Build Strong Women Podcast
The Build Strong Women podcast is more than just a show; it's a movement. This podcast is dedicated to helping women grow and build their confidence so that they can teach the next generation of girls to be confident and strong. If you are looking for tools to help you grow inside filled with love and laughter, then this podcast is for you! Featuring fun conversations with women who are on the same journey as you just trying to become the best version of themselves. My hope is that you can learn new ways to grow inside yourself so that you can show up as your best self and teach the next generation of girls how to do the same! It starts with us!
Build Strong Women Podcast
16: Intentional Relationships: Simple Ways to Connect at Home with Emily Lawson
In this episode, I sit down with my friend Emily Lawson, the creator behind By Emily Lawson, to talk all about building intentional relationships.
Emily shares her passion for helping couples and families connect through simple, practical ideas like at-home date nights, weekly traditions, and slowing down to be fully present. We dive into what it really means to invest in your relationships, how to make connection a habit, and why small efforts can lead to big changes.
If you're looking for fresh date night ideas, ways to reconnect with your partner, or simply want to be more intentional in your family life, this episode is packed with encouragement and inspiration.
💌 Grab Emily’s Date Night Playbook — for creative, low-pressure ways to make time for Date Night.
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Hi, I'm Laura Orlando and welcome to the Build Strong Women podcast. I believe as women that we are the role models for the next generation of girls. So how do we become the best role models for these young girls? We work hard to become the best version of ourselves, whatever that means to you. It's not easy. It takes work. It takes learning, trying new things, falling down and getting back up again. But that's what we do on the show. We dive deep into how we can grow on the inside. We will learn from women that are on the same journey as us. Just trying to become the best version of themselves. Let's learn together, build our confidence, learn to love who we are so that we can teach the next generation of girls to grow up to be strong and confident women. Hi guys, and welcome back to the Build Strong Women podcast. I am so glad that you're here with me today. Today's episode is a really special one because I got to sit down and chat with not just an inspiring guest, but also a very dear friend of mine, Emily Lawson. She is the heart and the mind behind Buy Emily Lawson, and Emily is all about helping people build stronger relationships, whether that's through intentional date nights, creative ways to connect with your kids, or just making space for for what matters in the everyday her mission is to inspire you to be intentional about building relationships and she always gives you practical ideas to actually make this happen and honestly that's exactly what this conversation is all about it's inspiring it's thoughtful and it's full of down-to-earth ideas that you can actually use whether you're married you're dating raising a family or just looking to bring a little more intentionality into your daily life you are going to love emily and you are absolutely going to love this episode she is the most relatable down-to-earth girl and you are absolutely going to adore her just like I do so grab your coffee settle in and let's get into this week's episode with Emily Lawson thank you Emily so much for being here with me on the podcast I'm so excited to talk to you we met in person at a conference and that was the best ever we were friends before online because we did a program together and we were showing up on zoom together but but then we got to meet in person in Nashville and that was so much fun to actually hug you in person. That was great. Yeah. That was like the highlight of the conference. I have a friend here that I can hang out with and talk to. And we just, I think we had so much fun and laughed a lot and I, we learned a lot and laughed a lot and it was really fun. So thank you so much for being here. I'm so proud of you. I'm so glad to be here. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So I want to start off just like telling people who you are because I actually just did an Instagram story talking about you and just how genuine and real and relatable you are in every way in your life and your family and just showing up as a woman and it just makes me like feel like what can I share with the world and I just feel like you do it so naturally and I just really love that so just kind of share like who you are and anything you'd like Okay,
SPEAKER_01:I'm Emily. I am married to my high school sweetheart and we have two kids. We live in Knoxville. And then just kind of what you were saying or what I do, I guess I should share what I do. I share at home, I guess at home experiences would be the best way to describe it. It started with at home dates that I do with my husband. But then it's just kind of transformed into now at home girls nights that I do with my daughter. And then I Actually, when I bond with Derek, we're almost always going out because his favorite thing to do at home is video games and that drives Twitch. So he's the one who I take out all the time. But we do lots of family nights and stuff together as a whole. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I love that. My favorite thing that you do is, well, I feel like this is how you kind of like blew up was like your at-home date night with your husband. And that... All the things that you share with him. First of all, I tell you this, that I think you guys should have a reality show because he's hilarious. You two together, just like your chemistry and connection, it's really fun to watch. And you just really love each other and love hanging out with each other. You can really tell, which is cool. But just kind of talk about how that all came about, like having those at-home date nights. It started
SPEAKER_01:with an argument.
