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Speaker 3: Welcome back to Excuse My Grandma. It's Kim and my cohost, Grandma Gail. So this week we are going to talk about what happens when you have a lot going on.
Speaker 4: Which you
Speaker 3: do right now. Yeah, and it feels like, you know the old saying, when it rains it pours?
Speaker 4: Well that always happens. You can be doing nothing for a couple of weeks and all of a sudden you've got nine jobs that we have to all do professionally.
Speaker 3: Right. And it's not always a negative thing when it rains at pours, that old saying. Like, I feel like it could also just mean that when one thing is happening, somehow everything else is like
Speaker 4: And you have to schedule, you have to actually figure out your timing. It's very important to then have a schedule with your time because you have to fit everything into the same amount of time that you've been doing just one activity. Right. Now you have to do four or five in one day, and that that really takes time management.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I'm sure people can relate to this, but I'll explain, like, all the things in just the month of February that I feel like are going on for me. Well, first of all, excuse my grandma. It's not just this podcast that you listen to once a week. It is also all the videos that we're posting, our brand partnerships, and really just growing this business and all the opportunities that come with it.
Brand deals, hopefully doing more in the TV space, building something bigger than social media. Today, actually, we're recording is my thirtieth birthday. That Happy birthday. Thank you. So, like, I don't know.
There's a lot that comes with, I don't know, feeling like starting a new decade. Just for me in February alone, I'm moving into a new apartment
Speaker 4: is correct.
Speaker 3: With Zach, and that's a whole new stage for us, being long distance anymore. On top of all the other things of life, taking care of your health and having a social life, friends, all of these things.
Speaker 4: Playing a little mage at night. You got to get it all Yeah,
Speaker 3: I got to get it all in. I'm skipping this because they're doing it the day I'm moving.
Speaker 4: Then you can definitely do it.
Speaker 3: I know. I was like, should I try to make it? Probably not.
Speaker 4: Probably not. But you have all those new sets and all those new covers that go on the thing.
Speaker 3: The mats, yeah.
Speaker 4: The mats, don't forget to take it up to your apartment. Don't leave them there.
Speaker 3: So excuse my grandma while we talk about all that. Okay. Do you think I'm taking on too much?
Speaker 4: No. I think the difference will be that instead of getting your day started at 11:00, you have to get up on a normal schedule and do it at nine because the morning is really when you could get most things productively done. So, especially since you're living with somebody else, he's going to go off to work. You have to get your schedule to move faster. I don't think you need to have your bowl of cereal and watch an entire reality show before your morning starts.
I think you really basically eat your cereal, have your juice, and get on that, phone working with with clients, with other with with sponsors at 09:30, 10:00. But I feel like the one thing I appreciate is that no matter how crazy every day is, my routine
Speaker 3: or my ritual of that morning is the same. So instead of skipping it, and it's
Speaker 4: not You don't have to skip it. Start earlier. Start earlier and less of it so that you can get all these other activities in. Because then you're gonna be, you've got a new apartment, you've gotta get furniture. You're taking some of the furniture with you.
So you're gonna have to make some adjustments. You're gonna have to do some looking with Zach on the weekends. You can't keep, your weekends have to be sort of free to get that apartment
Speaker 3: Yeah, taken because right now I have a couch and a bed, but like we haven't done anything else before.
Speaker 4: Well, what I'm saying. So you need to get on that. I mean, this is getting silly. It's not that big a place that you can't just do it. And there's so many things Wayfair takes two seconds to deliver a CBG.
Speaker 3: But like the decisions about where everything goes, what we need, how we want to And decorate I
Speaker 4: think it's better doing that because you have so many windows in this apartment, which we've talked, which you love with the light, that you have no walls. So everything sort of has to float and you've got to figure that out once you're in there. You're going to see that what you thought was going to fit isn't really going to fit. So better off not buying, spending money or returning, which is such a pain in the neck with these companies now, even though they do do it, I believe. You're just going to have to get in there and really tape it out on the floor.
You know you need desks someplace, you know you need certain requirements. So slow and easy on that, but within a couple of weeks that should get done.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, don't know. Some people tell me like a year in is
Speaker 4: You're when they finally get only on a two year lease. You know, that's ridiculous. Life goes by very quickly. Get it done. It doesn't have to, first of all, carpet with you, with your experience with carpets.
