, when I get there, seeing what that’s like. And we also have a lot of career goals that are not on hold right now. I wouldn’t put it that way. But I would just say like, we are very, like, hey, we’re in our mom era. And we are making time and space to hang out with our kids. And like, that’s what we’re doing. And so our careers are not on hold by any means. But we have a lot more that we are interested in.

Elsie: Our careers are limited right now by the time we have. I think we’re making the most of what that time is. But I mean, I’m not gonna lie, like, it’s one of my comforting thoughts when I feel like you know, I get to do my painting interest, usually one or two times a week. And I love that and I’m fine with that for right now. But I love the idea that in 10 years, maybe I’ll do it every day. And I think that that’s like a way to think optimistically about the future and also give me enough time and money in my 50s and I will make that haunted Bed and Breakfast.

Emma: Yeah, I think there’s just so much to get involved in and to do and then who even knows if we will really be like actual grandmas with grandkids. I don’t know what age that’ll happen or if it will even happen because that’s a choice that someone else will be making. But I think that would be fun thing to to kind of put together.

Elsie: You’re not going to pressure the sh*t out of your kids to have kids when they’re 20.

Emma: Oh my God, no. Oh my God. No. Oh, if they do I’ll be like wow,I don’t know what happened here, but fun for me.  Before I even had kids, we did like that haunted house at Halloween. Like I could just see us doing lots of random weird stuff when we’re old. That’s kind of like, for our community, for our family.

Elsie: It sounds amazing. You’re keeping me young Emma.

Emma: Yeah, I think there’s just a lot out there. I think it’s always been like a strength of ours that when we get bored, we do fun stuff. So I’m not worried about it. I’m not worried about having an era where there’s more time, I’m like no that sounds actually great. I have no idea what we’ll do. It’ll definitely be weird. And it will definitely be fun. 

Elsie: I love it. Okay, I guess it is book report time. So we are talking about The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi. So I really just had like two big takeaways from the book. What about you? 

Emma: I had like, kind of like two things I put in my notes app.

Elsie: So can you give the premise a little bit? 

Emma: So we picked this book, because we were really just like scrolling through kind of like nonfiction. 

Elsie: The title is very compelling title.

Emma: The title is super compelling. So we were very drawn in by that. And then I think that we read that it was like a best seller in Japan. And it’s definitely well known. We’re not the first to talk about it. We’re not the first to discover this book. But I felt like it kind of jumped around a lot. And in my mind, if I had to sum it up, I would be like, it’s kind of about like, personal responsibility. And just like, taking care of your sh*t. This is the life I want so I’m going to lead it. So in a sense, I would say, yeah, you’re having the courage to be disliked, and that you’re kind of putting other voices out and saying, I’m going to decide what’s right for me, and I’m going to do what I feel is what I need to do to be happy, to be a hard worker to be the life that I want to live. So in that sense, I think that the title fits. But I also felt like he kind of jumped around to a bunch of different things. And a lot of times the chapter title or the heading of the section that we’re about to read, sort of didn’t match to me. It was more like a gotcha headline. And then you would read it and be like, okay, I see where they’re getting that, but I’m not so sure. Maybe you should tell them how the books is formatted too.

Elsie: I agree with that too. So the way that it’s formatted is between a philosopher student and a teacher. And it’s like a back and forth conversation.  I read the audiobook. I read some of the reviews and I think people really didn’t like the audiobook. I feel like 50/50 on it. I’m glad I read it. And I probably wouldn’t recommend it. I don’t think it’s recommendable, so sorry. But I think that I am glad I read it. The takeaways are really strong. It’s unique. It’s definitely different from other self help books I’ve read. But I do agree with Emma that like the promise of the title and the chapters is kind of bizarre. It’s like they just tried to think of better titles afterwards or something. It didn’t really feel like that they represented what they were saying they were going to represent, which is very annoying. 

Emma: And I don’t know if it was translated, maybe that’s part of it. I don’t know, I didn’t look that up. So perhaps that’s a piece of it. But it almost felt like a little click baitty. Like they’re like getting you in with this weird headline. And then it was still like a good chapter. But you’re like that didn’t really match what you started with. So I feel like you got me.