SPEAKER_00:It started with us getting in a fight. Everything does, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It started because... And I do think it was, no, it was before COVID, just a little. We were at our house in California, so everything's like my markers based on where we were living. I came to him in tears and I was like, I don't think you're interested in me anymore. I don't think you love me anymore. We don't ever go out on dates. And he was like, you're crazy. What are you talking about? And that's when he was like, we don't go on dates because we can't afford dates. It has nothing to do with you. It has nothing to do with our relationship. We can afford the date or the babysitter, but we can't afford both. And I was like, okay, you know, that is, that's something I can work with. I'm crafty. I'm creative. I can work around that problem. And so I was like, well, what if we did at-home dates? Whatever we were going to try and do out, we try and do it at home. And he was the one who was like, I would have never thought you would go for that. I had a tendency to be a little high standards and high maintenance.
UNKNOWN:And
SPEAKER_01:He was like, I didn't think you would ever go for that. And I was like, well, yeah, let's try it. You know, and he might, you know what, I'm going to give him some credit here. He might be right that at first I might not have been willing to go with it because it wouldn't have fit the look of what it feels, you know, what everybody else was doing on Instagram. People were celebrating their marriages on the islands of Poconos and whatever. And like, it was so fancy in that comparison. Yeah. I might have at first snubbed my nose at it, but once we got to the root cause and I was like, no, wait, I want you more than I want some specific experience. So if this is what we have to do to bridge the gap right now while we wait to grow our income to be able to go out and doing more, then this is what I want to do. I did it for, I think we did at-home dates. We actually have a ton of fun with them. I think they're actually, I prefer them over going out because we're such homebodies.
SPEAKER_00:We just love being at home. I'm the same way.
SPEAKER_01:I love being home. So I don't necessarily feel the need to go out as much anymore. But yeah, so I started to really enjoy them, doing the at-home dates. My confidence grew in them. We did them for, I would say, a year before I really shared them. Wow. And even then, I was sharing just every so often. Because I was still doing... So everybody who doesn't know me, I used to do preschool stuff. That's actually how I got started with social media was I was sharing preschool activities. And so my focus was still very heavily on the preschool activities at that time. So I wasn't sharing, like, that was just like something Eric and I did privately in the background that wasn't part of my social media life. And slowly they were getting traction and people were like, wait, I'm curious about that. Tell me more. And I think about a year into transitioning from preschool stuff to just like sharing my life is when I shared the at-home date that went mega viral yes like exploded on the
SPEAKER_00:internet amazing that was so fun to watch it really was it was the most it was the painting one right you guys like we're learning how to paint with bob ross or something
SPEAKER_01:yeah so actually i had originally shared that date with all the details of like really explaining everything out and being probably too wordy in my reel and It was a bit of a flop, to be honest with you.
SPEAKER_04:Wow. But
SPEAKER_01:then the same exact reel with a lot, I guess not the exact, same exact night. We didn't refilm or anything, but with a lot of edits and cuts and condensing it and the right wordings on the screen, it blew up. It went absolutely bonkers.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. People loved it. They were like, tell me more. How do you do this? You know what I mean? And I love all the tips that you share of even how to create this night. Cause you have rules. Cause I know that you've You guys have rules. This is how we have our date nights. There's rules for it. So do you want to share a little bit about the rules that you have to make sure these date nights happen?
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Okay, so it is the rules came as part of that learning process, right, where he was still at first like, I didn't think you would ever be interested in that. And so there were a few fumbled at first date nights where I was like, this doesn't feel like you did anything. This feels like you all of a sudden were like, shoot.
