Episode 130 - Sallie Conner Says Meal Planning On A Budget Ties With Nutrition And Kids' Feelings

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. This is your host, Stacy Lauren. So this is exciting. I have a guest with me today that was in the do the thing find your voice challenge, and it was really cool because I wasn't expecting to interview people from the challenge other than doing celebration interviews with them, but when she responded to a few of the dares, I just felt confused. Called to do an interview with her privately because there was a couple of things that she said that really spoke to me on things that I think are really important in terms of things that I'm working on in my life and things that I hear people are wanting more of. So I am just so excited to bring her on and have her share her story with you and then also all of her amazing tips that she's going to have for you, both on cooking and then also with emotional learning with kids. And so I'm really excited to bring on Sally to the show.

Hi, Sally. Hi. Thank you for having me. Stacy. I'm excited to be here.

I'm so excited you're here. It's so cool because I've seen you virtually, and I know we're going to do a group zoom on Monday where we'll get to see everyone, but it's nice to see you face to face now also.

It is. It's fun to interact through the group, and now it's really fun to get a chance to talk to each other.

Yeah.

And go a little deeper on some of the things. So I appreciate you having me here.

Totally. I'd love to start off and just have you share more about you and your story.

Okay. My story.

Oh, wow. There's a lot in my story. I. I guess going with the topics that we're going to cover today. I married very, very young. I was right out of high school and had my first child at 19, and then three years later had three more children, one right after the other. So my first daughter was born in 1985. Then I had 88, 89, and 90.

So here I was, this super young mother with four kids, and my husband worked outside the home. It was not feasible economically for me to work outside the home and make enough money to pay for childcare for four kids. So we had to be really creative with our budgeting and our lifestyle in order for me to stay home with our children and live off of one single household income for six people. And so one of the things that I got really good at and took a lot of pride in was meal planning. Well, now they call it Meal planning. Back then it was just budgeting and making things stretch. But it got really good at planning and organizing and making sure that I could provide nutritious, wholesome, home cooked meals for my family that didn't feel like we were poor or missing out on anything. And so that has now become something that I take a lot of joy in talking to other people about. And it surprises me because I learned very early on a lot of tips and tricks and how to manage my time and things. And I'm surprised when I just. Sometimes, you know, you go through life and you think everyone's doing what you're doing and then you find out that really a lot of these skills people don't have or they don't think about using. And so I get real excited when I'm talking to someone and I say, well, why don't you try this? And they're like, oh, I could do that. And then that would save me so much time or so much money and I wouldn't be eating out as often. And even young people without children could use a lot of those money saving and time saving ideas to help their food budget stretch and save them from eating fast food all the time and eating out or ordering in now, I guess we do a lot of as well. Yeah.

And I think this is why you're speaking so much to me. This is something I'm really working on right now in my own life. And honestly, I do, I do the Uber eats way more than I probably would want to. And I feel like that was also the reason why I put this dare specifically for this challenge was. I think it was for the what are you good at? Because I think a lot of people don't realize that what they're good at, other people really, really, really are struggling with. And then things that you might be struggling with, they're good at. And it's these things that come innate to us that we don't even think about. Those are the things that can really help people.

Right, Right. Yeah. And we assume that, that everyone else is doing it the same way we are. And come to find out, people are just like, oh. And I see that in myself when I see things on TikTok or something and I'm like, why didn't I think of that? So we should all realize that other people might not know the things that we know and be more open to sharing our skills or interests or things with other people. Because it's not necessarily things that people know innately. And that also led to my learning about Children. Because when I did finally get to venture out of the home, I started working in the schools, and I was always interested. I mean, I wanted to be a teacher from the time I was in kindergarten, but I was able to work in the schools the same schedule that my children went to school. So again, I didn't have to for daycare, and I could be off work by the time they were done. And then that led me down this whole path of wanting to understand children's behaviors and not just looking at how to discipline, but what's going on behind the behavior. Children act certain ways, and there's a need that's deeper, that's not getting met, that causes them to act out in the manner that they do. And a lot of research is now being done on that topic, and we are opening up more to the idea of children having traumas and how that affects them socially and emotionally. And then from there, we're bringing that into the schools now and teaching to that. And I have the privilege of being able to do that now in my job. I'm child development specialist, and my education is in child development and in social emotional learning. So now my kids are grown and gone and on their own and raising my grandchildren. And now I'm back helping little children again in K through 5th, navigate their feelings, emotions, and behaviors in a whole new way that wasn't looked at or taught when I was raising my kids or when I was raised. And so we're recognizing that children have feelings and emotions and they need to be validated, and then children can learn how to process those and how to use them constructively. Yeah.

