Baggage Claim
Baggage Claim is a space for blended families, marriage, and friendship.
Here, we dive into real-life conversations about the ups and downs of relationships, from navigating second marriages to unpacking the baggage we all bring. Hosted by Greg and Jessica, who both have rich experiences with love, loss, and family, this community is about sharing stories, learning together, and growing stronger as couples and individuals. Grab a drink and join us as we unpack, laugh, and claim our baggage—one conversation at a time
Baggage Claim
The Kitchen Table Effect
Picture this: a well-worn table, rescued from an old hunting lodge, standing at the heart of a bustling blended family home. Not particularly beautiful or expensive, but carved with a "P" by small hands and refinished with love. This humble kitchen table became the gravitational center of our family life - where boundaries were established, hearts were mended, victories celebrated, and a family culture was forged.
In this deeply personal conversation, we reveal how something as simple as consistent family meals became the anchor point that helped our family of six navigate the sometimes choppy waters of blending. We share the intentional practices that made our table sacred ground - the no-phones rule, our cherished "highs and lows" tradition, even the amusing "shirts must be worn" policy (thanks to our perpetually shirtless teenage son).
What's fascinating is that we didn't realize what we were building at the time. We were just trying to wrangle four kids from different households into some semblance of togetherness. But twenty years later, our now-adult children still gravitate to that table when they visit, still ask to share highs and lows, and even our daughter-in-law has embraced these seemingly small but mighty traditions.
Beyond just our table, we explore how creating intentional gathering spaces throughout our home fostered what TikTok now calls a "living room family" - where children naturally gather in common areas rather than retreating to bedrooms. These weren't accidental choices, but deliberate decisions about the kind of family culture we wanted to create.
Whether you're part of a blended family or simply looking to strengthen your family bonds, this episode offers practical wisdom about how physical spaces shape emotional connections. What anchor points are you creating in your home? Where does your family naturally gather? The culture you're building might be happening around something as simple as your kitchen table.
Welcome to Baggage Claim everybody. Thank you so much for dropping in to hang out with us for a little bit. No matter where you're at what you're doing sitting at your desk, riding in your car, or maybe even at your kitchen table, wherever it is grab your favorite drink, whatever that is, maybe whatever time of day it is, grab your favorite drink, pull up to the table and join us today as we dive into a really cool concept that has to do around the table. Before we get into that, though, we want to talk about something that's, and I'm going to try to be as best as I can with this.
Speaker 2:We're going to be emotional.
Speaker 1:Yeah, life has seasons and we always say that life is full of of hills and valleys, mountaintops and valleys. Um, we weren't meant to live on mountaintops, because really big mountains don't really have anything growing on them. No, all the really good growth happens in the valleys, and sometimes the valleys, we think of them as sad, but they're actually where a lot of growth happens.
Speaker 2:And some reflection.
Speaker 1:Yes, so we've had a season, a big chapter in for us this week like a big, big turn the page in the chapter we had to say goodbye to Honey.
Speaker 2:Our teeny old lady stinky doggy yeah, she was our tiny little thing.
Speaker 1:We had had her. She'd been in our marriage for 13 years. Jess had had her two years prior.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And she was a rescue when we found her.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when we found the—she was rescued from literally a dumpster.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she had bumps on her little ribs. She had broken ribs yeah where they didn't heal properly.
Speaker 2:And when I rescued her and I named her, I just picked her up and I'm going to try not to get too emotional, but I just picked her up and she just made eye contact and I just said, hey, little honey, and then her name was just Honey. Took her to the vet and they were like she's not a puppy, so she's probably three or four. So fast forward to this week, when we had to say goodbye to her, the vet estimated her at almost 19 years old.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we can't say it was short.
Speaker 2:No, I mean she was pushing 126 in dog years she was, but she was just the stinkiest little, sweet little she had no teeth.
Speaker 1:No, she smelled bad. You give her bad. She smelled bad, she just couldn't help it. But we're riding back in the Jeep back from that visit, from saying goodbye yeah.
Speaker 1:And I just told Jess. I was like this is the end of the chapter and she goes. Well, what do you mean? And I was like, well, I had Lily when I was by myself and she helped me through so much, like she was there for me through, like I talked to her on the way to work all the time. I spent so much time with her when I didn't have the kids and then when we got married, she just became an integrated part of our family. Maybe one day I'll tell the story about when she pooped on your side of the bed when we were moving in.
Speaker 2:It's a story from another day, yeah, just trying to assert dominance.
Speaker 1:But anyway I lost Lily, like five years ago. She became diabetic.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so it was just bad. It just dropped off really quick and so we had to say goodbye to her, which was traumatic and really, really hard for me. It was horrible. I still have her little tag in my truck.
Speaker 2:Yeah, from her collar.
Speaker 1:Her name tag. Yeah, I carry it with me just to kind of remember that. And then coming home.
Speaker 2:But then you made that connection with Honey and me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she was there for you when you walked through your trauma and your stuff.
Speaker 2:When I was by myself, she slept in the bed with me and she was my girl.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so so. I put her name tag on my key chain, and so we kind of said goodbye to the things that we brought into, the things not outside of our kids, right, but the thing that we brought that was very dear to us those two doggy girls. Yeah, Kind of helped us through a lot. And so, man, that's a, I know we've all—and some of you may be like it's just a dog. It's not either. Don't ever say that to me.
