1KHO 525: Zero Time to Pee | Rachelle Crawford, How To Be Busy

Summary

Podcast Title: The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
Episode: 1KHO 525: Zero Time to Pee | Rachelle Crawford, How To Be Busy
Release Date: July 15, 2025

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Introduction

In the 1KHO 525 episode of The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast, host Ginni Urich engages in a deep and insightful conversation with Rachelle Crawford, author of How To Be Busy: Unhurried Living Even When Your Calendar is Chaotic. The episode delves into the nuances of managing a busy life, distinguishing between busyness and hurrying, and embracing the chaos that comes with different life seasons. Rachelle shares personal anecdotes, practical strategies, and thought-provoking analogies that offer listeners a fresh perspective on balancing life's demands while maintaining presence and intentionality.

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From Minimalism to Embracing Busyness

Rachelle begins by recounting her minimalism journey, initiated in 2017 when she decided to declutter her home and simplify her calendar. This approach initially provided immense relief, reducing mental load and freeing up time for her family. However, a poignant moment—realizing she was too busy to even attend to her child’s basic needs—served as a turning point. She explains:

"I realized how much life happens and changes your best laid plans of picture perfect simplicity... we don't need an [overly] simplified calendar anymore."
[01:35] Rachelle Crawford

This realization led Rachelle to pivot her perspective from striving for constant simplicity to accepting and managing periods of busyness.

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Differentiating Busyness from Hurrying

A significant portion of the discussion centers on distinguishing between busyness and hurrying. Rachelle defines:

• Busyness: Having a multitude of tasks and commitments.
• Hurrying: Approaching tasks with a frantic, stressed mindset, leading to feelings of chaos and overwhelm.

Rachelle emphasizes:

"Busyness is just a matter of the calendar, and hurry is a matter of the heart."
[05:50] Rachelle Crawford

This differentiation is crucial for understanding how to navigate busy seasons without succumbing to stress.

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Building Margin into Your Schedule

A recurring theme is the importance of building margin—creating buffer time in one's schedule to accommodate unexpected events and recover from busy periods. Rachelle uses relatable analogies, such as:

"It's like finding an air pocket when your boat is sinking... you need that margin to get through."
[22:38] Rachelle Crawford

She advocates for planning ahead to ensure that both before and after busy seasons, there is designated time for rest and recovery, thereby maintaining overall well-being.

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Being Present: The Power of Unhurried Moments

Rachelle underscores the significance of being present in the moment, rather than multitasking or letting the mind wander to other responsibilities. She shares a memorable story:

"I went out with my daughter to catch butterflies, but instead of enjoying the moment, I was pulling weeds and answering phone calls... and ended up with poison ivy."
[39:57] Rachelle Crawford

This anecdote illustrates the pitfalls of not fully engaging with the present and highlights the benefits of focused attention.

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Managing Capacity and the Art of Saying No

The conversation also delves into capacity management, emphasizing the importance of knowing one’s limits and the ability to say no. Rachelle shares insights inspired by Grandma Sally, who confidently declines invitations when her schedule cannot accommodate additional commitments. She advises:

"If someone asks for help and you don't have the capacity for it, saying no is better than overcommitting and underdelivering."
[47:50] Rachelle Crawford

This approach not only preserves personal well-being but also ensures that others receive the quality of help they need.

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Personal Stories and Analogies

Rachelle enriches the discussion with various personal stories and analogies that make the concepts more relatable and memorable:

• Dropping the Phone in the Lake: A metaphor for intentionally disconnecting to regain clarity and reduce overwhelm.

  "Having a phone as an alarm clock was draining my attention tenfold. Switching to a traditional alarm clock improved my sleep and reduced screen time."
  [15:41] Rachelle Crawford

• Mushroom Hunting: Illustrates the idea of appreciating the unexpected and the abundance around us instead of fixating on a single objective.

  "We keep stepping over the bounty of other mushrooms while chasing morels... it's about savoring the small moments and treasures life offers."
  [30:27] Rachelle Crawford

• Ekman Spiral: An analogy for the hidden layers of our internal state that affect our external decisions and actions.

  "Just as the Ekman spiral describes changes beneath Lake Michigan's surface, our internal states influence how we navigate life's challenges."
  [54:17] Rachelle Crawford

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Embracing Unpredictability and Flexibility

Life’s unpredictability is another focal point. Rachelle recounts incidents like accidentally damaging her homemade broth and a car mishap involving a recliner, reinforcing the need for flexibility and resilience when plans derail.

"Our meticulously wrapped bubble margin was compromised when something unexpected happened... Life’s unpredictability means we must prioritize capacity over rigid plans."
[25:22] Rachelle Crawford

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Conclusion: Living into the Season You’re In

Rachelle concludes by reiterating the importance of living into the current season of life, embracing both the busy and quiet times with equal intentionality. She encourages listeners to:

• Prioritize meaningful connections over grand gestures.
• Find joy in small, everyday moments.
• Maintain flexibility to adapt to life’s inevitable changes.

Her final thoughts resonate with the overarching theme of the podcast:

"Don’t miss the small moments because you’re out chasing the bigger ones. Embrace each season with its unique opportunities for connection and growth."
[31:44] Rachelle Crawford

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Key Takeaways

• Understand the difference between busyness and hurrying to manage stress effectively.
• Build margin into your schedule for unexpected events and personal recovery.
• Be present in each moment, avoiding the pitfalls of multitasking.
• Know your capacity and confidently say no to prevent overcommitment.
• Embrace flexibility to navigate life’s unpredictability without losing balance.

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Notable Quotes

• “Busyness is just a matter of the calendar, and hurry is a matter of the heart.”
  — Rachelle Crawford [05:50]

• “If someone asks for help and you don't have the capacity for it, saying no is better than overcommitting and underdelivering.”
  — Rachelle Crawford [47:50]

• “Don’t miss the small moments because you’re out chasing the bigger ones.”
  — Rachelle Crawford [31:44]

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For more insights and strategies on embracing a busy yet balanced life, be sure to check out Rachelle Crawford’s books:

• How To Be Busy: Unhurried Living Even When Your Calendar is Chaotic
• Messy Minimalism

Visit Abundant Life with Less for additional resources and updates.

Transcript

[Rachelle Crawford]

On WhatsApp, no one can see or hear your personal messages.

[Ginni Urich]

Whether it's a voice call message or.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Sending a password to WhatsApp, it's all just this.

[Ginni Urich]

So whether you're sharing the streaming password.

[Rachelle Crawford]

In the family chat or trading those late night voice messages that could basically become a podcast, your personal messages stay between you, your friends and your family. No one else, not even us. WhatsApp message, privately with everyone.

[Ginni Urich]

So I'm really.

[Rachelle Crawford]

I'm excited.

[Ginni Urich]

Okay. Are you ready?

[Rachelle Crawford]

I think so. As ready as I will ever be.

