Meagan's & Sarah's 5 By 50: Episode 522

0:00Meagan Francis: Hi, I'm Megan.

0:01Sarah Powers: And I'm Sarah. We're two moms with eight kids between us, and we're the hosts of The Mom Hour. On this show, we're joined by a team of unique mom voices from across the country and in different stages of motherhood to bring you tips, ideas, and encouragement, and to help you feel a little less alone.

0:17Meagan Francis: We all know that motherhood is a lot easier when real moms share honest truths and remind each other that it's all going to be okay.

0:24Sarah Powers: We're not experts. We're parents who've been there.

0:26Meagan Francis: We're not perfect. We're real. Welcome to The Mom Hour. Hi, everyone, and welcome to episode 522 of the Mom Hour. I'm Megan Francis here with Sarah Powers. Hi, Sarah.

0:39Sarah Powers: Hi, Megan. How are you?

0:41Meagan Francis: Sarah, is this the second to last episode? It is. I thought so. You know, we record ahead of time and our calendar is very full right now because we're also getting this other new podcast off the ground. And so I'm starting to like all of the recording sessions and things like that are starting to kind of mash together.

0:58Sarah Powers: Yeah, Not to mention it's just a busy time of year. So I think we're in hardcore denial and maybe listeners are too, that it's just when something is ending, there's so much, so many different feelings, but also like life is marching on. And so as we've talked about many times, it's hard to sometimes observe the gravity of the moment, but yes, to answer your question, this is our second to last episode ever of the mom hour. No pressure.

1:26Meagan Francis: No pressure. Well, we decided to rise to the occasion by keeping this one pretty light and fluffy, I guess I would say. And also kind of like a fun future looking episode. We talked a lot in the last episode that we had out last Friday about what planning for the future kind of looks like for us in more of a philosophical way. Like how do we each handle vision, like visioning? And how do we feel about tarot cards and psychics? So like we had a lot of fun with it. We kind of went in a lot of different directions. And this one is going to be much more listy because as we were planning this episode, I had the idea for us to each come up with like as we were talking about the last episode, I had an idea for us to have for this episode, each of us making a five by 50 list.

2:15Meagan Francis: Now, if you've been paying attention to the socials, you've probably seen that people do 40 by 40 lists and 50 by 50. So what that would mean is this is 50 things I want to do by the time I'm 50 or 40 things. A little bucket list-y, but not quite.

2:30Sarah Powers: Yeah, bucket list. Kick the bucket.

2:32Meagan Francis: Yeah. Neither of you, neither you or I have ever been really into bucket lists. I don't think that either of us operate kind of that way. And honestly, I'll be 50 in a little over two years. And so 50 by 50, like if I ain't got to it, most of that stuff's not going to happen. But five, I can do five.

2:52Sarah Powers: Yeah, me too.

2:52Meagan Francis: And you're five years. Well, you're four and a half years away.

2:56Sarah Powers: Yeah. I loved this because I mentioned this in Friday's episode, but you had the idea and we gave ourselves not a whole lot of time to overthink it, which is actually a great approach for an exercise like this. Things I want to accomplish or do by the time I'm 50, it can sound really serious and like heady and like you need to maybe take yourself on a retreat to think about. And instead I sat down at my computer this morning and I was like, Oh no, actually, as I was falling asleep last night, I was like, I was like, let's just point our mind in that direction as we drift off to sleep. And I thought of three things last night.

3:31Sarah Powers: And then I opened a Google doc this morning and I was like, Oh, how about this? How about this? For me, that was actually a really fun way. And, and calling back to last week's episode, like a very freeing way, um, to come up with this list, like was just to not overthink it.

3:46Meagan Francis: Kind of, doesn't it kind of help you now to like have the list in front of you and to like light a little bit of a fire about some things that maybe were in the back of your head and you thought, I mean, I'll get to that someday. Or that sounds nice. I mean, having things written down, there is there is power in that. And I know like once I started, I was thinking like, OK, some of these are really big. You know, I wanted it to be a mix of small goals and grander goals. I think mine tend towards slightly grander or at least more like aspirational, whereas there's probably something like figure out why my neck hurts all the time.

4:22Sarah Powers: That's like figured out by 50.

4:24Meagan Francis: That's not very fun. And I think sometimes when I think of these grand plans or even small plans, I just discount the fixing a problem because I just want the problem to be fixed. I don't want to have to think about it. And it's not always how that works.

4:38Sarah Powers: put on a, like a aspiration list, but it can be quite impactful to get it taken care of. Yeah.

4:45Meagan Francis: Right. Exactly. So mine are going to be pretty fun and aspirational, but just know that there's a lot of things I would also like to fix that are smaller. And we probably both have those.

4:56Sarah Powers: Yeah. Mine. I realized mine are all kind of midsize. Like none of them are super, they're all like, they're things that I'm not going to get done tomorrow by any means, but they're also not like moved to New Zealand or something. So. right.

5:08Meagan Francis: Well, do you want to just go back and forth? You can start and we can just go back and forth. Yeah.

5:12Sarah Powers: Okay. So the very first one that I have, um, we'll take a little explanation, but this has already been on my sort of want to do list and it has a finite timeline. So not only will I get it done by the time I'm 50, it needs to happen in the next three school years. So, um, like a little over three years. So my middle school aged kids have all gone through this very unique and special private school that specializes in the middle school years. It goes grades six through ninth. Um, and they specialize in outdoor education. So the kids spend over four weeks of four weeks a year outside in some capacity, mostly mountain biking, but also backpacking, hiking, kayaking.

5:56Sarah Powers: Um, and it's a transform, as you can imagine, it's a very transformative experience for young people at those ages. They don't have their devices. Um, they are roughing it. I mean, they're sleeping on the ground, they're sleeping in tents, they're working together. They're with their teachers and the trusted adults in their lives. They're solving problems.

6:13Meagan Francis: So for all the things we know, didn't Violet go with like a sprained arm this year? Yeah.

6:18Sarah Powers: She went on a bike trip with two broken wrists. So she wasn't actually able to I knew she had a bum wing, a couple of bum wings.

6:24Meagan Francis: I couldn't remember if they were totally broken or yeah. So that was her fall trip.

