6 Months of Slow Living Changed Us | Where We Are Now

Maggie (00:02.269)
Six months ago, we started Women Folk Revival thinking we had something to say about natural living. But somewhere along the way it became about something much bigger. About remembering what we've lost, questioning what we've been taught, and figuring out what kind of life do we actually want to build.

So today we are looking back at what we started, at where we started and where we are now. And where women folk revival is going next. Where we're going next. So welcome to Women Folk Revival, where we are deeply rooted and wildly intentional. I'm Maggie.

Meara (00:43.35)
And I'm Mira. And six months. Like it literally has been six months. I am I was think it is. I and I was thinking about this before we actually sat down today and I don't think

Maggie (00:49.339)
It's been six months, yeah. It's a long time.

Meara (00:58.176)
Either one of us really knew exactly where we were going with this or what we were doing when we started this. I mean, now granted, when we first reconnected, we were like, we should do something together. And we knew that we were gonna do something together. And so I remember that we were starting to discuss doing blogs and

We had everything together and we had like months worth of research done and all these things we were gonna do and hand out to people and it just was not coming together for us at all. But we knew

Maggie (01:21.403)
Mm-hmm.

Maggie (01:30.159)
It wasn't. We're not we're not tech savvy people. And it was just

Meara (01:37.432)
Well speak for yourself on that part. I'm I'm tech savvy.

Maggie (01:39.451)
You've you've gotten better. You've gotten much better. We could probably get her blog up and going now. I just my brain rejects it.

Meara (01:48.108)
We should probably start doing a newsletter at some point so people have like a little backlog of what's going on in our lives. But I mean, you know, five kids and I just pulled my girl from homes from online schooling and now I'm homeschooling finally. Yay. you know, it's just so much. But

Maggie (02:03.258)
It's exciting.

Meara (02:08.386)
But I believe that we were meant to be out here to help other people and, you know, form this huge community of women from all across the globe to just come together and have that support, you know, emotionally, mentally. so

Maggie (02:24.934)
To start rebuilding that village that we've lost through societal living.

Meara (02:27.158)
Yeah. And I r I remember yeah. I remember joking with you saying we should do a podcast and and you're just kinda like, yeah and you blew me off, like, yeah, whatever

And we just not blew me off like I was upset. It was just some like a joke when you were at my house, right? And then I went out to eat with my friend, my granddaughter's other grandmother who I'm really close with, and I was telling her everything that we love doing and how like, you know, when we get together, because you know her, you've met her before as well, and she really enjoyed, you know, meeting you and stuff and she thinks you're pretty cool. And so I was just going on to her about like what we do and and she was like, No kidding, you guys should start a podcast. And I'm like, you know, I actually brought

Brought this up to Maggie and joked about it and she's like, No, I'm dead serious. People would love to hear what you have to say. And I'm like, Okay. So here we are. Here we are.

Maggie (03:18.246)
Here we are. A podcast for me was just so it's not it just wasn't something that I was comfortable with and and a lot of times I'm still really not comfortable with it, but but here we are.

Meara (03:31.874)
Me neither. Here we are.

Meara (03:37.698)
People probably think, I look at myself, I I have been watching our episodes going back and and watching them because you know, when I'm doing them and when we're done, I always say to myself, that was terrible, that was terrible. But then when I go back and I listen to our episodes, I'm like, that really actually wasn't that bad. And I'm starting to get used to seeing and hear more so hearing myself.

Maggie (04:01.393)
Mm-hmm.

Meara (04:02.274)
speak now than than before so I'm comfortable and now I'm just to the point well every everybody's already seen us so who cares? Like either you're gonna like us or you're not. Now if you don't like us, I don't know why. Like we're not trying to prove anything. We we love you guys. But I get it. Some people just aren't ready. But we're here when you are

Maggie (04:11.292)
Who cares? Sure.

Maggie (04:24.39)
Yeah. And it's and I think I think too, 'cause both of us were already at that place,

So I feel like, you know, maybe we are a little bit further along than and then other people. And it doesn't matter where you are. It's just, you know, take what you want from the episode and leave what you want and and do you. You know, make it work for you. Don't don't do us. My

Meara (04:50.262)
Yeah.

Meara (04:53.666)
That's what I love about it so much.

Maggie (04:55.846)
I I am not everyone's cup of tea. I know that and and our way of living is not everyone's cup of tea. Sometimes it's not even our own cup of tea, but we're really we're really trying to to make it our cup of tea. because we know we know it's right and we know it's it's what's best and it's hard when you're not raised.

Meara (05:03.63)
Mm-hmm.

Sipping it.

