Putting Life in Perspective: Boundaries, Change & One Step at a Time

Welcome to We Should Probably Edit This, but we won't.

This is about our life's messy journey.

It's unscripted, talks about growth, real laughs, sometimes real laughs, sometimes just the chaos, and, and we think there's a little bit of comedy here.

Everything.

It's about our 37 years of marriage and our experience. I'm Matthew Greger.

And I'm Nancy Greger. And we're your host of We Should Probably Edit This.

But we won't. And we probably should have edited that. So here's our next episode.

Yes.

Hi, this is the second episode of 2026. Ooh, so what is our subject today? Or do we need to have a subject at all and just, just talk?

Ramble? I don't know if we want to ramble. I think we were, we were going to be discussing the—

see, this is what happens when you get older.

We have these—

we make these decisions earlier on, right after church. We had some good ideas. And then we had our 3-hour ultra call today with our friends, which was actually really good. I mean, it's so important to surround yourself with like-minded people, like-minded people and just good friends.

Yes.

You know, are you cold?

Yes, I am. That's why I'm good. The fire's up, but my neck gets— for some reason, the back of my neck.

Well, my head usually gets pretty chilly. That's why I wear my cap.

Um, well, I think that the church topic was, I think, putting things into perspective.

Yeah, it was why God? Why?

Why God? Why?

Why do things happen?

That was the topic. And, um, I think when you look at it, when you're in the moment, or sometimes you're in that messy middle, it can be— it can be hard for you to see where that's going to take you and why do you have to go that particular path? You know, what led you to that situation?

Or if you have problems or you're in the middle of a real heartache and hardship right now, just remember it's a blip when you think about it for the entire— your entire lifetime.

It's— listen, putting those things into perspective I think is a long journey. And I think it's something you really have to work at and really something that you have to set your mind to. It's like constantly evolving. And that's why people say the older you get, the wiser you get. And I really do believe that the wiser you become and the part of your life where you, you know what to take seriously. And what to not take so seriously. And it could just be, you know, life's mortality, right? We're only here on this earth for a very short period of time. And but it's hard.

Speak for yourself.

It's hard.

I'm going to make the tricentennial.

Good luck. Somehow. I won't be.

I'll be 112. Good luck with that. But I still have my bicentennial coins and and dollar bills and stuff.

Go for that. But it's a matter of putting things into perspective, I think. And when you're young, that's really hard.

So give an example. What do you, what do you mean? What do you mean? What's different now versus maybe when you were in your 20s?

Probably the big difference now is what you are willing to tolerate. And you're— you've set up new boundaries. What are you willing to tolerate and what are you just not willing to tolerate any longer? And for me, I think it's become to the point where there are certain people I'm willing to tolerate and certain behaviors I'm not. And it's, it's just to the point where I'm like, this doesn't serve me. And so therefore I, I don't want to be around it.

So in other words, earlier on in your earlier life, you would have just put up with certain things.

Yeah, because, just because, because it was either the way you did it, it was, well, it could have been how it was presented to you.

Could have been a parent of your family. It also could have been a parent of one of your kids' friends. You know, that you sometimes our friends in the missing middle aren't friends that we necessarily chose. But they're friends that came along with maybe our kids or other acquaintances. And they weren't friends you necessarily would have chosen on your own, aligned with. So you put up with different behavior that you wouldn't necessarily— well, we wouldn't do now.

Yeah. Well, it's apparent because they're not in our lives now. All those people that were in our lives in the very early stages when our kids were all small and they were all in school, they're not in our lives.

There's only one couple.

One couple. Yeah. But overall, there were a lot of people back then. But overall, no. Yeah, no. And I think it's because everybody evolves in a certain way. And I think everybody changes. I think everybody changes, whether you realize it or not. I think everybody changes. Something happens in your life.

You've definitely changed.

Changed. I definitely changed.

Yes, you have. You've evolved and changed.

You want to evolve. You want to, you want to be able to move forward for sure. But it's a matter of, I think, putting things into perspective, really putting things into perspective. Like this whole move of ours, you know, going through so many things and realizing that, you know, for me, the objective very early on when I was younger was the things you want to— that would quantify success would be a good family, you know, children, work, a home that was your home. Those were things that people strive for and they still strive for them today.

How about an awesome husband or spouse? Come on.

Well, being married.

You didn't strive for that?

Being married. Those were all things that in the very beginning is what you worked at, right? That you really pushed yourself to achieve.

And there were certain things too that you wanted to achieve. Like when you got married, there were certain things like, for instance, we still had the crystal from when we got married.

Yeah.