6:29Sarah Powers: So, um, so that's as you can, what we know about young adolescents, this is a really, really cool thing. Very, a very cool thing that my kids get to do. Now, when we started at this school, it was still COVID times and they brought the trips back for the kids, but they were slower to bring any kind of parent involvement back, but they eventually did. So parents can sign up to go on these trips if they want. And I have heard from the adults that I know that is also really impactful and transformative for the adults. I mean, it's hard work. And I can see some of you being like, no way, I'm not going to sleep on the ground and hang out with 13 year olds for a week.

7:06Sarah Powers: But I'm reaching this point where like my everyday life is pretty cush. It's pretty easy. I'm not often physically challenged like I would be mountain biking every day for a week or, um, you know, sleeping on the ground, being around the campfire, singing around the campfire with young people. So it has always been on my list that by the time Violet is done at this school, I will go on one of, on one of these trips. And I've been like, oh yeah, I'm going to go. And I've had other parents say, are you going to, have you ever

7:38Meagan Francis: been on one of the trips? Are you going to go? And I'm like, oh yeah, I'm going to go. I'm going to go.

7:41Sarah Powers: Well, Reed is graduating from this school as we, you know, as we record this, probably like as this airs maybe. Um, and Violet just started, but she has three more years at this school. So So I, in the next three years, I will go on one of these trips. And back to what we were talking about on Friday, like I need to kind of, I don't need to, but I could decide any time now, which year and which trip I want to go on. Cause it's a pretty set formula. There's like a week long trip in the fall. There's a slightly shorter one in March. And then there's an almost two week long trip at the end of the year.

8:14Sarah Powers: So I could really pencil this in. And that is something I would like to accomplish in the next three years. And I know it will be really special.

8:24Meagan Francis: I love this so much for so many reasons. But one one of the big reasons is that it's taking this super cool experience. And it makes it pretty easy for you to say yes.

8:37Sarah Powers: Yeah. Like, you know what I mean?

8:39Meagan Francis: It's all set up for you. And it's like you can just do it. I'm sure there's going to be some physical conditioning and stuff like that. Yeah. But I'm just you don't have to go find a travel agency. that excels in midlife adventure travel for women. Like you don't have to do any of that stuff. You just show up for a school trip and you get your butt kicked by mountain biking.

9:01Sarah Powers: Exactly. And I particularly love the adults at this school, the teachers, the other parents. It's like, it's the type of people I admire. The people who are older than me and still out there on the trails and who are, I don't know. So it's definitely outside my comfort zone, obviously. Like anyone who's been listening for longer than five minutes knows, But that is what makes it feel exciting to me. And it's also a known like it's a known quantity. The other parents I know have loved these trips. Actually, I had someone tell me recently, don't wait till your kids last year because the parents get to know each other so well.

9:34Sarah Powers: And you make really good friendships with the other adults. And there are parents who wait till their kids last year. And then they have this really great experience. And then everybody, the band's breaking up, right? The kids are moving on to high school and stuff. So that might be motivating to do maybe maybe next year or maybe early in Violet's eighth grade year. So anyway, that was a long explanation, but it's a very concrete, like I will tick that box in the next three years.

9:57Meagan Francis: I love it. I'm excited for you.

9:59Sarah Powers: Thank you.

10:01Meagan Francis: Well, my first one is to leave this continent, not forever. I'm out of here. I have never been out of North America. So there's a lot of reasons for that. And it's been fine. Like I've talked about in the last episode, I've gotten around the U.S. a lot and there's a lot to see in the U.S. and Canada. I've never even been to Mexico. But for lots of reasons, having many children when you're very young does not really lend itself. It's not conducive to jumping on planes and going to another country a lot, especially when that country is over a large ocean of water. So I've never done it. And it is, it's the kind of thing where it's like, feels so big.

10:47Meagan Francis: And I know it's not like, I know there's just steps. I'll, what I have to do is get my passport, get my, like there's line upable things, book the tickets. Like those are, it's all figureoutable, but it has, because I've never done it. It feels actually, I take it back. I have loved this continent cause I went to Hawaii, but I mean, that barely counts. It's still this country.

11:07Sarah Powers: It's the distance. It's the same distance you would have to go like to go to Ireland or something. So you've definitely done a trip of that length, but because you were in the US, yeah, it's not quite right. I didn't have to do a lot of the things.

11:20Meagan Francis: Although they were pretty, they were pretty intense about the fruit and vegetable situation in Hawaii, as you know. So anyways, and the thing I think I want to do is a river cruise. We've talked about that. I think you and I talked about Viking river cruises and how like the ads get to us. Did we talk about that? I thought So, yeah. And then I kind of got Eric on board too. So anyway, I don't, besides that, I don't even really know where because it's one of those things where it's like, oh, I could go to Ireland. Oh, I could go to Finland. Oh, I could. So I do think in some ways signing up for a cruise or some kind of a trip like that would help me just put some bumpers around it and pick something.

12:02Meagan Francis: And that's all. Like, I just want that to happen in the next two years.

12:06Sarah Powers: Yeah, I think that's very doable and very exciting. And maybe in our next podcast venture, that's something we could cover because I think River Cruise and Midlife Lady Leisure feel very aligned. Could there be a few things that go together better?

12:20Meagan Francis: I don't think so.

12:21Sarah Powers: So if you had to decide right now, is the River Cruise that's at the top of the list?

12:27Meagan Francis: It is at the top of the list because of because of how I feel it would just make the trip done for me. Yeah. You know, and also somehow I got on the list to get Vikings, um, their little catalogs. No, I get their physical catalogs and they're very effective, I will say. And you can put like

12:47Sarah Powers: $25 down or something. And then of course, very quickly, you owe a lot more money than that. But

12:53Meagan Francis: the trip would be like the ones they're booking out now that are that deal are like fall of 2026, six, which actually could be perfect. Um, and I would just pick one. Yeah. I, you know, if there's, there's some, there's 25 in the catalog and I would just say, Ooh, how about this one that goes from Budapest to, you know, whatever. And then I would just pick one and then I would just show up and to get on it. And you still get to see the cities because you still stop and get out.

13:22Sarah Powers: And

13:22Meagan Francis: because it's on a river, not the ocean, you're close. You get to see stuff really close, which I think is so cool. So, um, I feel like this is the way for me to travel. And I think that a fall of 2026 would be a good timeframe to shoot for.