Maggie (05:25.764)
raised in that way. You know, I we have a lot of Amish around here and and everything just seems so easy for them. They're working so hard, but it's so easy for them and it's enjoyable for them and it's second nature. And that's fantastic. That's that's where I would like to be and and getting there in such a short amount of time it's it's hard. But it's worth it. It's very satisfying.

Meara (05:26.444)
And the environment we have set up, yeah.

Meara (05:34.944)
I love it. I love it.

Meara (05:41.154)
I'm sure they're just a s

Meara (05:53.484)
It is.

It is. We're all at our own pace. And I'm I'm sure the Amish just as stressed as us about other things that are going on in their lives. I mean, we're all human. But I do do really love the way that they have just incorporated the land and everything around them and their faith and being able to do those things so secondhand. Like, you know, there's this one girl actually I see, I'm not following her, but she pops up on Facebook and she was pregnant and she's talking about canning and she's always on there talking about canning.

but how she's gonna prepare for when she has the baby so she can relax and have all these things ready and prepared for her. And I'm kind of going off topic, but you know, it's just interesting to see. And that's what I love about our podcast episode is it doesn't matter where you are in life.

Even if we're so much further along than some of the new people who are coming on and they're like just learning this stuff, it really doesn't matter. And that's why we have our community Facebook page set up because even though you're just starting, I wanna know what you're doing. Because even though I'm years ahead of maybe doing something that you've never started, you might be years ahead in something else that you didn't think was homesteading, that is, that I've never even touched. Like this whole bread thing is just gonna

Maggie (06:52.464)
Yeah.

Meara (07:06.126)
It's gonna get on my last nerve because that's all I wanna do is make you know, a starter and keep the starter going. And that's something I feel like I should have mastered by now, but we're all in different places and that's okay.

Maggie (07:16.394)
I I Mira, I'm in the same boat. I I have been talking about making bread for I feel like years now and I just have not have not done it.

And I have I bought all my greens and I've been every almost every single morning. Sometime I've got pancakes left over for the next day and that's that's a really great thing. But a lot of times my kids will snack on them throughout the day and then I'll have to make a new batch every single morning. And I so if not every morning, every other morning, I am hand milling fresh greens. And I wasn't doing that in the beginning.

beginning right I was talking about how I just got this this mill and these these grains but I hadn't started using any of it yet and I am now and it's and it's great and it's getting to the point where I'm getting it done really fast. Like you know my I'm working my muscles and

Meara (08:01.026)
Yeah.

Maggie (08:21.913)
And I I can get it done in no time now and that's awesome. But I still have not started my starter. I still have not made bread.

Meara (08:25.4)
Yeah, that is.

Meara (08:32.738)
Well, the starter is the thing that kinda is difficult for me for whatever reason. I guess it's just not my time to do starter, but I can whip up a loaf of bread real quick. Like, I mean it's like kinda it's for me now it's second nature whipping up bread. Now we still buy store-bought bread, but every now and then I'm like, ugh, this is gross. Why am I feeding this to my kids? So I'll just bust out with the ingredients. And like you said, you may have have home pancakes left over.

Maggie (08:54.288)
Hm.

Meara (08:59.552)
Now I like to do it fresh because now that I pulled my kindergartner out of school, I'm taking her and the other two littles and we're sitting down together and we're doing the pancake re So now they have their own pancake recipe that they prepare. Of course, we learn about the measurements and stuff. So I kind of that kind of like, you know, takes some time throughout the day. Well, okay, we're learning math and we're learning how to communicate with each other and doing things. So it's like all these things in one. They're learning how to cook.

Maggie (09:15.461)
Mm-hmm.

Maggie (09:24.689)
And they're learning how to cook.

And that is, you know, that's survival. That's that's real life. And that's that's a beautiful thing. We my kids wanna help every single morning and it's getting to the point where, you know,

Meara (09:31.358)
It is.

Yeah.

Maggie (09:41.754)
I'm finally like, since we're making them every day, we're gonna do one kid a day. So one kid's gonna come in and they're gonna help with the whole recipe. Cause it's kind of an ordeal, you know. I I have to melt the butter, not in a microwave. I I actually I've been instead of putting on the stove, I've been putting it in my toaster oven, and that's been working pretty, pretty good for me.

Meara (09:49.782)
Okay.

Meara (10:02.139)
really?

Maggie (10:02.831)
Yeah. And we use honey, not sugar. So then we've gotta mix we gotta mix the butter with the honey to get the honey nice and soft and add the vinegar and the vanilla and then in a separate bowl I do the egg and milk because the cold egg and milk will make the butter start to clot in the bowl and and then we we mill the the grains and sometimes the kids help and sometimes I have it done before

Meara (10:06.958)
We did too.

Maggie (10:32.795)
they're awake and those moments I'm really proud of.

Meara (10:35.626)
Let's see who can mill it the fastest. Two weeks of pancakes.