UNKNOWN:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Let's just watch a show. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:And so we had a conversation where I was like, Hey, I feel like in order for it to be a date at home, it has to be different than the norm. Right. And it has to really, it has to have a level of intentionality. And so our, I guess four, I guess four ground rules are the first one is we each plan a date every month. Eric is the most intentional. Type A person. you know, and he's very analytical. So he was like, I'm going to take the first Saturday of every month. And the first that I always be his date night. He has a reoccurring reminder on his calendar. Okay. I don't like it. And I know some people might think, well, that's not as romantic that he's not just thinking of it or just planning it on a
SPEAKER_00:random day. I'm like, I don't care. No, I like to have a plan. I like to know what's happening. I don't want to be surprised. Well,
SPEAKER_01:if my choices are... he does it regularly or he forgets because it's trying to be spontaneous which is just not who he is and rather it happened on a regular basis than like constantly being disappointed that he forgot this month oh he forgot that month so rule number one is that we both participate because and that was actually his because i had the expectation that he would be you know the guy would be the one planning dates which is so interesting to me because my audience often gets upset that they as the wife are the ones who are bearing all the responsibility, they're like, oh, your husband does it too? And I'm like, Yeah, that was actually, he was the one who said to me, wait, you have to also participate in this. It's not on my shoulders, especially if you're the one coming saying like, there's a problem. Cause I'm good with us just watching TV at night. So if you're the one saying there's a problem, you have to also be an active participant in this. And I was
SPEAKER_00:like, okay, I can do that. That's fair. Wow. That's interesting. That's interesting. Yeah. And it's just about like communicating with them and figuring out your roles a Okay, what are your other rules that you have? I love this. The second
SPEAKER_01:is that it has to be intentional. So I follow a basic formula for all of our nights. It is activity plus a treat plus a drink. That makes it feel way more intentional than anything else. We will watch movies occasionally, right? At-home dates. Movies and game nights are going to be very common. They're easy to do. They're affordable. But You can make, I'm going to give the example of a movie night of your average Tuesday night sitting on the couch or even Friday night. Heck, it's Friday, it's Saturday, sitting on the couch, pulling up Netflix, watching 15 trailers. What do you want to watch? I don't know. You know, that constant rigmarole. And it doesn't feel special. That does not feel like a date night. That felt like the average Friday night. Whereas on date night, if he's doing a movie or if I'm doing a movie, pop a bottle of champagne, turn off the lights. light a candle, light the fireplace, with the exception of the champagne. None of that is, those things are all sitting in my living room every single day all the time. I didn't have to do a whole lot of effort there. Pre-picking the movie instead of saying, what do you want to watch? And making or buying dessert. I make because I love to bake. That's just part of who I am. But Eric's going to Kroger and just buying a cake that, you know, the bakery sells cake and he takes it out the plastic container and he puts it on a plate and he puts two forks and it you know it looks fancy he takes the cork out of the bottle of wine or champagne and he pours it and a lot of times he's drinking bourbon that he has in the house at all times it's not something that we went out of far we didn't go far out of our way to be intentional but we still made it intentional using what we had
SPEAKER_00:does that make sense yes and that's what I love about everything that you share with these date nights because it's not like this extreme extravagant I have to spend a million dollars to have a date night it's literally I'm gonna make cookies and we're gonna have a drink and we're gonna watch a show or play a game or I know you guys done Legos before like just like really cool things like you would never think of doing that with your husband right you know it's really really cool and I wanted to ask you though I wanted to I have a couple questions
SPEAKER_01:asked
SPEAKER_00:my one question was What is your favorite date night that you had and what was his favorite date night? I wanted to ask. And I'll tell you my favorite one that you guys had.
UNKNOWN:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Because I have one. I
SPEAKER_01:have one. I think he said, I just asked him this question recently. And I think he said he always, he loves a good movie. And I hate movies. So he loves taking a video. I hate movies. Yes. Give me a TV show though. I'll watch five episodes back to back. It's not like length of time, but just in movie format. I'm not
SPEAKER_00:a
SPEAKER_04:fan.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um, but he, so he loves taking advantage of a good movie night and planning out and picking a movie that I probably wouldn't normally, I probably would normally like switch my
SPEAKER_00:eyes. Then you have to watch it. You have to do it.
UNKNOWN:Um,
SPEAKER_01:If we're not doing a movie night, he really liked the portrait painting one that we just did. Okay, that
SPEAKER_00:was mine. That was mine. That was what I was going to tell you. That was my favorite ever. Literally listening to you guys laugh at each other was so funny. That was the best one ever. They painted each other's picture without each other seeing. This was their date night, and it was the best ever. That was the best ever. I loved it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that I think he said was his favorite. My favorite was we learned to two-step together. together. We pulled up a YouTube video. free, YouTube. We pulled up a YouTube video and we looked up a two-step dancing tutorial. We had nerds, clusters, you know, cut them out of the bag and put them in a pretty bowl and it looked with next to your drinks. And we were just in our living room learning to two-step. We watched the same video over and over, practiced each step over and over. I definitely thought that I was going to be the dancer of the two of us and it turns out I'm not. He...
