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.

Today, I am gonna be telling you all about how I create a strategy for my life. And I know that sounds very broad and possibly overwhelming, but hang with me because I feel like I have been given some amazing tools to help me in four main areas of my life: my faith, my home, my work, and my legacy or my life overall.

So that's what we're gonna talk about today, how to create a strategy for your life. If you're feeling like you need some clarity, then this episode is for you.

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.

Well, it is back to school for the Ray family this week. I know everybody starts school at different times, but for us, school starts back this week. I’m so excited. And with school comes a lot of different ideas about new rhythms and routines that we wanna implement as a family. I personally get really excited about it, but one thing that God has been putting on my heart over and over again this year is implementing rhythms of faith to go alongside our rhythms of school and that is what today’s episode is all about.

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. 

Alright, it's time for the Nancy Ray Book Club 2023 edition, and in these episodes I'm gonna share my three biggest takeaways from the books that I'm reading. Today I'm gonna be giving an honest review of Four thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mere Mortals, by Oliver Burkeman.

Today I'm sharing our philosophy on educating our kids why we chose the University Model route, and a little peak into what a typical day in the life looks like for us on one of those homeschool days.

My most downloaded episode, maybe ever, was Episode 007 called You Can Do Hard Things. Today, I'm gonna introduce her sister to you: You Can Do Fun Things.

I've decided that this year I want to make more of these Work & Play episodes about play, and I'm gonna try to be a little more lighthearted, which can be kind of hard for me. But that's the goal for this year, and that's what today's episode is all about—encouraging you (and me) to incorporate more play in your life and to do fun things.

Just a few months from now, in the start of 2023, that will mark 10 years since I did my first Contentment Challenge, where I give up shopping for three months straight to pursue a more content life and a closer walk with the Lord.

A few years ago, I came up with a core purpose statement for my work and this podcast, and that is: Practical tools for an integrated life. That is what I'm after. I want my teachings, my content, everything that I give to you or anyone who's listening to be very practical, and I want them to be implemented into an integrated life.

Everyone right now is telling us that we should be buying more, that we should have more, that we should be dressing in cuter clothes and decorating more perfectly. And today, I just want to be a voice that says: You don't.

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.

The heart of what I want to talk about today is simply the idea that we can say a lot and we can have a lot of great ideas, but really our lives come down to what we do. My encouragement to you today is simply to let your yes be yes.

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.

Well, I'm back from taking a month off of the podcast! This episode is going to be a little bit of a catch-up of what I've been up to, what's coming in August, a little bit of a change of plans with the podcast, but as all good. And I'm going to break down at my favorite weekly rhythm for you, which is my Sunday plan.

Well, today is my last episode before I take a month off of the podcast in July so I'll look forward to connecting with you again here in August. And I thought I'd end these fun summery episodes with just a mix of lighthearted and some serious recommendations of sorts, sharing 10 things that are saving my life right now. I hope you enjoy!

I am challenging you and myself during the month of July to tackle one photo project, just one, that's it! And today I'm going to give you three options, three different photo projects to tackle and exactly how to do each one.

Welcome to the summer episode where I'm doing something I've never done before—having a little fun with this episode and I'll be sharing everything that reminds me of summer, including some great recommendations. I hope this episode makes you really happy!