You know, but what we haven't used it in years. What, you know, there's things.

Matthew, let me finish my thought.

All right, fine. I'm just interjecting.

Non interject. Wait till I'm done with my thought.

Okay.

So when you have all of that and you've worked for all of that, and now you've made a decision that's counterintuitive of what that beginning was all about, and that is, I'm just going to sell my house and I'm going to rent. I'm not going to buy anything. And everybody looks at you like, are you okay? You know, are you losing your house? Have you said something dramatically occurred? Because why in your right mind would you sell your house? And I think to some extent I was battling that particular problem. I was battling in my head, why, why am I doing this? You know, I look at my house and what we've achieved since we decided to put the house on the market, and you sit back and everyone— we sent the link out to everybody and everyone looks at the house and says, my God, it's It's beautiful. You guys did a beautiful job.

And I'm like, I know, especially, especially when you look at the listing and the photos that they look so good when we bought the house, you know, the difference between what it was and what it is now.

Yes, it is a big difference.

It shows the quality of the work we can do.

The objective of it all is, is that you've worked that hard, you've achieved that. And, and then I kind of sat back and said, well, you know, it's not my first house. This is my third house that I've purchased, renovated, sold, purchased, renovated.

It's not our last house either.

And no, it's not. But it's the mindset that if you've done it repetitively, there's nothing to say you won't do it again. It's more or less the moment and the satisfaction that it's bringing us now is that it's taking us to that next level of where we really needed to be. And who knows where we're gonna go? We still don't know where we're gonna go. I mean, we've committed to 2 more years in the same town we're living in.

Right. And then after that, who knows?

You know, who knows? Maybe this podcast will kick off and we can go anywhere in the world.

I can get a tiny house on wheels and the satellite, what's What is it? What's Elon Musk's satellite? Starlink. We can get Starlink and we can go anywhere we want. So we'll have the tiny house on wheels and then we'll have the tiny house on a boat and then we can go anywhere.

Those are so not my determinations. So maybe Mr.

Greger is going to be doing that all on my head.

No, then it defeats the purpose. Then it defeats the purpose. Yeah. So that's not my purpose. That's not what we do.

We do want to try. We did agree that to at least maybe try a week of each. Like renting one of those tiny little houses on wheels or like a small boat, you know, that we could try and sleep in.

I've already made myself very clear on the size of boat that I need to have.

Okay, well, I mean, when I say small, I don't mean a cruise ship. I don't mean a cruise ship. I mean, I mean, a decent ship that we could try. I mean, I don't want to invest or do something like that in that either without knowing whether or not that I actually want to sleep like this.

Yeah, I don't know about that. I have motion sickness already. I don't think I could.

You've done pretty good. You haven't had it in a while. No, you really haven't. We've flown quite a bit and you haven't had to put your little funky bracelet on.

My little funky bracelet things on to the pressure point. Yeah, no, but so it's— I think, like I said, it's putting things into perspective and kind of saying to yourself, is this really something that you should be overly concerned about, or whether or not you're making the right decisions or not?

Um, so what are you looking forward to for this year?

I'm looking forward to some traveling, but as much as I want to be able to travel, there's still restrictions to that, and that is we both have J-O-Bs that limit your amount of time that you can take off. Um, so it has to be very, very strategic and planned. Correct.

And, and it has to be budgeted because we also agreed with this process that we are going to set aside money to travel. We're not going to use credit cards. We're not going to use funds we don't have.

Correct. We don't have the money, you don't go.

Right.

So, um, so it was kind of like that. I'm definitely looking forward to doing more.

I know we have one trip for sure.

That's the San Diego. To me, that's almost like a work trip. It's not necessarily what I would call a a vacation, a chosen destination. Yes, a chosen— it's not a chosen destination. If you had asked me, hey, do you want to go to California for the, you know, 20th time, I would have said no, I'm done with California. I've gone to San Francisco, up to Napa, all the way down. One always just to LA, Santa Barbara.

I still like the coast. Malibu.

I'm done.

Okay.

What about you?

What about me? What?

What are you thinking for 2026?

Well, for 2026, um, I also am looking forward to traveling. What I think I'm looking forward to the most is just a little, um, not relaxation is not the right word for it, but less responsibilities. Um, just coming home and knowing that I don't need to do anything, any projects when it comes to like house projects or things like that. Um, I am looking forward to getting back into finishing my audiobook, which, which I might actually be able to do now because we're pretty much in a wait-and-see mode for a little bit before we start packing. So we have a few weeks before.

Yeah, we have a couple of weeks before we start.

