The Reality of Homesteading | Why More Women Are Craving a Slower Life

Maggie (00:02.008)
We've killed plants. We've wasted money. We've built things twice. Maybe three times. We've cried, we've screamed, we've questioned our sanity, and somehow we still think everyone should start a homestead. Welcome to Women Folk Revival, where we are deeply rooted and mildly intentional. I'm Maggie.

Meara (00:25.483)
And I'm Mira.

And this is what makes this conversation fun, because neither one of us is coming at this like we've figured it all out, right? Like we've learned a lot, but we've also done plenty of things the hard way. And this conversation to me is bigger than homesteading because I don't think that women out there are watching those, you know, those videos and secretly going, I want acres and a red barn tomorrow. You know, I think what what we're all really thinking is.

I want to feel like that, and that's how I was feeling when I first started out doing this.

Maggie (01:02.774)
Mm.

Maggie (01:06.774)
Yeah, I you don't you don't

You don't just decide to become a homesteader necessarily. Something just kind of arises inside of you, you know, where you think, you know, instead of buying bread, let's grow wheat. You just have this strange, you know, sudden urge, you know, just to slightly step away and then all of a sudden, you know, pff

Let's go homestead. You know? But it's always some weird random thing that gets in our mind, you know. It'd be so much easier if we could just walk outside and pick apples off of a tree instead of going to the store and picking out good ones versus bad ones and wondering what it's contaminated with, wondering if it's, you know been messed with genetically.

Meara (02:04.352)
Yeah, f for me in the beginning I've always felt that connection back to a slower paced life growing up.

But I was so caught up in the mix of rushing and everyday life and how society had us living that I was like, I don't wanna feel like this anymore, you know. I was I wasn't chasing after the acreage and the barns and all of that. I I was I was really trying to just obtain that peace and slower mornings and, you know, dinners that aren't so rushed through and

So basically I feel like what we're all trying to run after is that feeling of being able to connect with something that's real again. Because honestly, everything happens on screens now. And you know, it's just and everything's screens. We buy groceries online, screen. We scroll constantly, we answer messages, we watch TV on them, and

Maggie (03:00.994)
We do this podcast.

Meara (03:03.028)
We do but this is different than, you know, like doom scrolling or trying to find that that just that quick addiction for five seconds. This is this is like a lifestyle change that we're doing together and trying to build with other women. And when we do all of those doom scrolling things, we just try we we're trying to figure out like why, why do we feel so disconnected? I just

Maggie (03:08.46)
short.

Maggie (03:30.647)
I think you can you know, I think there's there's ways around that, you know. I I will get on Instagram and I for the most part only follow you know, people who live this type of lifestyle or, you know, your doctors who have turned to more of a natural and holistic path.

And I and I learn a lot from it and I feel more empowered after scrolling through my Instagram because I'm like, yes, I you know, I'll see someone doing something out in the garden and be like, yes, I need to do that or I can do it this way, which looks like it's better than the way I've been doing it. Or I can find out different things about my health, you know, stop doing this now because it's the worst thing that you can be doing. Okay, I'll stop it now. So I don't get off feeling, you know, depleted or

defeated, I you know, I get off thinking, okay, let's do this. Let's start doing this. Let's stop doing this. And

Meara (04:34.176)
Yeah. You have you have changed the way of doom scrolling though. You're doing it for a purpose, right? And that's why I think things like going back to learning how to garden or baking bread or growing flowers and making dinner and things like that are calling to us because you can touch them and you can smell them.

And you once you yeah, she's screaming. you can watch something change as you do it because you showed up constantly in that moment. And that is so satisfying seeing something that you've grown and now being able to eat that. You know, you did that, you made that change well through our creator, but you know

Maggie (04:59.608)
Super loud, yeah.