How did you. This makes me think about the venting voice note dare that we had a challenge. How did you feel about. About that in relation to.

I like that. Yes. I think that when I know I was raised with kind of an era of there's good emotions and there's bad emotions, and it's okay to express good emotions, happiness, joy, excitement. But we want to stuff away those bad, quote, unquote, bad emotions. We don't want to be sad, we don't want to be upset. We don't want to cry, never want to cry.

And I carried a lot of that over into my parenting and always wanted my children to have that happy Persona. And if they were anything less than that, you think something is wrong. And what we're really beginning to learn now is that there are no bad or good emotions. There's just emotions. There's just feelings. And it's us that have put a label on them. And if we can remove that label and we can just recognize I am mad and not attach anything to that, it's not good. It's not bad. It just is. Then we're able to vent that like we did in that challenge, or release it or get help to problem solve for why we are mad. And I'm seeing that with children that I work with when I can say, it's okay that you're mad. Yeah, I would be mad about that, too. But we need to solve what can we do with that madness because we don't want to hurt our friend or we don't want to do this other negative behavior? What can we do? Well, maybe I can write that down. We do a lot of writing practices, and those are tools that then later in life they're going to use as well. When they're older and they're processing emotions, they can journal, they can talk to someone, they can work through problems and not carry this feeling of, well, when I'm mad, there's something wrong with me or I'm bad. And how many of us now, as adults, are searching for this utopia of happiness all the time? We're not meant to be happy all the time. We need to experience.

Sadness and happiness in order to appreciate both and understand that they're meant for growth in us in different ways and not ever to feel guilty for an emotion that we have.

Yeah, and I love how you're. I love how you're expressing it because you're really normalizing feelings so you're not feeling bad. If you're sad, you're able to process it. I used to be, and I talked about this in the group for the listeners that maybe I haven't talked about it on the podcast yet. I talked about I was the good vibes person in the past, only good vibes. Now I'm all vibes. Because it's not good to just have good vibes.

And I think toxic. Yeah. Positivity. Yeah.

And that's really how I've been for a long time until recently when I realized I was holding the stuff in without saying it, not realizing it. It was actually more unconscious. And so my energy wasn't congruent because I wasn't able to express the feeling. So that's why it was really important for me to include that. And I loved that everyone totally got it in the challenge, and it seemed like they were able to really get with that, what it was about.

I think that we're finally giving ourselves permission to feel what we feel. And not have a judgment on it and not have the expectation that, oh, I feel sad, so something must be wrong. No, you need to process some sadness. Maybe there's some old things that you need to work through or maybe some an event happened that you deserve to be sad over and that's okay. And you can just sit in it and let it be. And that is what I am hopefully helping children understand. And hopefully we are going to be more in touch. They will be able to be more in touch with their feelings and just have them be rather than critique themselves for what they feel.

Do you have any advice for parents listening that want to start this with their kids where they're able to feel their feelings and be able to express regardless of what they're feeling?

I think, number one, and this is probably going to sound very cliche and it's tough, but the most important thing that we as parents can do, I feel, is to start to do this for ourselves. Because our children are going to model our behavior. They're watching everything we're doing, everything we're saying, everything we're acting out in life. And so if we can start to think about this, practice for ourselves and model the behavior of, gosh darn it, I am mad today. But that's okay. I'm going to talk to dad about this situation that upset me. We're going to come up with a solution and we're going to move on. It's okay. Oh, it's okay to be mad about something. I can talk to someone about it. We can problem solve on it and then we can move forward. No one's feeling guilty or bad about that feeling. And then secondly, starting to have those conversations with your children, if they come home from school and they're mad, they're mad at their teacher instead of, oh, well, you can't be mad at your teacher. She's so nice. We want to respond with, why are you mad? Tell me more about that. Oh, you felt that what she said to you wasn't fair? Oh, I get mad when I feel like people treat me unfairly too. That's a normal feeling to have when you feel mistreated. Let's talk about that. And as the child opens up about it, you might discover that you might be able to say back, I don't think your teacher meant for you to feel that way. She wasn't trying to be mean or mistreat you. How can we problem solve about that? Can you ask her tomorrow if she meant to hurt your feelings? And so you start to Give them some tools to dive a little deeper into that emotion. But you've also given them permission to feel it.