We have to finish the basement just a little bit, which we might be able to do after this. But I want to, um, I think I should, I should have some time to actually start finishing up, maybe, maybe even finish my recording before we move. So, so that would be, that would be my goal, to get that going and then exploring what we can do here with with this podcast and building out maybe an event, actually starting to promote it more. Hey, if you're actually listening, please share. We should probably edit this, but we won't. And if you have comments or you think—

other topics you want couples to discuss, we'd certainly be interested in hearing what—

and if you want to appear on the show with us, please let us know.

That would be Fun.

Yes.

So much fun.

Yes. So I'm looking forward to kind of a reset. I think that's the way to do it. I feel like this process has been a purging process a little bit and making me really realize what's really important. I do want to set up a group coaching for those less fortunate, whether that's a through a nonprofit, through the church, through some organization that I can work with either young men or young people to really help them get a direction of where they want to go. So that's where I'm going to be focusing my coaching on this year as a giveback. And then we'll see where it goes from there.

Yeah, that sounds good. I think that sounds— I think that's more exploring, especially with the church and what other things we're going to be doing.

I know we're going to take one course with them.

You know, with that, we'll have to see where that leads us to. We're certainly enjoying going to church every Sunday. I think that's, um, that's been a great aha, that we finally found a place that we feel very comfortable in and enjoy going. Like, even then it's snowing, still went.

I know, it was like a 50-50 chance, do we go or do we not? And it was really good that we did go.

Yes.

Um, it, it It's really set the day, especially compared to yesterday. It set the day off to a really good tone.

Yeah.

Yesterday was more of a challenge.

Yesterday was a challenge. And sometimes you wonder, are you reading the room? Did we read the room correctly?

Yeah.

Or are we just not reading it correctly and just pushing through?

It lines up with those setbacks or those moments that you feel like are or, oh my God, what's happening?

But your setbacks are your setups.

Yeah, for something else. And I'm not sure what that was exactly.

Well, we set up because once we finish what we needed to finish, the really main objective of yesterday, we did.

Yeah. So we got rid of the garbage that we had piled up and we took donations.

All the donations.

Wait, wait, wait. No, we didn't. At first. We got rid of the garbage and then that's when we discovered that my water pump in my car went out. Even though I have a magnificent mechanic, our son, he can't do anything with it until he gets the car. I have to get the car towed to a shop. So that left us without the vehicle to actually transport what we needed to.

But that didn't stop us.

No. So we went and we did it.

Because what I say, we pivoted. Right. And we said, okay, let's call U-Haul or Home Depot.

So let's talk about that for a second because a lot of times we get into a setback, right? And then we get stuck and we go, or you get so frustrated and say, okay, now what are we going to do? I mean, but we had an objective yesterday. Our objective was to get rid of the garbage, to take all the rest of the donations that we had ready and to go put the rest of the stuff in storage. Yeah, to put our shelves up in the store, in our new condo and to really assess the storage space. Do we have enough space for the things that we want to store?

Can't we take what we think we still want to have?

So we wanted bring 3 shelves in to see if we could set them up and, and do it.

So, so that, that's the objective, right?

So now, so now, so now, okay, now the car doesn't work, I can't tow the trailer, so we pivot. So we pivot and say, okay, what's next? We'll rent, we'll rent a U-Haul. It's $19.95 for the, for the day plus some mileage, but, you know, less than $100. We can get a, we can get a vehicle to help complete the process. So that's what we did. But that took us like 2 hours, 2 hours between me trying to get it online because, because U-Haul decides to do an upgrade or an update on Saturday, like the busiest time of the day. Like, why don't you schedule that during night?

So that took us 2 hours to do, but we still, we still pushed.

Yep.

We still kept going. And, and then we came home, we loaded the van, we loaded it.

Okay, now that was a challenge. We had a choice of 2 stands, and we decided we'd go with a smaller one because we weren't sure about the height of how we could get underneath, into the space, into the, like, carport where the storage unit was. And so, and that was a, that was a mistake because the, the shelves barely fit in there.

It was a challenge even before you get to that point. So we, we go, we take all the stuff for donations. Obviously they don't take everything, so we put those back in the car. We come back home, and now we said, okay, we're going to set up the shelves so that they're already set up to go.

For our storage, our containers.

That took us about another hour to do.

Yeah, but it decided during that time that it was gonna snow 3 or 4 inches and it came down pretty hard.

It came down and we were like, ah, okay. So we loaded those guys in.

Well, first we shoveled the driveway.

No, we We shoveled the driveway. Yes.

We shoveled the driveway so we could actually get to the van and get out.