[Ginni Urich]

All right, here we go. Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Ginni Urich. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside, and I just read a super intriguing book. Even the title is intriguing. It's called how to be Busy. I was reading, I was at a friend's spot sports game, like a baseball game. And like, other people were like, how to be busy. Like, you know, everybody is busy. But it is really an important book because we are all busy. So this is basically about how to be busy. Well, unhurried living, even when your calendar is chaotic. The author, Rachelle Crawford is here. Welcome, Michelle.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

[Ginni Urich]

So this is a really interesting story. You know, you went from this minimalism journey, and then you're. You're finding that this minimalism is driving you to sort of declutter your calendar. And then you're like, gosh, like, it. It just doesn't really work. It doesn't work, you know, and. And you have this sort of moment where you're. You're too busy for your child to pee. Can you just talk about that particular moment? It was kind of like a. A shift.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yes. So we were just headed somewhere. I don't even remember exactly where we're headed. Was just another day where, you know, I had to get to. Oh, I did have to get to school to pick up my kids, but before that, it was crazy. And after that, it was crazy.

[Ginni Urich]

And.

[Rachelle Crawford]

And my daughter's like, mom, I have to go potty. Like, we're about to go into the checkout line at the grocery store, and I'm like, no, I'm sorry, you're just going to have to hold it. And she was really little. And I'm like, as soon as I said, I'm like, oh, my gosh, that is so not fair to her. And it's not what I want for us. Right? And so I was like, oh, my word. So I backed out and we Went to the bathroom and I just realized, like, okay, this is it. I'm going to make. This is the final straw. I'm going to make my calendar simple enough that I'm never going to encounter this kind of incident again. But then what happens, right? Life happens and it keeps happening. And, you know, I went minimalist like you said way back in 2017. My kids were 1, like 4 and 7 or something like that. And I decluttered our house. We got rid of so much stuff. It was fantastic. And then I started decluttering my calendar. And it worked. It worked really well for a long time. Like, I'm a big advocate for simplifying your calendar and eliminating inessential things and not adding too much stuff to your calendar, not putting our kids in so many activities that we have to be at and go to in sports and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then now I'm in a season of life. I realized that this just like, it's busy, it's just going to be busy. And I realized how much life happens and changes your best laid plans of picture perfect simplicity, right? And all of a sudden you're like, crazy. So I realized, like, we don't need an. I thought I was going to write a book about how to be simple, how to simplify your calendar. And then I hit this busy season and I was like, okay, I can't write that. It's not true to what I'm living. And that was the worst scenario for me. So I just reworked it and I was like, this is, this is what we need. Like, sometimes life happens. And how can we lean into simplicity and embrace the busyness that comes with specific seasons of life?

[Ginni Urich]

Yeah, I liked it. And you talked so much about, man, the first thing you want to do is look at what season you're in. You talked about how you say the, this particular season of life that you're in has the single biggest impact on the fullness of your calendar. That's what it is. And you talk about how as your kids get older, you know, when they're little, you're going to control everything. Are you going to go see a friend? Are you going to go to the zoo? It's all your choices. But then they're their own person. And as soon as they hit these, you know, I don't know, upper elementary, tween, certainly teen years, they've got their own agenda. They want to get out of their life. And you no longer have so much control. So you're really giving the parent, the person, permission to look at your season. And you know what? Like, I read this book where it said, like, some level of stress is what allows you to live well, to live the life you really want to live. There's going to be a little bit of stress there. And I. So I love the premise of the book. You basically are saying, busy is not the enemy.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Right.

[Ginni Urich]

Full calendar isn't failure. This is such an important message, Rochelle. Like, how do we be busy? Well, so one of the things that you differentiate is the difference between busyness and hurrying.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah.

[Ginni Urich]

Can you talk about that?

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah. Busyness is simply just having a lot of things to do. You might have a busy day, you have places to be. And, you know, I think in the simplicity space, busyness has kind of become this swear word, like, if I'm busy, I'm not being intentional with my time. I'm not taking care of how I'm using my energy, yada, yada, yada. But then I realized, like, okay, so I am busy, but that sometimes I'm busy and I feel fine, and sometimes I'm busy, and I feel like. Like just absolute chaos and overwhelm. And I realize the differentiating factor here is hurry. It's this mindset that when we're entering into our busy calendars, already exhausted, when we have, you know, already no margin, we're terrible at establishing boundaries, so we're carrying everybody else's issues along with us. We're trying to micromanage our calendar and make it perfect or, you know, or we're living in a season, like a mindset season that is over. Like trying to recreate a simple season when we're in a busy one. We make ourselves hurried. So I differentiate the difference between busy and. And hurry in that busy is just a matter of the calendar, and hurry is a matter of the heart. And hurry is something I think we can start to safeguard ourselves against so that when those busier seasons come, we can enjoy them.

[Ginni Urich]

Yeah. Because you're out. Busyness can be a vital element to innovation. Yeah. Busyness, you say it gets a bad rap. And I thought it was a really interesting reframing, Rachelle, of this busyness thing that sometimes is just unavoidable. Now, this was really interesting. You said this. Well, busy is having a lot to do. Hurry is doing those things while stressed, distracted, or rushed. Hurry looks like moving through your day, whether it's busy or not, with a frenetic stride. It's a way of life marked by feeling overwhelmed, chaotic, worried, distracted, and disconnected. I thought it was so interesting that you said, you know, you want to differentiate between busy and hurry, but you can also have those feelings of hurried even when things aren't very busy. So what are some of your suggestions on dealing with the worried, distracted, disconnected, chaotic, overwhelmed with those types of feelings?

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah, I find, like, if I start my day on my phone or I am answering text messages that aren't urgent, or I'm. I'm trying to manage our life, I will find even though I have nothing to do today, my life, I feel overwhelmed. I feel. And then all of a sudden it's like, hey, I called the plumber. He's going to come Thursday from my husband or whatever. And the next thing you know, I'm like, oh, my gosh, I can't handle this. But it's like, it's not even that big of a deal. We have nothing to do. Like, I don't know why I feel so overwhelmed by this, but it's because my mind is running. And I think we can start to really prioritize making margin. When we can make margin, which is tricky because, you know, sometimes our definition of margin has to be flexible because it's. Sometimes those windows are small and sometimes they can be much larger. But learning to create a sort of, like, plan of action for when we do feel busy so that we can tackle it strategically as opposed to just kind of going. Going with a whim of our life and not ever having a chance to catch our breath, and then it kind of gets into our heads and it starts to impact the way we communicate with our kids and we become more irritable.

[Ginni Urich]

