Set the Atmosphere - Coffee with Chrystal #alittleQC

Good morning, good morning. Y'all see me trying new things today. Hey, Finland, Australia, Connecticut, West Virginia on Instagram, Atlanta. You sound up the street in Dallas. Oh goodness, good morning, good morning, Alabama. More Texas people. Ohio. Love that. I'm looking on Instagram right now. Las Vegas. Oh, you up early. You're up early. Hawaii. We were talking about Hawaii last night. It's time for me to go back. The same for Guatemala City. I took a trip there in my teens and I've been thinking about how beautiful that place is ever since. Botswana. Love that. Yes, I will talk to you in just a minute about the Inner Circle because I see your questions here on Facebook and YouTube. Midlothian. I love Midlothian, Texas. Y'all, I'm so glad that you're up with me this morning. Did y'all see me on Facebook and YouTube trying new geeky things? I'm trying new things. I'm learning things as we go, and I'm gonna try something also today. It may backfire, so y'all are just gonna have to give me grace and let me know how it's working. So I actually tried to— well, I always try to get some thoughts in advance about what I want to chat with you about this morning, because these are not supposed to be an hour if it's just me. I want to kick off the day. I want to get you going. I want to get you going if you're in the US because it's the morning, whether you're East Coast and it's 8 AM, West Coast and it's 5 AM. I want you to be motivated to think about something today and motivated to get going, because if I sit here and talk to you all day long, Listen, have you noticed that, um, I mean, like, there— first of all, there is content overload right now. Content overload. Like, if you go on Instagram, there's a morning live group, there's a lunchtime group, there's an evening group, and I mean, people are putting out so much content. So while I want to give you content that is helpful to you, Listen, I don't want to, I don't want to be a distraction to you. That's, that's what I'm saying. I'm trying to say in this season, the best thing that you can do is to live your life. And if you're too busy paying attention to me living mine, then I'm doing you a disservice. Okay. Doing you a disservice. Okay. So let me first of all explain to you. Yeah, Renee, I got to get off of social media too. People will say, Chrystal, You're on social media all the time. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. Just because you see me go live in the morning and you may see some posts from me during the day, that does not mean I'm on there all day. Because first of all, some of those posts are planned and scheduled, and I have girls on my team who make sure it goes up. I'm not sitting there doing this, um, because y'all, we got to live our lives, don't we? Can't live our lives looking at a screen all day. Okay, so I do think you should look at the screen for things that are helpful to you. Now's a great time for you to learn. Now's a great time for you to grow. I mean, recipes— come on, YouTube, teach me about the biscuits. But what I'm saying is, if you spend your whole day on the screen— forget the whole day, like 2 or 3 hours of your day on the screen— do you know what you could do with 2 to 3 hours? Anyway, I'm already rambling and I'm on a soapbox. What I want to say is, if you don't know who I am, my name is Chrystal Evans Hurst. You can find out more about me by going to my website, chrystal-evans-hurst.com. And, uh, when you get there, be sure that you drop your email in the box. Not only will you be entered on a journey for prayer— it's a 5-day prayer journey— but also any resources that I mention in any of my lives, by myself or with other people, you don't have to take notes because I'm taking notes for you, and you will get the link to the resources page that is continually being updated every day. So if you don't do anything else then make sure you do that. Sign up for the email list. Okay, now I had some questions, so let me answer these questions super, super quick. And I haven't put the biscuits recipe up, y'all, because I gotta perfect it first. I'm not gonna give y'all a recipe and then y'all gonna go around talking about Chrystal gave me a recipe for some brick biscuits. Nope, y'all not gonna say that about me. I gotta get it where it makes sense to me, and then I'm gonna do that. Like, I made kale chips last night. If you're on Instagram or Facebook, you saw my stories. That I make kale chips with my kid and we love them. But twice now we've made them and some of them are perfect crispy and some of them are soggy. And so I said on Instagram and Facebook, listen, if y'all have tips, let me know. And y'all gave me tips. So let me, let me tell you what the tips are. If you're going to make kale chips and I haven't tried it, but I'm going to, I put 2 bunches of kale on a pan and put it in the oven because I got people who want to eat. And the trick is to not do that much on a pan. Make sure they're all laying flat, because if they're bunched up, basically they'll steam each other. There's too much contact, and the water from one kale will steam the other kale, and then you get soggy. So in order for them to dry out, do less on a pan. Somebody said take all that and do two pans, like separate them. And then I've heard different things— cook them higher, cook them lower— and that's the part I don't know. So I don't like to share recipes until I've actually done it and then I could say this actually worked for me. But we just ate the ones that were crispy, great. And then my kids ate the ones that were like chips. And then because I need the kale— somebody say, in your 40s, almost need the kale— I ate the ones that were soggy. It was still good. I mean, it was just like eating, like, you know, mildly warmed spinach. I mean, you know what I mean? It had that kind of constituencies. Bottom line is it was still good fiber. So I'm still working on that, still working on the biscuits. However, there are lots of good recipes on the resources page. So I want to make sure you are on my email list for that. The Facebook group, let me explain the difference because I keep getting questions. So the Facebook group is free. That's the real difference. It's free. There are almost 5,000 women in there and we are, it's not a free-for-all. We've discussed this so many times where do we want to open the gates and let everybody talk about what they want