13:37Sarah Powers: Okay. I love this for you. Well, by the next time we talk about travel, we could both have, I could have my middle school bike camping trip and you could have just, just penciled in. That's all just like which quarter of which year. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

13:52Meagan Francis: All right.

13:53Sarah Powers: Well, I would like to get a hot tub and use it and have hot tub use a regular part of my daily or almost. I want to steal this one. Oh, I have one of yours that I want to steal so we can make it six by 50. So the thing about this, I don't know, I've lost track of what we've talked about on the podcast, but we actually like took some steps toward getting a hot tub a year or so ago. So we know where we want to put it. We actually went to a showroom. We went to a couple showrooms. We looked at them. We priced out some things. We would need to do a little bit of electrical on the exterior because you can't just plug it into like a regular plug.

14:29Sarah Powers: And we got as far as getting an estimate for that. And then we just got a little daunted by the not just the sticker price of the hot tub, but the whole thing, the prep work, the electrical and some other things came up that needed to be paid for. And so it just was one of those wishlist items that got kind of close to actualizing and then fell off the radar. And then when it fell off the radar, it's I don't know if this happens to you, Megan, but it's almost like in my mind, I forget that I still actually do want this. But because right, because we tabled it, it's almost like in my mind, we're not doing that.

15:04Sarah Powers: And I'm like, oh, no, no, I still very much want to do that. It just wasn't the right time financially. So So it feels very doable to commit to that in by the time I'm 50. I also like it because both Brian and I think that the kids might like to hang out in the hot tub with their friends as teenagers. But actually, I also think Brian and I will really like it as like when our kids don't want to hang out with us and we're just like want to have a glass of wine or a cup of tea. And there's so many chilly mornings and chilly evenings where we live, but there's we don't have like prohibitively cold winters.

15:37Sarah Powers: So it's just great hot tub weather. And I love a hot tub. I always have. So that's my, that's not going on my list. I'm stealing this one because, um, we also, I mean, Eric and I both every day, each take

15:51Meagan Francis: probably a 45 minute to an hour long bath. Most days, almost every day. And we just like hot water. We just like to, we're just like little tea bags. We want to get into hot water together. And when we were on our spring break vacation, Eric spent one day, I'm not even joking. He was in the hot tub for like 10 to 12 hours. He was in the hot tub all day. I can't do that if it's too hot, especially like I need it turned down a bit.

16:17Sarah Powers: Yeah, I was going to say, I don't know what happens to one's internal body temperature.

16:23Meagan Francis: He just cooked all day. He worked in it. He like we bought property in the Upper Peninsula and he did all of the dealings from the hot tub. He just left. He read. Yeah, he just hung out. And I was like, this is where you're meant to be. You're meant to be in a hot tub. But yeah, and then at night I would get in and then John and Jenna would join us. It was really fun. And I thought we could have this. This is so haveable.

16:44Sarah Powers: Yeah.

16:45Meagan Francis: We have a good friend who's actually a dealer. And I think they would get us a good, like a really good deal. Yeah. On Viking, a Viking hot tub, which is made in Michigan. I'm just like, why wouldn't we?

16:53Sarah Powers: You have a Viking cruise and a Viking hot tub. Oh, right. It feels very Nordic. I, um, I think maybe it's one of those things that almost feels so simple.

17:05Meagan Francis: Like, well, we could just do that. because at the end of the day, hot tub, a lot of people have hot tubs. Yeah. So it doesn't feel so exotic. But then like you did when you got into it, you're like, oh, there's some things that need to happen. You know, for us, it would be like the deck probably would need to be fortified a little bit because our deck's pretty fire off the ground.

17:23Sarah Powers: So if we put a super heavy thing on it, what does that mean about the deck?

17:27Meagan Francis: Is that money we have to sink into it or do we have to find a different spot? It's like it seems so easy, yet there's more details than you anticipated, maybe.

17:35Sarah Powers: Yeah.

17:36Meagan Francis: Yeah.

17:36Sarah Powers: Which is why it's good to have it on a list for like a, you know, a slightly longer timeline, because I think when we first went to a hot tub showroom, I was ready to like, let's order this. It'll be delivered in four weeks. And by that time we'll have the deck cleared off. And then it was like, oh no, like there is a little bit of work to do. So yeah,

17:53Meagan Francis: I love it. Well, you can have that one too.

17:56Sarah Powers: I love it.

17:57Meagan Francis: I will steal it. All right. My next one that I fully intend to have done, honestly, probably by 49, but I'll give myself till 50. how about I'll give myself that gift is that I want to finish my tea sommelier certification.

18:11Sarah Powers: Amazing.

18:13Meagan Francis: So I don't know if I've talked about that on the show. I don't think so. I don't know that I have. Okay. So much like a wine sommelier is someone who knows a lot about varietals of wine and, um, read the growing regions and things like that. You can become a certified tea sommelier. Now, I don't think this is the kind of thing one does for a career. It's not like that would qualify me to then become a taster for some major company or something like that's experience and connections and all of that. But what I think it does as someone who can be very comfortable with being self-taught when it's something where there's this whole world built around it.

18:57Meagan Francis: I like the comfort of a certification. I like the fact that it leads me through a process, first of all, that I don't super understand, like it lays it out for you. And I also just like someone better than me at something telling me you did this.

19:12Sarah Powers: Yeah. It like legitimizes a lot of the work you've probably done in some amount, but then it sort of formalizes it. And yeah, I would think it'd be a huge confidence boost.

19:22Meagan Francis: Exactly. So I did the one-on-one program, which is kind of the prerequisite went really, really well. I did very well in it. Um, I can be a very good student when I am sufficiently engaged in the material. And I was like, yeah, I'm just going to do this. I'm going to see it the rest of the way through. So that is going to mean, you know, having a course going every two, three months for the next, I think there's 11 total and some of them all double up on. So it'll be like, it'll probably take me all of a year and a half, um, to get it all self-paced.

19:53Sarah Powers: Is it, are you watching videos? Are you, what are you like?

19:56Meagan Francis: So, um, it, so it's self-paced kind of in that you can sign up for the, so there's, I've done one module, but there's, you know, 11 more or courses or whatever within the program and, or there's 11 total. So there's 10 more and each one, you have a four week ish window that it has to be done within, but then all of the coursework within that four weeks is self-paced. And it was like a mix of readings, videos, a multiple choice quiz, a live presentation that I had to do on zoom or had to get on and talk with the instructor for five minutes. I had to like present on a specific topic and then a blind tasting test that Eric administered for me, but like he, he didn't know what the teas were either.