Then we loaded it up. We were able to take the shelves and some of the storage containers, not all of them. We still have what, like 5 more?

Yeah.

So we were able to put that into the van.

As we're going out the driveway, a few minutes as we're getting ready to leave, we hear the snowplow guy go by. Thinking, great, he plowed the road. So we get up there. And we see our mailbox splattered all over the road.

Yep.

Yep. He hit it really well.

He hit it really, really well. And I'm like, yeah, okay.

And it was a nice mailbox too. Brand new. We just put in this year.

And so he, I said, well, pick up the pieces. He picks up the pieces. He put them off to the side and we're looking at each other saying, okay, so what else?

So we keep plugging away.

We keep going. We're like, like a dog with a bone. So we get to the unit and we're like, find which unit it was, our storage unit.

Where our parking space was and the storage unit.

And what happens? Someone's parked there. Not only are they parked right in front of the door, but they're like kissing the door.

So you can't even open the storage door. To get into.

To put anything in.

Okay, so we don't know anybody in the condo unit at all.

Nope.

So I called my landlord who owns it.

He doesn't have it.

He doesn't. He's out shopping, doesn't have any numbers with him. We call the realtor and she's at church. She's at church.

She's at church. But Linda did what she could.

She kept forwarding it. And we had, we had found the email with all the names and, and we started calling and then I was just like, nobody's picking up the phone.

So I said, I'm going into the lobby.

So I'm texting and trying to reach everybody, sending a picture of the car. So we end up meeting people that we, um—

I was in the lobby going through the alphabet, hitting the buttons and asking. And by the way, nobody picked up the phone. Going through, trying to find somebody who owns this car. And this one gentleman walks in.

We have a rented U-Haul that's full. I don't want to bring it back home and unload it. And so like, we need to get into the storage unit.

Mm-hmm. So, so this lady, this gentleman comes in and he says, I wish I could help you, but I live on this side of the building and I don't really know anybody on that side of the building. And then just as he was talking, this other lady came down to get her mail and he says, but wait a minute. You saw that lady? She knows a lot more, so let's ask her. So the woman comes out from the mail room with her mail in her hands, and the guy says, listen, this person is moving into our building, uh, 4H. I introduced myself, and she says, well, what's the problem? I said, somebody's parked in our parking space, parking space, blocking our storage, blocking the storage unit, like really blocking it. So I show her the picture of the car and she's like, well, I really got to go see it. So it's freezing cold. I mean, it is freezing cold. So she comes out with me. He's in the van still waiting. And she comes over, she looks, she says, oh, I know who this car belongs to. I'm like, praise the Lord, she knows who's— and not only does she know who it is, but she had the person's phone number on her phone. So she calls and the woman apologizes. She says, "I'll be down momentarily," and she comes down and I said, "Thank you very, very much. I don't know what we would have done." But that took us another hour.

Another hour, yeah.

So now it's dark.

Almost.

And we're taking the shelves out and putting them in there and we're putting this in, then we get back in there. Now they got the guys shoveling the the parking lot and stuff. And I looked at my husband and I said, I am not cooking. Yeah.

I mean, the good news is that everything fit well and we actually have more room than what I first thought.

So, so did we run— did we run into complications and things? Yes.

So we could ask, why, God? Why? What happened?

I mean, just kept persevering.

We kept pushing on and we got through the day and then we ended up, went to a really nice Chinese restaurant.

Yep. Had dinner and came home and finally thawed out because we were both frozen from being outside and doing all the outside work. I think it was the combination because when you're shoveling, you sweat. And if you're still filled, you know, have all your clothes on and then you kind of thaw out. So then you get cold.

Yeah.

And like, you got cold. You got cold. Not necessarily from wind, but just from your own body temperature. No feeling sweaty.

And I mean, it was hot. It probably would have— cool— take us maybe 15, 30 minutes at the most to like set up the, the—

and it just—

in there. And we were— and like, I was waiting outside. I mean, I sat in the van while you were there and I was texting people trying to reach them, but still I'd get out sometimes and I was like It was just a cold day yesterday.

It was a cold day yesterday. But I think what we learned, and sometimes that's probably one of the differences maybe now versus what I would have been in my early 20s.

You would have flipped out.

I would have.

Several times we would have flipped out and not done anything.

And not moved on.

Okay, the car is broken. Now what?

Oh my God.

What do we do? Yeah.

You know, we're done. There's no way we can continue.

Right.

Um, and each challenge that presented itself, we would have just said forget it, but we just kept pushing and just kept pushing because we needed to finish. We needed to get certain things done.