Speaker 1:They walked through a lot with us and it was just kind of fun for them to be there together. And now we have two little boys, two—we still have two golden doodles that are just—and we'll talk about them some other time. But anyway, tonight, you know, in that season we have these things anchors in our lives and for us, a huge, huge anchor for our family and you may go like, okay, that's cheesy, but it's just true is our kitchen table. It wasn't that we were trying to. I mean, I don't want to say we weren't that super smart in what we did. Sometimes we just fell into really cool things that just happened in our family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the reality was we lived in a house that had three stories. The two boys lived in the basement, aaron was on the middle floor and Callie was on the top floor, and so Callie was usually always when we were, yeah, always hanging out with us. The boys were in the basement because there was a pool table down there in the theater room. Yeah, their little game area, yeah, so they hung out. And then Erin.
Speaker 2:Grace kind of flitted between Heather and Yon in the house just whatever was happening. She was so little.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So our idea was we need some place we can gather all these hoodlums together and have some conversation. So it's like where's that?
Speaker 2:we're like we reign this circus in yeah so we can all be at the same place at the same time, and we had two tables, which was pretty interesting.
Speaker 1:we had a dining room but with your nice table in it that we never sat at heirloom, yeah, and so we treasures. We had this old table that I had gotten from my mom. It was a hunting lodge. It was from a hunting lodge that they had bought. They bought and sold real estate, so it was an old hunting lodge table. It looked rough, it was pretty though. It was pretty it had good bones.
Speaker 2:It did have great bones. That's what we all say.
Speaker 1:And so we took under. We're like, hey, we're going to do a little fun project together. We're going to redo our kitchen table, and so we sanded it down.
Speaker 2:But the boys said, okay, bye.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they didn't have a whole lot to do with it. The girls were bought in. Yeah, totally bought in.
Speaker 2:We're going to share the picture of I actually had it printed on a canvas of Callie and Erin Grace under their table just sanding their little selves to pieces, sanding and painting and I took a knife and just carved a P into the leg. Because we were combining Peck and Petillo. Yes, it was Peck and Petillo.
Speaker 1:So the P kind of worked. We didn't have to do a P in another letter, which we would have if we needed to. So I said that was one reason you married, because I had the same last name. I was just about to say that you didn't have to change it into the monogram. I didn't have to change my monogram, right? No? So it was one of those things.
Speaker 2:I'm a Southern girl.
Speaker 1:That was one of those things we had to have a hard discussion about was monogramming, and maybe we'll get into that one day. But we carved a P in there and then we just painted it and we, to this day, still have that table. It's been expanded and it's grown a little bit and then we've resurfaced the top of it with some different wood, but we still have the table. But that was our first project. Now at that table, man it was, we didn't just have meals there, it's kind of like life happened there. Yeah, and that's the reason, honestly, at this podcast, we have a table.
Speaker 2:If you're watching this on video. If you're not watching on video, it was really important to Greg and I to be able to sit down at a table because, like he was saying, that's where life has happened for our family. Obviously, life happens everywhere for our family, but that was a big anchor point for us.
Speaker 1:Well, for me, I think there's so much life. Change happens and growth can happen at a table, whether it be your kitchen table, a dinner table of a friend or a family member being out somewhere, even at a dinner table.
Speaker 2:It's where you sit around. I need to talk to you about something.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:It's at a table.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's usually sitting at a table somewhere, so it's always like gathered around. It's an easy point and there's always some distance between you, so you feel comfortable to kind of be who you are.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it may sound silly too, but even in my classroom I teach first grade. I don't have a desk that I sit at. I sit at a table.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So when I meet, even with my littles, I'm like come sit at my table with me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So to invite somebody to your table, no matter where it's at, is a little bit more comforting, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to break bread, have a drink with, just to kind of share life with. So our kitchen table and we call it our kitchen table only because it's set in our kitchen somewhat kind of kitchen sunroom-ish it's kind of been yeah, it's always been somewhat close to the kitchen.
Speaker 2:And I say a couple of our houses. We've only we've lived in three homes together, right and the first two homes.
Speaker 1:There was the kitchen table and then there was a formal dining room, right table and the only time we ate there is when we had a party we had family over and that was the excess table.
Speaker 2:Yes, like thanksgiving or something else, but but in our current home that we lived in for five years, we intentionally chose not to have a formal dining room situation. This big, giant table in what used to be a sunroom that we've turned into our— it's not even a dining room. Like there are no walls in our home.
Speaker 1:There are walls in our home.
Speaker 2:But like okay, let me rephrase that it's very open.
Speaker 1:It is very open.
Speaker 2:yes, In the main living kitchen, dining, hanging out area. It's all one big place. Intentionally to draw you to that table.
Speaker 1:Right, and I know if you listen to us or you followed us. We talked about our behavior chart and our boundaries chart, where we did that. I don't know if we ever posted that picture of the boundaries.
Speaker 2:I don't think we did. I did find it. I was so happy, okay, so we found that.