20:43Sarah Powers: Okay.

20:44Meagan Francis: So he gave them to me and then gave me the number of each one. And then I had to go online and like log each one. So, I mean, it was just hard enough. It didn't feel it wasn't super duper challenging. I knew a lot of it already, but I can see that it'll ramp up pretty quickly. And so, yeah, I'm going to do that. And that's I think I've already started. So now it's just a matter of one foot in front of the other and just keep knocking them out.

21:09Sarah Powers: Really cool. Really, really cool. It makes me think what other achievable I'm not saying this is easy by any means, but what other like bite-sized certifications are out there that would be really cool to just kind of, you know, learn and do and have. And that's really neat.

21:26Meagan Francis: Yeah. I mean, I think I can be a little suspicious sometimes of things that feels just like a money grab. And sometimes things like you're like, well, you don't need a certification for that. And sometimes that's true, but I also don't have a super clear career path in front of me for what I'm doing. So I'd rather learn all of it.

21:44Sarah Powers: Yeah.

21:44Meagan Francis: And then from there, I'll decide what I want if I want to like double down on one area, what area that is. And I'll have a nice I'll have a very broad but comprehensive understanding of all of it.

21:56Sarah Powers: Yeah. Yeah. All right. So my next one is I would like by the time I'm 50 to take a real true vacation with just my husband. we are really good at grabbing like a quick getaway here and there like back to the episode you and I did on Friday I can be really good at making the most of the the time the universe gives me and so Brian and I are like pretty regular about grabbing a quick overnight to get away together or to you know we grab our date nights here and there but we have never I want to say never really done a vacation together. And obviously we've been raising three kids, but I'm talking about at least five or six days, if not a week and somewhere where we really want to go, not just like, where's a good deal.

22:49Sarah Powers: Where can we use our Marriott points that's close by? And the kids will, you know, we'll handle the kids this way and let's like squeeze it in. So I feel like that's, it's still ambitious because by the time I'm 50, we still will have, I think I'll turn 50 during Violet's junior year, I want to say. So we'll have like a year and a half of still a kid at home, but just one kid at home, unless others are living at home or going to school here. I don't know. But definitely it feels achievable. And then I'm not saying I'm going to wait till right when I turn 50, but sometime between now and then I just still find it challenging to figure out what kind of care and feeding teenagers live or need during this time.

23:30Sarah Powers: I mean, I know I talked to you about we left our older teens overnight for the first time home alone for one night and it went fine. But like I'm just realizing like child care is such a it's so challenging when your kids are small. But there's also like it's kind of confusing at this at this stage, too. Like, I don't know that they want to stay at the grandparents for a week. Like, I don't even know if that's necessary when they're full teenagers. So anyway, I'm just now I'm just blabbing. But it feels those are the those are the everything is figure outable. Those are the solvable logistics that feel really worth it.

24:01Sarah Powers: And I think Brian and I would have so much fun planning a real vacation and not just like, let me tag along on this work trip. That sounds fun for two days.

24:09Meagan Francis: So, you know, I love this for you guys. Um, Eric and I were just talking about recently how much fun we used to have. I think when we first met, first of all, it was COVID. And then we, you know, we were spending all this time traveling around and driving, I mean, mostly road trips, but just driving around places and going and having fun. And like we the it hadn't gotten real yet because we hadn't done things like started businesses together and things like that. Bought property. Everything felt pretty loosey goosey.

24:41Sarah Powers: Yeah.

24:41Meagan Francis: And now we're like, man, there's been we got married and then we jumped right into a project and it's just been work ever since. And so we've been talking about that, too. And it is different. like there is so much there's such a difference in a planned vacation versus well we were already going to be there anyway for your work thing yeah or this family thing yeah so let's just go out which is great too like sometimes you take it where you can get it um the thing about leaving a kid when I was thinking about the the Viking cruise that's in 2026 a little part of my brain thought oh but Clara will be a senior maybe you should wait till the following year and I'm pushing back against that because first of all, she'll be a senior in like, I don't know, October or something, which isn't really a hugely momentous month.

25:32Meagan Francis: I don't think, you know, November might be homecoming if she's even into that, but like in October, I think we're going to be okay. And also I don't know what will come up in the, that year, like a senior who has family nearby, good friends, grand, you know, a grandma who's nearby another parent, all of that is super figureoutable, but also who knows the year that she's a, I assume a college freshman. Yeah. Maybe there'll be something else happening. So you can't, you can't think that way. Totally. Um, it's not the same as the reason I didn't ever leave the continent when I had like five small children under the under my roof.

26:15Sarah Powers: That's a different thing to leave them all behind.

26:18Meagan Francis: There's a lot of logistics, but like, you know, a kid, we can do this.

26:22Sarah Powers: Yeah.

26:24Meagan Francis: OK, well, I talked a little bit about this in the last episode, Sarah, that I am starting a fiction project, a full length fiction novel. I always think it's so funny, a fiction novel, like that seems sort of obvious or like redundant to me. But people do say that anyway, I've started it at this point. I'm about, I don't know, five or 6 ,000 words in, which means I have a long, long ways to go, but there's no reason I couldn't have it finished by the time I'm 50. And I want to say, I'd like to have it published by then and, or be in the process of getting it published because I, but I have to kind of think about what my goals are because let's pretend I finish it in six months to a year, which the kind of book I'm writing, I easily could do some novels I would say, no, there are writers who work on pieces of fiction for a really long time.

27:16Meagan Francis: This is not, that is not my goal for this one. I just want to get it done. Now I could decide after it's done, like this stinks and I don't want to publish it. So I'm putting getting it published in with a question mark afterwards.

27:29Sarah Powers: Right.

27:29Meagan Francis: But when I finish it, if I feel it is something I want to publish, I would like to have that process well underway by the time I'm 50, including maybe considering self-publishing. I don't know. I have, I don't know enough about that window or like about that world to know whether I want to, but I will say this, that I've really learned and was reminded when I published this last book that there's a long window to get any book out into the world. And sometimes I think that can make you really consider how the passage of time between finishing the book and having it in your hands as a published thing can impact the way you feel about promoting it can impact the way you feel about getting started on another thing.