You spill a lot. You're a big spiller. So don't overly do those carpets. Go, you know, stay within a budget, a very low budget because that could be replaced. Indoor outdoor carpeting might be good for you, Kim.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know. Like literally when we were going to buy the couch, the guy at Restoration Hardware was like, so do you like need performance And I was like, Yeah, 100%. You're like, have kids in the house? Was like, No, it's me. I literally spill everything and Well, now
Speaker 4: you're going have a big dining room table, which I'm not sure is going to fit either. But you can definitely sit, you have those, oh, have to get those, what do you call that, stools for the kitchen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the kitchen I think you have an
Speaker 4: island. So you can really have breakfast No on need to eat on a white sofa for breakfast.
Speaker 3: I feel like I still will want to because cozy.
Speaker 4: You don't have to be so cozy. In the morning, I
Speaker 3: feel like I'm rolling out of bed. I can't go right to a table. That feels so intense.
Speaker 4: Well, also go to your stool like I I do this in the morning. That's not comfortable enough. Please. You don't need, what are you sleeping, eating breakfast?
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm half asleep. It's like, that's why I can't wake up even earlier than that. My thing is, I don't feel like I am overwhelmed by one specific thing. It's that all of the things when they
Speaker 4: Yeah, come of course. Well, course. So that's why I'm saying you gotta get work done in the morning. You have to straighten up the apartment. Then you've gotta go meet your people, your work people during the midday.
And then in the afternoon, you'll do the rest of your work and then by 04:30 you gotta chill out.
Speaker 3: 04:30?
Speaker 4: Yeah, then you chill out. Feel like sometimes. You're not like me. You gotta stop because now you have somebody coming home to be with you.
Speaker 3: Not 04:30.
Speaker 4: Yeah, six or but you gotta figure out things. You gotta order dinner, maybe you have to do some kind of prep. Whatever it is, I think a nine to five would be a good work schedule.
Speaker 3: It's not a nine to five job is
Speaker 1: the thing.
Speaker 4: I understand that. Sort of get your scheduling. So you could always eliminate or make something later. But if you have all the things fitting into that parameter, then you can always make adjustments.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the hard thing is sometimes I call you and I'm like, Ugh, I'm overwhelmed, I have so much. Or even like my back hurts from sitting at the desk for so long. And you're
Speaker 4: like, Just
Speaker 3: chill out. Go get a manicure.
Speaker 4: Go take a walk. No, take a walk around the block. Your manicures take too long. My manicure would be fine. It only But you takes 20
Speaker 3: can't just stop in
Speaker 4: the middle of the day. Well, but that's why I'm saying don't do everything and not everything in one day. That's The day you move, you don't have to have 18 different deals that you have to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So, you know, spread it all out and you can get it done. You're very smart.
Speaker 3: When you were 29 or 30, did you feel the urgency or the
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Speaker 3: Overwhelmed like I'm describing. Yeah. But I have two children. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I was very overwhelmed. Yeah. But I was very fortunate because I always had somebody who would help me. I I I really did. I was very lucky.
And I always made time to either see my mom or go out with friends for lunch, even though I had little children. But, you know, it depended what stage. When they were tiny babies, it's sometimes easier. If you have a babysitter, you can catch it, you know, go out for lunch or with friends or if you have to do something. But I didn't have a full time job.
My full time job was taking
Speaker 3: care of everybody else. But there's still a really
Speaker 4: long to do list It was for very long. Yeah. Because nobody else was helping me. Mhmm. Nobody was doing the marketing.
Nobody was doing the cooking. We didn't have Instacart in the sixties and seventies. So I went to the market, I made dinner, I had to prepare the food, and we didn't do any takeout in those days. I mean, was really something that's come up later. Mean, made, I made dinner and we had dinner five nights a week on the table that I prepared.
Speaker 3: How'd you not order in?
Speaker 4: I just didn't. We didn't have that. We didn't do that.
Speaker 3: You order in every night now.
Speaker 4: Well, now every night I do because
Speaker 3: Or go
Speaker 4: out. Or go out. It was Yeah. And a very especially with children at home, you have to do a little different menu for them. They're not gonna necessarily of course, my son, I gave lamb chops to immediately.
