Today I'm going to be talking about my first book, The 12 Week Year and why this book was just what I needed to read at the start of this year, between having baby number four and this pandemic. I don't know about you, but it felt so hard to plan and to dream and set goals—but 12 weeks? 12 weeks? I can do that. I can plan the next 12 weeks.

Money is a part of our life. Whether we like it or not, we need it to live and we can choose to either manage it well and let it be a blessing to us and those around us, or if we neglect it, we'll likely end up with not very much of it and it will be a continual point of stress for us.

This episode will be full of practical advice, but all of that practical how-to is going to stem from these money mindsets, and I hope that they're a blessing to you.

The key to success is contentment.

I mean, think about it—if you can find a way to truly be content, to be happy in every circumstance, wouldn't it be awesome? Every day it would be incredible. I mean, we'd wake up so grateful and so happy because we're content! This episode is about fighting for contentment with simple habits in our lives. Habits that can help us pause and realize just how good we have it. Habits that help us to live at ease and to live content.

This episode is going to be a fun one. I firmly believe before we can look ahead and move forward, we need to pause and look back, and this episode is going to do just that. It's going to be all about 2021. The things that happened in my life that were highlights, experiences—I recommend trips that we took, books that I read, things I tried and liked, and more.

Here is the best of 2021!

Hello and Happy New Year! I am so excited to be back to be bringing you some fresh episodes of the work and play podcast moving forward, and to start this year off on the right foot, encouraging you in your work and in your play.

Happy 2022!

It can be helpful. It can provide income. It can be addictive. It can be a trap. Today, I want to talk about simple practices that I have found incredibly life-giving to keep social media in its place.

And now for the shortest podcast episode of 2021, I hope this encourages you and is just what you need today.

Taking a long-ish break from social media has been on my heart for quite some time, and having Benji, our fourth child, just seemed like the perfect time to do it. I'm currently four months in, and this episode is all about what I've learned in the last four months from my social media sabbatical so far.

Today we're going to talk about five ways for you to work through that feeling of overwhelm that honestly overtakes us every once in a while and leaves us feeling so helpless.

I recently shared the news that after this year, my twelfth year of business, the doors of Nancy Ray Photography will close. I’m sharing with you the three questions that I asked myself during this journey, and I’ll ask you as well.

I am so excited to replay this episode with Emily Ley. If you’ve listened before or you haven’t, this episode is so good. I think that what I love most about her is how much she values the little things—the moments in between—and finding that kind of balance between work and play and what that looks like.

I think it's pretty safe to say that when it comes to our work, we want to be part of something that we are called to do— something that is full of meaning and has purpose, something that is in line perfectly with our passions and giftings. But today I want to challenge our way of thinking, and really the language that we use describing our work and our calling.

Today, I have a conversation with a friend and author Hannah Brencher. Hannah is such a breath of fresh air. She is a writer, a TED speaker, an online educator with a heart for building leaders. She has written three books. Her third, which we're talking about today, is Fighting Forward. It has been exactly what I have needed to read. It's incredible. I think you're going to love our conversation today about how you can fight forward in your own life.

Get ready, because I love a good morning routine. Fair warning: I am such a nerd about this. I know this sounds kind of extreme, but having a morning routine in place really enhances the quality of my life— I'm not kidding!

[Replay] Life is hard, and sometimes it just seems we can't move forward in our lives until someone speaks some words of life to us. So that's what I'm here for today. If you're facing something really hard, I am here to tell you, you were made for hard things.

Hello! I am back after a two month break from this podcast! I'm happy to be back and today I'm so excited to share with you a huge life event that took place over the last two months for us—the birth of our fourth baby, a son, Benjamin Valor Ray. And today I'm going to be sharing his birth story with you.

Well friend, this is my last episode of Work & Play before I take a two month break from the podcast and a six month break from work and social media. I just want to use this time and space to encourage you. And I want to speak life over you. And I want to encourage you to speak life over the people around you.

Today, Will and I are going to be sharing about how we are debt-free again, as we just paid off our house! Our hope more than anything is that you would be inspired and know that with some hard work and intentional planning, this could be possible for you, too.