Maggie (10:42.927)
And yeah, and unfortunately they're chocolate chip pancakes and they've kind of gotten in a habit where they want chocolate chip pancakes. But, you know, I'm thinking of, you know, all the nutrition that's in these grains. You know, it's not store bought flour that's devoid of nutrition. They are getting all the minerals and nutrients that are in these ancient grains. you know.

Meara (10:55.384)
Mm-hmm.

Meara (10:59.394)
Yeah.

Meara (11:07.98)
We do chocolate chips too. They're the dark ones that don't aren't really sweet. So we just put honey in the mix, like you said. We do one kid gets the dry ingredient bowl and the other kid gets the wet ingredient bowl, and then we mix the dry with the wet, and then after we mix it, then we take the butter and we put it in last so it doesn't cause that problem.

Maggie (11:18.277)
Mm-hmm.

Maggie (11:29.295)
Okay.

Meara (11:33.472)
We used and you talk about chocolate being bad. We took miniature halal marshmallows. Halal, it doesn't have any gelatin, like it has no pork in it. So we took those marshmallows and now they're called the House of Noor Campfire pancakes because it's it's their pancakes. They came up with the recipe. So it has the marshmallows, it has the we put flaxseed in it, and it has

Maggie (11:39.257)
Hmm.

Maggie (11:48.631)
Nice.

Meara (12:02.764)
banana, smash bananas in it, and then it has King Arthur's we use King Arthur's flour. so and then we'll use honey, but they want sugar, so I'm like, okay, yeah, we'll use sugar, we just use coconut sugar.

Maggie (12:04.827)
Nice.

Meara (12:17.11)
Still spikes your insulin, but not as fast as sugar in the roll, but same, same. So anyways, yeah, we do those, but then I make sure that we have eggs with it. We have to have protein if we're gonna have some sugar in our breakfast. Not the protein queen. Don't don't forget that cheese, Mira. You know Mira's cheese jar.

Maggie (12:29.307)
Mm.

Maggie (12:37.041)
Your fridge is always full of cheese.

Meara (12:37.582)
It's a thing at our house. It's jam-packed. And I swear to God, every day my husband opens that door and says, God, how much cheese can we have in this house? And I'm thinking, you have no idea how much we use every day, so you can't get mad at me. Just look in the garbage can, you'll see how many empty packs are in there. So.

Maggie (12:55.353)
I love cheese. My kids love cheese.

Meara (12:58.69)
Yeah. So yeah, so six months ago I feel like we were so much different than where we were today. Like you had a microwave six months ago. Right?

Maggie (13:12.097)
No, not six months ago. I got rid of it before we started doing this. I got rid of it when we first connected. Because you're like, wait a minute, you're using a microwave? And I was like, yeah and I'm like, why am I using a microwave? So it's it's been more than it's been more than six months.

Meara (13:19.266)
When we've you got

Meara (13:25.78)
We started this already. Yeah.

Meara (13:33.282)
Probably has. But but that's something that's changed because six months ago you had been closer to having had used a microwave and still was getting used to the fact of not using the microwave, right? Because you would always talk to me about while we were doing the podcast, while we went out and got food because it's still kind of hard for me not using the microw like you know, you you were still trying to get on track to

Maggie (13:52.677)
Well, not not just that, but because I I had absolutely no no clue how to cook. I was I was intimidated. I was very overwhelmed and very intimidated and

Meara (14:00.248)
You were intimidated. You were intimid you were very intimidating. Intimidating.

Now you're over here whooping up five star Indian meals.

Maggie (14:11.342)
that and I'm making stock and making chicken stock. I actually just got a bunch of chicken feet to add to my stock for extra collagen. Uh-huh. Doing it. It's happening. Real thing.

Meara (14:14.838)
Yes, that's recent.

Meara (14:23.03)
No. I'm sorry. I I cannot chicken feet I just I don't know. I have a thing with that.

Maggie (14:32.878)
I got some really good chicken feet that are very clean. you know, no none of the garbage and

Meara (14:38.83)
Toes. Toe soup.

Maggie (14:41.538)
Yeah, it's gross, sure. I'm looking at it and it's super gross, but I know what it's going to put into this stock. And I my husband and I we need we need that. And I'm also making it for my parents, especially my mom. She's gonna be having shoulder surgery, so that'll help her with healing and it's gonna help with her arthritis and all kinds of stuff. So no.

Meara (14:43.47)
I get it.

Meara (14:54.446)
Yeah.

Meara (14:58.239)
Nice.

wow.

Meara (15:06.133)
Mm-hmm.