Maggie (05:17.24)
Yes. Yes. And and like you said, they're our creator, but getting back to eating the foods that he intended for us to eat, you know, I you know, I hear a lot is I guess mainly through Christianity that, you know, their reasoning for eating pork and shellfish and all these other things is that

You know, the sin was taken away from it. And sure, that might be true, that might have happened, but it's still not doing anything good for your for your health.

Maggie (06:08.962)
Go back to where Go back to what's it called and we'll restart it. Go back to where I finished and then we'll re I'll continue from where

Meara (06:15.316)
What?

Maggie (06:30.254)
Do you wanna step out again real quick?

Meara (06:30.262)
Can't even find my No, Ruby's getting her.

Meara (06:38.646)
Let me get her a snack, hold on.

Maggie (06:40.192)
Okay.

Meara (06:47.196)
her deal

Meara (07:50.381)
I made it worse. Out of nowhere she wants me like. For what? I have you all the time. I sleep with you in the mornings like.

Yikes. Where did we stop?

Maggie (08:06.002)
so I I brought up how, you know, Christianity they say that the sin was taken away from eating things like cork and shellfish. but how it's still not good for your I don't even know that I need to say that. It just kind of

Meara (08:19.916)
So where are we starting at?

Maggie (08:24.476)
I guess I guess when I said 'cause you said, you know, growing food through our creator and I said yes, I said through our creator, I was like, but also getting back to eating the foods that he intended for us to eat. That's probably where we could jump off.

Meara (08:44.832)
You said where he had intended for us to eat. Do you want to continue from there?

Okay, go ahead and start. I'm just gonna minimize the cut I'm just gonna cut it down to where you s continue talking. Ready?

Maggie (09:00.892)
okay. So we're still recording, right? Okay.

Meara (09:05.132)
We're still recording.

Maggie (09:08.87)
and giving our body everything that it needs to work the way that it should.

Meara (09:18.614)
That's it. As it should.

Meara (09:26.592)
I don't know if you felt this as well, Maggie, but I think we're all, as women, just exhausted, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally. And I know we bring this up time and time again in our, you know, in our episodes, but we're constantly consuming that information. And people are telling us what to buy, how to be parents, how to decorate, organize, so on and so forth. And we've managed to turn.

everything including rest into something that we're trying that we're trying to master and that's why the slower life just feels so refreshing because it reminds us that we don't have to make every second of the day be about something. You know, sometimes just watering the flowers is enough or making dinner, which can be kind of hectic or you know, watching the sunset. And that can just be a good day. Just the other day my husband and I were sitting here

And he was like, Today I'm not doing anything. Yesterday was so jam-packed, today I'm just gonna sit and rest. And it was actually a really nice day. We just sat and talked to each other and it was pretty rare. But it but it was nice. We really enjoyed it, you know.

Maggie (10:37.569)
Well, and that and that's one great thing about, you know

Maggie (10:45.985)
What's the word I'm looking for? Keeping you know, keeping the Sabbath. You know, we are supposed to have one day of rest and and that's why. Because we're not built to go, go, go. We're built to to work hard, but then to have that time of time of rest. It's it's again we're we're constantly going away from what our creator

Meara (10:58.475)
Yeah.

Meara (11:05.578)
Yeah.

Maggie (11:14.477)
put in place for us, you know, his laws. And we're going back to what to what man and society say that we should do and how we should do things. It's, you know and and anyone anyone should be able to stop and look around and see, hey, this has not been doing us any good. Sure, there's there's conveniences and there's, you know, yeah, it's great to have

Meara (11:16.47)
Hm.

Yeah.

Meara (11:27.04)
Mm-hmm.

Meara (11:38.379)
Yeah.

Maggie (11:44.461)
that that ice cream cone and that fast food meal then but it's destroying your body and it's destroying your mind, it's destroying your soul little by little.

Meara (11:47.958)
Yeah.

