this is episode 92 bringing the fun back into your life. You're listening to the rise up and Shine podcast with Claudine and Ashley as an empty nester and a mom with young kids. We have both shared very similar and very real struggles from chaos to coaches. We now help other women live an authentic and meaningful life. So tune in weekly for girl talk and tips on how you too can rise up and let your light shine bright. This is the Rise up and Shine podcast. Yeah, Welcome back everyone. Today. I have a quote for us. Life is to be enjoyed, not just endured. I like that. Sometimes I feel like I'm enduring, not enjoying Ashleigh, We need a little bit more girls just wanna have fun. Uh Oh girls, just wanna have, that's okay.

I think you're having fun. Are you having fun, Ashley? I'm trying and that's the difference between us. I'm all serious over here. Like, hey, we're recording a podcast and you're all over there having fun and that when you break out in song, it makes life a little bit more enjoyable. It does. My kids know that. Now if I break out in song, it will hurt everyone's ears. So I'm going to spare our listeners that probably hurt someone's ears. I wasn't in my right, keep that's right. Yes. Well today we're talking about how to have more fun in life and I'm telling you with everything that's going on that everything has gone on for the last year and a half or so. We could all use a little more fun and I know that shit Claudine preacher. Yes, I'm trying. But so many women I hear they just want to enjoy life more. They want to have more fun, less stress and joy, right? Time is short. And we're all seeing that more and more time is short and we want to enjoy the time that we do have here on earth and but people have excuses. That's what I have found. People have excuses.

There's no time. We just talked about that recently on scarcity, right? There's no time now. I have so much to do, right. I have so much to do. You know, really, we don't have that much to do. We do have a lot to do, but not so much that we can't have fun and a lot of it. There are things that you chose to put on your, that's right. That's another thing. We have been like my family, my husband, my kids. Well, really my husband and I, we force our kids, yeah. Have really intentionally limited our schedule because we want to have more family time doing fun things. We want to have flexibility of meeting up with friends and doing fun things rather than just being tied down to after school activities and sports because granny, there's a degree of fun in there. But it can also, you know, I mean really, it could be a slave to it. Yeah. I mean, it could really, I see these families control their calendar and I think I was one of them. I know with four Children we have to and I'm like, okay, you each can have one, maybe two.

Right. Well, you know, it's funny because you and I are so different in that. And even with you, you value having fun with your Children. Like what you just share that family time is and fun family times. That's what you guys value. And many, many, many years ago when my kids were your kids age, my value at the time wasn't necessarily having fun with them, but like I need to train them and they need to know how to do all their tours and you know, this is busy business work here, raising a family and I'm going to get about it. So I had a very different mentality now again and I share this all the time, luckily they all still love me and we have a great relationship, but I was more of a general with them. Yeah. Now we have a ton of fun. Yeah. Yeah. I think once I became adults and I was like, hey, my job is over. I think I saw parenting is a job. I can't be your friend now I can be your friend. We can just have fun. So yeah, one of our favorite things is playing games. We play games all the time. We did play games when they were younger too, which is why they all have a love of playing games. So we did have fun. I don't want to make it seem like we lived in the stereo aren't totally militant.

No, not total label maker. No, no, not totally melted. But I didn't run cabinet wrong. You're a lot of fun is a love wrong shelf. Can you not see your makeup babe? You're the green cup. You're not supposed to use the orange cups. That's your brothers. Stick to your color. Okay, make fun of me. We're going to have fun on this episode. I know it was, I'm telling you, I do have a lot of fun together. We do have a lot of fun together. We're having fun today, but it does take effort sometimes, which is kind of crazy because I think we think fun should just be spontaneous. But sometimes you have to plan the fun, right? You have to plan those times to have fun. Um So anyway, it's important to have fun. There's research that shows that Children and I'm thinking even as we grow into adults that um if you're not having fun or playful times when, especially when they're younger, the brain um, doesn't develop the neuron connections that it needs to, from the prefrontal cortex to the other brain circuits involved in motor cognitive and emotional processes.

So there's actual um importance to having play and fun. Like it's not just uh an extra activity that we do. If all our jobs and chores and responsibilities are done, then we get, You know, 10 minutes of fun. It's actually really good for our brains. We are wired to have fun. God said that in proverbs a cheerful heart is good medicine, right? So it's important to have more fun. I remember thinking, gosh, when I, when my kids were really little, I would have a lot of fun. I turn on music, we dance around, we bang on pants, we do all kinds of stuff. And then as the Children got a little bit older as well, my youngest, when he got a little bit older, he would just be like, can you stop mom, stop, stop, stop dancing. It wasn't fun anymore. Wasn't fun. It wasn't playful. I think it made him uncomfortable because he thought, okay, you're just weird. I don't know. Who knows. But then I realized I stopped. I did because it was uncomfortable environment when he was unhappy about my dancing and I'm a good dancer.