So after six months when he got teeth, I gave him the regular food. But your mother was a little pickier eater.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it feels like though every decision has so much weight to it. Well, doesn't.
Speaker 4: I mean, whether I made roast beef one night and fish another, it really is not. It's just planning. You have to plan. When you have to call the market in the morning. So at least you would get it in the afternoon.
We did have delivery service and I used to pay, I think, dollar extra for delivery. And it was worth it because otherwise you'd have to go with the baby, with the carriage, with with a a thing underneath to bring in the things home and bags, which, you know, as they got older, I sometimes did. I would go out and put a couple of bags underneath the stroller, but when they're little, I didn't do that.
Speaker 3: Do you remember when you turned 30, did
Speaker 4: that feel like heavy? No. I think the only time I really felt age was when I turned 75. Remember we went to Greece? I think I had to do something for my, is that all of a sudden I realized I was in the last quarter of my life.
Up until then, I really never thought about it. It was just, you know, year and I had fun and I was loving my family and I was loving what I was doing. I was traveling a lot towards in my 60s. I traveled everywhere And I sort of had fun. I really did like it.
Especially in my kids where I had no children at home. They were all married. So, was, you know, each stage, I always say passages, every stage has a different plus and a different minus. And you have to balance it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I feel like there's this, and I don't know if it's a newer thing, but feeling that a lot of women especially feel, turning 30 especially, but just at any like age pretty much past 30 where they feel pressure of, like, I should have this together. I should be married. I should have kids. I should be this place in my job.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Because you pushed it all forward. You know, we used to have children and and families much earlier. I mean, a girl of 21, 22 would be engaged and married. I mean, nobody was sitting around waiting to be 25 or 30 to get married in the fifties and sixties and even the early seventies.
Speaker 3: But do you think you should like, the feeling of feeling behind.
Speaker 4: Well you shouldn't feel behind but you know what, don't put too much on your plate and don't put too much pressure on yourself. It'll all happen, you have to do priorities. What's your priority? Yeah right exactly. Know that's really it.
Your husband, your family, your job, all those things have to have positions. And the job, unless you're the President of The United States, doesn't come out first. It should never really. I think it should be relationships and children and then your job.
Speaker 3: That's your My feeling. Yeah, like not If
Speaker 4: I was a professional person who had no family at home, then the jobs would naturally be first. Well, depends what you value. And this is just top
Speaker 3: of mind because I just went to Susie Welch, the NYU professor. Did that? She does this thing called the values bridge, and it's an online quiz. And, basically, like, you figure out what your values are so you're able to make yourself the happiest you can be. So for example, you take this quiz.
Like, if somebody's is I
Speaker 4: took it. I remember I
Speaker 3: took We both took it when we went on her podcast. Right. And like you might have your first value as family centrist on. Right. So you feel like that is what you should be organizing your time and priorities around.
Somebody else could have their number one as work centrist.
Speaker 4: Yes, well
Speaker 3: that's right. So that's what fulfills them and that's what would make them feel the most authentic life that they're
Speaker 4: Except when other complications set in.
Speaker 3: Right, so for example, if your first value is work centrism and your second value is family You're gonna have an issue. You're gonna have an issue.
Speaker 4: You're gonna have an issue.
Speaker 3: So it's like everything in your top five has to and go you just She basically was saying like these can all be your values but you can't equally weigh them all as At number the same time.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And at the same time. You you can do it at different times. Yes. You know it's when you're 25 your job is most important.
Yeah. When you're 35 with two little kids at home crying it becomes they're the center.
Speaker 3: Yeah, also kind of says like by the time you're 25, your values are already set.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well probably what you want. You don't know what you want. You probably Not about always your get it in order.
Speaker 3: For sure. Like that's the whole thing of like once you know what your values are, then saying, okay, what's the gap between the way I'm living them and, my ideal life and, like, how I
Speaker 4: would be And you know why I've always said ideal life is nonsense. There's no such thing as the ideal lover, the ideal husband, the ideal life. You make it a compromise of all different things
Speaker 3: you're But you're gonna toward that. But
Speaker 4: you're working toward it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I feel like I'm very ambitious and I'm always like striving to the next thing. Do you think it's dangerous to never feel like fully satisfied in the moment?