Give her sweet potatoes too. Sweet potatoes before surgery. I always ate sweet potatoes before my C sections. Helps aid in healing. yeah. So good. so what do we think women folk revival is gonna be? Is it do you feel I feel like w

Maggie (15:16.4)
Okay. She likes sweet potatoes. Yeah.

Maggie (15:26.338)
Natural lifting, right? I mean

Where'd you go? Hello?

Meara (15:37.747)
I got excited.

Maggie (15:38.832)
Oop, what's

Meara (15:40.139)
I know what

Can you hear me?

Maggie (15:43.232)
Mirror's recording will continue on new track. Man. Well at least it's you this time. I feel like it's always me 'cause we have horrible service in our little hauler here.

Meara (15:47.466)
That's okay. We're good.

Meara (15:52.225)
Yeah.

Meara (15:55.766)
I got so excited and knocked into something. No, I mean as far as women. We don't.

Maggie (15:58.073)
It's like we don't edit our videos but then everyone looks edited because we're always losing service or

Meara (16:06.486)
Yep. Yep. women folk revival in a sense of w like is this what you were expecting us to be? I I was expecting us not to be this much of excitement. Like I knew we were gonna do this. I knew this is what we were wanting to do, but six months ago we weren't expecting it to be like this

Big thing. Now we're like, you know, talking to other people and we've found other connections, and I've just really been enjoying it.

Maggie (16:32.322)
We're we're busier than I thought that we would be. And on one hand

Meara (16:39.638)
We are very busy.

Maggie (16:42.498)
you know, that's that's a that's become a problem for you and I because we we like the slow living and we have a lot going on in our homes and our you know, just our daily lives. And on the other hand it's really great and exciting and I want more of it, but it's you know, we're still working on finding that that balance.

Meara (17:05.974)
Yeah.

Meara (17:10.272)
Yeah, I was thinking, you know, I thought we were going to I mean, I knew we were gonna sit down every week and talk about all of these things, but I didn't know that we were actually gonna like really start doing them. And and that's that's the weird part for me because we were talking about slowing down and and being more intentional with, you know, living and making things and getting getting back to the way that we used to be as women. And then I look at my life now and I'm like, I'm actually doing this.

Maggie (17:36.996)
Mm-hmm.

Meara (17:37.554)
It's not like it's not it's not forced like, okay, we're gonna do this podcast and then this is how we're gonna live. So we have to live this way because we're doing the podcast. No, I'm at like we're actually this is our lives. And these are our day-to-day experiences.

Maggie (17:47.513)
I was I was hoping, you know, as uncomfortable I as I was with the idea of the podcast, I'm like, well maybe this is going to really push me into doing all these things that I talk about doing. And in a way in a way it has, you know, but it's really just kind of inspired me more than forced me into doing anything. And and I'm excited and I mean I've

I have

I mean having a lot of problems with especially like posting stuff and sharing, but I'm always going out and I'm taking pictures and I'm doing videos and then you know and then life just happens and I get busy and I don't do it and then I've got stuff from like months ago and I'm like well it might be silly to do this now but and I need to get better at doing that. I I need to get better at it. But but first I feel like I need to really get things under control here and you know, our home schooling

Meara (18:40.447)
Yeah.

Maggie (18:50.668)
has really taken off and become something new and beautiful.

Meara (18:56.299)
That's awesome.

Maggie (18:58.51)
You know, I'm doing this, I told you the Ray's arithmetic and the McGuffey's Readers. and these are ways of learning that were created, you know, in the earlier nineteen hundreds, before Rockefeller came in and changed the whole system around because he wanted a nation of workers, not a nation of thinkers. and we actually we were at this it's so the store itself is kind of like a goodwill, but it's not

Meara (19:19.168)
Mm-hmm.

Maggie (19:28.434)
Goodwill. It's owned by a church and everything is very inexpensive and it just happened to be open on the day we went to the library and the library was closed. And I'm like, shoot. but we stopped at the store and I found these really old books.

and they belong to a teacher. Like really old books. One of them is was published in eighteen sixty six, I believe. and it was written by a man

My husband has all the details. I don't have his name, but he was in the Civil War. he was captured and in a rebel camp and one of like the really bad ones. And then when he got out, he journaled about the whole thing. And so we have this old book that was written by him and it is it's phenomenal, but all these old books, and I'm like, I'm gonna teach my kids from these books and it's so cool, it's so amazing. and we're just me and my husband

husband are just like so in awe and now all we want to do is just go out and find all these old books, you know, and and have like an actual library. I finally have my husband like being okay with me getting he's always on me because I'm always picking up books everywhere we go.

Meara (20:46.369)
Buying books and art.

Maggie (20:48.215)
And he was like, if we bring these home, he was like, Are you gonna get rid of some? And I'm like, Sure, I'll get rid of some So we brought home like thirty books from well, from the library sale. And and then I picked out like five books that I could get rid of, you know, that were, you know, for like toddlers and I'm like, Okay, I got rid of these But so, but that's been exciting.