So, yeah, yeah, I think that this is really important in this day and age to be able to differentiate between busy and hurried because you could be busy and it could be a good busy and you could enjoy it and you could be connected while you do it, and you could be calm and you could be in the moment. You talked about. If you're going to be on your mat, be on your mat. Like, you're going to be in the moment. And so to try and make some conscious choices, to know that what we really don't want are those feelings of hurry. And they can come anytime, they can come if you're busy, and they can come when you're not busy. So this is one of the hardest parts I have felt with becoming a parent is that you go from having some time, you go from having margin some. And especially if you were like, I was an adult pre smartphones, so, you know, you. You have some margin in your life and Then you become a parent, and it's possible that you lose almost all of it. They're nursing, they're crying, they don't nap well. You have a couple kids in a row. They're super clingy. They won't go with anybody else. They won't even go with your husband. They certainly won't go with the grandparents. And so you go from having, like, some margin to having zero. But what I. What I've had the hardest time with Michelle, and I still have a hard time with it, is, is when the time then opens back up, because eventually it does. Eventually it might be 12 minutes. You know, you had zero minutes. Now you got 12, and then a year from now, you've got 24, you know, and, you know, it starts to open back up. It's like, I have had the hardest time figuring out how to fill that time, because you talk about there's three options. You can have personal time, you can build relationships, or you can be productive. And it's so hard to figure out what of the three. Are you trying to, like, make it better? Yeah, I'm going to fold the laundry so that I don't have to do it tomorrow. Like, yeah, that is. I think that's one of the hardest things to figure out.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah, no, definitely. I think it's really tempting in our culture to prioritize that productivity that it's like, oh, I have. I'm going to, you know, use this downtime, use this nap time to get things done around the house, and the next thing you know, you're drained. I think it's really important. And what we often miss is prioritizing the things that fill us up so that when the next busy season comes, we are in a position to tackle it well. You know, sometimes using your time for productivity is the best gift you can give yourself. Right. Because it's going to open up a little more time in the evening or the next day. But we have to resist the temptation to just make everything about productivity, which is. I think a lot of these time management books that are on the market are typically about time blocking, managing your time well, getting more done, and in a way that it doesn't help us use our time to be a person and enjoy our families. It makes us just feel like robots trying to get through our day and get things done. Done as fast as possible and as much as done as possible.

[Ginni Urich]

Yeah, you had such a beautiful part where you're just talking about all of these things, like, you know, get a massage and grab coffee with a friend and take a cozy nap and bake cookies with your kids and go for a run and knit a hat or read a book or go foraging for mushrooms. And it almost feels like that is too indulgent.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Right? Yeah. We are always. We feel guilty. We feel guilty sometimes if we're not, you know, putting our families first or if we're not getting a lot of things done. And I, you know, I share a list of things you can do, and obviously not all of your time can be devoted to such a whimsical life of coffee with friends, but when we don't put those things first, when we don't make time for those things, we don't come back to our families as our best self. We're not using our time wisely. So, yeah, I love hunting for mushrooms, and I do it with my kids, and it's our favorite thing of the year. I like the idea I talk about in the book is having something for every season, whether it's literally like, winter, spring, summer, fall, or if it's the season of life you're in where you're home with babies and you have a hobby that you like to do at home or as they get older and you're. You're able to do it out and about more. But finding a hobby or something that you love to do in that season that you can do, well, I think it. It fills us up so much. And so I'm always in the woods in the spring looking for mushrooms with my kids. It's like one of our favorite things to do.

[Ginni Urich]

It's a good reminder, Rachelle, that there are these three options. Like, if you, you know, when it starts to happen and there's a little bit of time that creeps back in, there's options of, you know, personal time, relationship building, and productivity. And don't put all of it to our productivity. For those who easily succumb to hustle culture, be in the habit of using all your margin for productivity. And then you say, specifically, do not use it for screens.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Oh, yes. I think that's the one thing that really. I think that. I mean, I don't have any numbers on this, but it literally drains my attention, like, tenfold, as opposed to, you know, navigating conflict with my kids or having to drive my kids to different activities that they're involved in right now. Like, those can be mentally draining. Right. But when you're on your phone, it does nothing to fill you up. And you somehow. Even if it's your margin and it's your Downtime and you're scrolling or getting caught in a text thread and trying to resolve something with someone else. Like those kind of things just. I think they tap our attention and our mental capacity so much faster than all the other things of, like, just being a person and a mom and going to work and, you know, life. So.

[Ginni Urich]

Yes, you talked about. You dropped your phone in a lake.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah, Last. A couple summers ago, I believe it was. I was trying to take a picture of my son. He had bought himself this little flat bottom boat with this old evinrude motor, like 1980s. And so he was going out on his first maiden voyage. Right. And I dropped the phone, trying to help untie it at the same time. And I remember just looking down and I could see the camera open, like looking up at me. And I honestly felt like, oh, thank God. And it was like this weird. This weird feeling of like, I hope it's broken. Even though obviously that's wasteful and I didn't really want that. I didn't, you know, maybe I threw it in it. No, I'm just kidding. But I just felt this, like I need to get. I need to be away from this phone for a while. Because it did feel like there was a lot of stuff going on. And it's not just social media that sucks us in. Like I said, it's other. You know, there's other things that go on, people that need to reach us or. And everything kind of feels urgent.

[Ginni Urich]

I mean, it is texting sometimes. Josh is my husband. He'll say, your read receipts are on. And I'm like, oh, I don't even know how they turned on, but I'm like, this person is like, they read that four days ago, right? Is that instant access this to someone and they're like, well, gosh, you're tied up with other things. That texting definitely can be one.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yes. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. So I just sat there like it came out of the. What? My nephew jumped in and grabbed it for me and it was dead. And it was like the 4th of July ish time where I couldn't get to anywhere to get a new phone. And then of course, I'm like really kind of type B when it comes to the details. So I didn't know any of my passwords. So it took me forever to get back into my own icloud and my social stuff. And it was like the best, like week and a half. I don't remember exactly how many days, but it was so nice and I felt like it was Just the most peaceful summer. And so I've tried to like, you know, emulate that in a way that I don't actually have to lose my phone in the water. But it really was a wake up call that's like, okay, clearly if you're hoping your phone is broken then you need to be managing it better. Yeah.

[Ginni Urich]

And it just doesn't really, it doesn't really fit for the personal time. It is personal time, but it doesn't really do for you what you want it to do. You know, you feel both overstimulated and overly tired at the same time. We've become addicted to the anticipation of what might pop up on the phone. And so you said when that phone sung in the lake and then didn't work, you were. I found being present in the moment to be a piece of cake. I felt more clear headed and somehow both more rested and more productive. So you talk about having these sort of out of office hours if you can, not if you're on call, but you have these out of office hours with your phone and you say this, buying an alarm clock has single handedly had the biggest impact on improving my sleep and reducing my daily screen time.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yes. I was using my phone as an alarm clock as many of us do and it just seems like, oh, it's there. But just because it can doesn't mean we have to use it as an alarm clock. So I, I started implementing out of office hours. One thing I've read in a lot of time management books is office hours, right? Like okay, I'm only going to check my email during this time or I'm only going to respond to text message text messages during this time. But as a parent, like I don't have that luxury. Like I'm the default parent for the most. I work part time but I'm home. I'm the one taking the calls from the school or if anything's going on or my kid wants to make plans or whatever. Like I don't have the luxury of being like I'm just going to check my phone from 12 to 1. Like so instead I shifted it into out of office hours where I find time in the day where I'm just, I'm out, make an announcement or anything like if I'm just going to leave my phone and go do other things. But I have this out of office time in my own mind. And then the morning and the evenings are also just devoted to out of office hours. Like if you text me in the evening, I'm probably not getting it till the morning because I plug my phone in pretty early, depending on our schedule, so that I don't have to be. It's just not even near me. So there's not that temptation. But yeah, I think it's about realistically framing how much we can be near our phone because some people are using their phones as their baby monitors or some people have a. I have a friend with a daughter with diabetes. She doesn't get to walk away from her phone. So there's just a matter of being really realistic about your office hours and being you have to be extra intentional when, when that's the case. When those, when you're in the middle of those kind of circumstances. But.