Speaker 4: Well, think for the moment you can feel good about yourself, but I don't think you should be constantly trying to satisfy all your desires. That's what hopefully a relationship does. You think about us versus me all the time. And when children enter into the scheme of us, then it's about them. So you have to get everything prioritized and you will learn about that as nobody can explain it to you until you're in the situation really.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: But don't feel that constant pressure that everything has to be perfect exactly because on that
Speaker 3: just Let's isn't going to say, like, we get a really amazing work opportunity like the New York Post.
Speaker 4: Which we love.
Speaker 3: Like, I still, even though I'm like, okay, this is great for us. I'm like, okay, what's next? Like, how am I gonna get the next thing and how are gonna make this bigger and how are we gonna like that's just how my I can't
Speaker 4: like Well, that's your brain at this time because you don't have other responsibilities. If I threw in the mix that you're getting married or that you're having children, then all of a sudden you have to prioritize which one is going to
Speaker 3: come And it's not so So
Speaker 4: it's hard for you to really rationalize that at this point.
Speaker 3: Maybe, but it's like I do have other things going on. Like I have friendships, have a relationship. But
Speaker 4: that's still not the same.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Like I think building this brand, trying to move forward my relationship, like how do you know I don't want to say slow down because I never want to like slow down, but like, I guess, would you slow down? Well, I think if your family needed you at home, you'd have to take less. Know, that's just a different down in that category,
Speaker 4: not like overall. No, but you can still have goals. If you're in business, you can still have goals, but sometimes it has to fit into your schedule. The goals can't overtake you because once they are, people burn out, people get frustrated then when they don't achieve that particular high level. So you got to just moderate things and know how to live and include all the different parts of your life in your eventual goal.
Don't only look for one thing because if you strive only for one thing, then the rest of your life doesn't get fulfilled. Yeah. And that's something that will happen as time goes on and you see where you are in your Yeah.
Speaker 3: I feel like there's so many things and I can only think about like what I am dealing with in the present moment. Okay. Like the issue at hand. I feel like as long as you're in the moment and staying true to like what your values are in that moment and not jumping a million steps ahead, like then you're moving at the and right you won't feel like you're behind or going too fast.
Speaker 4: Good plan. That's a good plan. Do you
Speaker 3: have any tips for staying present?
Speaker 4: No, I think that's what we just discussed. I think staying present, stay within the reach of what could be a plausible goal, a realistic goal, not a flaw, a realistic goal. I know that I can take on more than so many things in one day. So don't over schedule because then what happens is you go crazy. You go like sometimes I say to you, oh my god, I can't do three things in one day.
So you have to adjust to what your feelings that you can handle comfortably in one day and then it'll all work out. It could always be another day. Not everything, unless there's a deadline, has to be done on the same day and then don't schedule things to have a deadline on the same day. That is part of how to really budget your time. Everything has to be sort of done in a proper order.
So if something is mandatory for a Monday, then it has to be done. Push the other things aside to Tuesday or Wednesday. Totally.
Speaker 3: And I think articulate appreciation in the moments where
Speaker 4: And people who help. And yes. Yeah, people who help you get to that goal. Exactly. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: I think on 30, young Kim would be proud of myself, even though I am
Speaker 4: You should be
Speaker 3: proud Always thinking of the next thing. And I'm glad that you and the rest of the Excuse My Grandma family and all of you guys listening could be along for the journey and see what's next.
Speaker 4: And it's a fun journey. We're having a everybody who listens knows we're having a fun time. You know, there are, we don't agree on everything, but we basically have a very good time doing all these different, things that we're doing, these different places we're visiting, the different adventures we're on, and that's what makes it so rewarding. Certainly for me, who's never really done this before, I love it. And it's all the people we meet and the wonderful new ideas that you have brought to the It's terrific.
Speaker 3: Yeah. By the way, I didn't even say because for people watching right now, you can either watch on YouTube or on Spotify. We are at the couch on the couch at home right now, not in
Speaker 4: our usual studio. The weather. The weather. We couldn't go down in the snow. You can't go right now, New York had 20 inches of snow on Sunday on the twenty third.
This was a very big birthday gift for you to have all this snow.
Speaker 3: I
Speaker 4: know. And you went out last night, which was amazing. I hunkered down. I must have watched as a as a goodbye to the group. Yeah.