Speaker 1:We're going to post that picture so you can actually see it doesn't have the kids' signatures on it, it has the raw version before they signed it. We'll post that up so you guys can check it out. But we did that at our table. We came up with core values for our family. We're going to do an episode about that but we did those at our kitchen table. Our kitchen table was not just a place to sit down and eat. When I say anchor point, it was a central point where we got to come together and talk about sometimes hard issues, sometimes fun issues, sometimes just not even hard, but just heart issues, like if one of our kids was struggling, that so-and-so was made fun of, or this, this happened. It was a heart to heart kind of place and it just they happened. It was a heart-to-heart kind of place and it just they associated that table with conversation and it's just, and when I look back at it I'm like God, how did we get that right?
Speaker 2:I don't know, but even as adults they still do. They still know. I mean, our oldest and her husband, callie, and her husband Charles live out of state in Florida and Cody lives 45 minutes away but he's still nearby. But when we all come together there really is no question of where a meal or lots of games and togetherness happens. And it's been fun because as our family grows, as our children get married and now we have grand girl Lucy she's not sitting in a chair yet, her high chair's there, but I mean I get to unfold a folding table and put a tablecloth on it and so our table keeps extending.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And so, and I love when we get to have family at the house, because you got me two folding tables and I have tablecloths that make it all seem like one whole big table.
Speaker 1:But one day we're going to have a really big table.
Speaker 2:I know it's going to be so cool. Yeah, I mean well, I mean our tables. Seat to eight now, so you can imagine when we have enough folks over here to have to have a folding table. It just fills us with so much joy to have that many people at a table together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because we look back at when they were little and we're just trying to wrangle everyone together.
Speaker 2:We were, but, and then there was a lot of times when we were trying to figure out how to be a family of six and eating at home was a necessity because, yeah, I don't know, and some of you may be out there in blended families and you just be rolling in cash.
Speaker 1:We didn't have that experience. That's not us Way to go. You.
Speaker 2:Yeah, high five.
Speaker 1:We were like, okay, how do we feed all these kids and not go broke and pay the?
Speaker 2:power bill. So eating at home at the table from the parent end of it was like we have to.
Speaker 1:And it became a thing of cooking in the kitchen with the girls. The girls really liked the kitchen and so it was a fun family thing for us and just kind of pushed us more toward that. And then we had but we did have some boundaries to our table- we did. Like there were some things we didn't do at the table and some things that you Number one rule, the number one rule was't do at the table, and some things that you— Number one rule, the number one rule was no phones at the table.
Speaker 2:No electronics at the table. Yeah, okay, yeah, not his phones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was about to say, you had to say electronics. For Cody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Cody.
Speaker 1:Bless his heart. He's our gamer. He's always been a gamer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. He had like his DS or his Game Boy or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 1:He's the kid who would say hey, dad, can you drop me off at the school Saturday for four hours. I was like to do what? Well, I'm in this fun team like a club. It's a club and he goes. So we spend half the time two hours trying to hack this other team and this other club tries to defend us, and then in the second half they try to hack us and we try to defend them, and I was like four hours on a Saturday morning and he's like yes, yeah, he was so good and so that's how he would spend a lot of his Saturdays sometimes, so we had to say the word electronics, because Cody would be the one to figure out, looking for the loopholes, loopholes.
Speaker 2:Looking be the one looking for the loopholes. Yeah, so that was our number one, number one rule. Yeah, our sweetie girls, they just went with it. Thomas was just happy to be there so he went with it.
Speaker 1:So cody was the only one that kind of pushed that yeah, and I know if you have a blended family, you have kids who have other parents and it wasn't like hey, we're taking your phone away. It's like for this 45 minutes to an hour that we sit here. Your phone sits on the island or sits somewhere else. It doesn't sit on the table. We don't stack them on the middle of the table because they buzz and then attention's gone.
Speaker 2:That defeats the purpose, right, so let's put them somewhere else, so they're not a distraction.
Speaker 1:Our other rule we had and this is because of Thomas, this rule came about is that you had to wear a shirt at the table. Yeah, Thomas was our Matthew McConaughey of our family.
Speaker 2:Hey, come look how good I look. Yeah, bless his heart, he was a good-looking young kid.
Speaker 1:He's pretty, yeah, but he never had a shirt on, and so I was like put your shirt on, bro, we're eating at the table, and so it was just a— I mean so it wasn't like we were overburdened. He won't kill us when he hears us say that but it was just a fun kind of—. Yeah, we didn't want it to be a place where you're like oh God, here we are Now. There were times.
Speaker 1:There were times when— it was hey, I need to see you. Like it was during the day, it would be like if it wasn't mealtime and you got called to go sit at the kitchen table.
Speaker 2:Without your siblings.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's like, hey, it's just us and you, let's go to the table. We need to chat at the table. It was like, oh no, crap's about to go down, and so it was just a— and not to throw Thomas under the bus again, but it was mainly him. Yeah, we spent a lot of time there with him.
Speaker 2:It's just because it's great, because he went to school to be pretty and socialize.
Speaker 1:Well, all his teachers loved him and would just help him along, and so I mean kids would do homework around this table and I know you may be sitting there thinking why are you talking about a table? Bro, that sounds great. Yeah, like, that sounds like a beautiful thing. That's awesome. You don't know our lives, understand me. I do know your life. We do Like we had four wildly crazy, very fun kids.