Elsie: Yeah, so the title, The Courage to be Disliked, I think is still a topic worthy of talking about on the podcast. So like a very important topic that we are very passionate about. Okay, so I have down this quote that’s like, freedom is being disliked by other people. So I love it. I love that. I wish the book was more about that, I agree. But since it wasn’t, we can still talk about it anyway. I think that it’s kind of like when you move into a home and you’re starting to decorate and you make your mood board, and then you see all these like new things coming out and you’re at the store and there’s like, this is cute. This is cute. I like that. I like that and it feels very overwhelming. I think that life can be that way with people’s opinions. And it does take courage, consistency and a sense of confidence to stay on the mood board that you chose instead of responding to other people’s opinions about your life all the time. 

Emma: I think that’s  good.

Elsie: The other part that really stuck with me is there’s a story in the book about a novelist who can’t finish their novel like can’t/won’t. And I’m in that situation myself right now. So I did relate to it literally, but I also just really liked the idea of it. So they say that he wants to leave the possibility open like the possibility of like, this might be the great It’s novel ever. And the act of finishing it sort of exposes yourself to criticism, and shame and other feelings.

Emma: The possibility that it’s not the best novel.

Elsie: And I think about that every day. I think about that so much right now. I think it’s such a big thing that I mean, all of us face at one or many points in our life. And I think that it does stop people from doing some of the most important things that they felt called to do in your entire life. It’s so sad that sometimes people don’t finish those things because they don’t want it to be bad, or they don’t want to be bad at it, or they don’t want to get bad reviews or hear people’s negative opinions. So yeah, I thought that was really meaningful to me. And it’s something that I will be thinking about as I finished my novel, or I shouldn’t say finish it that makes it sound like I’m almost finished. As I keep working on it for however long it takes. I have to keep myself from the idea that it’s safer in its incubation phase than it is in the real world.

Emma: Well, yeah. And it’s definitely that trap we all fall into where it’s like, the fantasy is always better than reality because it’s a fantasy. It’s not real. And so we can make it whatever we want it to be in our minds. And then reality can be wonderful. It can also be devastating. It can be anything in between. It can also just be boring, which is the worse? I don’t know. So yeah, I think it’s really hard to face that at times. So yeah, that’s an interesting one. Okay, so this one, they were actually talking about trauma, which I thought was kind of controversial.

Elsie: I thought that it was really controversial, the title of the chapter, was it, trauma does not exist. 

Emma: Yeah. Which I don’t think was really their point. 

Elsie: I think they never got there in convincing you at all, and no one really thinks trauma doesn’t exist. So I thought it was very confusing. I was a little hung up on that. 

Emma: I was like, I don’t think you needed to name the chapter this or the section. I don’t know if it was a chapter. But yeah, that title didn’t work for me. But some of the things I had to say I thought were interesting. So one thing they talked about was, we determine our own lives according to the meaning that we give those past experiences. So not just the experience itself, but the meaning that we give it. And they kind of talked about this, they say otherwise, everyone who goes through XYZ goes through this experience, fill in the blank, would all behave ABC fill in the blank. So everyone who’s graduated high school, has this experience, you know what I mean, or whatever. Like, that’s not obviously not a traumatic event. That’s just a regular neutral event but nevertheless. But as we all know, from real life, there are variants that show that just because a certain event happened in your life, the way that you interpreted it, or I would say also the way you healed from it or chose to heal from it, the steps that you took, and the power that you might have taken back changes the way that that affects your life. And I thought that was an interesting to think about and explore, and the best point that they had for that title chapter. And I liked it. Because I think that is sad to think about, there’s lots of things that happen in our lives that we have no power over, we don’t get a choice. You’re born a certain way or something happens to you that you didn’t want to happen, all sorts of things. That’s life. And I like the idea that to some extent, you can take back your power, you can find your way through healing, and you can take steps to interpret that differently. It doesn’t mean that you can avoid it completely, or that you can change what happened to you, but you still get some agency. I’m a very independent person. So anytime I feel like my freedom, or my agency is being taken away I bristle at that. So I think that’s part of why that stood out to me. And then I think this has to do with your novel thing you’re just talking about. So this was my other takeaway that I wrote down was that maybe it’s harder and I think what they meant by harder is less happy. So maybe there’s less happiness to live with an open possibility of a dream that you never try than to try it and potentially fail and then get to have a new dream. And I think that’s kind of like the second part or the other side of the finishing the novel and moving forward. We like to collect stories of people and we’ve shared so many of them on the podcast, people who like start second careers in their 40s 50s 60s. People who epically failed at writing, painting, whatever, and then they had a big success later. I love the stories of people who like I wrote my first novel and it was a bestseller. Love it. Great story. I really love the stories that are I wrote 10 novels and then in my 50s one really hit and now I get to do what I love. I love that story even more. And I think that you don’t get there if you’re the person who keeps living in the fantasy and you don’t finish. You only get there by keep going and learning and growing and being open to the possibility that your fantasy isn’t going to be fulfilled. But if you keep pushing, you get to have a new dream, that might be better.