to talk about? And what we've heard over and over again is that's overwhelming. So what we do is say, here are the questions that we're getting the most of, and we present the question. And then we go to work as sisters and we talk about how to answer that question. So we have focused responses, focused support, and focused encouragement. And we just put content to keep you guys connecting in there all the time. And we're connecting about family, friends, relationships, food, fun stuff, fitness, focus, like getting busy in your career and how to, you know, starting businesses and like all those things, we just tackle them one at a time. So that's how that group is going. And that's how you can join, chrystalhurst.com/facebook. Okay, so the Inner Circle though is different 'cause the Inner Circle gets extra. Everybody gets blog posts, everybody gets podcasts, everybody gets me going on live when I have a rant. But when I have focused content, like when I'm putting, when I edit the podcast and there's extra content, I take some of that content and give it just to the Inner Circle. Stuff like this is bonus content, and that goes just to the Inner Circle. And there are levels to that, but only one level is open right now. At other levels, there's coaching, there's teaching, there's Voxer where I get on live. I just started that where I get on live with a certain level. They have me all day. They can ask me anything they want to ask me, and I will respond directly. So those levels aren't available right now because we're going through an experience together, a 90-day journey. That experience is going to come to an end soon, and I will reopen the other levels. But right now you can jump in at a super low— I think it's like $5— because after all of this bonus content goes away, it goes to its final resting place there. That's, that's the thing. So does that make sense? Hopefully that makes sense. You can email me at Chrystal@ChrystalEvansHurst.com if you don't get it, because I got to talk to you about something. I saw the questions and I wanted to answer the questions, but let me get to what I wanted to talk about today. So what I wanted to talk about today is Setting the atmosphere. I mentioned that yesterday. The name of the Facebook page— I see your question— is the Sister Circle Cafe. That's what you will see when you go in there. Okay, setting the atmosphere. I'd mentioned it yesterday. I talked about turning on music. I talked about dancing with my kids. I talked about all that, and I wanted to go into more detail about how you can set the atmosphere in your home. So I'm going to look— I made some quick notes. Okay, so there are 3 ways. There are probably more, but there are 3 categories in which I want you to set the atmosphere in your home, whether it's for you or whether it's for somebody else. Um, okay, and then I'll take questions at the end. I see your Eat to Live question. I will answer that in a minute. The sights, the sounds, and the smells— sights, sounds, and smells— you get to set the atmosphere in your home because we experience our atmosphere through our senses, right? And so you have sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. Okay, but I'm going to focus on sights, sounds, and smells so that way we don't get too hung up on the recipes, because we know we experience home by tasting, and we know we can experience home by touching. But taste and touch, that's a whole nother thing for another day. Sights, sounds, and smells, because I want you to pay attention to how you have peace or a lack of peace based on how you set the atmosphere in your home. I want you to realize that when your thermometer is on 85 in your house, when your thermostat is on 85 in your house, everybody's hot and miserable and irritable. But if you put it on a temperature that works for you— me and my husband fight over the thermostat. Most people I know who are married fight over the thermostat. He wants it— well, he wants it— he, he, he's schizophrenic about where he wants it. I want it steady, a 72. That's what I want. If I go into a hotel room when I travel, the first thing I do is walk in. I walk in and turn it to 72, because most of the time when I walk in, it's on some ungodly temperature like 65. I'm too cold, I can't function. So I turn it to 72 because that's a temperature that works for me, okay? That's a temperature that works for me. So the thing is, I need you to understand that you got to figure out what works for you and then set the temperature, okay? So let me, let me Let me see if I can do something fun real quick. I'm going to try it, y'all, because you know I'm a geeky girl and I'm trying things. Okay, hold on. Mm, let me choose it. I want to show you what setting the temperature can look like in my home. It doesn't always look like this, but sometimes it does. Sometimes it does. Oh, my computer is not cooperating. Hold on a minute. Trying to see if I can Okay, maybe, maybe this is it. April. Eh, y'all, this is me trying to be, um, date added. Okay, I'll figure that out in a minute. I was trying to add something and it won't, it won't let me be great. It won't let me be great. Okay, give me a sec. Okay, so the point is, um, the sounds. Let me start with that while I work on this. Okay, sound— sights. Sights. For me, I need sunlight. Okay, I need to open a window. Uh, I want to see things that I love in front of me. So on my desk, I have pencils and pens in a cup that has a picture of my dad when he was 18. When I sit down here at my desk. I'm thinking, at 18— he says all the time, I started going when I was 18. I've been going nonstop since I was 18. It reminds me that great things happen when you get to work. So when I sit down and I don't feel like writing that book, or when I don't feel like, you know, recording that video or whatever, I look at that picture. Here's another thing that reminds me. I love Jamie Ivey. I love Jamie Ivey. I love what she does. I love how professional she is. The happy hour, that sits on my desk too. Why do I need coffee mugs on my desk? Two of them? I don't, I don't, but it makes me happy. I always have— I mean, I don't know if I can stretch this over here, but I have this lamp. This lamp makes me happy. It's cute, it's little. I found it at Target. I like it. So there you go. Those are things in front of me that make me happy. A coffee mug, windows. Uh, my mother loved flowers, so every now and then I go to the store, and honestly, the