An Empty Nest Chronicles Podcast: Holiday Edition!

150 150 Frances
  • 2

Hi, everyone!

This week we’re doing something a little bit different. We’ve recorded a podcast, where we chat about our Christmas preparations and our plans for 2023. We hope you’ll enjoy it–we plan to do these podcast episodes every month or so, just because–well, we love talking to each other, and let’s face it: talking is so much easier than writing!

Please leave a comment if the spirit moves you to do so. As Kristin mentions in our conversation, we love your comments and learn from them! Some of you are further ahead on your empty nest journeys, and we reap the benefits of your wisdom.

Frances would like you to know she made a bit of Freudian slip when she was talking happy marriages. The wisdom she was trying to convey was “A happy marriage is one where each spouse thinks they got the better end of the bargain.” What she actually said was, basically, “My husband is a very lucky man.” Which, let’s face it, he is. (Just kidding: Frances has no idea how she ended up with the Best Human Being on the Face of the Planet).

We both wish you the happiest of holidays! Thank you for reading–and for listening!

Much love,
Kristin and Frances

P.S. Frances here: The lovely Christmas music at the beginning and end of the podcast is courtesy of Kristin’s enormously talented son, Jonah. Next year, we’ll get one of my sons to whistle “Jingle Bells”!

6 comments
  • Patty

    What a lovely early Christmas gift to hear 2 of my favorite friends chatting together. Got me through today’s walk on this cold, cold, cold morning. I enjoyed your discussion of repurposing rooms. When I retired, I turned the bonus room over the garage into my space. My desk is there as is my sewing machine.

    For most of its life, this room served as the playroom and was painted Buzz Lightyear blue (yes that was an actual paint color name at one point). A few years ago, on a very snowy day before Christmas, my husband gifted me a room repaint to a lovely shade of gray. Which was wonderful. But, a few days before Christmas isn’t necessarily my favorite time to disrupt everything – move the furniture out, empty out stuff and then find places to store it for a few days. And then, there was the sewing I had planned out carefully to occur during that time. But I smiled and accepted the gift and the extra work in order to get a nice new room setup.

    The funny part is now that this room is truly mine with only my stuff inside, I still struggle with what to call it. It was the playroom for so long so that this is the term that first jumps into my head. Calling it my studio seems a bit presumptuous and it is much more than my office so I often just called it the Bonus Room.

    Merry Christmas to both of you!

  • Tracie

    Frances and Kristin, I enjoyed your podcast because I felt like I was sitting at a table with friends, enjoying a cup of coffee or tea. Frances, like you, I’m an enneagram 5 and INFJ. I certainly do live inside my head, and it’s no wonder we’re writers. Kristin, I have the same slow on-ramp to my day. I usually wake up at 6:00 and slowly drink coffee and read. By 9:00 my brain is ready for the day.

    I enjoyed listening to your thoughts and plans about 2022 and 2023. I love to plan and always have ideas. Sometimes I have a word for the year, and this year I had a key ring made with a small daisy and butterfly: “the friendliest flower” and a social butterfly. It was time to make friends in my new community! My husband and I chatted about what we want for 2023, and we both said, “More fun!” We retired early at age 60; however, it feels like we’re working harder than ever to settle into our farm and community. It’s been a slog! So as I made my list of “things worth doing,” I pared it back so we can truly enjoy our time together.

  • Robin Leftwich

    Just had a chance to listen. I’m that person who reads the blog post while still in bed, just after doing Wordle, but it took longer to find a time when I was alone to listen! Fun to hear your voices together!
    As soon as both girls were out, that room became mine. I have their dressers filled with fabric, the closet filled with more fabric and yarn, etc. didn’t take out the furniture or anything, and now thatErin is back for 6 months most of the fabric is in bags and bins in the hall, but it’s so fun to have a room! I, I’m jealous of Frances, bring able to have a library!
    I love the idea of a reading challenge. For the first time I saw that Amazon has reading journals, so that will be a new thing for me in 2023. A whole bright and shiny book of books I read, not a few pages in the back of my other journal! Maybe a poll or ideas solicited on your Facebook group pages?
    I’ve given up on goals for a new year, since my life has been one curve ball after another for 7 years due to kids’ health, but I did tell my husband I really need him to plan a short getaway , which I have told him where it should be, and since my sister is pushing it too I think I will finally get to a real getaway, the Bodega Bay Lodge in Northern California.
    I’m also putting in a plug for a project Kim Dublin has suggested on the Quiktfiction Fabric Swap Facebook group, for a temperature quilt. It’s so fun to do this with a group!
    Thanks again for the blog!

  • Tricia

    I thoroughly enjoyed your podcast this afternoon as I began knitting another pair of socks. I love both of your individual podcasts, so hearing you chatting together was an extra treat!

    I am ahead of y’all in the empty nest years, with two adult children and four grandchildren ranging from 3 to 19. I took up quilting when I retired (early) five years ago and make close to two dozen quilts every year, knit (mostly socks), and read voraciously (over 200 books this year, to my surprise). Retirement brings the gift of TIME, lovely time, to the empty nest. Our mantra is “We will if we want to.” (Its corollary is also true!) We travel a lot, now that Covid seems to be less of a threat. We downsized in 2020, sold the big house, and bought a condo near our daughter. That was a big job, but now I have a lovely big sewing room!

    I especially enjoyed hearing about your enneagram and MBTI types. I would have guessed Kristin was an Enneagram 2, and a 5 makes sense for Frances. I’m a 1 and an ISTJ. I envy Kristin’s ability to set and reach ambitious goals like her big family trip and bathroom renovation!

    Looking forward to your conversation next month!

  • Nancy

    When you hire someone to paint (or do other jobs you could do, but don’t want to do , or would not do well) you are creating jobs. Remember that!

Comments are closed.