Elsie: I agree with that. I mean, I truly believe that every experience you have in your career is like always stacking towards your next experience even if they seem unrelated to you at the time. There’s so many things that we’ve learned or tried that felt like it ended w little to no value and kind of just a failure. And then later on, we were able to use that skill in a different way, repackage and magically makes money or it has success. 

Emma: People always think like, how’d you do that? You’re an overnight success. I’m like, no, man, did you see all the other things that I fizzled out on? And they don’t because that’s not always how people see it.

Elsie: I’m very inspired by the idea of just finishing the thing that feels really good. 

Emma: Yeah. So anyway, we liked the book. We didn’t like the book. You had one friend who loved it. 

Elsie: Yeah, I did. I had a friend who texted me that said they were loving it, and I would love to hear what you thought about it. Definitely send us an email if you had a strong opinion. I’m just curious. 

Emma: It’s a bestseller, so it’s not like, I don’t know. I don’t think either of us really loved it, but I’m also really hesitant to give it much of a bad review because I’m like, I know people love it and there were things that really stuck with me. 

Elsie: I think our review was very balanced. Like it’s worth reading. It has interesting takeaways. The format is kind of cringy and hard to get through. It has some controversial things too. A little bit of click bait titles . I read some of the reviews on Goodreads and I feel like it was sort of in the, I think we were all kind of on the same page. Okay, so now we’re gonna go to Nova’s segment. Hey Nova, what do you have for us this week? 

Nova: Well today, I think I want to do something new and I think I may start doing this too on the podcast. 

Elsie: Okay. What is it? 

Nova: I think we should do a memories with Nova. 

Elsie: Okay, memories with Nova. I love this. 

Nova: I’m gonna share some memories with you. One memory is, last time we went to Disney World for Marigold’s birthday, which I know you all have heard Marigold’s on the podcast before, and I loved it. We went and we went on all sorts of rides. It was amazing. And another one was when I first got Pumpkin, my dog, her head was so tiny and she was so tiny. She wasn’t very big at all. I drove for about three hours to go get her. And finally when we got her, I was wearing a shirt for two days so she could have my scent. And so she could always remember me. 

Elsie: Oh, that’s very sweet. I think it worked. 

Nova: And one more is we went on our family vacation to Branson and Mommy and Daddy and Marigold slept in a cabin.

And, I slept with my cousins, and we did so many fun things, like going on a boat, and playing, and there was video games, in like the living room. I got to play some video games. And the last one I’m just gonna squeeze one more in, because sometimes I’ll do three or four. And, it’s Christmas when I got my scooter, Nintendo Switch, and got some dog treats for Pumpkin and Dolly. We spent it with Aunt Ruby, Uncle Doran, and Penny, my cousin. And my aunt, and uncle, and, oh, Mila, who was my baby cousin. That was my first time to meet her. And, I spent one night with Grandma and Grandpa, and we had a good time. 

Elsie: Amazing! Thank you for sharing all those memories with us, Nova. 

Nova: Bye!

Elsie: Bye! Thank you so much for listening. We’d love to hear your suggestions for topics or future episodes. Send us an email anytime at podcast@abeautifulmess.com with your request. Next week we’ll be back with an episode all about food! 

Emma: Food! Woo!