28:17Meagan Francis: Like it just that window can feel really long.

28:20Sarah Powers: Yeah. And

28:21Meagan Francis: so part of me is like, I don't want to, I don't want to stall too much because I don't want in five years to be publishing a book I've been over for three.

28:31Sarah Powers: Yeah. Yeah. No, that makes total sense.

28:34Meagan Francis: So anyway, that's just, I'm putting it, I'm putting a pin in that there. And I think it's interesting because when I was thinking about what my next book project might be, and we talked about this, you and I had a few episodes ago, maybe, maybe more like a month ago when we were talking about, I don't know. I think it was when we talked about the last parenting book.

28:50Sarah Powers: Yeah.

28:50Meagan Francis: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I was just saying like, what's next. And I think my mind jumped right to nonfiction because A, I know how to do that. And B, with nonfiction, you start with a proposal, you send their proposal out. If they like the book, they buy the proposal. Then you write the book. With fiction, I have to write the whole thing to get it out there. But at the end of the

29:09Sarah Powers: day, I'm still going to be investing a lot of time into it regardless. So it almost doesn't,

29:15Meagan Francis: I'm not in the same financial position I might've been a few years ago where it was like, I'm not putting time into this without knowing I'm going to get paid. It's not quite like that. So it's like, I'd rather just do the thing I want to do, even if it means I write it first and then hope it gets published after.

29:30Sarah Powers: Yeah. Which with fiction is more common, right? I mean, that's more of the common approach.

29:36Meagan Francis: I mean, unless you're really, um, unless you're a really established author, you don't sell fiction based on an idea. You always sell it based on a manuscript, which it doesn't have to be the finished man. Like it doesn't have to be the best possible version of that manuscript. That's what editors are for, but yes, it has to exist.

29:53Sarah Powers: I just have to say, just as like a pure compliment, I think that sounds like the most challenging but rewarding commitment to yourself. Like I think working on a fiction project is a thing that so many people aspire to do and so few people give themselves the time and space to to really do it. And I 100 % believe that you will, like when you're talking about this, like it does not sound pie in the sky. I believe that you're, I mean, you are doing it. You've already like set up your writing group. So I just really admire it. I love it. Well, my next one is book related, but it is not book writing by the time I am 50, but hopefully well before, I would like to have started or joined a really great book club.

30:44Sarah Powers: Now, I have never wanted to.

30:47Meagan Francis: I love that you stopped. Now. OK. OK.

30:50Sarah Powers: Yeah. I have never until the last couple of years, I have always been a little apprehensive about book clubs because for a lot of reasons. And we've talked about this, like people kind of roll their eyes and like, oh, my book club never reads the book or like nobody ever shows up. There's a lot. I think there's a lot of book clubs that are run poorly to middling. And there's a lot of people who are probably in book clubs that aren't a great fit for them. And you and I are both a little bit allergic to joining groups just for the sake of joining groups. Like neither you nor I like our time wasted.

31:27Sarah Powers: We don't like to be in groups of people who are talking to hear themselves talk. Like there's so many things that are potential landmines for a book club. And I'm just acknowledging that we can evolve as people. And in my current midlife lady stature, my position, I have the time to like make a book club what I want it to be. So that might look like starting it myself. And I have thought about that. It also might look like maybe folding into one that I, I, you know, find that's really good if they'll have me and just being a really being a contributing member, like being someone who helps make that book club a place I want to be and not just like, oh, I hate this book or like we always choose the dumbest books.

32:11Sarah Powers: You know, I don't want to do that. Katie Parrish on our team has started a book club and has given me like she's really done a good job with like like setting up her book club so that it's a book club she wants to be in and that it you know, not every book club needs to have the same vibe. Some are about the drinking the wine and the chatting about the kids and that's totally fine. So I think it's more about like identifying what's important to me and then either starting it or finding it. And I would like to do that more like in the next couple of years so that by the time I'm 50, it's a very meaningful part of my life.

32:50Okay.

32:51Meagan Francis: I love that this, this is such a fun one because it seems so easy.

32:57Sarah Powers: Yeah.

32:58Meagan Francis: Like when I first saw all that's written on the outline is start or join a book club. I was like, well, you could have that done now.

33:04Sarah Powers: Like you could literally do that right after we hang up.

33:07Meagan Francis: Right. But that's not the same as one that meets all those criteria. And it might take kissing a lot of frogs to get a

33:16Sarah Powers: prince.

33:16Meagan Francis: Right. So, um, and you might just decide that beginning the thing you wish someone else would start is the answer.

33:24Sarah Powers: And I'm having deja vu because I feel like in like six months ago or something, we talked about this and you were the one who suggested maybe I should have like a reader's salon, like a, like a, um, and like, and I really got close to think to doing that. Like, what if I like organize like three months in a row, everybody comes and instead of reading the same book, let's just come and talk about what we're reading. And, and I just didn't do it. I think there's a little bit of nervousness of like, I want it to be good. I want everyone to like it. I want, I want this to be the best reader's salon or the best book club that ever book clubbed.

33:55Sarah Powers: And so there's I need to sort of push through some of that. But I feel motivated for sure. If I'm giving myself a timeline of a few years, I feel motivated and confident that this will happen. But again, kind of like the hot tub, I was like I was ready to almost do it. And then I just didn't. Yeah.

34:12Meagan Francis: Well, the nice thing is now you have four and a half years.

34:15Sarah Powers: Now I've said it in public.

34:17Meagan Francis: And you said it out loud. Yes. Oh, gosh. OK, so my last two, actually, I didn't mean to organize them this way, but are both a a little more physical. This is something I have literally been thinking about doing for at least 20 years, if not more. I would like to start biking places to get stuff done.

34:39Sarah Powers: Yeah. Like functional.

34:40Meagan Francis: Not just functional biking.

34:41Sarah Powers: Yeah. I love that.

34:42Meagan Francis: Not just biking because I want to go for a nice bike ride, but like just to jump on my bike and go to the grocery store, jump on my bike and go to the library. Now I've told myself all kinds of stories about why this would be very hard. Mind you, when I used to have this goal, I lived in a town where everything was within a mile and I could have easily done it. And I just never really did. But I, but in those days, my daily, my daily life was a lot of shuffling kids around and stuff. And so it just stopped. It never really felt practical because it wasn't even like little kids that I could throw into a baby seat.