SPEAKER_00:You learn something new.
SPEAKER_01:And I think my favorite part of that, one of my favorite parts about the ones that we do, especially in the living room, is there's a game that sometimes my audience will play of can you spot Reagan?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah. Seeing her at the top of the stairs sometime. That's your daughter, yes. Oh, my gosh. It's the cutest thing ever. I was just going to say, like, having your kids see you two do this, it's amazing.
SPEAKER_01:It's my favorite. Well, I shouldn't say that. My favorite is spending time with Eric.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. I know what you mean, though. Yeah, it's important to show them this.
SPEAKER_01:The mom side of it is that we are showing them what it looks like to nurture a relationship, what it looks like to put your relationship to the forefront. Because there's times where they're like, I don't want to go upstairs for bed yet. At first, I'm like, homegirl. It's the same time every night. It's not like we're putting you to bed early. Like,
SPEAKER_00:what are we doing here? Exactly, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:We're
SPEAKER_00:not
SPEAKER_01:straight. But also, no, it's important for me and dad, because they've started to ask, like, you know, can we stay up later? Why is our bedtime the time? it is and there's parts where it's like because of your health because you need to wake up and go to school in the morning but the other half of the answer that we're honest with is hey that's our time as a couple to spend time together and be before we were mom and dad we were eric and emily and that's still a really important part of our relationship and having that time together even on the average tuesday where we are just watching netflix like that's a really important part and i want my kids to see that and know that and have that same expectation for themselves.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I really, I always talk about like, you know, modeling for your kids, like how you feel, how you talk about yourself and things like that. But it's the same goes for your relationship too. And you have to be like really intentional about, okay, what do I want them to see in a married couple be and how they talk to each other and what they do with each other. And, you know, sometimes I, I know I do this. I feel guilty, like, oh, I don't want to go out or do anything. I just want to be with the kids. And sometimes I have to be like, okay, no, I have to you know be with him and spend time with him because it's just as important and I want them to see that as well yeah and it's important
SPEAKER_01:for us as much as it is for our kids like when our kids grow up and leave your husband's who you have left and so you want to make sure that that's not a stranger sitting next to you at the end of 18 years when your kids leave and then at the same time our kids are watching. And so I want to make sure that who Reagan sees as a man and who Derek sees as a woman, that they have those positive role models so that when they are looking for their future spouse, that Reagan's going to say, no, I expect that even though my husband has zero interest in art, that he's going to sit down with a good attitude about, he's not just going to do it. He's going to have fun with it and have a good attitude about it and not make me feel like a burden for asking him to do it with me. And I want the same role model for Derek of like, that's who he's going to be as a man. And he's going to want a wife who wants to plan those special evenings
SPEAKER_00:for
SPEAKER_01:him.
SPEAKER_00:Now, do you ever get any comments like from women that just say like, my husband would never do that? You know, things like that. I bet you do, because I mean, how do you respond and how do you tell someone what to do for that? I get those all
SPEAKER_01:the time.
SPEAKER_00:It is. It's
SPEAKER_01:hard. It's it's less about what the specific activity is. right like okay my husband would never paint with me okay first of all let's be clear my husband is not a painter yeah yeah Eric won a satire award in high school for best painter or best poster maker because we're just that awful so that's not something he wants to that's not something he thinks of as a fun hobby but he does it because he knows it's something I want to do and vice versa so I I think some of it to say to women who are asking that is, is it reciprocal, right? Like we're not just asking him to partake in, I'm not just asking him to partake in my hobbies. I'm also partaking in his. And then the other part is, I don't know. I think back to when we were first dating, where you do things again, where you're doing things for your partner that maybe aren't what makes you happy, but it makes them happy and you want to see them happy. That's when it becomes really hard to give the advice.