flowers for me aren't about the flowers. They're about how they remind me of her. So I'll get flowers and I'll put them in. And y'all, flowers for me, it's like, oh my gosh, like my husband gets me flowers for my birthday or for anything. I'm like, Jesse, you know me. I don't want— I mean, I don't want flowers. Like, give me an iPhone, you know what I mean? Like, save up your money and give me the new iPhone. Like, technology speaks love. But I've had to realize, you know, you accept what people give you as an acknowledgment of their thought for you. So it's not that I don't like flowers, it's just that in my mind, flowers die. But I've had to learn that even things that— oh, this will preach— only things that last, some things that only last for a season are to be enjoyed, to be intentional about enjoying things that don't last for the express purpose of showing up and being attentive when that thing has life and when that thing is in season. Somebody say amen to that. But I want you to know that the things you see matters. Decluttering matters because for all— some of us, the clutter that's in our lives, we don't even realize how much chaos that is wreaking in our minds and in our hearts, how much stress that brings when we have to look for 15 minutes for a piece of paper when it had been filed correctly that we could just find it when we need it. So what you see, even if you can live with your piles, there's a reason why when you walk into a hotel room and everything's clean and the bed is made, that you go, woo! And then when you come back to the hotel room and somebody else has made that bed and cleaned the room, uh, There's a reason why your soul goes, oh, it's because declutter, clarity, open space, it does something in your mind and in your soul. What you see feeds how you feel. That's what I need you to understand. The second way that you can set the atmosphere is by sounds. So I have a receiver, we have a like a console, and I have a receiver. And while I guess I could play CDs, I don't even know where my CDs are. My CDs need to be organized, y'all. I bought one of those big fat books to organize my CDs, and I probably need another one. That's how many CDs I have. And the reality is going to get a CD takes a lot longer for finding that CD than just playing something on Pandora or Spotify. And my receiver also can take direct instructions from any device that's on my Wi-Fi. So from my phone, I can say, play the Pandora list for Bethel or Hillsong or Travis Greene or Kirk Franklin or Fred Hammond, or, you know, whoever. I can do this and then listen to music that inspires me all day long. Sometimes I listen to classical, My boys don't like that, but I don't care. Sometimes I listen to like massage music, like it makes me feel like that's where I want to be. So in addition to the sights, the things that you see, I want you to understand that you can also set the atmosphere in your home by what you hear. And then the last thing I want you to understand is that you can, you can totally, totally, totally set the atmosphere by, by what you smell. Listen, dirty laundry, dirty kitchen, dirty trash, dirty children. Y'all, burn a candle if you're not a candle burning person. Um, and you know, and if you're into candles, yes to the soy, but also, you know, get a diffuser. Now, you know, my whole family is Young Living, and I'm so mad about that. And y'all, today I got off at a hard stop at 7:15 yesterday because I had a team call So this is 50— I'm not gonna go an hour, but I might go for 25 minutes. So y'all give me a break because I got some more stuff I need to say. Okay, so I want you to understand that my whole family is a Young Living family. One day they may suck me in, but the point is I told all of them about this years ago. I told my sister about homeschooling years ago. My family was laughing at me for baking bread years ago. I said, you know what, you might want to think about essential oils. I said that Years ago I talked about growing your own food every now and then for the food that really matters. Years ago. I want you to know I used to drive 30 minutes from my house to go get chicken where I knew that there was a meetup that we were getting chicken from the actual person who raised the chickens and slaughters the chicken, so I wouldn't be getting my chicken injected from the grocery store. Do you know my people laughed at me? Do you know they laughed at me? What they doing now? That's what I want to know. What are they doing? My sister homeschooled her kids, uh, now she's getting the organic whatever, ordering straight from the man who butchered the, the man, and she's getting a whole calf in her freezer. Listen, I'm like, y'all gonna stop laughing at me? And what I've decided is that I'm just 10 years ahead of the curve. So when I say something and they laugh at me, I just do like this now. Just wait. That's what I say. That's what I say now, because y'all not gonna make me feel stupid. I just realized I'm ahead of the curve. The reality is I probably am. When you become a parent at 19, you know, there are certain things that you start thinking about because you're, you know, on a different trajectory, you know what I mean? You're just, you're thinking a little differently. So I'm just realizing that I'm wiser. So anyway, yes to all those things, but smells— so candles Yes to diffusers and essential oils, but you don't have to— you know, they're going to kill me. My Young Living people are going to kill me because I understand, I understand, doTERRA and Young Living oil people about the processing of the oils. But I'm saying if you just want a less toxic way to get smells in your home, essential oils. I mean, I have some on my desk right here from Massage Envy, and I have a diffuser a friend gave me. I think she got it from TJ Maxx. I'm just saying, start where you are. You know what I'm saying? Start where you are. But I don't want to just talk about those smells. Okay, I want to talk about food. One of the best memories, one of the best memories, okay, is how we would wake up on Sunday mornings because my mother started dinner the night before. We would wake up to the sound of the Crock-Pot going— not the Crock-Pot, the, um, pressure cooker. That's what we woke up to because she was preparing Sunday dinner. Waking up in the morning to the smell of breakfast, those are the sights and sounds and smells of home. So I don't want you to minimize what you bake