Meara (21:02.593)
Mm-hmm.

Meara (21:08.51)
Ha ha ha.

Meara (21:12.694)
Well you can always give the ones you get rid of to me and then I can start my library here and then when you come over, you c it can be like a library for our house and then we can just like exchange books back and forth so it's like you never lose them. Because you

Maggie (21:25.507)
We can we can definitely do that.

Meara (21:28.426)
Because you know I am closer to you now. Not an hour anymore. It's still pretty far, but you know, we just purchased our own little homestead for the first time and for the I will never move again. I kid you not. That was like the worst experience. And I don't know if it's 'cause I'm older now, but yeah. I will die in this house.

Maggie (21:35.841)
Yes.

Maggie (21:44.099)
You guys did it really fast 'cause you weren't planning on fully moving that soon. Yeah.

Meara (21:48.469)
Till the end of September. And we didn't think we were gonna move at all this year, but here we are, we have our acreage and we're starting to plan out how we want things. And we actually just cleaned up a little pond, like just on a whim. And now I'm homeschooling too, and we're doing kind of like a Montessori approach because my older two went to Montessori when they were younger. And so I'll do my lesson with her

my kindergartner and then she'll sit down and do what she needs to do and then I'll have them all come in the two year old, the three year old and her, 'cause the three year old is really smart. And we'll all sit down in a circle and we'll just do Montessori things. We'll get stuff on the floor, we'll count blocks and markers and work together and it's pretty cool.

Maggie (22:29.793)
Is all Montessori based off of Charlotte Mason or are there are there multiple people that it's do you know her?

Meara (22:37.249)
It's her. She's she's the one that came she's the one that started it, right? I think so.

Maggie (22:43.223)
I I believe so, yeah.

Meara (22:45.735)
And so and then my mom, she's a early intervention specialist, so I sent her my years worth of how I wanna do things with Khadija and she said she was impressed with what, you know, I had come up with and of course we're not sticking to one thing a day, like if she's advanced, we're just gonna kinda move forward and just go back and revisit. And we're still so new and I'm still so scared, but it was scary when I pulled the plug and I sent those letters like this is ridiculous. My kids I like so they she I sat there with her.

It we spent five hours a day on the computer, I kid you not, just doing work. And in the morn, and I thought that work was just enough, but then in the morning the second week, the teacher's like, okay, we're gonna dive in. So for the first five minutes, she had them drawing a picture of I don't know, night or something, and then this and then after that it was an immediate second page next picture. And then like three minutes into that, while the kids were still coloring, she went into let's sing our ABCs. And then after ABCs, it was let's pull out a piece of paper with the letter A and let's trace the letter A, and then we went to

Maggie (23:19.001)
That's nuts.

Meara (23:45.485)
something else and I'm like, what's the like where are these books that I'm supposed like I'm struggling to find stuff? It's

Maggie (23:48.164)
That's that's too much. That's too crazy. And I feel like it's gotten to the point because kids are are watching these videos all the time where it's like, you know, fast paced and moving. So now learning has to be that way for them in order to man.

Meara (23:57.749)
That's exactly what I was gonna get at. It's constant.

That's what I was just gonna get at. It's just like that cocoa melon where it's every two seconds, flip, flip, flip, flip. I'm like, this is absolutely ridiculous. And my mom, being an EI early intervention specialist, I said.

Maggie (24:10.67)
Mm-hmm.

Meara (24:17.049)
So they were teaching my daughter, my five-year-old, how like about spheres and cones and cylinders and and like I understand that, but you expect them to know these things. And my mom said my mom said, even when your middle child, who's eleven now, was starting school, she thought that the curriculum had started to become just a little strange. because she had started in a Montessori as well. Now, my two oldest, they went to Montessori and it was just starting to get weird with this new way of doing

Maggie (24:27.097)
We didn't learn about that until later on.

Meara (24:46.883)
Doing math that I never understood how to do. But she said, yeah, and she said,

Maggie (24:50.871)
Because I like the common core stuff.

Meara (24:55.945)
I feel like th she said the system is just I think n wanting to push out numbers and getting test scores and stuff and our kids aren't are not made of test scores. Our kids are made of knowledge and there is no common sense in anything that is being taught in these schools anymore at all. And I I was just like, So if I'm gonna sit here six hours a day, especially while she's in kindergarten, my older two, they do their own thing. Actually we had some issues logging in, but

If I'm gonna sit here six hours a day watching her struggle and I'm struggling with her, I'm gonna pull her. And I was just like, I told my husband, I was like, I can't do this. He's like, I I trust ya. And so I immediately pulled her out of there. I'm like, this is absolutely ridiculous. And so we just started school this week and it's I thought it was gonna be crazy, but it's not as crazy as I was expecting it to be. So

Maggie (25:41.515)
It's not. It it ends up becoming very natural and it can be I had a very hard time getting into it and sticking with it because I was so overwhelmed and I was trying to make it so much more like school. and I felt a lot of pressure because, you know, like my dad is one who does not he's not on board with homeschooling.