Speaker 2:One of the favorite things that we did and established then when they were little guys that they literally still ask to do today as grown adults, is we would do our highs and lows of our day. That day and that was a way, and I cannot even remember how that even started- Probably you that came up with the idea, just a conversation starter. It's always you, so it was just basically a way starter it's always you.
Speaker 1:So it was just basically a way for everybody, because if you ask a kid how was your day?
Speaker 2:It was fine. It was fine. It was just a way to get them talking in detail.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and usually one would feed off the other one yes.
Speaker 2:And then they would say ooh, ooh, can I go again? I thought of another high, or I thought of another low. And it was just such a good way to get conversation started. And like I said, they literally still do it today, even our daughter-in-law. When she's here for dinner and we're just hanging around, she's oh, do you want to do highs and lows?
Speaker 1:I'm like, yes, grown woman that married our son, we do Well, another thing we did and you guys can I mean if you're super spiritual and you want to hack on us for this, then have at it.
Speaker 2:Are you talking about thumbs up? Yeah, I don't know how that started?
Speaker 1:I don't either. I think it was one of our kids, because they were not great, they hated praying out loud, and so I was like, no, we're each going to take a turn. And I think it was probably one of our kids came out with this game and said all right, so when you put your thumbs on the table, the last one to put their thumbs on the table has to say a prayer and your thumbs are up. And you can do it very inconspicuously. You can just be very sly about it.
Speaker 1:And sometimes it's like, oh, so fast, yeah, you have no idea, but no one would sit down and no one would eat while we were making plates. No, we all made it for one another.
Speaker 2:But yeah, if we still do the thumbs up game, literally still, we didn't do it tonight because we ate in stages but, like last night, literally sitting there getting ready for dinner. Thumbs up on the table, if you're watching on video you can see me doing it, but the last one that put your thumbs up, or the last one that doesn't do, it and it always most of the time like lately it wound up being me, like it's been me.
Speaker 1:I was like I've really fallen off my game. Early on I was pretty good. Now I'm just I'm kind of.
Speaker 2:maybe I think you're distracted by the granddaughter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe my old age is kicking in, I don't know, but anyway, so it's a fun kind of game that we played. But the problem with that was is our kids were like I don't, callie was mortified of praying in public. Yes, mortified. She's like. I do not want to do that.
Speaker 2:We called her.
Speaker 1:And so we were.
Speaker 2:I did call her today to ask her. We called to make sure this was okay, that we talked directly about her.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because she was at my grandma. We were at my mom's, her grandmother's, and they spent the night over there a good bit.
Speaker 2:But my grandma, or my mom, my mom, her grandma had a painting on the wall there, sort of like the Hobby Lobby, like live, laugh, love. Yes, but it was a literal, it was a prayer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Callie memorized this prayer so she would not have to say her own words. And the first time she said it I was like, wait a minute, that feels vaguely familiar. Yeah, what is that? Yeah, I was like did you come up with that? Yeah, I was really proud of her, and she did not tell us in the beginning. She ripped that off from a painting at Grandma's.
Speaker 2:Until we were there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we saw it one time we saw it.
Speaker 2:We're like Cali girl.
Speaker 1:Would you like to read the prayer? I didn't write it down, but it's basically Lord bless the—. No, thank you for the food before us.
Speaker 2:Thank, you for the food before us, the friends beside us and the love between us. Yes, amen and we were like that is so sweet.
Speaker 1:When she said it, I was like that is so sweet. When she said it, I was like that is beautiful. Wow, I mean, it's one of those things where you're just like, oh, my gosh, oh my gosh, you are 13, and you just came up with that Way to go. Yeah, until we saw it on the painting, we were like you.
Speaker 2:Bit that liar.
Speaker 1:She's like I didn't lie, I just borrowed it, yeah.
Speaker 2:But then, even and when Miranda joined our family, praying before a meal was not always something that she was accustomed to.
Speaker 1:She grew up Catholic and a little different. It was just a little bit different. Yeah, and so she's like I don't know what to pray so sweetie girl. And I was like just talk and still now Just talk, Just say thank you.
Speaker 2:Almost five years later, she'll still say her God is great, god is good, and we just go with it. You know, it's okay, it's fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's just one of those things. We're giving thanks, we're giving thanks, we're at the table and we have food to eat.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And so the whole point was for us to kind of build that culture of together.
Speaker 1:And I think that's the underlying thing about it. I think that we didn't realize what we were doing at the time, but we were developing a culture within our family, within our kids.
Speaker 2:And it was consistent whether it was what we used to call two-kid week or four-kid week. It didn't matter how many kids were home that week or that day or whatever, because sometimes it would change. But that was something that they could expect, kind of like when we talked about the boundaries and expectations. It's like that's just what we do.
Speaker 1:And I'm not saying you have to be at your kitchen table at your house. Like we had cross country, we had mountain bike, we had soccer, like sometimes we didn't leave practices till 7, 30, 8 o'clock. It was dark and we're eating around, but when we ate around a table it didn't matter where that table was. Culture was in our kids and in our family, not in our home.
Speaker 2:So it was like wherever we were, we're doing the same thing. Yeah, we knew which nights we could go where, where kids would eat free.
Speaker 1:Right, yes.