Meara (11:55.901)
It is. I think homesteading is also very can be intimidating. I think that we can take something that's that's so simple yet beautiful and turn it into another thing that we feel like we have to accomplish, for example. homemade bread. We'll see someone making it and suddenly think, Okay, I'm gonna learn how to do sourd go sourdough, you know, or harvesting vegetables and I should grow all my food or collecting eggs, my god, I need chickens and

Maggie (12:02.492)
yeah.

Maggie (12:14.241)
Ha ha ha

Meara (12:25.738)
you know, someone hanging laundry outside too and before we know it now we're turning someone else's peaceful life that they're living and creating it as a to do list instead of

Maggie (12:29.264)
that's dreamy.

Meara (12:38.846)
you know, asking, does this really fit my lifestyle right now? Because we want we want chickens. I'm like, we need to have chickens, but it just doesn't fit right now. So I think what a lot of people are doing with learning how to homestead is how fast can I learn this? And those are those are two completely different different questions, you know, and I can laugh now because I've been trying to do sourdough for years. Literally, like when we first reconnected, you know, I was trying to do it. And I got to the point where I was like, okay, I understand this. And then I started my figured out my

Maggie (12:57.953)
Yes.

Meara (13:08.81)
Starter figured out how to feed it and the timing, and then somehow I don't know what happened, and I haven't touched it since.

Maggie (13:16.961)
Yeah. It and that's and that's the problem too when you rush into something is that you know one thing goes wrong and all of a sudden you're double intimidated and it takes forever to get back into it. And and let me just say, homesteading is exhausting in ways. You do you know, it's a lot of hard work. There is

Meara (13:24.972)
Mm-hmm.

It does.

Meara (13:35.745)
Mm-hmm.

Maggie (13:41.036)
And there is that emotional exhaustion. you know, going over your to-do list. The did I water all my plants? Did I put my chickens away? Did I lock the gate? Did I do this? Did I do that? And that can be that can be overwhelming in itself. And then there's, you know, there's the grieving. There's a lot of grieving that comes along with it, you know, animals die, plants.

Meara (14:02.102)
Mm-hmm.

Maggie (14:10.959)
die even you know somebody like me i i'm upset every time i get stung not because i'm in pain but that's one that's one more bee that has just died and we need bees and when i see you know those beneficial insects if i see them dead or you know that bothers me that weighs on me but I'd rather be exhausted building a life than being exhausted from

Meara (14:11.392)
Yeah.

Meara (14:22.86)
Yeah. Yeah.

Maggie (14:40.899)
trying to escape one, you know, or being exhausted from one that's just that's just bringing me down and and you know taking me away from from the natural world that you know that was given to us. Yeah.

Meara (14:43.004)
Yeah. Yeah.

Meara (14:56.532)
You're supposed to be in. Yeah, and that's just how life is sometimes, you know, when when you finally we finally feel like we have something figured out, life changes, like our schedules or the weather or even our starter. you know, something changes and and I've realized that that's actually a good thing because it reminds us that it's not about becoming an expert, especially overnight. It's about enjoying the process of learning, which I never was doing in the beginning. I don't need

Maggie (15:25.729)
And failure is a great way to learn.

Meara (15:26.536)
to be it is and I don't need to be the world's best sourdough baker, you know, I just want to enjoy baking bread for our family because my family are bread eaters and my husband keeps saying we just need to get back into baking bread and I'm just looking at them thinking, well if only you knew how easy that was like, you know, like you make this bread. but it's just it's just about slowing down and returning to the process and you know just taking the time and okay I'll figure it out and

Maggie (15:36.821)
Yeah.

Maggie (15:49.725)
No.

Meara (15:56.043)
It's okay if it doesn't work. Yeah.

Maggie (15:58.677)
It is okay. And you know, it's it's okay too when you're

When you're met with the reality of yourself and who you are, because homesteading exposes all of your personality flaws. You know, it's right there for you to see. But that's okay because you're gonna grow from it, you know. you know, for me, I I'm not a great finisher of projects. I'm not. I start sometimes I do, you know, sometimes I do know. I will start something

Meara (16:16.332)
Mm-hmm.