Well, that's, that's kind of like this whole process has been, right?

Yeah.

Because, um, I mean, I, I can remember it started off with, we had so much stuff and different things. I had scaffolding, I had all this wood and stuff. So I, I get it all out, I stack it up. Originally we were going to do like a Tag sale. One weekend tag sale.

Yeah.

And then a big snowstorm hit and we realized, do we really want to deal with this this time of year? Maybe the lesson is never sell or buy during the wintertime. I don't know.

It depends, really. This, for us, this, this year, 2025, before the last part was cold.

We haven't had this much snow since we've lived here. In a while.

Yeah, since we've lived here. Yeah.

Since we've lived here. It's been one of those years that that it—

this was the year that it decided to, you know, just—

but it was just like going back to that. I was like, like, how do we get rid of this stuff? How do we do it? It's just perseverance and pushing.

It's like what I told my son who's overwhelmed with work. I said, you know, you take— you know how you eat an elephant? You do it one bite at a time. And you just have to keep doing one bite at a time. Until it's all gone, until you've done what you needed to do. Will it be challenging? Will there be bones in your way of eating that elephant? Yes. But you gotta keep pushing. You gotta just keep taking it and not overwhelming yourself by saying, "Oh my God, I gotta get this done now." And you gotta, yeah, gotta get it all done right now. Right now. Or this is too big of a task. If we look at it from that perspective, It is, and it tends to weigh heavy on people, and people just say, I can't do it, and then they don't. But really, truly, probably the, the biggest thing is continue on your quest, right? Really stay on that, that line. And that's probably something that maturity, I think, at least for us, it brought— let me say that, at least for me, it brought clarity.

You can say for us.

One step at a time. One moment at a time.

Sometimes you forget that when you're in it and you have to like sit back or get—

Oh, no. When I'm in it and I'm frustrated, you'll hear me say, please, baby Jesus, help me. Or this has got to end.

There might be some explicit words.

Yeah, there might be a few.

Right.

I mean, as I'm kicking something, I'm going, you You know, mother, father.

Yeah, this is a clean show. So, so I mean, I think this process for me really brought home one key thing, and that's that there's other things that I want to do, and there's things that— but sometimes things I get held back or I don't do them. I get blocked. I'm not sure why. But like with this, with this project of selling our house and doing this, it— we had that big goal, end goal in mind, and I think it pushed us through to get certain things done. It's just like, I, I asked myself, how were we able to get everything done that we got done in a month and a half? You know, because, I mean, we worked really well together to go through it, and I think some people just get stuck on like you said, how do you eat an elephant? They get stuck on what do I do? How do I get through this? It seems overwhelming. If you were to look at the amount of stuff that we had, if you looked at our basement then and you look at it now, you think, wow, oh my gosh, look at all this. Look at what I have to go through. And it just showed that you can do it. There is that motivation to get up and do those things?

I think you just have to remember that. So one day was just doing my closet. One day was just doing my office. And it was all those little one days that I said, okay, today I'm gonna do this, and today I'm gonna do that. And when I did it and I finished it, I was like, okay, on to the next. So it's— it could— you can be very overwhelmed if you look back and you go down, like if you were going down to the basement or you open up the closet and you see all this stuff, right? It can— it can be very, very scary to have to say, how am I going to do it? The thing is, is that you did do it because little by little you just kept adding and adding and adding, right? So you just kept growing it. So at some point it didn't all of a sudden appear that way.

Or all get done all at once.

It didn't. So what's important to understand is it didn't take, it didn't come out that way from the very beginning, from the get-go. It evolved. Well, that same premise has to be to the decluttering part of it. You've got it to a certain point. Now you're going to bring it back down again. And so that same process could take you a little bit, but you just one day, that's all I did.

There was also when you got ready for photos, of course, me, Mr. List Master, I had to make a list, you know, of things to do, you know, but the thing, but to me that helped me just say, okay, let me do this one thing, get it done, check it off, go to the next. And before you knew it, you had most of the list checked off.

Yeah, the list was done, and the list for us was this color-coded. You do this, I'm doing this, this could be something we'll do together. So that was, that was a good thing, but, but it helped you figure out how you were going to do it so that you weren't feeling overwhelmed, and then when you finished, you felt—

yeah. So on that note, we should probably edit this, but we won't. So until next time, make sure you like us, share it, and let us know.

Leave us a comment so that we don't feel as though we're alone here by ourselves, just talking to ourselves. Let's— comments are always, always, um, welcomed.

Yep. Even if you— even if it's not a nice comment. Yeah, it's okay. Yep. All right, thanks guys.

Bye.