[Ginni Urich]

And you said it's not perfect because there was one time where you missed this snow day.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Oh yes. I woke all my kids up because I, you know, was having my coffee. I didn't check my phone. And we live in Michigan, so snow on the ground doesn't mean a snow day every time. And I got everybody up and then it was like, like. And I got like at the time was like preteen. So you don't want to wake them.

[Ginni Urich]

If you don't have to.

[Rachelle Crawford]

I mean, I guess any kid. But yeah, so they were all like, thanks a lot, mom. But yeah. So yeah, if you see snow, I would recommend maybe giving it a peek.

[Ginni Urich]

But yeah, yeah, there you go. We live in Michigan too. So I loved all of your oh references and the lake and the wind, it turns over and it gets really cold. We'll talk about that.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah.

[C]

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[Ginni Urich]

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[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah.

[Ginni Urich]

So I started to notice that, you know, my husband used to travel a lot for work. A lot. You know, it's almost every week he'd be gone, but pretty short trips. So we got young kids at home. He's gone three out of four weeks of the month, but they're short trips. Two days, three days. And that's not very long. Right. And he would come home, and in two to three days, I mean, you're so far behind if you're solo parenting and you're exhausted. And so I found that it took a week, a week to regain our footing, and then he would be gone again. So I was like, well, this is kind of why things feel really chaotic, because no one really talks about recovery time.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Right.

[Ginni Urich]

So you say we underestimate. I don't even think we talk about it at all. We underestimate how much time we need to recover.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah.

[Ginni Urich]

You need margin on both sides of busy. Can you talk about that?

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah. One of the analogies I give in the book is about bubble wrap. We moved recently, and so, you know, we wrapped all of our breakables in bubble wrap. And I. It really got me thinking about how we use our time and that we need to prepare on the front end and on the back end of a busy season, and that might be a busy week, that might be the holidays, that might be a whole, like, few months where, you know, you have a sports heavy season with kids that are in activities, but it's a matter of looking ahead of when this is going to end and creating margin, not allowing anything in your calendar. And you. You really are the only person who can do that. To protect that. To say no to over commitment and to refuse, even if it's just a couple days or if you need a week or if you need a whole season off. There was a good long chunk of time where we said no spring sports. No spring sports, because spring was like. I coached fall soccer for my son when he was younger, and it was really just in the spring. We're just taking the time off. And as they get into high school, that becomes a little bit less possible for us. So I was glad I did it when, when it. When I was able to. But now my season, like bubble wrap, might be a little bit smaller, but it doesn't make it any less important. It makes it more important. Right. So really just giving, looking ahead, carving out when your calendar is going to slow down even a little bit, and creating time to recover for yourself and for your family.

[Ginni Urich]

Yeah. It's something that I don't think most people factor in at all.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah.

[Ginni Urich]

So I'll, you know, I'll travel for speaking gigs. And then I was gone for four, almost four weeks in a row where I had different things. And you're trying to maintain your relationships back at home with friends. And then I'm thinking, well, the day after I get back, we're gonna do stuff. And I'm like, I can't. Yeah, I, I, you know, I have to be better about thinking about that margin on both sides. And I like, you talk about it too. It's like, if you know it's coming, and often we know it's coming back to school is coming or whatever the season is, it's coming. Can you build yourself in a little bit of breathing room on the front end as well? So I thought that was really interesting. And even protecting your margin when no one else appears to be. You say it's hard to protect your margin when nobody else seems to care about theirs. But just making sure that. Because maybe you feel embarrassed. Yeah. You know, in some ways it would be like, well, gosh, like, well, you, you got home, you're home. Why can't you do something? Something like that. And so even if it feels like someone else maybe could jump right back in and you feel like you need a couple days, it's good to know your limit. So really interesting there about margin. And then also, because this is just life, it's managing the unpredictable. What comes out of nowhere. So many things come out of nowhere. You were talking about this one day. You're like, I made homemade broth. You know, I did all the work. Can you Tell us the story.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yes. I had saved, like, multiple chicken carcasses and old vegetable scraps. And I was so proud because that stuff doesn't really come supernaturally to me. So I was really excited. And we were going to make this soup recipe that I loved. And so I spent all day making the broth. Blah, blah, blah. My kids, we were home. Maybe it was a snow day, or maybe it was even Covid. I think it might have been during COVID Anyways, I spent so much time on this, and I had turned around for a little bit. My kids were painting in the other room, and I put the broth in a pot in the sink because I had just strained it into there. And that's where it sat for just. I mean, it wasn't but a few minutes minutes. And I come back to the broth to get it back out, and it has a red tint to it and some soapy bubbles on top. And my kids had just thought it was dirty water and washed the paint off their hands directly into my broth. So, yeah, all of my hard work, every. All of my planning, I had done everything right. Well, besides where I left it, obviously, but. And then it was just gone. Hijacked the plan. We had to pivot, and, you know, we ended up getting pizza for dinner that night. But it was pretty traumatizing at first, yes. But I think that happens to our calendars so often where we can make those great plans. We can leave our margin in our calendars and bubble wrap it beautifully. And then something happens. And the next thing you know, I was driving down the highway and some guy had a recliner in the back of his car and it fell off the back of his car and I clipped it. And it just. We were. Everything was fine and safe, thankfully, but we were out of car for a while. So here it is, like, oh, everything's going great. Oh, now we're down to one car. Right? So that's just. That's just the way life goes. And I think oftentimes we plan our lives based off of our calendar when we need to be looking at our capacity more. Like you said, you want to come home, and you see that I have this free time. Once we're back together, we're going to make plans with friends, and we are looking only at our calendar. There's a couple days. I have time. I should do this. But we're not really taking the time to evaluate how much mental energy we have, how exhausted we are. What do we have to prepare for a few days down the line, we really have to start protecting that margin by under committing our calendars and assessing our capacity over just our calendar.

[Ginni Urich]

Yes. And that's the thing. It's like, I know it takes us one full week.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Week, yeah.

[Ginni Urich]

To regain stability from when we've been traveling a full week. And. And it's on the dot, you know, if I got back on a Tuesday, next Tuesday, I mean, everything is back to an equilibrium, but it takes that long. And so you have to be honest about your own capacity. And also because these unpredictable things, you're like, I sliced through my finger, you know, and. And you know, here's what happens. I. I do. I bet you'll never ruin your broth again. Like, you'll know.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah, that's true.

[Ginni Urich]

You'll be so aware of where your broth is and who's painting. Like, it happens once. And you said it was all for nothing.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah.

[Ginni Urich]

But it did make a really good story for your book cook, so.

[Rachelle Crawford]

That's true.

[Ginni Urich]

You know, that's the other thing, too, is that there are, you know, things happen, and you can, whatever, make lemonade out of lemons that, you know, as that saying goes. And I felt like it wasn't all for nothing. It was for that chapter. And it was like any mom would be like, oh, my gosh. Because, you know, that has to be in that pot for, like, hours and hours and hours, and you're saving your vegetable scraps, and like, you just had drained it, and there it is, I mean, your amazing broth. And now it's got red and soap, and you're like, instead of having this, like, homemade broth that heals the gut, you know, and you're gonna have quarts of it. You can make soup for, you know, the whole winter. And now you're gonna have pizza. So, yeah, that's a really, really relatable story. Or you're just, you know, you're slicing your things and you slice a little bit off your. Your finger. You get into a. You know, someone gets hurt. Whatever. It's. It's all of these things that happen. And so all the more reason to have some margin in your calendar. Okay, one of the things. Another one.