Meara (16:21.888)
Yeah.

Maggie (16:35.978)
and everything will be going right, the weather will be good, the kids will be, you know, finding all kinds of outdoor play and things to do and you know, my husband's busy doing something and not having any issues. And I can just have that time to you know to create something and to finish it. so, you know, and I I buy a lot of seeds and I don't plant them all.

Meara (16:57.803)
Yeah.

Maggie (17:08.106)
I do and I I still do it to this day and and my you know, my husband was like, Hey, he was like, You do a lot of planning and you do a lot of researching. You don't do enough doing. And I'm like, You're so right. Ouch, you know, that

Meara (17:19.508)
Yeah.

Meara (17:26.879)
Stung a little.

Maggie (17:27.178)
You know, it the thing that bothers me most is just having to be told those things, like, Wow, why didn't I realize that? But it was so true and you know and then you just grow because it's just life. You're not performing for anybody. You know, you're it's you're just living life. You fall down, you grow.

Meara (17:30.524)
Right.

Meara (17:39.51)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Meara (17:45.217)
You're you're doing what you're doing what works for you and you're figuring out as you go along. I have like I have a perfect story of a picture of who I am. So last fall we had this pumpkin sitting outside. It was a white pumpkin and it started to go bad. Well, we didn't want fry flies on the house, so we decided to just kinda

put it off to the side, you know, like as soon as you walk out on our porch, we just kind of have like a rose bush area and I'm like, I'm just gonna sit it here and it can dec and you know, it can compost the rest of everything, not realizing, hey, there's seeds in there. And so I literally just put it outside my porch. And I guess that was the entire garden strategy for me because I wasn't trying to like plant pumpkins or, you know, research soil. I just wanted it out of my house. Well months later now here's this giant vine growing outside my door.

Maggie (18:37.482)
Ha ha ha.

Meara (18:37.518)
And I'm looking at it and I'm going, what could this possibly be? And my husband was like, remember that white pumpkin? And I'm like, huh.

Like I had not even planned for it. So now I have this huge pumpkin vine growing right outside our door. And every time I walk outside, I just chuckle because I think of all the things I carefully planned, researched, worried about, you know, and then the one thing I accidentally did here is thriving right outside my door. And life is kind of like that, you know. Sometimes things sometimes the things that we're forcing don't grow, but the things that we just release.

Maggie (18:58.666)
Ha ha ha.

Meara (19:14.058)
do. So I thought that was pretty interesting.

Maggie (19:16.778)
Yeah. I it is interesting. And you know there's there's a lot of areas that we work very hard on that, you know, and some of them are doing really well, others are not doing so well. And then I am a so some weeds are like really great to have in your garden, right? I'm not I'm not a big weeder.

But we've got like dandelions popping up and that's great because those bring up nutrients from down below. and my husband is slowly, you know, coming around to that. But he's like, There's all these weeds, you need to get out there and weed. And I'm Well, this one's okay, this one's beneficial, that one's gonna do well. He was like, What about all this other stuff? And I was like, Well, I'm really not sure to be honest. and you know, he's like, You gotta you know, you gotta get on this or everything's gonna die. Well, the one this one new garden area I have

Meara (19:55.58)
Mm.

Maggie (20:12.024)
Everything is thriving and it's beautiful and it's doing lovely. Even though there's all these like little weeds, you know, mixed in. But then we've got other gardens that have been totally overrun with weeds and not really you know, our broccoli is not doing anything, our cabbage is not doing anything. but the radishes have grown tall and gone to seed and I've got a ton of seeds for radishes. So neat things can happen when you

Meara (20:39.969)
Yeah. Yeah. Like my like my bean plants I planted way too early and you're like, there's th that's just way too soon. They yeah, and they were thriving and and then my cucumbers I planted and I had to move from what I started them in as a seed starter, not realizing I should have done a direct sew with those. It's so tall now, it's above my trellis, and we already have one cucumber from it. So

Maggie (20:42.198)
When you neglect something.