Speaker 2:And so if we were eating out, we would still. The kids would even like put their phones under their leg or ask mom, can I throw my phone in your purse?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:They would literally leave their phones in the car because, I mean, that was just something that they knew, like we're going to here to eat dinner.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So if you're listening to us and you're saying we're a baseball family, we're a, you know, travel ball family and we don't get to eat at home at the table a whole lot, Okay, that culture can be built wherever you are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would challenge you a little bit and I know if you're listening out there with a lot of kids you may just get really. You may get pissed at me right now I do think you do we wanted.
Speaker 1:we knew the value of our culture and our time and our lives and knowing that I had these kids for maybe 17,. Maybe 16 to 17 years when they hit 18, you don't really have them a whole lot. They just live there and sleep there. But we have these kids for this amount of time. So that's when we went back. I think we mentioned this earlier in the episode. We told our kids find one sport you like and stick to that sport.
Speaker 2:Not because we were jerk parents. No, I just—, but it's—.
Speaker 1:It's something we wanted to stand for as our family to be like. I want you to be active, I want you to have fun and I want you to play on a team. We're not going to do that over four teams, because there's value in us having time.
Speaker 2:Because our job as the parents is to fight for our family Right and so that we can model what family looks like for these kids that were watching us do it.
Speaker 1:We always said our job as parents was to raise responsible likeable kids who contributed to society.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I added the likeable part in there, because we can raise responsible jerks.
Speaker 1:Right, and so we set some ground rules and you don't have to. We just did it for our family, because I want our kids to play sports, but we weren't going to do a ton, but that was just one of the things we did. So if you're kids playing four sports, I mean have at it, but they're going, just let me remind you, they're going to leave you and they're going off to college and they're going to go live their life and they're going to have fun. You need to be able to have a life once they leave.
Speaker 2:Our whole thing is what have we taught them on what family means when they go out in the world? Right, because eventually the hope is they're going to build their own and I want for them to have the same fulfilling although it's hard, but I want them to have the same fulfilling experience that you and I have had to be able to build this crazy blended family. I don't want it's not blended core or whatever, but I want them to have the same fulfilling, loving, intentional family environment that they grew up in. I want them to have that in their adult life.
Speaker 1:So what we're hoping is all those things that we kind of not only just laid out for them, but just kind of modeled for them. Yeah, we hope that that sinks in and becomes who they are, that word modeling is huge yeah.
Speaker 1:Just so you know your kids are miniature versions of you. Yes, so just know that, yeah, the good, the bad, the ugly, all of that, they are that of you, so keep that in mind. Something, too, we did like not only just the kitchen table, but we're about sitting, hanging together, creating. So when we bought this house, the thing we loved about this house is, like this house has so much potential for community spaces, as we'll call them, just hangout spaces. We kind of have two living rooms, which is weird. One doesn't get a whole lot of attention, one gets just bombarded. It does. We spend a lot of time in there. But then we also have our kitchen is designed to where it's very open. There's a big island with lots of seats around it so you can sit there.
Speaker 2:The front side of that. A lot of people, like in the decorating home design field, might call it a quote unquote keeping room, but we call it the bourbon room.
Speaker 1:We call it the bourbon room, because my dream one day is to have a room where I just go with my buddies and we just drink bourbon. Yeah, but I don't have that now, so I have a nook.
Speaker 2:You have a nook. You have a bourbon nook. With a really cool couch that came from my grandmother and a really cool bourbon barrel lid that I got you for Father's Day a few years ago Again, that was Brother Jack Woodworking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, brother Jack, shout out to Brother Jack Woodworking. Yeah, brother Jack, shout out to Brother Jack Woodworking.
Speaker 2:Go Wes. Thank you, wes. It says Bulldogs and Bourbon. It has Ugga's face. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but yeah, you— Old barn door in there, like a 100-year-old barn door, yes, so it's just kind of a little— Again, that's a little area where a lot yeah, and you have a glass of wine. I have sometimes a bourbon, sometimes not Glass of wine with you and we just kind of talk about the day and just kind of chill.
Speaker 2:It's right there in the kitchen, but also is right there attached to what used to be a sunroom. That's our dining area, where our table is. All of that that was very intentional. All of that that was very intentional. And then even I couldn't see the potential for this home where we live now as well as you and Callie could. But the first place I fell in love with is the patio off of the dining room, because it is so cozy, and it so just draws you to it to hang out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's where our grills are, and we have chairs and umbrellas and we sit out there. We sit out there a lot of afternoons too, now when the weather's nice Especially now, yeah. And then we have another sitting area. That's in our garage. We put ceiling fans out there, fun little party like LED lights around the top. So we, during Saturdays, we've got a porch swing over there, we do have a porch swing, so we'll go sit out there.
Speaker 2:We don't have a porch, but we put it in the garage.
Speaker 1:In one side it's a double garage. It's a big—it's a house built in the 50s.
Speaker 2:Or it's a carport.
Speaker 1:It's a carport, so it's not enclosed.
Speaker 2:That's neither here nor there. The point is— it's a great hangout spot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we Football on Saturdays.
Speaker 2:Creating spaces to draw our family together has always been big.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And even when they were growing up it was always a big deal to have them near us, because we keep saying over and over again that that togetherness, raising your family, is relatively a short span of time.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And there's this TikTok trend that I saw, that I told you about and that actually our youngest daughter, Erin Grace, she showed it to me. There is a TikTok. Maybe it's not a trend per se.