35:17Meagan Francis: It would be like, how am I going to get this kid to practice in time when And I picked them up at this other place on the other side of town. Anyway, just never made sense. Now we live in this house that is more rural, but not super rural. You know, we're close enough. We're like a mile from the downtown, downtown center of our little village. And like maybe another half mile to a mile to all the other stuff, like the library, the grocery stores, things like that. You can bike that really soon, like really quick. There's no, I have a nice bike and there's no reason I couldn't start. but it feels big.

35:53Meagan Francis: Like, I think what I need to do is get a little basket and go pick up, like, I don't know, a loaf of bread sometime and just see how that goes. Get the root. Because once I start, once something becomes part of my routine, I'm really good at sticking to that routine, but it's like getting it in the routine is hard for me. So, um, and I just think there's so many good reasons to do this. I think it makes you think about the errands you're running a little more consciously. I like, I like riding my bike. I think it's, you know, it's really good for my health to be getting around under my own steam.

36:28Meagan Francis: It's just kind of like that feeling of why that that's how I get around like a little feeling of pride. It's not hard.

36:35Sarah Powers: Yeah.

36:35Meagan Francis: I do have to walk my bike over a train track, which feels like weirdly dangerous. No, no, not dangerous. Just like an obstacle. Yeah. So our house is on a dead end and then there's train, a train track. And then on the other side of the dead end is the road I would really want to take. I don't want to ride my bike on the main drag. Um, there's like, we live up just off of like a County highway. I don't want to drive on that. So it's just literally getting off my bike and pushing it over the train tracks and getting back on it. It takes three minutes maybe, but it feels like a whole thing. Um,

37:13Sarah Powers: You know what I mean? In that way, things feel like a whole thing. Oh, yeah. I 100 percent know when you do you bike enough now like that that you feel confident when you're on the bike itself, because I've even gone at times a few years between even riding a bike. And then you're like, do I even know how to ride a bike anymore? It's like the cliche is not necessarily true.

37:33Meagan Francis: I know. Well, the bike that I that I mostly drive now, I bought from a guy who had like a little I don't I'm going to say a little bike shop in his garage it wasn't really legit there wasn't like a business name but his hobby was finding bikes at yard sales and stuff and fixing them up and then selling them so he had like 30 bikes and I just I lived right down the road from him at the time and I walked down it was like I like this one and bought two bikes one for Eric and one for me and we probably ride those bikes five or six times a season so it hasn't been a ton and I always forget how to use the gears because it's got the way you shift gears on this bike is different.

38:10Meagan Francis: You like click a little thing with your thumb. It's not like the ones like we probably both had as teenagers where you, where there's like a dial on one side and a dial on the other side. Do you remember that? This is like different kind of gear. And every time I get on the bike, I'm like, I don't remember how to do this. Then I'm like pedaling really fast and my feet are just spinning in the air because I can't get the gear to kick in. Anyway, it doesn't take me that long to get it back that and I need to figure out the mirror situation. Okay. Because I feel like that makes a huge difference in how safe I feel is if if the rearview mirror is positioned well, and I can actually use it.

38:48Meagan Francis: And right now it's not great. Okay. So those are the two things.

38:51Sarah Powers: I love this for you. This feels like much like a walking habit or a walking routine. It feels like something that would will take off relatively quickly once you get over these initial hangups. but then you could have seasonal setbacks because obviously you live in a place where this might not be possible 365 days a year. So each spring you might have to kind of like remember why you love this biking lifestyle, but this feels very doable and very charming, like very midlife lady in a village somewhere. I love it. Okay. My last one is quite silly, but it is what came to mind as I, this is my favorite one of yours, by the way, but okay.

39:33Sarah Powers: So what I wrote in our outline is that by the time I'm 50, I want to have super long, healthy hair. Um, so my hair, my gray growing out journey started when I was 42. I stopped dying my hair and it took another, you know, a full year and a half to two years to where, um, any dyed, any like color leftover from what was at my roots was all the way grown out and like cut off. And that was a whole journey that people may or may not have been following along with. But I don't have any. There's my hair is my natural color, which I love. My natural color is continuing to evolve because obviously you keep getting grayer.

40:13Sarah Powers: I have a mix of gray and brown, but it's continuing to evolve. And that's kind of fun. I have really been enjoying having length back in my hair because while I was growing out the gray, I was I was cutting my hair more often to get rid of that old dyed hair. And so I was often keeping it right around my collarbone, you know, like a longer shoulder length. But now that it's all mine, it's all the natural color, it's pretty long. And I've just been reminded at how much I love having really long hair. I also love looking around at older women with really long, healthy hair. I love natural gray. I love the surprise of seeing a woman with white or silver hair, but who's wearing it long.

40:55Sarah Powers: It's like, to me, it's like, and, um, there's different ways that can look. Sometimes it's a little like frizzy and witchy, but like when she's got a clear sense of style and has put herself together in a certain way and has long white or silver hair, I just love it. And so, I mean, time's going to keep marching on. My hair is going to keep getting more and more silver. And I would just like to keep it long to just take care of it. Um, and so by the time I'm 50, I want to have really long, healthy, naturally, uh, graying hair. I love this so much.

41:31Meagan Francis: Um, I know the kind of surprise of the long white or silver hair. Like I love that look actually. And I'll comment on it when I see people. And I've also seen it sort of like, sometimes it's very sleek. And I've also seen women with very soft looking white hair where like it has a little frizz isn't even the right word, but neither is curl. Exactly. Yeah. And I can love that, too. And sometimes they wear it like an interesting braids or all kinds of things. So I think that's great. I have not now been to the stylist to get my hair. Well, I haven't done any color treatments in probably two, I would say two months.

42:13Meagan Francis: and before that I had only been going to the salon to get it highlighted or low lighted for a while like I hadn't been doing any um box dyeing and it's starting to get real interesting around my face like it's um it's not I'm not really graying a lot but it's more than it was before like noticeably and it's also darker now because I'm not doing much to it so like right by my face there's this really interesting mix of sort of like dark, dark, dark blonde, almost brown. And then some like blonde streaks that are kind of growing out and then some silver coming in. And I sort of love it so much that I kind of don't even want to go to them and ask them to like to my stylist and ask her to fix it.

42:57Meagan Francis: Cause I'm like, you were, you know, four years ago or whenever it was, I sort of just want to know what's going to happen.