[Rachelle Crawford]

So.

[Ginni Urich]

So many good analogies in this book. One of the ones was about the mushrooms. So you brought that up earlier. Now, of course, this is great because we're trying to get outside and you are hunting for morels. You found four.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah, four in, like, eight years. Like, not for a year.

[Ginni Urich]

So you're not very.

[Rachelle Crawford]

You're not very good at it. Yeah.

[Ginni Urich]

I've never found one. So I'm at zero. You're at four. You're beating me. You have a kid that's really good at finding them.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah, my daughter. Oh, my daughter. She can spot things super well. Yeah, I've pulled her out of school even like, okay, let's go. Go. Let's go look for mushrooms. And it's pretty. The teacher will be like, it's our fun activity. Yeah, yeah.

[Ginni Urich]

Teacher like, well, why do you have a doctor's appointment? You're going to the orthodontist? Like, no. Yeah, no, we're going to look for morels. Yeah, but the analogy that you gave was that you're out there looking for this certain kind. And I thought this was, like, really deep in sort of how we live life. They're looking for the certain kind. You said people will even have maybe, like a wooden one. So, like, reminds them like, this is what it looks like. And then you realize because you have a friend that was mushroom hunting and came back with, like, chanterelles and I mean, they all have such cool names. Right? And you're like, wait a minute, wait a minute. I've got nothing. Because I didn't find morels, but I didn't even notice those other ones. And you said, you're stepping over the bounty of others. Can you talk about that?

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah, yeah. She had dozens of different mushrooms, and she shared this photo online. And I was like, wait a minute. I have been looking and looking and looking, and those are mushrooms. I probably walked right over not paying attention to it. And now when I go out, whether I find morels or I find golden oysters or chicken of the woods, I'm always coming home with something. And I think it really got me thinking about these big, grand, like, moments of margin and times of connection with our families that we assume they have to be these big, big things that we have to carve out large chunks of time for them, or we depend on family vacations to be the connection. When it's really all these little moments. I've always. One of my things. If you were to ask anybody that knows me for years, my biggest thing was, I want. I wish I could just pull my kids out of school, homeschool for a year, travel around the world, live in an rv, one of those, like, van life families. You know, you see them, they're amazing, they're inspiring. But it really never, for. For a multitude of reasons, didn't really work for our family, for my husband's work, for what I was doing and.

[Ginni Urich]

Then the season is right, then the season closes. Talked about it too. But then as soon as your kids hit those teen years, I mean you could still do it. And I know that people do, but often they're plugged in with different things. And so it just, it's like it, it passed.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah. And so then it felt like here I am hyper focused on this like goal that isn't really, doesn't really align up with my family. And, and when we have an opportunity to be present in so many of the smaller moments. And so it's really, the chapter's really just about living into the season you're in, finding the moments of connection, the moments of reprieve, the savor the moment type of things in the season you're in, where you're at, what's happening around you that we don't have to miss it because we're out chasing the bigger, grander moments.

[Ginni Urich]

Yeah, that was a really meaningful analogy. Stepping right over the bounty of everything else and you say, I know it sounds cheesy, but something as simple as the sun hitting my face as I drag our trash can from the street back up to our house can have a remarkably soul filling effect. And I think it's important to remember that those small things really matter. And are we stepping over really good things because you know, we're just wanting to do the van life or we're just wanting the Morales and there's all these other good things along the way. I loved that it's summer time to.

[Rachelle Crawford]

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[Ginni Urich]

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up, we thought we'd bring our prices down.

[Rachelle Crawford]

So to help us we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing thing.

[Ginni Urich]

Mint Mobile Unlimited Premium Wireless. Everybody to get 30, 30. Better get 30.

[Rachelle Crawford]

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[Ginni Urich]

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[Rachelle Crawford]

Just 15 bucks a month. Sold.

[Ginni Urich]

Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Of 45 for three month plan equivalent to 15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of network's busy. Taxes and fees extra.

[Ginni Urich]

See mintmobile.com all right, so minimalism is not necessarily the focus of the book, but you do talk about it. We've talked about minimalism some on here, but you do say if I could share just one time management tip. So just one you say it would be to drastically reduce the material possessions within your home. De own. Don't just declutter de own. Minimalism has single handedly given me more time, attention and energy than any other time management strategy I've tried to implement over the years. Talk to us about your experience with that.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah, I have always, I grew up in a busy home. We always had commitments. I, you know, became an adult and then a parent. And busyness was just my way of life. I thought I thrived there. I thought I loved it. If I didn't have somewhere to be, I made somewhere to be. It was just I was always on the go. And I think looking back, it was partly because I was avoiding the chaos in my house. There was, I was a pie, I'm a pile person. I'm a oh. And I'm a like leave the cabinet door open person. So that might traumatize some listeners, but I'm just kind of like not. That's just not. I'm not. Yeah. I'm like, it doesn't bother me. I don't notice it till I notice it. Right? And then it starts to overwhelm me. So I think my go to strategy was just like let's get out of here and left me like not feeling like I had to tackle my house because I'm not home. So if I'm not home, I can't handle it. It's not my fault. Right? But once I realized that and it was really just this aha moment in a mom group listening to someone talking talk about a random topic. And she mentioned she was a minimalist and I was like, she had five kids. And I was like, you cannot have a lot of stuff and have five kids because I have only three kids. How are you doing this? And so I went home and just started decluttering. And we went through every. I mean, it took us a full year, but we went through every area of our home. We got rid of so much stuff, started purchasing with more intention. And then I realized a lot of those. Those busyness things I was doing had to do with shopping and going running errands and then returning things. And so when my life became less focused on the accumulation and maintenance, maintenance of material possessions, I realized I had so much more time on my hands to be home, to be available, to not spend so much mental energy on laundry and cleaning and organizing, because those are things I loathed anyway. So by getting rid of so much of our stuff, I was able to spend less time doing that. So that really is. While the book is about, you know, how to be busy. Well, and it allows for the how to Be Busy book allows for people to embrace the busy season they're in. I do share a lot of strategies to help simplify the areas of your life that you can simplify. Yeah. And because that is a way. A big one. Yeah. Yeah.

[Ginni Urich]

That is a way to be busy. Well, because if you want to be busy doing the things that you feel like matter a lot. Right. That are, you know, like, you talk about leading to innovation or leading to relationship or, you know, leading to experiences, then one way to do that is to not have so much time on your phone, you know, get the alarm clock. And also to own less so that that's not taking up so much of your time. So a lot of strategies in this book, how to be busy about minimalism. And then you talked about this sentence that you say it, it comes in your mind almost every week. I don't think a week passes that this line doesn't reverberate in my mind. And it is a very powerful line. If you're going to be on your mat, be on your mat. Can you talk about that?