because, oh, I'm just baking some cookies. And it doesn't matter if it's Pillsbury's and you cut them up or you made it from scratch. I mean, it does matter because, you know, health and hydrogenated fats. But what I'm saying is, as we're talking about smells, I want your children, I want you, I want your roommate, I want your spouse, I want your guests when we get back to having guests in our home to remember that when they came in, Headed— hey, Mimi Nurse, I want to say hi to you on Instagram. You're heading back to work. We are praying for you today, okay? We are praying for you today. Thank you for joining us. Okay, when people come to your home, for them to go— the register, the smells of your home. When I came in, there was— when I woke up in the morning, there was coffee brewing, or, you know, she was making me tea. The smells set the atmosphere. So I want you to think, okay? I want you to think about this. When you can think about the places you love going to the most most, okay? The places you love going to the most. I want you to think of what are the sights, the sounds, and the smells that make you happy when you're there, okay? I want you to think about what are the sights, the smells, because one of the things that makes my husband happy is the feeling that he just entered a hotel room. He's just like— and he literally does this, y'all. He goes, "Oohooohoo." That's what he does. So I was running around the other day with— oh, this is not going to work the way I want it to. I was running around the other day with my vacuum and with the spray. There's a spray my mother used to buy me. I don't even know what it's called. And I don't even think, I don't even think it's in here. I used to keep it in here. It's downstairs in my office. But anyway, there's a spray and I love the way it smells. So I buy it. She always would buy it for me. Now I buy it for myself. It's not a cheap spray, but it is a non-toxic room smelling situation. And I was just walking around after vacuuming and smelling it and he came out of the room and he just said, "Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh." That's what he does. That's what he does. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. He gets excited. You know, if my, if I'm baking something in the kitchen, the kids run to the kitchen. Mommy, what are you making? Okay. And I want you to know that when I have guests come over and I brew coffee, you know, after a good meal, it just breeds the atmosphere for conversation. What will set the atmosphere right now while you are spending more time than you ever have spent before at home? What will do that for you? And be intentional about doing that. I never make up the bed. I never make up the bed because why? I'm gonna get back in it. But I have to tell you that when I'm on an intentional scenario, I turn around and I just turn over the covers. I don't make a whole situation of it. I just turn over the covers. What I'm saying today, I'm going to be intentional about making sure that my space breathes life into me. And I tell my children that if you want me to be a person who is godly today You will keep the spaces clean. I don't want— no, we don't bring our devices to the table. That's not what speaks life to me. No, when it's time to eat, I know you had schoolwork on there. Take all that stuff and put it on your shelf. Everything has a home. And y'all, I am not ultra, ultra organized. I have Type A tendencies, but I don't have Type A discipline. So the reality is, is that I have to constantly work at— and y'all should see some piles that are around me right now— I have to constantly work at it because the decision-making of what to give and what to throw away and what to keep is stressful. But I always am working on it because I know that the sights and the sounds and the smells of my environment work. I write best when I go to Starbucks. Okay, it's something, it's a trigger for me. Coffee smells, the music, a quiet space, kind of sort of, you know, set the mood. I love the paint on the walls. The colors speak life to me. I've said a million times The colors of a Starbucks need to be the colors of my home or my website, something, because they are life-giving to me. Okay, you said you're Type B, Jamie. I'm a Type A person by design that I think is living in a Type B world because I've never been an adult without being a mom. I just, I can't keep up because I've always been balancing a million things. So I'm a, I'm a, you know, Amber type. But anyway, um, so there's a problem because now I gotta write from home. And I'm like, how? What? I don't write from home. I write it— I write at coffee shops. So the question is, is what can I do in my atmosphere to set the stage for me being my most creative, most in touch with myself self? Okay, that means I got to put on my headphones, noise canceling, put in the mood, something that's not going to distract me. That means I do need to have a candle that does something. And y'all, as quiet as it kept, as weird as this is, Okay, I have this lotion right here. Okay, my— we got married the first year of marriage, my husband and I. Okay, we went to Hot Springs, Arkansas, and we went to this store, and I love the smell of this lotion. So I got some lotion, and it was a little bitty thing, and he was like, I cannot believe you spent all that money on some lotion. I think— I mean, you know, I don't know, but I just said, you don't understand, my senses, you know, they matter. They matter to me. They totally matter. And so, um, 20 years later, I'm a happy woman when I put that lotion on my hands. And you know what, 20 years later, he's gotten over himself and he just realizes some things are worth making your woman happy. If it's in her allowance, if it's in her budget, do the thing. So what I'm telling you is you get to control— while there are a lot of things you cannot control right now There are a lot of things you can control. You don't have to declutter your whole house. 