SPEAKER_04:It
SPEAKER_01:would be i guess the answer is have an honest conversation that it's not about wanting to do art together and you're not expecting him to want to like become an artist or even for that to be your full-time hobby you want to do it one time because you want to laugh together you want to be silly together you want to let your guard down together um have the conversation it doesn't have to be painting find something else
SPEAKER_00:but I, I think it's good that, you know, you try different things and you go outside your comfort zone, both of you, you know what I mean? I have a hard time doing that with things like that. My husband likes to go to the woods and like walk in the woods and that's like, sounds like torture to me, but it's like, I just had to like make myself go and do that at least once. I don't have to do it all the time for him because it makes him happy and he loves doing it, you know, and just, It becomes
SPEAKER_01:more of, I think, a communication issue. Yeah. It's not that he, I think most of us have married good men. You just need a reminder that like, it's not about the activity itself. It's about wanting to feel connected to you. And that's where Eric really shines. He knows it's not about painting together. It's about feeling connected together. We did pottery for one. And sometimes with our schedule, A date night is on the calendar for multiple weeks in a row before we actually sit down and do it. Yeah. And pottery was one of those. And part of it was because he kept thinking, like, seriously,
SPEAKER_04:this
SPEAKER_01:is the activity? What
SPEAKER_00:do I do? Pushing it off. Pushing it off, yeah. I love it.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, what do we do? We're busy this Saturday.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, darn it. Sorry. We can't
SPEAKER_01:do
SPEAKER_00:pottery
SPEAKER_01:together,
SPEAKER_00:honey. I love it.
SPEAKER_01:But we eventually did it and we had a lot of fun and some of it is just put your attitude aside. Like, okay. And I did tell him that night. I was like, listen, we're doing it.
UNKNOWN:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01:And I need you to just be part of it and have fun with it. And he did. And he was part of it and had fun with it. And he has to tell me the same. We're all human. I think we sometimes fall into this trap of expecting our partner. And I think it's more common of women's expectations of men of expecting to come into the conversation perfect. I'm like, gosh, if I were judged on being perfect in conversations with Eric, our conversations about budget, our conversations about so many things. I'm like, please stop. hold me to that high, high, high standard because I, I will fail.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You're looking at me in such poor light if you help me to the standard that sometimes we hold our partners to. And obviously that's not saying like we want our partners to be down on the floor, but like, you know, do have some expectations, but
SPEAKER_00:grace, give them grace. So now just to switch gears a little bit. So you do date nights with your kids too, which I absolutely love. And you're crafty nights with your daughter. You know, I love crafting too. And so does my daughter Grace and oh my gosh you have such good ideas and you know I love how you like bring their friends into it too I think you just had your daughter and her little friend over too and just bringing the whole your neighborhood friends and just their friends into just to show them you know all these moments that you're sharing with your daughter I think it's really cool and then they can bring them home too and say hey mom let's do this
SPEAKER_01:that was actually such a cool moment so Reagan was telling all of her girl Reagan was planning a sleepover and she was telling her sweet friend all about every tradition that we do so the girl was sleeping over Friday which at our house Friday is Friday movie night so we were doing Friday movie night and then the next morning we were going to do a crafty girls night but morning crafty girls morning because Reagan wanted her to know every tradition we have so it's a lot of work for me but at the same time I was like I am so grateful that the things we're doing are important to Regan and impactful to her that she's not embarrassed to be like, yeah, I do crafts with my mom. Instead, she's like, no, you have to join. This is so fun and you're going to love it. And this sweet girl came over. She had the best time. She was like, okay, so when are we doing this and when are we doing that? And I love her to death. She definitely has ADD, ADHD. She went through the movie and went through the crafts. She was like, so we finished and let's go. And Regan's meticulous putting beads on her little bookmark, and the girl's like, I just picked this pre-stranded one. We're good. Tie it on. Let's go to the next one. That's funny.
SPEAKER_00:That's fun.