So it's not like he was telling me to stop because I'm a bit, Are you a better dancer? Better singer dancer. Okay, good, good. I was concerned. Yeah. You didn't get my best song. Okay, we'll save that for another time, listeners look out for that one day. You know, I did actually get to sing in a bar with my brother and my dad's band karaoke. No, like they actually, they go around to different bars and restaurants and they, you know, they're banned place and I got to sing. It was acoustic. So I got to sing a bon Jovi song with him, which was so much fun. That was been on my bucket list. So I got to check. It was awesome. It was fun. So what was the funnest thing now they were speaking, but I was one of the funniest things you've ever done. Oh, one of the funniest things I've ever done. Okay. I just, we just talked about mine the other day, so I'll share while you're thinking, okay, so my husband and I went with our friends quite a few years ago, we went up into napa into, I don't know, wine country and she had found a segway tour to wine taste.

That was a lot of fun. Like we learned in about 10 minutes how to ride a segue. Then we went to the first winery and did wine tasting, Then we wrote ourselves to the next one. We were on back roads, so we weren't on a real street with cars that we were on segues. And then we started getting really fast. My friend and I were like speeding and the guy, the leader of the tour is like, ladies, ladies, slow down, slow down, don't let your wheels, touch bad things will happen, don't he's like yelling at us and we were like zoom and flying by one of the funniest things I did and I was definitely in my fifties when I did that, but it was so much fun at the beginning of the wine tour is always towards the end, yeah, towards the end I was feeling a little more free, a little more like, oh, nothing can happen to me. But looking back on my teenager again, yes, yes, forgetting that my bones are not as durable as they once were. You were straining for what's ahead and forgetting. But it was really fun.

Like we were laughing, just laughing. It was so fun. It was fun. I'm going to say one of my favorite memories of having fun. It's probably our honeymoon because I got to, we got to go to Hawaii and it was new and it was beautiful and snorkel, like we did a lot of new things. That was fun, you know, I mean it was just beautiful there, we did the road to hana and snorkeling and eating out and we did a, what's that called? You know, the roasting, the luau, thank you, Sounds like it sounds like, yeah, luau, so that was a lot of fun too. Yeah. And yeah, the drinks were great and the weather was great and it was just, it was gorgeous and that's probably one of my favorite. Yeah, yeah, we have a lot of fun now with our kids now that they're all adults and they're grown up and have worked through a lot of their own personal anc's teenager inks were on the other side of all that. We have a lot of fun. They're all coming for thanksgiving. So we're excited about that because we know it'll just be a few days of fun and play and eating more fun and play.

We love to play games all together like there's one that we play on the tv. We work it through your cell phone so everyone has their cell phone and then you answer questions or play different games on the T. V. Trivia or whatever games are a lot of fun. So great for families it's a great bonding time, very bath and you just you're very in the moment you know present in the moment. Which is hard why? I know a lot of us can feel like we don't have enough fun in our life. We're constantly stuck in the doing. I've got to do this so now I have to do the dishes and now I have to so one of the little tricks that we do in our family is we have some card games and we have it on our table where we eat dinner so we sit down and because our kids are fourth grade fifth grade and so there's not too much to talk about about their lives so we'll play a game and it's fun because we're all present in the moment. Nobody has a phone right? No phones allowed and we're just sitting there were playing games and we're even, we crack up out of old maid that that gets our son going.

I mean hysterically because when someone picks the old made from his hand, he just thinks it's the best thing ever. And so something super simple, right? An old game for little kids. But we just have so much fun with that one. And I think for my family to even growing up, that was one of my favorite memories on friday nights, we have game nights and order pizza or Mcdonald's or something and that sounds like so much fun. Ashley, I mean family time is fun time and it's important to have fun. It actually leads us to be more creative. It leads to more joy, more peace. I mean playtime fun time is not like a useless time spent. It actually helps us in our day to day life when we don't have enough player fun in our life then we can get stuck in that serious mode. You know, I can be business. It's business. It can be stressful and boring. Yeah, boring, you can be depressed, anxious. All those things we don't want to feel right. I don't want to feel any of those things. And when you were talking about all the things we have to do, One thing I would do is I tried to clean the house and make a game out of it.