43:03Sarah Powers: Yeah. That was the most exciting part for me is I was like, okay, I can see what the roots are doing, but I, I'm not visual enough to like extrapolate that out to like, what would that look like on a full head of hair? And it honestly took probably six to 12 months to where I was like, Oh, I get it. Like there's parts of my hair that are hardly graying at all. And then there's parts that are very white and it does, it didn't make sense to me until I could see it, which was really cool. I loved that part of the grow up.

43:30Meagan Francis: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just such an interesting, I feel like it's so complex looking. That's what I like. I find myself just fascinated with the parts where like the gray and the blonde and the brownish are all melding together. I'm like, Ooh,

43:44Sarah Powers: yeah, this looks neat. I agree. It's like a science experiment on our head that our body is doing just that's, that's just how it's doing what it's doing. I saw a picture of my grandma. Cause she had gray to silver to very white hair in all of my living memory. Like from when I was little until she just passed earlier this year. Um, but I saw a picture of her when she was probably my age, like mid forties. And I don't think she ever, she had really stylish hair, like through the seventies and stuff, but I don't think she ever colored it.

44:15Meagan Francis: I could be wrong.

44:16Sarah Powers: And I just noticed like the gray patterning was so, I had never seen a picture of her where she was part Brown, part gray. Like I'd only known her either I seen very young pictures or the later on of my memories. And I do think that the graying, the transitional part is what many women choose to skip over because they're coloring, which is fine totally to each her own. But I think it's really fascinating because no one's head of hair looks the same during that graying process. It can be real streaky or skunky or more like I love when people have really, really dark hair naturally. And then it's just a sprinkle of like silver throughout and like tinsel.

44:54Sarah Powers: That's not how mine works at all. But I think that's really cool too. So yeah.

44:58Meagan Francis: And mine used to only be graying around my face and that's still primarily where it is. But now when I look at the top of my head, I can clearly see where there are like one hair that's gray.

45:10Sarah Powers: And it's kind of more filled in.

45:12Meagan Francis: And I'm like, Oh, Oh, where'd that come from?

45:14Sarah Powers: Yeah.

45:14Meagan Francis: I guess I would never have seen it if I was just coloring. Cause that always would have gotten covered. So yeah. Yeah.

45:20Sarah Powers: Well, anyway, that feels like, um, this is one of those goals that I pretty much don't have to do anything. I mean, I was going to say you're already on the track.

45:27Meagan Francis: Yeah. Like it's like a passive,

45:29Sarah Powers: like just don't chop it off. And, um, but I do want to keep it healthy. And I do think there's a certain amount of taking, taking good care of my hair and caring about the way it looks that that adds to my self-esteem and adds to my sense of wellbeing and stuff. So there's a little bit of work involved, but mostly I'm just not going to touch my hair and just have crazy long witchy

45:48Meagan Francis: hair when I'm 50.

45:49Sarah Powers: I love it, but very stylish and very healthy. Yeah.

45:53Meagan Francis: Well, I have one left and, um, this is the one of mine that you wanted to jump on.

45:59Sarah Powers: So you certainly may.

46:00Meagan Francis: Yeah. And the way I wrote it was I want to, by the time I'm 50, take a really, really long walk. And I mean, really, really long, like 20 miles, 30 miles, something like that. Um, I've put down cause I think it can look a lot of different ways. My sister went in and her husband went to the Cotswolds a few years ago and they did something where their their accommodations moved every day and they basically walked from place to place. But like a service took their stuff to the next place.

46:35Sarah Powers: Sarah, my bestie Sarah, did that in Italy in the Dolomites and they did serious walking. It was serious physical exertion, but they did not have to carry their tents or their food. So when they arrived, it was hut to hut was what theirs was called. So yeah. Yeah.

46:50Meagan Francis: So something like that I think would be amazing. And I would love to do like, you know, historic villages. That seems super cool, but also so does a backpacking trip, maybe not necessarily even with camping, but backpacking from town to town, I think could be really cool. I don't know how much I care about sleeping on the ground anymore. Like for a long time, that was just a thing that I did. And it's fine. Like if I had to go on a long trip and I had to pack my stuff and I could, and that would be, if that was like, if that was what was necessitated by the place I really, really wanted to go fine.

47:23Meagan Francis: But I also think there's lots of benefits to trips that just naturally take you into towns so that you can stay in a motel and take a shower and sleep on a bed. So like lots of reasons, first of all, you don't have to carry as much stuff. And secondly, you get to sleep on a bed and take a shower. Like there's lots of good reasons for both. And I don't right now have anything more in mind besides I want to go on a really, really long walk.

47:45Sarah Powers: Do you have any like would this be combined with leaving the continent ever? Do you have any location or it could be anywhere?

47:53Meagan Francis: It could be anything. And I think this is part of the problem or this is part of the place where my like it could be anything brain is not of help to me because. uh like part of me wants to be like let's go to Europe for three months and then we can go to the Viking cruise and we can do that okay whatever yeah why don't I just make those separate things they don't have to go together they could but they don't have to so I'm not I don't have any more specifics besides besides take a really really really long walk I really want you I want

48:28Sarah Powers: to do something like this as well. I really would love to do it with my husband. It's so, he's so funny. Like we're kind of the worst possible combination when it comes to outdoor physical exertion, because neither one of us is like the type that's just itching to get outdoors. Now I really do like to be outdoors once I'm there. And I think more than Brian, I have at least done enough reading and learning to just know just the, the sole value of S O U L soul, like the soul nourishing that comes from being outside. Brian's not even there yet. Like he's like, he would tolerate like camping or hiking.

49:05Sarah Powers: If I said, let's do this, but he's not going to be the instigator. And I'm barely an instigator. Like it's not, it's kind of goes against my natural inclination too, but I have a little more motivation. So I think that would be really fun as couples. I could see doing something like this with my mom or with a friend or a group of friends. So I love this idea. I think I would want to do the kind of like your sister and Eric did, or my friend Sarah did that kind of like hut to hut organized where they have food for you, like simple, at least when Sarah did it, it was, it was not elevated or fancy, but they didn't have to worry about cooking for themselves.

49:40Sarah Powers: And they had a bed every night, even if it was in like a lean to sometimes it was like in a literal, like hut in the Dolomites on a mountainside.