15 minutes a day, even if you're— Priscilla, stop doing that! Stop showing up on my live saying that. What is going on in here? That's what she always does on Instagram, y'all. She says, what is going on in here? Anyway, my point is you get to set the atmosphere for your home. Actually, Priscilla is a person who early on in her marriage, she had these books from a lady named Tammy on her on her, um, and Priscilla, you have to tell me if those books are even still in print because I'll share them if they are. But they were about the sights and the smells of home. You know, Priscilla first got married, she had these mums on her front porch. They lived in this little apartment. You would come and they had a welcome mat with these mums. And every day, you know, married, no kids, when her husband came home, she would have this beautiful tablescape, this beautiful setting. And then she would have— there was this corn salad. Priscilla, I need the recipe for the corn salad. Y'all, she's on Instagram. She's She, you know, she would have this corn salad and she made it. It was in this pretty glass bowl. And y'all, I was just trying to make it out alive. You know, I was at work going to work my job. I had to be there at 7, be on the— it was a call center. I worked for a money management company. I had to be on the phone at 7. I had a kid. I was trying to get to work. I took my kid to my parents' house. I put her in the bed with them. They took her to school. After work, I came home. I went to the gym because I was trying not to get fat. Then I came home. Then I made dinner. Listen, we ate ravioli out of a can. And so I would look at Priscilla and be like, I aspire to that one day. I mean, she's, she's just in general more presentation oriented than I am. And I appreciate that about her. But I've learned over time that while presentation matters and there's a season and a time for that, really the memories that you create for yourself and the sense of welcomeness in your home you can create with or without presentation. Because really what it is, is focus on the sights and the sounds and the smell. When I look back at pictures of our home when my mother— when we were younger, oh my gosh, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't decorated. My mother remodeled our home, I think twice, at least twice, maybe a third time, different rooms in the home. But, but the point is, when we were younger, and I remember coming in from playing outdoors and dinner was cooking. I remember that. It wasn't because her house was designed. We have memories because she did things and she did them consistently. And I want to say showing up for yourself, showing up for your roommate, showing up for your friends, showing up for your children, showing up for your spouse consistently and saying that your presence matters in this home. And I want to cater sights, sounds, and smells to you. So this becomes a place of respite, of, of, of restoration, of peace. You can do that in simple, simple ways. You know what I always do? I put something on the table for snacks for my kids, and they'll come to me and say, what are you going to put on the table today? That tells me it's locked in. They have a sight and an experience of something being on the table for them. Okay. And y'all, I put it in a little old Tupperware bowl and it's pistachio nuts. And you put the pistachios, the empty ones over here. It's not deep, but I have a friend who makes a whole charcuterie board. For her children every time when they get home from school. I bet she ain't doing that shakuter board every day right now, but my point is that's what works for her. Find out what works for you— the sights, the sounds, and the smells— and know that when you set the atmosphere for your home, you win. Okay, so here's the deal, y'all. I'm about to show a video, and I will post this video on Instagram after I'm done. And y'all, it may not even show up right on YouTube and Facebook, but I'm gonna put it in the stream for YouTube and Facebook. Because y'all need to understand that I create these memories for my families in crazy, crazy ways. Because sometimes, y'all, I'm just trying to stay alive up in here. You understand what I'm saying? I'm just trying to stay alive. Okay, in this video, I didn't test it out beforehand because I'm whack. Yes, just throw it away. God loves me. You got the kale? Video. Yes, Jesus loves me. Bye! You know this song, sing. I'm not lucky, I'm loved. Yeah, I'm not lucky, I'm loved. I'm not lucky, I'm Oh, salmon! About to be a good meal. Okay, that's what I was doing. I was singing to, uh, what's his name, what's his name? That's, um, Jonathan McReynolds. If you don't know about Jonathan McReynolds, you need to know about him. You need to know about Jonathan McReynolds. Anyway, y'all, I put on music in my home that feeds my soul. Because if Mama ain't happy, nobody's happy. I know you want to see the video, Priscilla. Stop coming up in my lives and, and stirring stuff up. You're just in here stirring stuff up. Okay, so anyway, y'all, that's my lesson for today. So let me end with this. Let me end with this quick thing. Last night I bought a picnic table. Because really, y'all, my husband is losing his mind. He's like, do you need something from the store? Do you need me to run an errand? Do you need to take something to the post office? He's just like, oh my gosh, please God, give me something to do. So, and the funny thing is, okay, let me just— okay, I promise y'all I'm gonna bring it because I'm not gonna go for an hour. I'm not, I'm not. Okay, so the thing with him is if I send him to the grocery store for stuff that ain't normal, then I gotta— then he gonna FaceTime me because he knows I want him to get it right. Which I appreciate. But if I have to be on FaceTime for the whole grocery store trip, I might should have just gone myself. So I sent him to the store for things that are easy, and then the specifics— because listen, y'all, one time he went to the store and he brought back— I asked him for some dark chocolate almonds and he brought back the sugar-free. Now I don't want the sugar-free. I don't want to— I don't want the stuff with the O's in it, you know, fructose, whatever the extra O's are. I want the regular. Anyway, so certain things that are super crucial, I'm like, that's okay, I'll go myself. But anyway, yesterday I sent him on some errands. We needed to drop something off at a friend's house, um, that she left here. She left her cooler here for me so I could receive meals after my mom died. People were dropping off meals at the door, which is a tip, by the way. If, if you are helping somebody who lost somebody and just the stress of people coming to the door, ringing the door, and everybody wants to have a conversation, everybody wants to have a hug put a cooler on the front door and instruct people to drop off the meal in the cooler, and the family will get it. That's just a