Like I would tie myself. There you go. I had fun mom. Uh this is when I was alone when the kids were in school and I clean, I don't like cleaning, you play games with me. I made it fun. What I'm trying to say is I made it fun. Like I said a time like I have a thing when I said the hot water kettle in the morning when I push it on my goals to have the whole dishwasher unloaded before it goes off, which works when it's really full of water, but it only has a little water and it goes off really quickly. But anyway, yes, it kind of makes it like a little game like okay, like beat the clock I guess when I was little, I like, well I'm competitive. Gonna drop that for good. That's going to cost me a second. I have it down well. Plus there's only the two of us I guess. You don't tell me, you can show me, I want to see how that works. It sounds. So I or I multitask I'll put on a show, you know, I've been unpacking for what seems like weeks.

But anyway, I was unpacking last week. I did quite a few boxes and so I had to make it fun. So I put on a show that would be somewhat entertaining while I unpacked and then so I try to make it as fun as I can. I'm packing is not that fun. It was dirty and dusty stuff in storage for a long time, but I alternate, it was fun because I was telling that to another friend of mine, she's like, how can you have the tv on when I work? I just work, maybe we'll have her listen to this. She's not having as much fun as she should be because I think you can combine and have fun. I think so and work should be fun like our occupation, you know, you and I was a stay home mom for many years now. I'm working outside, well, technically still inside the home but with others. Um, and I try to make it as fun as I can and if it's not fun then I probably don't want to do it anymore. That's kind of where I'm at in life. Like if I'm not having a good time, I don't want to do it doesn't mean that every moment is a good time, but overall can I make this, can I approach it with a playful fun attitude because really Attitudes 90% of the battle.

Oh yeah, so have fun. I mean make it fun. Work can be fun house or it can be fun. My kids told me and my daughter just a few months ago said, mom, you're really different when we go visit the family, like my family, my family's Goofy, we laugh and crack jokes and very sarcastic and you know, I mean a lot of inside jokes, some, you know, some people just don't always understand us, but we're hilarious, We crack each other. So anyways, but I act so different. I'm Goofy, I'm dancing, you know, I just break out in song and dance and random times and it's just a blast. I have a blast but my kids are like, you don't do that at home. I'm like, yeah, because they told me to stop all these years. I'm thinking I died inside my son, my son. So I creative self has died because of you. I that's true. I kind of tucked that actually away because okay, I'm mom, I got to do this and you know, my kids didn't really appreciate it and they just stare at me and my husband is stares at me and shake their heads.

Yeah, I actually broke out into dance the other day at the end of the movie during the credits. It's a very good, very good song. So I just started dancing around and I thought, you know, it doesn't matter what they think I'm having a good old time, it feels good, you know, I mean boosts your confidence, your self esteem, it gets those feel good, you know, dopamine hormones going and you just, you know, it's good exercise if you dance, but I realized when she asked me that I thought, gosh, I really need to bring that out a little bit more because I, you know that's true, they don't really get to see the real me, you know because I'm so stuck in business, you know I got to get the laundry done, I got to do the dishes, I need to get you guys ready for bed, I don't need to teach you or correct you or discipline you and you know so it's so easy as women to fall out of that. And I was even thinking my husband's job, their company, they have such a great value of team building, team building events.

They go out after work quite a bit. They before the pandemic they would do a lot of team building events. Um they have a lot of fun together and so there's very little turnover of employees because people feel appreciated, they feel important. They are building good connections and relationships with people and they have fun, they want to come to work you know and that's pretty amazing when you can build something like that even in the work atmosphere. Yeah that makes work fun. I'm I'm up for that. I think about Children. My grandchildren now are 3.5 and a little over one And they just like to play all day long and my daughter said the younger one Sky whose a little over one now she said she's getting so funny mom, she just she's walking now and she'll just throw herself on the ground and start laughing like she's developed this sense of play and having fun even by herself and some entertainment and then she does things and she looks at my daughter and like, and then starts laughing and she's waiting for her to respond and laughter, like she's trying to play and Children are wired to play.

It's not like you have to go, okay now I really need you to go out and play. I mean sometimes you have to get them outside, but the playing part, it's not their challenge. I mean, they know how to play. Usually it's the opposite. Okay, now you have to come a year, you have to come to your homework or your chores and they're like five more minutes, right? They can't get enough of playing and it reminds me of the scripture and jesus says, let the little Children come to me that even though we're adults, he still wants us to have a childlike heart, that's what will help us eventually make our way to him is having that childlike heart and what they love is to play. They love to play. And so it is again, really important to play. If you haven't heard that enough from us today, you need to have fun. You need girls just need to have fun or do they want to have fun? They want to have fun, but we need to write our own song. Girls just need to have fun. Oh, it's so true. It's a form of self care. It is, you know, I thought, gosh, when my daughter said that like you act a little different here than you do with the family and like, yeah, I do, I do that.