Meara (25:55.051)
Like school. Unschooling we're doing.

Maggie (26:09.096)
And and my mom wasn't originally and she's slowly kind of coming around to it. But there's a lot of outside pressure where people are looking at you thinking that you're doing wrong by your child to homeschool them.

Meara (26:13.813)
Coming around.

Maggie (26:26.06)
So there's a lot of pressure that I felt in the beginning, and I don't anymore, because every day I see more and more how important it is for my children to grow up at a slower pace and to learn at their pace. Yes, they need to know arithmetic and reading and writing and all of those things. They don't need to know everything that the schools are teaching kids. And I'm I'm gonna use the Amish here as an example again.

Meara (26:36.811)
Mm-hmm.

Meara (26:42.817)
Sure.

Meara (26:48.961)
Cramming in

Meara (26:54.059)
Mm-hmm.

Maggie (26:54.604)
These kids do not go to regular school. They're not learning like societal kids or you know, non-Amish kids are learning. But they know how to live. They're better off than than we are. They know how to live and take care of themselves. If the economy crashes, guess what? They're fine. Because because their life is not is not based off of that. Do you know you know?

Meara (27:17.547)
I think a lot of that is taught in the house too though because

Yeah.

Maggie (27:24.418)
They they don't necessarily learn calculus and they don't need it. They don't have to. We don't have to. Certain people might if you want a certain type of, you know, job that requires you to know calculus, but why teach it to every child?

Meara (27:37.355)
Then sure.

Meara (27:41.023)
I'm a nurse and I don't need half the math I knew.

Maggie (27:44.376)
How I mean, how ridiculous. It's a waste it's a waste of time and and I think go ahead.

Meara (27:45.267)
Don't use it.

Meara (27:50.825)
It is. And sitting at a

No, you think what?

Maggie (27:55.639)
I don't think that the more things that we can know in that sense does us good. I think it does us harm because we should be focusing on more on the subjects and and and things we need to know that are actually going to enrich our lives and help us in the direction that we actually wanna go and and wanna live. Yeah.

Meara (28:03.082)
It does.

Meara (28:19.189)
Be in common sense, everyday living. And you know, so I've come to the conclusion that learning is not sitting at a desk at all. Like half the things that we're doing with learning we can do everyday life, like walking outside and looking and talking about letters and numbers there, you know, and especially when you're five. Like that is absolutely ridiculous. And that made me starting that made me start questioning something bigger, which is

Maggie (28:28.046)
No.

Maggie (28:35.65)
Mm-hmm.

Maggie (28:40.289)
Yeah.

Meara (28:47.935)
Why do I feel like we have to have every minute of our day be filled with something? Yesterday we took a break and we just sat there. Just sat there. We didn't do anything. We just sat there. And why do I feel guilty if I'm not doing something constantly? Why does a five-year-old need to have six hours of work?

Maggie (28:53.962)
S.

Maggie (28:57.774)
Mm.

Meara (29:07.189)
For me to feel like she's had a productive day. That is not productive. And why do I need to f to accomplish 15 things before I feel like I've had a productive day? That's that piece you keep talking about. They're trying to make us into bee, worker bees, you know? so I've been trying to set my day now, since the beginning of women folk revival, with more intention. And I don't mean like waking up at 5 a.m. and

Writing in my journal when the sun rises and everybody is in the house and peaceful. I mean, but you know, that's not what's happening over there. And I'm not trying to wake up and and immediately feel behind. You know, I'm trying to think, okay, what what actually matters for today? Because I think I spent a lot of time just going, like work.

Maggie (29:37.92)
that's beautiful though, isn't it? Huntering me.

Meara (29:56.585)
Kids, house, appointments, whatever needs to be done next. You know, and if you can do that for so long, you don't even realize you're in your own life anymore. You're living the life of society and not the life for yourself. and so through this woman folk revival, that is the biggest change for me in the last six months is I'm going to get emotional because I am a big crybaby, but I feel like myself again, like I've found myself and I'm not being dramatic about it. I just

Everything that I felt when I was a teenager of okay, I knew who I was then because that's before real life started and I've always kind of been in this homeopathic type way and wanting to live off the land and you know, I always like love my salads with natural, you know, stuff on it, but

Then society happened and I got caught up in that. And ever since we came back to this now, here where we are, I feel like I found myself all over again. And that's huge. That's huge for me.