I must have watched eight hours on Amazon.
Speaker 3: What are watching?
Speaker 4: Do they give awards out for the longest amount? The best binge watcher. The best binge watcher. I watched Prodigal Son, which was scary, but very, very well done. Okay.
And that was on Netflix. I watched oh, I watched Lincoln Lawyer the entire fourth season. Yeah. My eyes last night when I and I finally turned off the TV at about eleven. I think my eyes said, Oh, thank you, Grandma.
No more TV.
Speaker 3: Oh my God.
Speaker 4: It was an entire day from the time we woke up because it really started snowing.
Speaker 3: There's other things you could do.
Speaker 4: No, I could. I cleaned my drawers already. I've done all that. There's nothing to clean. The house was
Speaker 3: could have bad come to mine and cleaned
Speaker 4: How my could I get there? There was a no travel ban. Was a ban yesterday. I didn't leave the house. So thank you, Amazon.
Thank you, Netflix. Thank you all
Speaker 3: the streaming services. Wait, are you watching the Love Story, Carolyn Bassett
Speaker 1: thing?
Speaker 4: No, because I remember that very clearly because he lived, John lived, he had a very unhappy marriage with her. That was not a wonderful love story I'm
Speaker 3: not by the there yet. I'm still at the point where they're meeting when she's at Calvin Klein.
Speaker 4: She was a very beautiful girl but mismatched. She was picked by the mother. No, but
Speaker 3: so far Jackie doesn't like, oh Jackie
Speaker 4: No, doesn't she didn't like like Daryl Hannah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, She
Speaker 4: didn't like Daryl Hannah, which was his real love story. She didn't like all the theater. And of course she ended up with the most theatrical of everybody, but that's beside the point.
Speaker 3: I'm still not there yet, I guess, in the series. I've only watched the first two But
Speaker 4: Kennedy used are very it's a very sad family. You think they would have everything in. They've been a tragic family to follow. And it's beautiful. They're all beautiful and they all are very bright, but somehow their lives end so sadly.
And I'm sorry, I lived through that. That was my generation. I really, when President Kennedy was shot, I was pregnant with your mother. And I I thought our lives were over. I mean, I was sitting with my mom in a little coffee shop and we all started crying.
We really thought, and that was 1963. No, not 1963. 1963 he was assassinated. You
Speaker 3: want me to Google
Speaker 4: it? Yeah, I think he was assassinated in 1963. I wasn't pregnant with your mother. I think I was just married.
Speaker 3: Oh, let's see, 'sixty three. 'sixty three
Speaker 4: and I was just right, I was right. I was married in September '63. So I was not pregnant Oh, you weren't pregnant. I was not pregnant But I was thinking about it. Oh
Speaker 3: yeah, I guess so.
Speaker 4: I was thinking about it. But when I think about all the, and then when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, we were in Poppy and I were in Sea Island, Georgia at a convention. We all left. It was like each each tragedy seemed to put a damper on the American psyche. Well, they're like
Speaker 3: American royalty in a way.
Speaker 4: Well, they were American royalty. They were beautiful. They were all beautiful, bright, all Harvard educated, all really beautiful speakers. And Jackie personified glamour to everybody. I mean, she was the epitome of glamour.
And, just nothing good ever came out of them. I think the only surviving is Caroline, of of that family.
Speaker 3: And then she has her kids.
Speaker 4: And her daughter who just recently died. I mean, it's but that was you just can't even no one family should have had all these tragedies and somehow America was drawn into it.
Speaker 3: Well, it's really interesting to watch so far.
Speaker 4: Okay, well it's good, probably good television.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's Ryan Murphy I'm sure
Speaker 4: But it's good
Speaker 3: I'll let you know when I finish it.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: Okay, Another great episode of Excuse My Grandma. Make sure to follow us on social media. Excuse My Grandma. My personal is Kim Merstein. We are also In the Post.
In the New
Speaker 4: York In line?
Speaker 3: In line on Tuesdays? Yep. Newyorkpost.com. You can search Excuse My Advice. That's the name of our column, and then print on Wednesdays.
Speaker 4: So everybody have a great day and enjoy the sun wherever you are.
Speaker 3: Yes, bye. Bye.