Maggie (20:48.438)
They're probably not gonna make it, yeah.

Meara (21:06.901)
I love watching nature because nature is never anxious, right? So you don't plant a seed and it sits underground going, hmm, I wonder if I'm behind schedule, you know? And like trees, they don't compare themselves to other trees, and flowers obviously don't bloom all at once. Everything has its own timing, and we forget that because we're constantly comparing ourselves as humans to other humans. We compare ourselves to homes, we compare ourselves to marriages, parenting, our own bodies.

Maggie (21:16.278)
Ha ha ha.

Maggie (21:23.041)
Yeah.

Meara (21:36.818)
in our own gardens and our own hobbies. So it's like we're always we're always measuring ourselves against someone else's highlighted reel on TikTok or, you know, social media. And that's where social media gets gets kind of tricky because it only shows the moment that everything has worked. The beautiful loaf bread, the spotless kitchen, you know, the overflowing harvest harvest basket.

Maggie (21:37.163)
Yeah.

Maggie (22:01.121)
Yep. It doesn't show you the mess and the struggle beforehand.

Meara (22:06.603)
Yes, and those are the real moments. you know, I and I'm not saying that those are fake. They're all beautiful, but they don't tell the whole story and that intimidates a lot of people because when they don't s when they start something and the first time it doesn't happen, you know, we we don't see the failed bread or the bugs in the garden or the a the quote unquote weeds that might be good for the garden and the money that we've spent trying to learn these things and our mistakes and crying or sobbing.

Maggie (22:15.468)
Mm.

Meara (22:36.747)
because something hasn't hasn't come out of the garden, you know? so you know everybody everybody has this. All the people that have these perfect reels and pictures and stuff like that, that's that's not the whole picture of their life. Yeah.

Maggie (22:39.202)
Yeah it's

Maggie (22:57.58)
Especially those lovely ladies that dress in white linen and go collect chicken eggs and, you know, everything. It's like, you know, who's who's cleaning the diarrhea out of those chicken waterers, you know? Someone's doing it. It's gotta be done. You're not doing it in a white linen dress.

Meara (23:15.265)
Right.

Meara (23:20.141)
That's true. And actually, you know, where we are with chickens, w we we want chickens. We've wanted chickens for the last three years. But we also have learned enough over the years following a bunch of Facebook groups, thanks to them, that we know wanting something isn't the same as being ready for it with people sticking their chicken in buckets of sitz baths because they have prolapse danuses and then they have parasites and

Maggie (23:40.64)
Being ready for it.

Meara (23:49.068)
you know, blood and gory and lashed eggs and all of this. And and my husband's like, So it sounds nice. I'm like, yeah, and I'm gonna be doing all the work. So let me put in all the research. No. so instead of rushing, we're you we're researching, we're asking questions. We're learning the breeds that fit our family best, how to care for them, how to keep them healthy, what to add to their diet, what mistakes people wish they had avoided. Because honestly, that makes me more excited being prepared so that when we finally do get these chickens,

that will actually be able to enjoy it and be able to be prepared for something before it happens instead of feeling overwhelmed. Now you can't prepare for everything. Things are gonna happen. You're gonna walk out and find a dead chicken here and there and other things are gonna happen, but at least you won't be so overwhelmed.

Maggie (24:26.901)
Yeah.

Maggie (24:32.453)
And and nature nature will happen, you know, all of a sudden there everything will be going great and then there's this vicious storm that comes through, your whole garden's wiped out, you know, or there's a terrible drought. These things happen. So, you know, you can always be prepared for everything.

Meara (24:38.88)
It will help.

Meara (24:45.772)
Yeah.

They do. And there's a reason. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think people hear the word slow living and they picture something like doing absolutely nothing and just sitting there. But but yes. But that's not what I d you know

Maggie (25:02.803)
Sitting on the front porch drinking tea.