Maggie (30:57.09)
You know, and I will say it's not and it's not about fully returning to the old ways and

Meara (31:05.131)
Mm-hmm.

Maggie (31:06.294)
And living that way. It's just about returning returning to yourself. You know, being able to do things for yourself, being able to make something with your hands and think think with your own mind. And just be free of of the chains that societal life has put on you. People don't even realize that. We're all slaves to the system. And it's and it's breaking away.

That is just the most fulfilling thing. So you don't need to sit there and make your own bread and grow your own grains and mill your own grains. You don't have to do that. You need to find a way to return to yourself and return to our Creator and return to this wild world that that He put us in. And you know it's

Meara (31:46.709)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Meara (31:58.187)
You are so a hundred percent right.

Meara (32:03.497)
you know, sitting here with you every week talking about women coming back to themselves has me doing the same thing, not even thinking about it. I just knew that it I just looked back like so, you know, reflecting on this episode, I'm like, my God, like

I'm starting to do more things with intention. I'm starting to have more patience. I'm teaching my kid homeschool. I never and in the beginning of our episodes, you would hear me say, Absolutely not. Like I would never. And now I'm just more naturally okay with things. And it's again, it's not forced. It's like well, I'm gonna do this because school sucks. It just naturally happened. Like, do you feel different when when we started as well? Or yeah.

Maggie (32:45.312)
Absolutely. I I I knew what I wanted to do before we started, but I was not there. And there were a lot of things

A lot of things in my path that was keeping me from getting there. And a lot of that was internal. It was.

I had a lot of fear. I had a lot of you know, just so many things intimidated me and I just felt all over the place because there was a million things that I wanted to do, a million things that I wanted to learn about. And I didn't know where to start, and I felt like I had to start certain places. And through doing this podcast, I've started in areas where I never were never even on my like list of top ten of places to start. But I I did them and I've accomplished so much and I've grown so

Meara (33:32.801)
Mm-hmm.

Maggie (33:36.552)
so much and that's that's another thing too you know have a plan but don't have a step by step plan let it unfold naturally you know just

Meara (33:38.016)
Yeah.

Meara (33:49.769)
Yeah, it'll come.

Maggie (33:51.542)
Just let yourself get lost in it and and see what comes about 'cause that's what happened with me. And it's funny too because I always kind of used to be that way. and I haven't been for a long time. And I'm kindly finally getting back to that and and I find myself being more productive too, without having this I I love lists and I've made lists all the time, but

Meara (33:54.528)
Mm-hmm.

Meara (34:01.717)
Yeah.

Meara (34:06.134)
Mm-hmm.

Meara (34:13.333)
Yes.

List of expectations. Yeah. Yeah.

Maggie (34:19.863)
But now it's just you know, and especially once you start getting into habits too, you don't even think what you have to do, you just find yourself doing them and then you have more time for other things. It's it's a beautiful thing.

Meara (34:31.743)
Naturally.

Yeah, and it's all because of this podcast that we're doing, if you ask me, because you know, we have these things that we're doing weekly and it doesn't even feel like a podcast anymore. We've met women we would have never met, we've had conversations we never had, and we've learned we're learning things and we've changed our mind about things. And, you know, we've had conversations after recording that were probably longer than the actual episodes and it's spilling into our actual lives, you know. That's the part that I wasn't expecting. We started women folk revival to talk about all of this and then it started changing us as well.

Maggie (34:37.865)
It is, it is.

Meara (35:04.075)
And I don't think we know exactly where this is going, but

That's what I'm okay with. And six months ago, we probably would have wanted a whole plan. And we like we did with our, you know, our our what were we doing before this again? Why can't I think of what it's called? The blogs. We had planned everything out and then we're like, yeah, women folk revive, we're gonna plan everything out. And now it's just kind of like, All right, what's on the agenda for next week? What do you think's important? What's important to you, Maggie? yeah, let's do this. Okay, and then and then when we start doing it, we're like, Wow, this was like really what we need.

Maggie (35:16.429)
The blog.

Meara (35:40.499)
to talk about. And then it's so magical because all the people that are starting to come to us and say, you know, we would like to be on your podcast. And and the people that we're interviewing, it's almost like they're aligning up exactly with what it is we are about to talk about in the next day's episode. And it's it's just, it's wild.

Maggie (35:58.186)
Mm. That's been that's been weird. Yeah. I like it.

Meara (36:01.961)
And but it's been phenomenal and I want us to keep meeting women and I want us to keep having conversations that make us think and I want us to keep questioning things and keep learning things we've forgotten how to do and see what happens because apparently this thing had plans for us that we didn't even know about.