lifesaver. But he was delivering the cooler back to the original owner, okay? So he did that, and then I was like, I wanted a picnic table. So he went and picked up the picnic table, okay? So I told the boys, you either have to put the picnic table together today or you have to put it in the garage, because I saw on the weather that it's supposed to rain all day, and we can put it together. So y'all, these jokers didn't put the picnic table together. They put it in the garage, of course, because they didn't want to do it. When I went in the garage to see the picnic table, they shouldn't have put it in the garage because then I went in the garage and saw the foolery that they've been leaving things around in there, bikes out of order. We put out the recycling every Wednesday. I don't think they've been putting out the entirety of it for months because there were this whole stack of— so then enter the garage organization. So we spent 30 minutes in the garage reorganizing. And my husband said, and y'all, we are in a house that's smaller. And we are using our garage partial for storage. So it is what it is. So my husband said, oh, now you cleared your space again to park your car in here? He said, is that what you're trying to do? And I said, nope. I mean, maybe. I said, but the reality is, is I just needed to walk in here and feel like I have clarity. I know where things are and it's not chaos. And I want you to know that in the chaos going on in our lives right now, the few minutes every day that you— it's going to take you to bring a little bit of order and intentionality to your day through the sights, the sounds, and the smells in your home. There's a lot of things you cannot control, but you can control that when I go into my garage to get some chicken out of my freezer, that I don't nearly kill myself trying to get around bikes that are on the ground, that I don't step on some boxes that have things in them that are important, that I'm not afraid that something living is going to run out behind some stuff that has been thrown together in a pile. I want to walk, go get the chicken out of the freezer and feel happy. And as minor as that is, you going to the freezer in your garage and feeling this— that matters. You coming into the kitchen and waking up in the morning to a clean kitchen because your kids cleaned the kitchen the night before, or because you had the discipline to clean it out the night before, at least put the things in the dishwasher, that matters. If you wake up in the morning and I literally can turn on my music from my phone before I ever step out of the bedroom, that matters. Set the signs and my children know it. I say to them, turn on the music. And they go, mom, why do we have to do that? Because I said so. And because you want me to be a good mother today, turn on the music. And they know. They, they like, do you want Travis, Massage, Bethel, Hillsong, Shirley Caesar? What do you want? And depending on what I need, that's what I tell them. If I need to rev up, I need some high worship. If I need to calm down, if a kid is having a bad day, trouble focusing, I turn on the classical. I need you to understand, y'all, you have power to control certain things, even in a season of uncontrollable things. Okay, it's 7:34. You're not gonna get me to lying about being on here too long. If you just came on and you're like, who in the world is this and what is she talking about? I always close with what I opened with. ChrystalHurst.com. Make sure you're on my email list. If this video has been helpful to you, listen, help me because algorithms on Facebook, YouTube, and all the things don't help me unless you help me get the word out. So share the video with somebody that you think this might be useful for. If you are interested in seeing the bonus content, after it's archived and after it goes into its final resting place, you can check out the Inner Circle, chrystalevanshurst.com/innercircle. And if you're looking for community, please join us on Facebook in the Sister Circle group, chrystalevanshurst.com/facebookgroup. Now I'm gonna stay on for 5 more minutes because y'all not gonna get me to lie and take some questions. I saw the questions, y'all, but they, they did like this. They did like this. And I'm giving my team a break. They're helping me on Mondays with things. The rest of the week, they not having to make extra videos and do stuff for social media and do all the things and take— so I'm taking questions myself. I'm a one-woman show right now. If you have questions, I will stay on and take your questions. I did see somebody earlier asked me about why I stopped doing Eat to Live. Joel Fuhrman. So I did Eat to Live in 2000 7. I lost 25 pounds in 6 weeks. I felt great. My head was clear. It was awesome. Um, and the weight came off and I wasn't hungry. Um, here's the thing, my kids were also at summer camp and I had the bandwidth to think about food all day. My issue always is I know how to lose weight. Um, but the problem is, is the things that I do to lose weight, which generally are healthy options, um, I It's not realistic for me to maintain it. It's hard. I, I, and I'm a goal-oriented person, so I do something and then it's over, and then I'm like, all right, back to normally scheduled programming. So that was why I, I, it was a lot of food prep and I didn't do it gradually. So what I'm doing to lose weight right now is all the things I know, y'all, because I, I know all the things. I know all the things. I know the, the spectrum of healthiness, meaning yes, I know what it could be to be a vegan and eat organic, and I think that that would actually be a great way to live. Am I actually gonna do that though? You know, am I actually gonna do that when I go to Priscilla's house and her grandmother, uh, I mean her mother-in-law Granny fixes fried chicken, or Jerry put some, um, some short ribs on the grill? Am I actually gonna not eat that? Am I actually gonna give up bacon? No, I'm not. Bacon is meat candy, and I believe it's from Jesus in a kind of sort of twisted way. But what I'm saying is that I can moderate those things. I don't have to do them all the time, and I can decide that I do them for special occasions. Right? So I want to eat mostly plant-based and make allowances for what I enjoy in my life, what I feel like God has allowed in my life, and what I feel like is a balanced diet. And I got to figure out for me what that is based on my life, based on