SPEAKER_01:We'll finish yours later, okay? Yeah, yeah. Just roll it. When I went to volunteer yesterday at school, this sweet girl came up to me, and she was like, my mom got a hot tub for Christmas, and she and I have been doing girls' nights in them.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, stop it. Oh my gosh. That is so cute. See, you're making a difference. I love it. You are totally making a difference with everything that you do. I love everything you share. And like I, like you said, it's not just about date nights and crafty girls nights. It's really about just being a woman and a mom and just sharing like your every day. And I'm just switching gears a little bit. There was something that you posted that like really like struck me. I was like, oh my gosh, I actually copied it down just so I could read it. It says once I have enough money, once I I have enough followers. Once I'm thin enough, fill in the blank, whoever you want, but the life you have is worth celebrating right now. And you just did this post where like, we all get that way. Like someday I will, someday I'll do this and someday I'll feel this way and someday I'll feel worthy and someday I'll celebrate and do date nights and stuff like that. But you know, you don't feel like you have enough money. You don't feel like you're, you know, anything. You don't feel like you're enough. And I just felt like that post was really powerful and just, you are showing what women really feel and I just really loved that post and I don't know do you want to just share a little bit more about that one and
SPEAKER_01:absolutely that post was really powerful to make I had thought about it I had been sitting on that because I saw a TikTok that inspired that thought yeah I think I sat on that thought for two months and just kept running it through my head and trying to think like I tend to be overly wordy so like how do I get it condensed without losing message but it's something that I you know we lived through that I the only way I can can speak to it is because I've already felt it so when my vision of having kids was that we would have this grand house in this beautiful land and these are the goals that we're still working on but I've envisioned that it would be something that my kids grew up on right they grew up in this house and I would have it for the rest of my life because my parents grew up the house that my parents still live in it's not on this like grand land or anything but it's It's still the house that they live in today, the house that I, I was one years old when they moved into it. It's the only thing I know. And so I wanted that same experience for my kids. And it's just not where we at, where we are now. And there were so many times in my life where I kept thinking, where I had that thought in my head, well, once we have enough money, then we'll have all of that, right? Once we have enough money, then this celebration will be better and that will be better. And it would mean that like my kids are eight and ten can if I stuck with that mindset then the first decade of my daughter's life is that like not valuable is that not worth celebrating are we putting all of her memories on hold because one day it could be a better greater memory like that's not what I want and I was not profound enough to put it into those words until I saw that other video that TikTok that really helped me curate helped me really curate those thoughts but it was like what i did notice is when we started doing the at-home dates which that took some courage to start because like we were saying before that was a time on social media where people are sharing their trips to the islands and whatnot and so i'm gonna be like I'm in my backyard tonight. Yeah, I get it. It's really hard. We spent$3 on an Etsy printout and we didn't even go buy paint to match because we didn't even want to spend the money on a paint by number. So we're just using whatever colors we can to try and hope that they match. And that wasn't what was selling on social media at that time. And so it was scary to share that aspect of dating and marriage. But then I did it and people, well, one, by doing it and sharing it, I grew confident in it. I know we've talked about this before that some of your confidence will grow just by making a promise to yourself and following through. And so by making that commitment of like, we're going to do these date nights at home and following through, not only did my confidence grow in myself, confidence in my marriage grew because yes, this was something we agreed to together that we're going to do and together we're following through. He's following through. on his portion of date nights which just adds more to that trust that he's just as invested in this relationship as I am right and even though I didn't ever really question that but there was just that moment of like well we're not going on dates so maybe he doesn't care anymore and now it's like no he does he does every single month like clockwork he is making sure that I don't have to question that and so my confidence grew as I was sharing those things because I was sharing them for me and my confidence grew myself but then you have the benefit of social media where people people were resonating with it. And they were like, no, yeah, I like that too. I needed that too. And so that helped my confidence grow. And it all comes back to like then realizing, wait, when my relationship, when I invested that time in my relationship is when even though things didn't look picture perfect, even though we didn't have all the things we said we wanted, I still did it and celebrated it. And now my marriage is stronger than ever. Eric and I have been together for 17 years. We were kids, babies when we first started dating. But this Christmas, I said to him, I was like, I feel like just we're starting to reflect on the year. I was like, I feel like this has been our strongest year of marriage yet. Like this is the best year ever. And he agreed. And a big part of that is that we just are deciding to enjoy the life we have now instead of constantly looking for what's next while still creating goals and like a pathway to get to what's next but we are not pausing we're doing what we can with what we have and I think that also helped me focus more on my relationships that it's it is less about what we have it is more about the people and investing in the people and the happiest I've been I've known you since before we lived in Tennessee we moved to Tennessee from California and our focus when we came here in California we had the beautiful home on all the land but we couldn't afford it and we moved here we rented instead of buy bought and we moved suburbs instead of a big house on land and because our focus was people was relationships and not just our relationships inside of our home and our relationships with our friends and And investing in those relationships has been
SPEAKER_00:the best investment I've ever made
SPEAKER_01:in my life.