49:47Meagan Francis: It's not necessarily going to be an amazing bed, but it's going to be something that you don't have to make yourself. Yeah.

49:52Sarah Powers: And she trained for that one. she, there were days that were like 17 mile days. That was a long, like, I think some of the days were like 10 miles, 12 miles, but, um, it was, she just said like, you can see things that you just can't see other ways on. So yeah, I would really like to do that too.

50:09Meagan Francis: I will say that a few years ago, my family, the year that John and Jenna and Catherine and Eric and Eric and I all went to that Island and hiked around it. I think I told you about that Island in the UP. That was probably a 20 mile hike and i will say by the last three miles i was over it not necessarily i mean my feet didn't hurt or whatever but i think it was just two same same yeah there wasn't like by the time like i would say probably 12 miles in was when we saw some of the most beautiful sights and then you were like and then it was basically rounding the corner and making our way back to the cabin and it, and I also, and it was a rustic cabin.

50:56Meagan Francis: So when we got there, it's not like we got to get in the hot tub or, um, it was just like more camping essentially. And I do remember thinking like, okay, that was fun, but I wish there was more to look at.

51:07Sarah Powers: Yeah. Yeah.

51:08Meagan Francis: Or I wish there was more to keep my mind occupied. There was a lot of me just kind of trudging along for the last few miles thinking like, okay, kind of ready to be done with this.

51:17Sarah Powers: And when you did your solo trip, like whatever, six years ago or whenever that was, was that a lot of walking too? Or is that just in my memory? Remember it?

51:26Meagan Francis: Maybe it was a lot of walking, but I did the hikes kind of separately. So I didn't back. So I did backpack, um, from the ferry docks to that. So when I was on the same Island, I didn't do the whole thing, but I did like maybe a five mile hike in with all of my stuff. And obviously then the five mile hike back out with all of my stuff. Maybe it was four. But other than that, most of the hiking was happening with without my stuff.

51:54Sarah Powers: Yeah.

51:54Meagan Francis: So like my stuff, but I'll be back at the campsite and I'd be out wandering.

51:58Sarah Powers: Yeah.

51:59Meagan Francis: Which so there was still tons and tons of walking, but it's different when you've got a backpack full of stuff for sure.

52:06Sarah Powers: And there's something to be said for like walking, not in a loop, not returning, but just walking in one big, long line. Like you said, a really, really, really, really, really long walk. I love that. Right. Well, this was very motivating.

52:19Meagan Francis: Very, very inspiring. What do you think is the thing you're going to work on the soonest, the quickest? You had to pick one.

52:27Sarah Powers: Um, I would say that the book club feels like something, um, probably not going to start it as we record this. It's like beginning of summer feels like not a thing that would happen this summer, but I feel like I could put pieces in place and start to just ask like a few people that I think might be of like mind. Like if I started a book club, would you want to join? Or if I had a reading, like a reader's salon night, would you come? Um, those are the, that's like right to where I got. And then I kind of chickened out like earlier at the beginning of this year. So that's the one I feel most motivated to just take some small steps.

53:01Sarah Powers: How about you?

53:03Meagan Francis: Well, I do have a, a writer's group tonight. So, I mean, I guess I could bike there,

53:08Sarah Powers: but, uh, it's raining, it's raining really hard. So I probably won't.

53:12Meagan Francis: Um, that would like be killing two two with one stone right but i think you know the tea sommelier thing it's going to happen because it's already happening the fiction project i've are it's going to happen because it's already happening i do think it might be nice to sit down with eric and figure out some ways to make our trip um like a river cruise trip happen and the really really long walk those are my two that kind of bookended my yeah mine and i feel like those are both things that are going to require some like really intentional planning that I haven't done yet.

53:43Sarah Powers: Yeah. And once those have, um, uh, an approximate spot on the calendar, even if it's not exact dates, but just like an approximate season or month that really will probably make them feel more real.

53:54Meagan Francis: And you'll be

53:55Sarah Powers: like, Oh, well then I got to start working on this. Or maybe it's so far out that you're like, okay, well, I'm not going to worry about it yet, but I'm going to put a note in six months and then look at it.

54:04Meagan Francis: So yeah, I love that.

54:05Sarah Powers: Um, well, should we talk a little bit about our next podcasting adventure?

54:11Meagan Francis: Yes. Which comes out today. It's there. There it is.

54:16Sarah Powers: Happy podcast launch to us for anybody who, uh, has missed the previous announcements. We have a new show called midlife lady leisure pursuits, which is a lot about the same stuff we've been talking about today, how we want to spend our time and be thoughtful about, um, our, our pursuits, many of them, um, for pure leisure, but some of them for learning or health or wellness, um, or relationship fulfillment, um, all those things. So we hope you'll come over and listen. We will link up how to do that in the show notes for this episode. And you should just be able to go to your podcast

54:53Meagan Francis: app and like type in midlife lady leisure pursuits and it should come up. But if it doesn't for any reason, definitely do go to that link. And I think if this episode scratched an itch for you, you're going to find more itch scratching. We're here to scratch you all day long.

55:07Sarah Powers: We're scratching all those itches. And I think what will be fun about Midlife Ladies is it will allow us to go really nitty gritty and kind of nerdy into any one of these things. So whether it's tea sniffing or travel planning or finding hiking shoes for a really long walk, like we are going to allow ourselves to really lean in to these. This is, that's what makes these types of things fun is in the details. And I think this stage of life is a little bit about pouring that energy back into ourselves. If it happened to have been distributed among the children for a certain amount of time, like it's sort of reclaiming that, um, attention to detail for our own enjoyment.

55:47Sarah Powers: Um, so I'm really looking forward to it. All right, everyone. Well, we will talk We'll talk to you a week from today on the very final episode of The Mom Hour, or we'll talk to you right now over at Midlife Lady Leisure Pursuit. So either way, we'll talk to you soon. Talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to The Mom Hour. Everything we talked about in today's episode is available at themomhour.com. And hey, while you're there, you can find more than 500 podcast episodes, plus articles, playlists, and resources about motherhood and parenting at every stage.

56:16Meagan Francis: And if you liked today's episode, we'd love it if you would take a minute to share the show with another mom in your life. You can also find us on Instagram at The Mom Hour, chatting and interacting with listeners between episodes.

56:28Sarah Powers: Thanks for being here, friends. We'll talk to you soon.