the things I like to eat. Like, listen, I love cheese. If I'm gonna give up cheese, which I have not, by the way, um, if I'm gonna give it up because I realize— I understand, I understand about cheese, I understand that it causes a lot of allergic reactions in a lot of our bodies. I understand that we were not designed to break it down. I understand that we are the only race that eats another animal's, another being's milk after— I mean, I understand all that, but I love cheese. So in order for me to not eat cheese, that means that I have to find substitutes that I enjoy just the same. And that takes time. It takes time to take, you know, 30, 40 years of what you've learned to like, what you've learned to eat and to change it. Now, I say that And then a lot of people make instantaneous changes when their health demands it. So I'm also making some hard decisions about things that I'm just not going to do. I'm just, I'm just not going to do it. I don't fry. I fry, I've, I've, I can, I've fried 5 times in 20 years almost of marriage. I just don't. I'm like, if my husband wants to run through Golden Chick, if he wants to run through KFC, if he wants to run through Popeyes, if he wants to run through churches, that's his business. But I'm not going to contribute to the early cause of death, just sticking all the stuff in the Now, that said, I might be a little bit hypocritical because I will eat a French fry in a minute. Okay, so that's that. All right, um, any question? I'm scrolling back through for questions. Black bean recipe, y'all, I have black beans. Thank you so much. I had people send me black beans, and I'm about to cook all the black beans, and you're about to get all the recipes that you want. Keto means no carbs. That's my problem. Okay, I'm looking for questions. I see comments, but I'm looking for questions if y'all have other questions. Uh, oh, okay, so I answered that one question. I'll eat— I'll take two more questions if I see them. How do you keep your insanity— your sanity? You said insanity, but I think you meant sanity with all this going on in the world. You know, I just focus on what I can control, and I can't control everything. I mean, I could stress out and say, I'm not going to go to the store because the store has germs. Or I can say, I'm going to do my part. I'm going to wash my hands. I'm going to be intentional about what I touch. I'm going to wear my mask. I'm going to be careful about who I'm around. I'm going to do my part to lower the curve. I don't care what they open back up. Listen, y'all, I know a lot of us have to do what we have to do. So I'm not talking to you. I'm saying when they open back up, um, these salons, getting your nails done and going to the movies and all that. You get to decide whether or not you're gonna be smart. That's what I'm telling you. I'm— that's not in any judgment. I'm saying you get to decide how smart you're gonna be. Going to work is one thing. Going to get your nails done, that's a whole nother situation. You might need to soak them off for a time and learn to love what God gave you. But anyway, that's my opinion. Take it or leave it. I see you, Kelly Courtright. Did you get on the email list finally? She's saying essential oils from Aromatics International. Okay, I'm looking for questions. Y'all bear with me because I have to look. Oh, I'm gonna put this one on screen because I'm about to put all of these questions to rest. Okay, so DeeDee Jones on YouTube said, how do you care for your beautiful dewy skin? I so wish that I could take credit for this. The truth of the matter is that I've always washed my face with whatever I have, meaning Dial soap, Ivory soap. Uh, now I shop at Costco, so Costco Kirkland's brand works for me. Um, but when I try to be extra, then my mother sold Mary Kay, and honestly, I would just go and raid her closet and say, Mom, I'll pay you. And she would say, that's okay. And I would say, great. So now that my mom is no longer going to be giving me her Mary Kay. Uh, I gotta figure out if I'm gonna actually still do Mary Kay because I was doing Mary Kay on default. But I mean, I've always moisturized my face, um, with anything. With— if I'm in the car and I forgot to moisturize my face, I just grab whatever hand lotion is available. I keep a hand— a hand lotion in the car that I will put on my face in a minute. So I just wash my face, that's it. And I wear makeup when I have to. I don't wear makeup on a daily basis. I don't wear makeup on a daily basis at all. So hopefully that answers your question, but I do think Mary Kay has great products, but I think that, you know, I also take off makeup with, y'all, um, when I'd run out of the stuff that's expensive, I also take off makeup with, um, um, coconut oil. It's the best makeup remover and face washer, I think, and it's cheap. Okay, that hand lotion was a Hava. It was a Hava lotion. Okay, I took a question from YouTube. Let me see if I missed one on Instagram. I answered the Eat to Live question, so I did do that. Homeschooling recommendations. Okay, let me, let me talk, let me talk about this for a second. Oh, the scar on my chin, that's from me falling in San Francisco. I went biking, hit on the brakes, went over the edge, busted my chin, broke my finger, and fractured my elbow. And then I've been back to bike the bridge a few times since. Maybe we'll put in the comments for this. Y'all remind me, whoever on my team is watching this, remind me to put in the comments, in the notes for this live, the link to my podcast where I talk about biking the bridge. Okay, cornbread recipe. Oh, I do, I got a cornbread recipe. I'll put that in the, in the thing as well. Okay, I gotta write that down. Okay, um, I forgot where I was going. Oh, homeschooling. So here's the thing, um, that I will say about homeschooling. Okay, so you have to decide what kind of homeschooler you're going to be. Right now, if you're homeschooling at home because you are forced to be doing it, you don't worry about it. Just do whatever the teachers gave you, do the minimum, and make sure you enjoy your children. I mean, make them read. If they're done with school at 12 o'clock, oh my gosh, make them get online, get a library card, and make them read something online through OverDrive, or, you know, ebooks, or Audible. Listen to a book together as a family. Like, read and develop shared memories as you read and, and put stuff— okay, so that, that said, relieve your stress, okay? Make