Meara (25:09.845)
It actually requires a lot of intention, slow living, because you're constantly asking yourself, okay, does this matter? Is this adding peace to my life? Is it helping my family? Or am I just doing this because it's a trend and everybody else wants to do this? And I think that's one of the hardest questions that we can ask ourselves.

Maggie (25:28.873)
You know, and it and it has become trendy and and for good reason, because people are waking up realizing that the system is not good for them and the system is fragile and they can take it away from us at any moment. So the more that we can learn and know how to do, you know, stop buying fruit from the store that doesn't have seeds in it. They're supposed to have seeds. If there are no seeds, then we can't regrow the food and then they control us one

Meara (25:33.719)
Could be.

Meara (25:53.228)
Yeah they are.

Maggie (25:58.75)
one more way, you know, 'cause they have all the food. S it's true, Mira. It's true.

Meara (26:03.071)
One seedless apple at a time. No, I'm just kidding. It it it is true, but you but but you have to watch how understanding these trends can be, okay, it sounds good and you know, it's something you want to do. And if it's something that you've been wanting to do for the longest time, that's great. But you don't want to start chasing something that in the end you actually realize wasn't even your dream, because then it's gonna be like, well, this isn't what I wanted, and then they're gonna resort back to the system. So you you know, you you kind of

Maggie (26:30.463)
Not necessarily. Not necessarily. Everyone, regardless of what your dream is, everyone should know how to grow food. Everyone should know how to make food. You know? You have to know how to live.

Meara (26:32.695)
But well I'm not saying that it's going to happen.

Meara (26:42.273)
Yes. I agree with you a hundred percent. But what I'm getting at Yes, but there's those people that are like, yeah, this is what I wanna do because it looks trendy and that's what everyone's doing, but not understand that it's it's a it's like it's a life choice that you're making. It's not like a diet where you go on it real quick, get your fix and then you're not doing it anymore. Like this is this is a life change.

And there are some people that, like you just said, I agree a hundred percent. It's not always true, but there are those people that are just so zoned in on, okay, it's a trend, it's happening now, okay, it's not happening anymore, yeah, we didn't want to do that anyway. so it's like they didn't have that they weren't able to understand it enough to the point where it's like, we really do wanna do this. You know what I'm saying? They're just doing it because it was a trend. and maybe that's what I'm hoping some people are listening and hearing today is you don't have

To recreate someone else's life or move to the country or have your own chickens or bake that sourdough bread I really want to bake so bad. You know, you don't have to grow your own food. Those are wonderful, you know, if that's what you're called to do, but that's not that's not always what makes a meaningful life for some people. So your version of

Maggie (27:41.489)
Yeah.

Maggie (27:53.342)
No, sure. And I I do I do see that. And and I think

Your idea of that it's it's very true, but I think it works best in a in a community setting where you have neighbors that grow food and then you have neighbors that bake bread. You have neighbors that work on that are mechanics, you know, you have neighbors that are carpenters and you all work together to create a nice beautiful natural life and yes.

Meara (28:25.813)
Network and community. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Your version of Slow is gonna be completely different of mine. Maybe yours. Mm-hmm.

Maggie (28:34.707)
Make it work make it work for you. You know, don't don't take what you see and try and imitate it. Take what you see and be like, How could I implement this in my life? Could I implement this in my life? And figure out, you know, a way of doing that. That way you're you're you're building something. You're building skills and know how and you know, if the system does fall apart, you're not you're not at the bottom level. You know, you're you're somewhere where you can at least

Meara (28:47.117)
Mm.

Meara (28:52.833)
Yeah. Yeah.

Meara (29:02.325)
Mm.

Maggie (29:04.621)
make it work.