Speaker 1:It's a theory conversation.
Speaker 2:It's a conversation whatever, but she told me it was the question would be posed of are you a living room family or are you a bedroom family? And so the idea was the living room family is the family where the kids feel comfortable hanging out in the living room when they're little. Are they comfortable playing with their toys out there or I mean, for our personal family it was the boys even. Are you comfortable like sitting in a cozy chair, wrapped in a blanket, playing your Game Boy or your DS or whatever that was? Or like for Callie be wadded up in the corner of the couch reading and like everybody wanted to be in the living room? Or are you the kind of family that all the kids retreat to their bedroom and do their own thing separately from one another and the parents? And so I didn't realize that you and I had created a living room family.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But the fact that our youngest recognized that and then when I brought it up at the table during dinner with the other kids, they were like oh yeah, we are a living room family. We did life together in the living room.
Speaker 1:Well, we also didn't allow—none of our kids had TVs in their bedrooms, absolutely not.
Speaker 2:And we didn't have a TV in our bedroom.
Speaker 1:No, we didn't have one in our bedroom either, and the reason why we do now is because it's gigantic for game day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we use it for game day on Saturdays, but we literally never turn it on. It's not cute. It's not cute on Saturdays, but we literally never turn it on. It's not cute, it's not cute, it's not pretty, but we don't have anywhere to put it, so it just sits in there and so it's a. But yeah, we just didn't, we didn't put a TV in our room and so we didn't do it with the kids, just because we just we didn't want them to. It's easy just to go there and just turn on something and veg out, and not. So let's veg out together if we're going to do that.
Speaker 2:I would literally rather veg out together, throw pillows on the ground, blankets, whatever. I want you with me.
Speaker 1:Nowadays, if your kids and you're in your living room, it's not just being a living room family. You even have to say, hey, today, right now, we're going to put our phones down and we're going to together. Because I can't tell you how many times I was like, oh, we're going to watch this movie, and I look, and every single person is looking at their phone and not the TV, and I was like and you and I both are guilty of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was. I was guilty with games and I deleted all the games off my phone. You did.
Speaker 2:I'm so proud of you.
Speaker 1:High five, thank you. So it was just a—that's where I was—that was sucking up my time and it was stupid. I was like why am I playing Candy Crush or shooting deers or whatever I'm doing, and not hanging out with my family? I was like this is so stupid, I don't even care about this, and so even care about this, um, and so it's just okay.
Speaker 2:Here's a question I know the answer to, but why are you?
Speaker 1:asking so that our friends can hear us okay, go ahead.
Speaker 2:would it have been easier to allow our kids to have their electronics all the time? Would it have been easier for us to? Yeah, you can have a little TV in your room, I don't care.
Speaker 1:A thousand percent. Like we also didn't allow our kids to have their phones in the room after a certain time. Now I get it Again. I go back to if you're a blended family, like our kids were like, hey, we need to talk to mom. I was like, okay, cool, talk to mom. Callie and Cody.
Speaker 2:And then charge your phones in the kitchen or charge your phones somewhere else. Thankfully, thomas and aaron grace understood that. Yes, it was not, it was not an. And well, they get to. Why don't we like? They understood even when they were all little?
Speaker 1:yes, they understood, like, oh, of course they, if they, if they want to talk to their mama, they talk to their mom but then after a certain time we we had to take Cody's and just say, bro, you have to stop, because he would literally play games.
Speaker 2:Mr Sneaky.
Speaker 1:All night long. Well, we took his phone and somehow he wired or hacked. He hacked his Nintendo or something.
Speaker 2:His super old DS. I don't even know how he did it.
Speaker 1:Somehow rewired and got online and was watching YouTube videos, watching some kind of video, and I was like bro, I don't even know how he did that and I don't even really care, just give it to me.
Speaker 2:He had already tucked the little guys to bed in the basement when we first all lived together, got married. We had already tucked the boys into bed and we were like, okay, good night, whatever. And. And we were like, okay, good night, whatever. And I told you I was like I just want to go check on the boys. And that was not anything I ever did. I was like I just want to go check on them. You're like why, I don't know when I got down there, guess who had, like you said, hacked from his DS into Wi-Fi to watch YouTube on his black and white little Nintendo DS That'd be Cody Peck.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know how he, but it was just so. We had to be very, very, very specific with him when it came to rules because he would find the loopholes and try to figure out. He said you said no phone, but you didn't say anything about this. Like building a computer and yeah, whatever it may be. So it's just a but. All that to say. We weren't trying to be like. The idea was there's no need for you to be on those things in your room, there's no need for you to have those things. We have those out here. We can do that. And we weren't strict on what they could and couldn't watch in the living room, because we were together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, most of the time the boys were downstairs playing a video game together, and Callie really didn't care, so Erin watched whatever she wanted, and so it was all those things to—I say all those things to say this Like find your anchor points at your house.
Speaker 2:What are you intentional about?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what are your community spots, I guess, for your home, like, think about your culture.
Speaker 2:So let's unpack what that looks like.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's okay. Do we need like a little For real life? Do we need like some kind of noise to say, now we're unpacking.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the unpacking.
Speaker 1:Unpacking with baggage claim Okay.
Speaker 2:So here's the question to our friends you don't have to, I'm not asking you, oh okay, but the question is what kind of culture are you encouraging and modeling in your family?
