If you’re anything like me, you’re already starting to think about the holidays and Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up. Today’s episode is simply going to be some questions for you to ask yourself (and for me to ask myself) before the holiday craziness begins.

Abraham Lincoln said,

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.”

Well, I had this thought: What if we took that quote and applied it to motherhood? I thought of a few examples, but not many. But man, when I took it to Instagram and my email list, you guys delivered! I have a whole list of ways that this quote can apply to motherhood and you are in for a treat. Get ready to make your life a whole lot more practical and easier in this last “May is for Mamas” episode.

I’m so excited to welcome you back to another episode of “May is for Mamas” where every episode in the month of May is dedicated to mamas. Today, we are talking with an expert on health, nourishing ourselves, and how to change our families forever by taking care of our bodies with the food that we eat. I’m so excited for you to hear from Ilana Muhlstein. Now, if you’ve ever been part of the “Beach Body” program or heard of the “2B Mindset”, this is who created it. Guys, I’m geeking out. I don’t usually say “Yes” to people who I get random emails from in my inbox, but when I saw hers come thorough, I started geeking out because I personally have done “2B Mindset”, I’ve gone through her program (I’ve done it last year, I’m doing it now), I believe in it and it works. So I thought to share something that’s been so life changing for me with my listeners with Illana herself would be such a gift, especially in the month of May for “May is for Mamas.” So I’m so excited. She is a dietician, a nutritionist, and a best-selling author. Guys, at the age of 13, Ilana weighed over 200 pounds. Her story is so inspiring. She came up with this model that really works and I can say that honestly because it works for me. It is like a track to run on; so helpful. The conversation is going to be so great. I hope you enjoy this episode of “May is for Mamas” with Ilana Muhlstein.

Have you ever heard of wintering as a verb? Well, now you have because today I am going to share with you 5 ways that I'm wintering this year.

So this year I'm doing something a little different. I decided early in November that I am not thinking about or planning for next year until next year in January. I am all in for 2023. I want to be present and finish this year strong. My eyes are on my kids, my husband, Christmas, and New Year's, and I just, for whatever reason, feel so strongly in my spirit that I need to not take time and energy in this month to plan and look at it. This is so different for me. Okay. I am a planner. I am a forward thinker. But there's just been some different life circumstances that have led me to this, so this episode is all about some end-of-year rhythms for reflecting on your year and how you can finish this year strong.

One thing I have realized recently is that all of us in one way or another are seeking wisdom from God in our work. Whether that is working in our home and serving our kids and raising them, or whether it is running a business, managing a team, developing a new product, just maintaining something that we've had for years. As we get older, we need more wisdom. Life continues to get more complicated and more challenging, and especially in our work. And today's episode is gonna be simple. It's gonna be about three promises that we can find in scripture regarding wisdom in our work.

Okay. I felt like it was just time for a more lighthearted podcast episode and that is why I am bringing you 10 things that are saving my life, fall edition. Are they actually saving my life? No, but they’re really helping it and I think they’re making my fall a little bit better, and I’m just gonna share those things with you today. So I hope you enjoy listening.

I had a friend recently ask me, “How in the world do you do chores in your family with all four of your kids?” And I thought that would be a great podcast episode. So today I am gonna share with you how we do chores in the Ray household.

Okay, confession. I am a major time management junkie and I love it. I love planning. I love buying my new calendar for the year and getting my favorite pens and highlighters and making a plan and writing an appointments and making lists. I love managing stuff. I love managing my time. And today I'm gonna share with you five of my favorite time management tools that have really helped me through the years because we all have 24 hours in a day, but it all comes down to how we manage our time.

While so many women wear multitasking as a badge of honor, I will readily admit that I am the worst at multitasking. I—it's terrible. I get so distracted and cannot do it. And I'll be frank, this has not served me well in motherhood because the interruptions are great and we'll talk a little bit about that. But today I just wanna share my thoughts on multitasking and how it doesn't help anyone and how it's so much better if we can focus on one thing at a time.

Be where your feet are. This simple phrase has brought me back time and time again from feeling scattered and overwhelmed to simply being present. It's taught me a lot about my own limits and how God is limitless, and I found a lot of encouragement in that. So today's episode is all about that phrase, be where your feet are. And I hope you find it encouraging.

Today, I am so excited to share with you one of my very favorite things to do. I know this is really nerdy of me, but I love writing out my ideal week. This is something that I do at least twice a year, sometimes three times a year, because there are different times in my year that just look different. An ideal week looks different, and today I'm gonna walk you through my process of how to create an ideal week so that you can be living the life that you want in and week out with a lot of joy.

So we all know that play is such an important part of our lives. It's easy to talk about work all the time, and it's a little bit more difficult as we get older to talk about play and incorporate play into our lives. But what I found out is it's so important to do it in small ways every day. If you can incorporate small play into your life on a daily basis, it really makes your lives and your work that much better. And that is what we are talking about in today's episode.

Summer is here—and after a long school year of hard work, it’s time to kick up our feet and play! Today’s episode is going to be fun and two-fold. First, we’ll talk about the practical: how to plan your summer well. Then, we’ll dive into part two and talk about the actual summer plan and what kind of mindset can help you have a summer filled with both rest and play!

I currently work one day a week with the occasional help of maybe one to two evenings a month. This episode is all about how I maximize my very limited work hours!

Here's a job description that life handed me that I just didn't really see coming. I have to be a cook like every day and I have to be a fairly good one because the tiny humans that I feed around my table are fairly opinionated about food. Actually, they're very opinionated about food. And here's the deal: I'm just supposed to be good at it. I'm supposed to be good at it and I'm not. I'm not normally good at this whole cooking thing, but it is a skill that's required of me as I have to feed my family and it's up to me, and this year I put some new habits into place—nothing huge, nothing massive—that have changed everything for me. 

Here are some habits that I have recently put into place, just the last three months really and I've committed to them and I'm gonna share them with you today. Take them or leave them, but maybe just take one or two because honestly they've all served my family really well and served me in my sanity well, and I feel like at least one is gonna serve your family well, too. 

At the end of every year, I plan time to do three simple things to plan for the year ahead. I take time to look back, reviewing the previous year. I set aside time to celebrate the previous year in God's faithfulness, and I take time to look ahead and set goals for the year to come. This episode's gonna give you more of a behind the scenes look at what that actually looks like for me.

today I am telling you all about my Christmas gameplan, which is simply the planning that goes in to making Christmas a wonderful, peaceful time of year—because let's face it, it can be very stressful and very hectic if you don't thoughtfully plan ahead.

Have you ever heard of having theme days? It's this idea that you choose different themes to focus on for different days and it helps you batch things or just simply not switch back and forth mentally between tasks so much.