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah. I was in a yoga class years and years ago, and I had the hardest time, like, being present for stuff like that, but I was enjoying it. And the instructor just said, if you're going to be on your mat, be on your mat. And I thought it was so profound because it wasn't just she was saying, come here if you're going to be here, if you're going to drive all the way here, like, put in the work, you know, don't halfway do the yoga moves, like, go all in. Right. And I realized I just kind of started applying that to My day to day, if you're going to be at the zoo with your kids, be at the zoo with your kids. Don't be thinking of your to do list. Don't be worrying about some crisis that might come down the line or something that happened a few days ago. Be present where you are. And so I just started trying to think, like, if, Rochelle, if you're going to be here, be here. And so I think that's just one little line that helps me bring myself back to where I'm at, because I do find myself more prone to worry than I would like to be from time to time. Or overthinking. And just trying to plan ahead for every possible scenario can keep your mind incredibly exhausted. So, yeah, be on your mat if you're going to be on your mat.

[Ginni Urich]

I like that it was in an exercise scenario, because to me, that's actually the time when I most am thinking that type of thing, because it's, you know, in some ways, it feels, in the moment, unnecessary. Right. You're like, okay, I'm going to do these dance. That's what I like to do. Like, these dance videos, you know, like, choreographed dance. That's what I like to do. Or I have this hula hoop thing with a ball that, like, swings around and you're there, and you're like, If I spend 25 minutes on this the whole time. And I was not like this when I was a kid. It changed when I became a parent. So, like, I was trying to exercise, and I was a kid and whatever. I had a. We had a Nordic track, one of those, like, ski machines. Yeah, no big deal. Or like, we. Then there was a gym that they built near our house, and I go to the gym. It's called Lifetime Fitness. Those things are like a world in and of themselves. Anyway, then we moved away, and I only did it because I was, like, a single person, and it was cheaper, but I never had any other thoughts, but, oh, I'm just here, you know, I'm doing my workout or. But when I became a parent, I still, to this day, I have a really hard time not being like, well, I could be. I could be cleaning. I could be prepping a meal. I could be editing a podcast. I could be working on this. I could be calling a friend. You know, it's like that. Yeah.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah. I tell a story in my first book, Messy Minimalism, where I went out with my daughter. She wanted to catch butterflies, and I was anywhere but in the moment. I was out there, and I'm, you Know, we're waiting for the butterflies to come. And instead of just, like, embracing this adorable little phase she was in and. And being there with her, I was like, oh, I might as well pull these weeds while I'm at it. Like, I'm out here. So I started pulling weeds. Might as well. Right? They're right there. Right. So then I'm pulling weeds. I do not know weeds, clearly. And I got on my phone to answer a phone call, because obviously I have a phone call that we're chasing butterflies and might as well multitask that way, too. The next thing you know, a few days later, maybe even just the next day, I have gotten now poison ivy, or poison. I think it was poison oak. Like, whatever I was pulling was not good for you. And it was on my hands. It got on my phone, it ended up on my face because I put my phone to my face. And so I kind of use that story of like. Like, don't. You know, you never know what's going to happen if you're not Just be in the moment. Like, if I would have just been in the moment, I wouldn't have ended up with that. And so, yeah, it's so easy to just kind of try and get things done and be productive while being present. And it's just really. It's too difficult.

[Ginni Urich]

Yeah. And I like the saying of it, like, because, you know, you over sometimes you overhear things. Be in the moment. Be in the moment. But the mat now, I can't find it in my notes. Oh, if you're going to be on your mat, be on your mat. I was like, oh, I can remember that. I can remember that. You know, if I'm going to be swinging my hula hoop ball around. Swing your hula hoop ball around. You know. Exactly.

[Rachelle Crawford]

I love it. I love it.

[Ginni Urich]

That was. That's really helpful for me. I needed to read that, and I thought that was really good. You said you think about it all the time, and I know I will, too. All right, let's talk about your grandma.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Grandma Sally.

[Ginni Urich]

Grandma Sally is good at saying, no, I'm busy. Yes. So. And this is also about capacity. Going back to capacity.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah.

[Ginni Urich]

Capacity is actually the most important thing to evaluate. That's what you talk.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah.

[Ginni Urich]

So the conversation is, you're like, well, let's spend more time with Grandma Sally. We think about that all the time. We're like, yeah, if we were to prioritize things and you go through that matrix, that Eisenhower matrix in the book.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah.

[Ginni Urich]

And I'm like, if I really, Like I come back to a lot of times, top priority is time with grandparents.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Right.

[Ginni Urich]

You don't know how long they're going to be here. And actually. Oh, my goodness. Rochelle. There was an active shooter at my parents church on Sunday. Oh, my word. Wayne and I haven't heard this. It was. It did end up going all over the news. And he came with two rifles. One was an automatic. He was wearing full tactical gear. And it is just a wild, crazy story. The whole congregation had to flee out of a different door into the woods. And had the service been outside, which it was supposed to be, none of them would have made it. So it is just a wild, unbelievable story. All of these different details came to be part of the story. Like someone showed up late that normally came early to do breakfast, but they weren't doing breakfast that day. And he actually hit the man with his car because he was shooting, shooting, shooting everywhere, all over the place. Bullets. There's bullets in the side of the building. There's bullets in the brick. There's bullets in the glass. There's broken glass everywhere. Just bullets. And he came in late to the service and hit the man with his car. And then this. A security, you know, a volunteer security church, it's a small church, you know, ended up taking out the shooter and gosh, it's like our life could have changed.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Oh, my word.

[Ginni Urich]

Immediately, immediately. Both my parents there, my mom was right on the other side of the wall. Like, you can see where the bullet is in the brick. And she was right on the other side of the wall. So talking about grandparents were always like, it's really easy to forget grandparents.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah.

[Ginni Urich]

You know, you talk about the Eisenhower matrix and like, urgent and important and like, you know, it's like, grandparents are so important, but they're not urgent. It feels like. But they are kind of, you know.

[Rachelle Crawford]

They are.

[Ginni Urich]

They are.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah.

[Ginni Urich]

Here you are. You're like, okay, hey, we're going to prioritize Grandma Sally, we're going to invite her out to dinner. Won't she love that? She's going to love the invitation. We are going to prioritize. And you're like, grandma Sally, we would love to take you out to dinner tonight.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah. And then she's like, well, let me look at my schedule. And she looked at her calendar and she couldn't go because at like 11am that day, she had to go to JCPenney to pick out curtains. And so for her, it was like, ooh, I can't do dinner that night. And I was like, like, huh. Me and my husband kind of side eyed each other. Like, okay, how cute is she that she can't take on that much stuff? But then it got me thinking of like, how many times we do. She, she wasn't looking at her calendar clearly. Like, mathematically, she definitely was had time and she'd have to have dinner that day at some point. But what she was looking at is, nope, that is going to be a big outing for me. That's going to, you know, make me tired and I want to be fully present with my grandkids. So let's do it on a day when I don't have something already planned. And so I really, really just helped me to understand more about. And it was years later where I made this connection that we don't just have to look at our calendar, we have to look at our capacity when we're saying no and learn to say no. And she said it so confidently. There wasn't like, you know, a lot of times we get asked to do something and we're like, let me think about it. Or I feel like, you know, there was zero guilt. There was just nothing but confidence and nope, that won't work. And we found another time and it was a delightful dinner with Grandma Sally and she was, was, you know, present and didn't feel overwhelmed by it. So.

[Ginni Urich]

Which is amazing because it is a confident answer because it's kind of weird. You're like, well, that's in the morning. Like, we're gonna take you to dinner. It's gonna be 6pm You've got a lot of hours in there to pick your curtains out, then come home. You could probably even take a nap. But she was confident in that. Like you said, she knew her own capacity. Like, maybe that's something that's really stressful for her.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah.