Yeah, I shouldn't, I shouldn't do that. That's not okay for me. And I'm like, I do, I need to bring a little bit more fun out and not be so business, you know, and it makes my quote unquote job, right? As mom my role more enjoyable, right? You know, So why not? I mean it will only benefit things. It's not going to hurt anything and it just, it just makes life more enjoyable, which is really what we want. Especially there's, there's so much stress. There's so much, there's always gonna, there's no shortage of stress. Okay. We recently talked about scarcity. We all know there's no shortage of stress. None, but we can limit, you know, we do have a certain degree of control over what we allow ourselves to take on and sometimes we do take on too much. You know, we can over pack our schedules. We can have an unrealistic to do list where you feel like all these things need to be done right now. You know, I can't play, I can't go out with a friend. I can't go to the movies.

I can't, I can't can't can't can't and I've even had my son's day before. Like mom, you're always busy, like you don't play with me and especially with kids, that's their form of connection, that's how they connect and some more than others, some need more of that personal interaction. Some not as much. My daughter doesn't need it as much, but she's growing more into, I think becoming preteen that she is more drawn to me and to do to spend time with me. Um so that's so important to remember and just have fun with them because really that kids remember that kids will grow up and move out of the house and they'll remember that connection with you. You know, Gosh, we have quality time together or was it just, I had to do my chores? Who knows, what is it? Yeah, more fun for balance, balance. I think my husband was the fun one. He was always like, let's go to park, let's play like no, they have things to do. So he was the good balance tend to be the fun ones because they kind of tend to come home and they're a little bit just want to crash, especially a stay at home moms or even not even just stay at home moms working moms do.

Dad tend to be the ones to have to come home do dinner and dishes, laundry, schoolwork, it's to do, okay, let's do this, okay, we need to do this. We basically the women keep the household running whether you're working or whether you know, working out of the home or working in the home is a stay at home, mom, what have you, But well now everyone is working in the home these days. Well listen, we don't need to give a lot of practical Zahn how to have fun. I mean you did mention one earlier, just try something new. That can be fun. I know for some people that can be intimidating, but do it with a friend, it can be fun. Um, the other day, my husband, I were driving, we live five minutes from a train station, so we're like, you know, would be fun in a couple of weeks. Let's park our car and take the train either to Tahoe or to san Francisco either way we're about in the middle. So let's pick one and just leave in the morning and just go for the day. I know. Doesn't that sound like fun? Well let's just go, we'll bring a backpack and just go for the day and explore. So we're not going to spend the night, We're just going to go for the day.

We thought that would be fun. That's something different. We've never done that. I think would be fun to get on a train, bring lots of snacks, we have each other and bring cards, play games on their, just enjoy the beauty of everything that goes beside us and we don't have to drive. So we're just waiting because actually there's fires all around. We're waiting till the fire's dissipate at least to go east, we have to go through the fires of the west were okay. But anyway, I think that sounds like fun. Everyone has a different idea of fun. So, and I also on my website at Mind over chaos dot com, I have a resource that has a long list of ideas of activities you guys can do as a family. Especially a lot of us were stuck at home over the last year. So I compiled this list because sometimes we kind of forget so what can we do as a family? And it's just super easy. A long list and you can just pick, let's do this together. Let's do. So I have that Mind over chaos dot com for you to check out as Well. That's awesome. I could've used that 20 years ago.

Don't go to my website because I don't have any fun resources for you because apparently I'm still learning how to have more fun. No, I'm having more fun. But okay, I'm going to leave you with this before we sign off. But Ecclesiastes these 5 18 and the message, bye bye. Love this version. This is what God is telling us my friends after looking at the way things are on this Earth, Here's what I've decided is the best way to live. Take care of yourself, have a good time and make the most of whatever job you have for as long as God gives you life and that's about it. That's the human lot. Yes, we should make the most of what God gives both the bounty and the cap and the capacity to enjoy it, accepting what's given and delighting in the work it is God's gift. God deals out joy in the present. The now I really like that last line God deals the joy in the present than now. I'm gonna take that with me. So remember you don't have to feel joy or fun or happiness in the future when a B or C happen.

You can experience it right now. Joy God has joy to deal out right now. All right, everyone, thank you for tuning back in with us today and we will catch you next week. Mhm. Mhm. All right everyone, thank you for joining in on our conversation today here on the rice. I've been shine podcast if you haven't already, please take a second to hit that subscribe button. So you never miss an episode. And while you're at it share this episode with a friend who you know it can bless today if you want to visit us as well on our websites you can catch Claudine over at Clotting Sweeney dot com and Ashley at mind over chaos dot com Are links are in the description. We also have some free resources there for you as well. So remember ladies, no matter what you are facing in life, it is never too late to rise up and shine and live your best life mm Yeah okay