Speaker 1:Okay, so here's the problem with that question, though, is you have to be honest with yourself. Yeah, you can answer the question, but you have to be honest with—.
Speaker 2:Because the modeling part for the parents is the biggest part. Right.
Speaker 1:You can have all the greatest goals and ambitions, but unless you're—.
Speaker 2:You can encourage your head off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but unless you're actually doing them, you're just talking.
Speaker 2:If you're not modeling what you're asking your kids to do. They see right through you.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, I agree 100%, and culture is one of those things too. Sometimes it's hard to explain, sometimes it's hard to put your finger on, but you know it when you know it. And your family, I will tell you this, your family has a culture, like it does. The way you communicate, the way you fight, the way you love on each other, all of those things are built around a culture that you have in your family.
Speaker 2:As I'm thumbing through the notebook. As I'm thumbing through the notebook, we're going to tackle culture on a whole other podcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how to build how to just improvise and just even come up with your culture, what you want it to look like. Because here's the crazy part you get to create that Like you are creating that. You get to pick what you're intentional about, right, yeah, you get to create that.
Speaker 2:Like you are creating that. You get to pick what you're intentional about.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, you get to control that, like you are not controlling but manage. You get to set what that is.
Speaker 2:I know when we were talking about this you worried about the word control.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not, but like you get to, I guess I would say you get to establish that and set the precedence and then see it out. So it's not about controlling people, it's about allowing them to catch the vision, the idea and the passion behind what it is you're after.
Speaker 2:So to kind of revert back to one of the very first things that you were talking about is like an anchor point for your family. Like what kind of anchor points are you creating? For us? It was what kind of places do you have where your family, your kids, even our extended family knows? Like what kind of places are you? Do you just go to be together?
Speaker 1:It could be a fire pit outside. It doesn't have to be in your house, it could be outside your house your patio.
Speaker 2:Are you intentional about those places? Does your family, your immediate family, like our extended family, even knows we have these places that we're very intentional about?
Speaker 1:Gotcha.
Speaker 2:And, like you mentioned before, there's specific places in our home and around our home where we are intentional about. Those are the places we know we're going to be together. Yeah, it sounds so simple, but it's not.
Speaker 1:And set those things out though, Like start modeling that and doing it now. It's not going to happen unless you take action and kind of make it happen, Like set the precedence.
Speaker 2:You have to be intentional and model it.
Speaker 1:Right, right. So when we say the kitchen table, we call it table time, which is awesome to us and it's huge and it speaks volumes to us that so much life change happens around the table. And I hope, as you unpack that, have those conversations with your significant other about what kind of culture are we setting? Is it around our table or is it around our TV? Are we watching TV and eating and not even talking? Are we doing those and what do we want to change? So how do we change it? So you got a question. Are we at the question portion?
Speaker 2:here I have a question from the book okay the book is a couple's journal, a year of us, by alicia munoz, and we've mentioned this book before and great book. We have got to reach out to her. We have said a hundred times that we're going to reach out to her because she has several books that are about connecting.
Speaker 1:Let me tell you this Okay, on any of our socials, if you will just log in on there for the first five folks that actually log in and share a table story, a story that's happened at your table.
Speaker 2:I will buy you this book.
Speaker 1:And send it to you. Yeah, I will to you First five people will buy you the book and I'll have it shipped to you.
Speaker 2:We have had the best time with this book.
Speaker 1:You've got to participate, so you've got to go in there in the comments section and share your story about something fun that happened at the table.
Speaker 2:Yeah, some intentional table time.
Speaker 1:Awesome and this is great, but you'll love it. Okay, go ahead. Question.
Speaker 2:Here's the question. I've skipped around in the book. We don't go in order.
Speaker 1:No, we don't.
Speaker 2:You can't tell me what to do, don't care, yes, and as I put on my reading glasses because I can't see. Okay, so here's the question. You ready? Babe?
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:What do you consider one of the most fascinating or unusual things about me? Most fascinating or what or unusual.
Speaker 1:Or unusual.
Speaker 2:Unusual is not negative. A lot of people think it is.
Speaker 1:No, I don't think of it. I love unusual.
Speaker 2:Unusual.
Speaker 1:I actually think you have All right, the one, the first thing that pops to mind. I'm so excited, it's so fast. You find the excitement and joy and sometimes I think, the most mundane things I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 2:Don't talk about traveling. We talked about that, no.
Speaker 1:I'm not, but it's just like, even if we're like, hey, we're going to a new restaurant or we're going to go try out a new, we found this new winery on TikTok or Instagram. Yeah, you get so, yeah, see, you're doing it, you get so excited about it and I'm like okay, it's another winery, you know what I'm saying. But then it's like okay, it's another restaurant, but your excitement is contagious and it's just kind of fun, like a few nights ago I sent you that link on Instagram.
Speaker 2:I was like I have to go here for my birthday this year.
Speaker 1:It's like the garden, like the garden, the garden room in Atlanta. Yeah, the garden room, it's so freaking beautiful.
Speaker 2:There are flowers and flowering trees everywhere Inside a place.
Speaker 1:But it's not only see, it's not just the excitement to go to that place, it's that when we're there, oh my God, yeah, you're like a kid who just walked into a toy store.