SPEAKER_00:I just feel like you sharing all of this just sparks something inside of everyone. I mean, I know it does with me. Like, what's really important in life? And, you know, we are enough and we can just, you know, just live your life and be happy. Don't always wish for more. And, you know, we watch social media and we see all these people sharing things like we said before. And it just can be overwhelming. And I just like how you just show your real life. and how you're feeling and what you're struggling with. And you can make amazing things out of, you know. Yeah. I think paint by numbers and a nice drink. It's like amazing. You know what I mean? You have the strongest relationship ever. I just love it. That's
SPEAKER_01:the part that I think gets lost. I think it's a common talking point to say like, you focus on your relationships, not on what you have. And people get caught up in like, but okay, but what you have is some, like money does buy you activities. It does buy you the babysitter. That does buy you the vacation. And so like, Some of those experiences, we want to rephrase it as experiences versus stuff, those things do cost money. And so I think what I have been able to figure out, and listen, my date nights sometimes do cost money. You're not paying me, you're paying for supplies, but things cost money. But we keep them within a budget and keep them within some constraints. And it's not just getting preached at to enjoy your relationships more than stuff. it's okay now this is the situation we're in where we're needing to focus more on relationships than stuff because we have a budget so what can we do with the budget that we have we're making that the problem that we solve of what can we do with the budget that we have versus i don't know just getting preached at i feel like that's the message that sometimes gets lost of you don't want to yeah i know the people are what's most important but like what are we going to do while we're with each other
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, exactly. Give me ideas. I know,
SPEAKER_01:I know. And don't tell me to go stare at the stars and go stargazing because there's only so long I'm going to go look up.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that would be totally boring. Yeah, no, thank you. That's funny. That's good. Well, I know that you have like amazing resources that I want you to share with everyone. And I'm going to put all, I'm going to put the link in the show notes as well of all the things that you are going to share with us right now. These amazing like date night playbooks. So do you want to talk a little bit about those? They're so cool. Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:so I only have it for date nights right now. I am working on– I know you know this. We've been working on– I'm working on an actual book, like a hard copy. I try to describe it as like it'll look like a cookbook, but it'll have the different girls' nights and date night activities in them. paired with a drink. And for the girls' nights, there'll be mocktails because I do them with my daughter and dessert. But in the meantime, I do have a date night book up right now. There's even a freebie. Laura, I'll make sure I'll give you that link. My top three favorite dates that I share for free. I'm like trying to be careful because I'm like, the stuff in it, again, they're supplies that you can buy. They are not free. But I'll give you videos and everything for free. And then I do have a date night book that also has... I think it has like I think it has 18 at-home date night ideas and then 25 different out-of-the-house date night ideas. And we were talking about how the pain point for so many women is actually their husband's planning. This would be handed to your husband.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, here you go. Look through this. Yes, exactly. And hey, you can try anything once, even if it sounds like, I don't want to do this. You know, anyone can try anything once. You got to get yourself and your husband outside your comfort zone and just do it. Like you said, you have so much fun, even if you think it's going to be crazy and, you know, weird and you're never going to like it, but just do it anyway. And you might be
SPEAKER_01:terrible at it.
SPEAKER_00:And that's,
SPEAKER_01:that's fun. It's okay. We're not going into this trying to find our new hobby. We're going into this to tease each other and laugh with each other and like be silly with each other.
SPEAKER_00:That's
SPEAKER_01:right.
SPEAKER_00:And I try, I try to teach my kids that too. I'm like, just go try if you hate it. Okay. Never do it again. You know what I mean? Just try it. You have to try. Totally. Yeah. Oh, that's great. Well, thank you so much for being here and hanging out with me and just sharing everything that you have been sharing I love you and everything you share and you just help me think outside the box and help me really connect with my own kids and my husband and I just love it and I just loved having you
SPEAKER_01:thank you that's always my favorite compliment is hearing that people are using it and connecting with their people more yeah you're the best love you thank you love you too
SPEAKER_00:okay guys don't you just love Emily she is amazing and I just thought that was such a refreshing conversation I just love the way Emily Emily brings so much intention and heart to everything she shares and how she reminds us that building strong relationships doesn't have to be complicated. It's really about showing up, creating space, and making the little moments count. But if you're looking for a great place to start, Emily has created something really special. It's called the Date Night Playbook, and it's packed with simple, thoughtful ideas to help you reconnect with your partner. I've linked it for you in the show notes, so make sure that you head over and check it out. It's amazing. I have it. Okay. So before we wrap up, you know, I always like to leave you with an affirmation, something to carry you through the week. And that affirmation today is, I choose to be present with the people I love. I make time for connection. And I believe that small intentional moments build strong, lasting relationships. Thank you again for being here. And if this episode resonated with you, I'd love for you to share it with a friend or with someone who may need to hear this message. And don't forget to hit subscribe so you never miss an episode. I hope you have a great day. Have a wonderful day and I will see you on next week's episode.