You know? so my question is to you, where do you want us to be six front months from now? Do you see that? And I don't mean like numbers or downloads because the numbers and downloads of podcasting and episodes don't matter to me. It's just gaining that knowledge and and the communication with other people and learning that that matters to most.

Maggie (36:31.383)
They don't matter to me either. Even if even if there's only five women that we ever connect with or ten women that we ever connect with, that's okay. You know? I again I'm not looking for I don't I don't wanna be a multimillionaire. I don't want a fast paced life where, you know, we're so busy and crazy. I just I wanna

Meara (36:39.937)
That would be awesome. That would be so awesome. Yeah.

Meara (36:53.587)
No.

Busy.

Maggie (37:00.235)
I wanna better our lives. I wanna do this with you because you're my best friend and this is it's been so fun to be able to do it with you. And and I wanna keep connecting with the women who

Meara (37:07.241)
It has. It has.

Maggie (37:14.007)
Who stumble upon us and find a connection with us and and want to be a part of it. You know, that's that's great. I don't want to force anybody. I don't wanna shove it down anyone's throat. If it's something that relates to you, that's that's awesome. That's that's what we want. And if it doesn't, that's okay. I don't maybe we will next year. Maybe our past will align somewhere else down the line, you know. Just

Meara (37:16.169)
Mm.

Meara (37:20.447)
Yeah.

Meara (37:24.757)
Yeah.

Meara (37:33.023)
Maybe we will next year. And I'm I'm I love

That's true. That's true. And I I love all I am so grateful for everyone that we have already been in connection, have had connection with and are currently in connection with as far as getting episodes done with with them because they I feel like have brought so much more meaning to our women folk revival as well. And we actually have stayed in connection with all the women that we've done episodes with.

Maggie (38:04.725)
Yes. I was just I was just going to say as as much as I wanna continue meeting new women, I wanna reconnect with the women that we've already done episodes with and do do more with them because I just I enjoyed their you know, our conversation with them so much and you know, it's that would be that would be fun. Down way down the line.

Meara (38:22.037)
Mm-hmm.

have to do a woman's retreat one day, travel somewhere without these kids. Way down the line.

Maggie (38:33.773)
But yeah, that would be that would be cool.

Meara (38:38.603)
Well, I'm excited for what's to come. I know we have so much more in store for us that we don't even know what's coming yet. And so my words of wisdom trying not to this week are about us. Six months ago, we sat down as two best friends with microphones and an idea, a big idea. And we thought we were starting a podcast about remembering the things women had lost along the way. I

Don't think either one of us realized that we were going to find pieces of ourselves along the way as well. We've changed, our lives have changed, and our friendship has changed. Okay. And I think that's

Maggie (39:25.715)
It's bad when you make me start tearing up.

Meara (39:30.39)
And I think that's what I'll remember most about these first six months. We started Women Folk Revival thinking we were going to tell stories about women coming back to themselves. And without realizing it, we became a part of the story too. Okay. And actually I think everything that we've talked about today leads right into what we're talking about next week because.

There's something that we've been noticing since we started doing more of this stuff: cooking from scratch, you know, taking care of property, teaching our own kids. And we keep catching ourselves thinking, this is too much work. But then we started thinking, is it? Or have we gotten so used to convenience that normal parts of living feel like too much work now? Because think about it, food comes prepared.

You can have almost anything delivered to your front door. Entertainment is instant. Something breaks, we replace it. We're constantly constantly being sold another thing that's going to save us five minutes or make something easier. And I am not anti-convenience. Trust me. There are conveniences you'll have to pry out of my hands. But I think there's a bigger conversation. And

At what point did convenience stop helping us live and start replacing parts of living? Because maybe the goal isn't to make life require as little effort as possible, but maybe some of the work is the living. And so that's what we're getting into next week. When did living become so much work? The convenience trap. And I already know we're going to have opinions. Very strong opinions. So I think that's it.

Maggie (41:01.389)
I have strong opinions.

Meara (41:05.951)
That's six months. No big lesson here. We definitely haven't figured anything out. We're just two best friends who started something six months ago and apparently it's changed us a little bit or a lot. We have figured things out.

Maggie (41:14.867)
We have figured things out.

But we don't have it all figured out.

Meara (41:21.461)
And we never will, because life is all continuous education and knowledge up until we die, right? So before we go, if today's conversation has made you think of another woman, send this episode to her. And seriously, thank you guys for being here with us. Yeah. Whether you've been listening since the beginning or you just found us somewhere along the way, thank you for sitting down with us every week and letting us figure out this thing as we go. We'll see you next Wednesday. So until next time.

Maggie (41:35.949)
Coming along this journey with us.

Maggie (41:49.773)
Stay rooted and stay wild.

Meara (41:52.318)
Stay wild.