Speaker 2:I'm a kid who just walked into a book fair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you get so, mom, I don't even talk about the bookmobile, but you get so excited about those things and that's contagious. And that's one of those things I just love about you, because my side, the me, and I know this about myself. I underplay everything and I don't get excited about much. I should. Sometimes I do, sometimes I get— I have to remind you to be excited. Yeah, I get excited about Georgia football.
Speaker 2:Just that's a natural thing for me, well, but I I have to remind you to be excited about normal things.
Speaker 1:Yes, Thank you. That sounds like such a jerk.
Speaker 2:No, no, no no, no, no, no, that came out wrong. I'm so sorry. I'm so so sorry, Don't apologize, that's all good. I have to remind you to be excited about everyday things.
Speaker 1:Right. Celebrate the small victories and be excited about them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, so enough on kicking me. What is it? Flip it. Can we kick Greg? Enough, let's do something good.
Speaker 2:No, and this may sound negative and it's not.
Speaker 1:The way— Okay, when you start it that way, it's definitely negative, Like you don't start with like— I just hit the microphone.
Speaker 2:I am fascinated by the way that you—. Oh Lord no the way you use your ADD to your advantage. That's fascinating.
Speaker 1:What do you mean? I don's fascinating. What do you mean? I don't understand.
Speaker 2:What do I mean? You can be thinking seven thoughts at the same time, but give them equal attention.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And go down seven different paths of thought. Well, I am not capable of that.
Speaker 1:It's actually incredibly exhausting, though I'm sure it is, yeah, it's not.
Speaker 2:But from a type A personality over here I cannot do that. It's fascinating the way your brain works. Now it's exhausting in a conversation.
Speaker 1:I know it's exhausting for you to live with me and have to talk, just a conversation.
Speaker 2:I mean, even this evening, before I had to go back to work for a family event, I was trying to share something and you wanted to talk about what was in your brain. I was like no, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. And you said okay. And I was like no, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. And you said okay. And I was like in my head I was like you're not listening to what I'm about to say, but I do?
Speaker 1:I do listen, because a lot of times I lose those thoughts Like if I don't say them, sometimes because I'm intrigued by what you're saying.
Speaker 2:I'll let go of that and latch onto what you're talking about and I can't even remember what I was talking about. But then on my receiving end I'm like you're not listening to me because the seven other thoughts are over there having fireworks and it's a party. But I need you to zone in on what I'm saying. But it's fascinating that you can do that, because I'm not capable of that.
Speaker 1:Alright, yeah, it feels so encouraging, it is encouraging.
Speaker 2:I'm fascinated by that because I can't do that.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I was telling Jess all the things. Like we literally sat down today and I was like here's the things I want to do with baggage claim and I started laying out like five different things, because I can't sleep at night and I've got on this YouTube kick to where I'm watching lots of YouTube videos at night and I was like I'm going to stop doing that and watching lots of YouTube videos and I was like I'm going to stop doing that and I'm going to start being very intentional about our plans for baggage claim and what we're going to do moving forward to help other couples.
Speaker 2:And he's laying out seven or eight, nine, ten things where his thoughts are, and I'm like— Jess is like what are we going to talk about tonight? Yeah, I'm like what are we talking about today? And today I have my little notebook here. If you're watching us on YouTube.
Speaker 1:If you're not watching us, you're listening.
Speaker 2:But it's okay also if you're not watching and you're listening. But I have this beautiful leather-bound notebook where I have our little outline. That helps me. I figured that out two or three episodes in that. I need this, right, you don't.
Speaker 1:No, I go better without it, so here's our takeaways. Thank you for sitting with us through this tonight. Yeah, thank you and thank you for allowing us to share a huge part of our lives. The table in our home is very special. The table itself is not special. The symbol of what it means is. So I would say find something in your house that's special for you and your family, and man lean in hard on that, like go all in, lean in hard and right now, go all in lean in hard.
Speaker 2:And right now we've been sharing things that have worked. Have there been things that have not worked for us?
Speaker 1:A thousand percent A million percent.
Speaker 2:We are not sharing this with all of you to say like we are so perfect and this is what you should do.
Speaker 1:Lord, no, no. So that's, if you have something that you think of, that you go. Hey, Jess, hey, Jess, Greg, if you thought of this, please, please, please, reach out to us and just say what about this?
Speaker 2:Like we want you to interact with us. If you're in a virus Texas, or if you're not, you know, Send us a.
Speaker 1:DM, Send us a like, just reach out to us on any of the socials.
Speaker 2:We're all there. Or even how did you handle XYZ?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we would love to interact and help. We want to give you stuff that you can use. And again, this is not just to listen to and go oh, that sounds really cool, go put feet to it and practice it.
Speaker 2:I love you. No, we want you to literally try what we're talking about.
Speaker 1:Try it, kick holes in it, tell us what works, what didn't work, and let us help you. So thank you guys. Please, if you find this stuff good, please share it with other folks Like it. Thanks for all you guys. We're continuing to grow.
Speaker 2:Our reach continues to grow each week, which is insane and crazy and fun. It's crazy that people want to hear what we're talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but thank you, guys, so I can't say it enough. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for downloading and listening to us while you drive. We love you, guys and just know our heart. The reason we started this is to help you have a healthy, strong marriage and to love your spouse well.