[Ginni Urich]

And that was a really good point to bring up. That would be stressful for me. Me, I'm awful.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah.

[Ginni Urich]

I'm like not good at interior design at all. So I'm like, that would be actually really high stress for me. And for some people, they'll be like, it's nothing. I could pick out your curtains and my curtains, I could pick out curtains for the whole neighborhood. Like, no big deal. And you're, you're mentioning that, you know, every person is different and then what you say, which I thought was really interesting. Okay. I've never thought about this at all. Rochelle. It's like that person, if someone's asking you for help, they don't want like half help help.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Right.

[Ginni Urich]

They don't want someone who like can only kind of help. They like actually really need help. So maybe by you not helping, that's actually helping more.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah, yeah. We say yeah, like, you know, if someone asks for something, I want to, I want to say yes. Like, oh my word, you're. You need help. Because I don't ask for help very easily. So if someone's asking me for help, I feel the same way. Like, maybe they don't ask for help very easily. I need to say yes to this. But if I do not have the capacity for this and I'm not going to be able to do it well, like I'm robbing them of the help that they actually need. And it saying no would give them an opportunity to find somebody that can do it well. And I've had friends, you know, I've asked a friend for help. I tell this story in the book, like I needed someone to substitute coach for me at one point and she was like, no, I don't have the capacity for that. And I was like, oh, I love you for saying that. Because if she would have done it, maybe she wouldn't have done it well. Like I was able to find a parent that could. And it's my job as the asker, right, to find someone who has the capacity for it. And so it makes us, I also think it makes us, us ask for help less often because we feel like we're putting people in a bind because we're, we feel in a bind or we're saying yes when we're over committed, so we assume everybody else is. So then we all just kind of take on our own things and do it all instead of living in community. So, yeah, I think that we have to, we have to be really intentional with our nos and because when you say yes to something, you don't have the capacity for everything else in your life that you've already committed to, now you're less present for. So this really just gives us an opportunity to be present for the things and let other people find someone who can do it.

[Ginni Urich]

Well, yeah, I mean, be like Grandma Sally, I've got appointment at JCPenney and so I can't go. I'm gonna be picking up.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Exactly.

[Ginni Urich]

But you give the wording. You give the wording. Like to say, I don't have the capacity for that, because I do. I actually like not giving an excuse. I think it's, I think it's better to just put it out there.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah.

[Ginni Urich]

So to say I don't have the capacity for That I can't take that on right now. And then you say that if you say it early, it's better, you know, because I think we hem and haw, right? We're like, oh, I want to be able to have, but I probably shouldn't have. And so, like, we don't respond because we feel awkward. We don't want to say no. You're like, no, you need to say it like, right away.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah. My husband actually said this to me a long time ago because he's listening to me heaven ha on the couch. And he's like, like, God, I got off the phone, I was like, oh, my word, I don't know how to get out of this. And he's like, be clear. Like, clear is kind. When you just say no in the beginning, you give that person plenty of time to find someone to help them or to figure something else out. And you relieve yourself of the stress of, like, if you know you can't do it, just say no from the get go. And I think it's something we need to start practicing. It took me a long time and I started saying, like, thanks to minimalism. No became my superpower. Like I really was. You know, people would ask me to do things and I don't have the capacity for that is the perfect line. Because people can't argue with that. Or if you're like, oh, no, I don't have a babysitter that day. Oh, well, my sister could babysit for you. So now you can do, you know, I mean, people can help you work around all those things. So just be really clear and say you don't have the capacity. Will. There's no real arguing with that.

[Ginni Urich]

Yeah. Another one that works is we have lice. Oh, this is great.

[Rachelle Crawford]

I will remember that.

[Ginni Urich]

I don't know, like, you know, it's like we had like, I don't know, it's been. It's been a couple weeks. But I was like, like, okay, like, I just scratched my head. You know, it's like one of those things that you, like, freak out about as a parent. Like, you like, I don't ever want to get lice, have my kids have lice. And then it turned out to not really actually be that big of a deal. And me and my oldest daughter were like, we want to start a business. We're going to call it the Nitwits. We will find bugs in your hair. Okay, this is it.

[Rachelle Crawford]

We.

[Ginni Urich]

We made a graphic. We like, liked it. So it's only one of our kids, amazingly, because they say it's, like, super contagious or whatever. Only one of the kids in the house had it. But it got me out of so many things, Rochelle.

[Rachelle Crawford]

And also, that's amazing.

[Ginni Urich]

And also, it can get you out for a long time because people are like, well, did they really get rid of it? So you're like, we're still dealing, you know, they don't. Nobody knows. So you can either have the capacity for that or, oh, my gosh, someone has lights in our house. There you go.

[Rachelle Crawford]

I am a school nurse, too, part time, so license. Like, there's always this running joke of like, oh, give me the flu. Give me Covid. Give me the stomach. But, dog, do not come at me with your. With your life. Like, that's, like the.

[Ginni Urich]

Yeah, we loved it.

[Rachelle Crawford]

We love. So funny. I mean, it is actually a business.

[Ginni Urich]

It's an actual business. We were like, look, we. I mean, I think we could. We were like, if we could treat like 5, 000 kids, we'd be rolling in the money over here. So anyway. But it also gets you out of plans in case you ever need, like, a last minute. I don't know what to say. You could say you have an appointment at JCPenney's for curtains. You could say, I don't have the capacity for that, or we have lice. All of those will work. Okay, I want to talk about a couple last things. Just because we're both in Michigan, so this is pretty cool. And this is about getting outside, so I thought it was incredible. One of the things I've said I would never, ever, ever, ever, ever do is attempt downhill skiing as an adult. I've never done it ever. So I was like. And I know people have gotten pretty hurt. So I was like, I would never do that. But you did it. You learned how to downhill as an adult.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah, it's been fun. We love it. I mean, I couldn't. We got our kids, they wanted to ski, and we got a. With minimalism. We kind of shifted towards experiences over things, and one of the gifts we gave them were ski lessons. But then My daughter was 7, and I can't be like, okay, go with God and send her up a ski hill. I had to learn. So my husband and I took lessons, and it was. Oh, it was very entertaining. I mean, at one point, I did, like, get my ski caught on this ski instructor ski and, like, kind of drag him down the hill with me. So some of my. Yeah, it's made for some really great memories. And so far, knock on with no broken bones. But, yeah, it was so much fun. I've enjoyed it. It's made me enjoy winter because, like, living in Michigan, you know, it's freezing for so long, and I've always just survived the season of winter. And this has given us something that we. We all love to do together and look forward to. But.

[Ginni Urich]

And then you talked about. Okay, so you're going up the ski lift, which. The ski lift has always freaked me out because you're not, like, buckled in, so I'm like, well, couldn't you just slide out? It's like, way up in the air. You've got the. These skis. Long skis, dangling below you. I mean, does it feel terrifying?

[Rachelle Crawford]

Not really.