Meara (29:06.541)
Yes, and as we always say start slow. Like maybe it's your slowest taking a walk after work or putting your phone in the house while your kids are playing outside or reading instead of scrolling or planting and s planting flowers instead of vegetables because you know vegetables y you know, you're anticipating those vegetables where sometimes when you just throw flower seeds, flowers just grow. So those little moments matter more than we realize, you know.

Maggie (29:29.705)
Ha ha ha.

Yeah, grow grow lots of different things. My husband will be like, What does that do for us? Where are you putting that? And I'm like, Well, it's gonna bring pollinators to the yard and we need our food to be, you know, pollinated. And where are you growing that? What's that gonna do? well this is a grain, you know, is it enough to, you survive on? I'm like, No, but it's it's something that I can add to the grains that we already have that will, you know, bring new like different minerals that that aren't in this

Meara (29:41.644)
Yeah.

Meara (29:45.204)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Maggie (30:03.083)
grain, you know. so he's very he's very purposeful, like what does this do? What does this do? the miraculous thing is is that plants and fruits and vegetables, all of it, they all do a million different things. You know, their food, their medicine, they're you know, good for the pollinators, they're good for the ecosystem, they're good for the dirt. But they're all good for your soul. So just start growing.

Meara (30:04.119)
Mm-hmm.

Meara (30:10.645)
Yeah.

Meara (30:28.087)
They are. And you know, the more we have these just start growing. That's all you can do. And even if you don't know what they do, just throw some seeds on the ground and you might get inspired by what comes up.

Maggie (30:39.753)
And my goodness, if you fail, it's okay. We fail all the time. All the time.

Meara (30:44.129)
Yeah. It's how you learn. Mm-hmm.

Maggie (30:46.293)
But you do learn and it gets better and then you can start seeing like, we'll be here next year. We'll be here next year. And and then it becomes, you know, okay. And it it becomes slower and less intimidating and less exhausting because you've already been through enough seasons of it that you can kind of get a handle on on its growth and on your growth.

Meara (30:57.045)
Yeah.

Meara (31:00.621)
Yeah.

Meara (31:11.447)
Hmm. Yeah. The the more we have these discussions, the more I'm realizing that women are not looking for perfection. We're looking for permission, you know, to slow down and not have to have everything out figured out and to start small and enjoy the season that you're in instead of wishing we were somewhere else. So if you're listening today, go ahead. To live. No, say it.

Maggie (31:34.791)
And and to live go ahead. No, go ahead.

And yeah, and just to live and and be what we were meant to be. Even if you're not a wife, even if you're not a mother, you are a woman. And there are natural ways that women are supposed to be and that's all been ripped from us. So be the woman that that God made you and and and let that shine. You know, it's beautiful and it's healthy and it's what it's meant to be.

Meara (32:08.129)
Yeah, I love it. If so, if you're listening today, we hope that you hear this. Maybe you're not actually craving a different house. Maybe you're not craving more land. Maybe you're not even craving a completely different life. Maybe you're just craving a deeper connection with the life that you already have.

And don't let slow living become another standard you think that you have to meet. Don't let it become another thing you feel behind on. Start where you are, use what you have, plant one flower, try to bake one loaf, take one walk. Never gonna get over that. Sit outside for 10 extra minutes, call someone you love, eat dinner around the table.

Maggie (32:40.852)
Yeah.

Meara (32:50.059)
Watch the sunset because those little choices are what builds a meaningful life. And it's not overnight, not in a giant transformation, but just one ordinary day at a time. And honestly, we think that's the beauty of it. Next week, we're talking about something we are really excited about. How women were created to create. We think it's a conversation every woman needs to hear, and we cannot wait to dive into it with you. If today's conversation encouraged you, we'd love if you'd share this episode with

Maggie (33:07.369)
Mm-hmm.

Meara (33:20.043)
friend and let us know what your version of slow living looks like on our Facebook community page. We'd love to hear from you. Until then

Maggie (33:26.421)
Yes we would. Stay rooted and stay wild.

Meara (33:30.686)
Stay wild.