sure your kids get their schoolwork done. And if you need rhythm help, if you need rhythm help, uh, somewhere I have rhythm help. Oh shoot. I think it's over there. Um, but we can put in a blog. I have examples of time management. Um, but, but here's what I need you to understand. Make sure they have breaks to leave you alone and make sure you have breaks to leave them alone. Everybody needs time alone. If you're homeschooling homeschooling, because you actually are the responsible party for ensuring that the curriculum choices are purchased and that you are— you're the heavy— you're not only the teacher, you're the principal and the cook and everything else, and nobody is giving you a curriculum to follow, like they're responsible for grading and all that, then I, I love sunlight. The reason why we have so many books in our home is because I love sunlight. But sunlight at one point got hard for us to do. It got hard for us to do because it was a lot of reading and I had to go to work. I had to work. I started writing and speaking and traveling and um, working at my church. I went to work slowly but surely. I got more to do, and it was a blessing because my husband was ill, so I had to work. And reading all those books with everybody got hard, uh, it got hard. So we shifted down, and I started homeschooling with my sister Priscilla. We shifted down to My Father's World, which was a little more planned and doable, and the amount of reading was less, a little less. Um, but I kind of have now added Sunlight back in because we love the books and I have the books. And my youngest son says, why do I have to read all of these books? And I'm like, because I own them and because I remember when I read this book out loud to my other children, and it's a great book, and I need you to, um, understand. But I also— y'all did a whole YouTube Live on homeschooling resources that's available. It's not like an Inner Circle bonus. Anybody can do it, and I will put a link to that in the resources today. So make sure you're on my email list. I want to take a question from Facebook and then I will wrap it up. Uh, what are your thoughts on screen time? Y'all, I did a sister session last night, um, and I had to delete it because we— I mean, it was great, but it was for that audience and that audience alone. Once it was done, it was done. We were talking about children, particularly boys, and the instructions we give them with how to make sure they keep themselves clean. It was great, and then I deleted it. Okay, so the thing is, um, screen time. I'm torn right now because they do have extra time and I want them to have fun with their friends. And a big part of boys and, um, um, and their connection honestly is when they play online with friends. And so since they're not seeing their friends, I've been a little tempted. My son, I let him get on last night and he played a game, um, and I will think of the name of that game. I think it was Fun Run 3. Was it Fun Run 3? Uh, I'll have to look that up too. But anyway, and then they got on a Zoom call and they played together. It was great. It was great. And I'm glad he did it. So right now I told the boys, don't even ask me about screens till 4. There's a list of things on the whiteboard until you finish your schoolwork, taking out the trash, whatever's on the list for the day. Don't even bother asking me at 4 o'clock. You can ask me, you're not going to ask me that all day at 4 o'clock. And I'll tell you, but that means every day I'm setting them up for a yes or a no. And then maybe they're disappointed. If I had to pick a rule right now, I would say one day midweek they get to do it. Today's the day to do it. And then they can do it on the weekend after their chores are done and after all the things are done that they have a limit, a certain amount of time, whatever it is, 5 hours on the weekend, spend it how you like, you know? And then I think at a certain time on Sundays, I'd be like, okay, that's it. Cause we're going to bring the atmosphere back into my home. There's something that hearing all those video games. I mean, my husband watches sports. It's the same thing. It's just like, I'm just like, turn down the noise. It's just noise to me, but that's me. It's, it's, it's loveliness to their ears. So right now I would say, because my kids are homeschooled, they never have— they rarely have homework. My oldest one does, cuz— but he's a junior in high school. I would say we grew up with no screens. We watched The Cosby Show on Thursday night. That was it. And I think we're fine. I would say no screens during the week, during school, if your kids are in school and have homework. I would say if you're a homeschooling mom, want to give them like a little midweek fun, then give that to them. But I think generally speaking, screens every day, whether it's TV, video games, or whatever, it's just, there are other things to do with their time. And I told my boys that last night, get on YouTube and learn something, learn how to build videos in Adobe Premiere so that when you work on putting your videos on your YouTube channel, you've learned some skills. Do things that are productive. My one son likes to play the theme songs for his video games. All right, get on YouTube and learn some of those, um, teach yourself to play the piano. Do that. Be productive. How else are you going to develop your passions and all these other things if you never put time into them? And they will never put time into anything else if they can default to screens. So my thing is I want them to follow passions, and their passions are more than Final Fantasy, you know, or for my youngest son, Fortnite. So I'm giving— if you— and if you don't force them to do it, they won't. Make them be bored because boredom is the mother of invention and creativity and discovery, and it forces them to play together. So that's, that's my answer to that. Okay, so if you have questions and I didn't answer, if I didn't answer, um, don't worry, I'll be back tomorrow and I will take a few questions from the audience. Okay, so I'm not ignoring you, I can only just do so much today. See y'all at 7:48. I didn't stay on for an hour. I even showed y'all a video today. I even came on with an intro graphic and a countdown timer. I'm so proud of myself. Aren't y'all proud of me? Okay, I will talk to you later. I'm logging off of Facebook, YouTube, and Periscope right now. See you later. Don't forget to subscribe.