[Ginni Urich]

What happened to yours? You were like, almost. You would have been dangling below it.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Oh, yeah. So we had this incident where I went on the ski lift with my husband and my daughter, and somehow when we. I. When we got on, I, like, I don't exactly. Like, I sat down too soon, like. Yeah, it doesn't stop moving, so it's like, keep your eye. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you sit down, and then when you get to the top, you just. You just ski right off. And it's. It's timed, and you want to do it, like, once you get the hang of it. It's not as traumatizing as it first feels like, but this time, it was, like, a few days of skiing under my belt, and I felt like I had nailed it. So I just went to sit down because I saw the ski lift kind of coming out of the corner of my eye, and I sat too soon. And so then my husband, his skis were on top of mine, so I couldn't scoot up. So it was just like my back was against the seat, and I started moving forward, and the guy wasn't paying attention. It was such a busy day. It was so busy. And he just let me keep going. And eventually I was like. I mean, it felt like forever, but I was like, I have to let. I either have to let go or I'm just gonna keep, you know, going up. And I'd be dangling from this thing. And so I let go. Like, maybe I was probably 20ft from where we'd started, maybe. Maybe 30ft. But it was. It was absolutely mortifying. Yeah. But I felt. But I survived it. I picked up all my stuff. I had. They had to stop the ski lift. I had to gather my ski came. I had no. I had to take my skis off. I had to gather my poles, which I like. Flung. When I fell, it was. Yeah, that's how I roll. That's how I roll. But you gotta be. You gotta be willing to try, like, mess it up. And it made for a great story. I thought my. My daughter was gonna, like, just. What? She just wanted to, like, evaporate. She was so embarrassed looking at me. I think she was so glad that I ended up on a different ski lift so she didn't have to ride up with me after that. But it was a ton of fun.

[Ginni Urich]

I think that's really cool that you learned as an adult for the sake of your kids. Kids. One other show that. And there's, you know, it's. It's Michigan winter, so there's a lot of opportunity to ski. The other thing about Lake Michigan that I know, I've never read about in a book, but we have absolutely experienced. You're swimming one day, and it's like. It's never all that warm, but, like, it's maybe warm. Ish.

[Rachelle Crawford]

It's.

[Ginni Urich]

It's like. It's palatable. Like, you know, you don't feel like you're gonna die. You're like, okay, I can swim in this. It's the middle of July. And then you go the next day, and the water's like. I mean, you're, like, in an ice bath. Bath. And it has a name?

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah. Yeah. It's called the Ekman spiral. I had to look it up because I was. I had just been out at the beach with my kids, and then my friends invited me, and it was like a mom day at the beach, no kids. It was fantastic. And I went to, like, rinse my feet off, and, I mean, it was so painful. It was. It was in the 40s, the water. But what happens is, like, there's this northern wind comes down, and it kind of, like, works like a ceiling fan, like pulling up, like, the cold water.

[Ginni Urich]

From the bottom or something.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah. Yeah. And you can't. I mean, if you're not paying attention to what the water temperatures are, you. You know, you head out boating. You jump in. Thinking was just like, a few days ago. And it's. It's. It can be dangerous if you're not aware. But this was just my feet and. Oh, my word. Yeah, it was absolutely freezing. But it really got me thinking about, like, the. The change that happens beneath the surface is what I talk about, like, this internal Ekman spiral, which was, I think, my minimalism moment of, like, just realizing all the things lying beneath the surface with comparison and perfectionism is. Is this relate or what I relate it to in this story of just, like, all the things underneath the surface that really impact the decisions we make. Whether it's saying yes to too much commitment or buying, you know, more things than we need. Yeah. As things start to change, inside stuff start to change on the outside, and.

[Ginni Urich]

It can be real fast and unexpected. Yeah. That, you know, you say, like, it's tropical paradise, and then today I feel like it's going to murder me. Like, the water is so cold. Yeah.

[Rachelle Crawford]

We have experienced it only once.

[Ginni Urich]

Only once. And we're like, what is this? And someone had brought it up, I wouldn't have even remembered what. What the word was. So.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah, it's not super often. Yeah.

[Ginni Urich]

It's incredible how your brain works, how you're able to, like, take all these, like, stories in and you just. It's a. It's a really good picture of the different things that are actually going on in our lives on the insides of us. So I love that. And it helps the reader to be able to remember those things more. And so I love them. It was just one after the next after the next, all of these different analogies that you had, you know, like the stepping over of the, you know, all of these other kinds of mushrooms, you know, in pursuit of the one. So I just absolutely love that. The book is called how to be busy, unhurried living even when your calendar is chaotic. This is your second book. There's also one called Messy Minimalism, which is great.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah, it's so great.

[Ginni Urich]

The titles, actually, both are. They're very intriguing. Like, Messy Minimalism. You're like, what? And I. I kid you not. I was sitting, I think, and someone was like, how to be busy. They're like, no one needs instruction on how to be busy. Everybody's busy. You know, and it's like, well, no, it's about how to be busy. Well, because you probably are busy.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah.

[Ginni Urich]

Almost everybody is busy. And so how to do it in a way that you want. So you also have a blog, Abundant Life with Less. I'll make sure. I'll put all the links in the show. Notes. Rachelle. We always end our show with the same question. What's a favorite memory from your childhood that was outside?

[Rachelle Crawford]

Oh, goodness. My whole childhood was outside. I was always outside. I. I'd have to say my favorite memory was there was a pond in our neighborhood, and I was always in the pond, like, up to my waist in muck, like, catching turtles and frogs and. Or there was a river down the street, and I was Always in the river catching crawdads. And I just. I was always outside with all the neighbor kids catching all the critters. It was a ton of fun.

[Ginni Urich]

All the water stuff. Did you grow up in Michigan, all the water stuff?

[Rachelle Crawford]

Yeah, I did, yeah.

[Ginni Urich]

Yeah. It's a great state.

[Rachelle Crawford]

It is. I love it so much all the season, especially when you can really adopt a winter hobby. I think it makes it a lot better. Better. So you're not just survive because it is a. A long, cold season and a lot of gray. But, yeah, we've learned it is invigorating.

[Ginni Urich]

It is. It really is out in the cold. Yeah. It does a lot for you. And there are things that I remember, Rochelle, the first time that someone said to me, it was actually in our Facebook group. We have this 1000 hours outside Facebook group. And so I guess someone actually didn't say it specifically to me or may. I can't remember actually the details, but it was like people are posting their winter things, their snowman, they're sledding, they're skiing, whatever, ever. And someone said, I wish I lived there.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Wow.

[Ginni Urich]

And I was like, that's really powerful, you know, because we wish it away. It's like snow and cold and dark and dreary. And then someone who lives down south who doesn't ever get all that snow to go sledding down is like, y. Oh, you know. So I was like, that really changed my view. So anyway, what an honor to get to meet you. I love this book. This book will be out by the time this podcast goes live. How to be busy. It's a really good time for it to come out. Or shell heading back into the school year. Amazingly, all the school supplies. We're recording this in June. The book comes out in July, but all the school supplies are already out. I'm excluding seven days ago. 10 days ago. All the school supplies at Meer. They're at Meer. They're already out. So this is a great one. Heading back into a new school year. Unhurried living even when your calendar is chaotic. Relle, thanks for being here.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Thank you for having me. Mama Papa.

[Ginni Urich]

Moi pronto.

[Rachelle Crawford]

Perofri Lamoda Classes Amazon, Amazon Gastamenos, Sonrimas.