I love that. And I love that because sometimes I'll ask, would you like some advice? But I actually even like, how can we problem solve about that? Even better, because I feel like you're asking permission before you try to fix something. But then you're also kind of saying, oh, I'd like to help you with this.

Right? And we also, with our kiddos, we ask them, would you like to problem solve? And if they say no, we say, okay, we walk away. We give them their space, we make sure that it's all safe, everybody's okay, and we will give them the time to just ruminate in what they're feeling and not force that communication. But they know that that is an option. And sometimes kids aren't ready to talk about things or to solve. They want to just be mad. And that's okay. You can just be mad right now.

You know, and actually I'm glad you said that. So with that, that, then you're like a space holder for them, right? When they're just mad and they don't want you to have a back and forth. How do you recommend for a parent or whoever maybe is with a kid to be that space holder without feeling like they have to fix or getting emotional about whatever it is?

It's very hard. It's very hard. A suggestion would be to set a timer. Maybe depending on the situation, you could say, okay, if you would like to be mad about that for longer, let's set a timer for five minutes. And I'm going to clean in the kitchen here while you're doing that. And then maybe at the end of the five minutes we can talk. But if not, then we need to just go on with our day and you can come to me when you're ready. And you just kind of set that limit. And nine times out of 10, when that timer dings, then they're like, okay, I want to know what I can do because I'm really mad at Timmy or Ann and they want some help and advice with that and advice. Saying, can I give you some advice? Is also a great tactic with especially a little bit older kids. And if they say no, the hardest part as a parent is to say, okay.

But I'm so wise and I have so much to share that if we can do that, we're also respecting that boundary that they're setting. And then we can just say, well, I have some ideas that might help. Let Me know when you're ready.

Yeah. And I'd love to hear when you're the fix it parent and you want to be able to do that. Is there something you recommend for the parent to just hold themselves back and just let the kid do their thing?

I would say it's so hard. Sit on your hands.

It really depends on the situation that you're in. Let's say you're driving in the car. I would turn on the radio and just start singing. And you just really have to preoccupy yourself and start that process of moving forward with still being available back here, but that you have let it go and you're moving on, but you're willing to go back when they are. That sets a really healthy boundary for you and for them.

Yeah. And I love that you're talking about boundaries, because by teaching them this. This boundary, both by you having boundaries and by respecting their boundaries, it's like flexing this muscle that they're going to have the rest of their life. Both by the modeling that you're doing for them, but then also something they can use in their life, too.

Right, Right. And there's so much research that's coming out about the capabilities of our brains. You and I could do a whole podcast on this for several series of it, but there's so much research that's coming out on how our brains physically cannot process when we are in that heightened state, an emotion like anger or frightened or any of those things. It's kind of like that fight or flight process. We don't really have any more function than those two choices when we are at that point. And so what we're finding is that it's very unproductive to force those conversations with children and also with, let's say, our spouse or our friends when we are in that heightened time. And that ultimately what we want to do is to be able to separate ourselves from it and come back to it. We use a model at school where we talk about that this is what our brain looks like when we're fully regulated and we're calm and we're just feeling good. And then as things happen and we start to escalate, we might get here. And then pretty soon Tommy really starts bothering us. And then before we know it, we're hitting him. At that point, our brain is here and we are so dysregulated and so out of control that our processing and our thinking is not going to rationalize how to solve that problem. Right. Then we can't. We can't think of anything but how angry we are and how unfair this situation is. And so we all need a processing time to bring our brain back down. Some people can do it quickly, some people, it takes a little longer. And that's something that we, we're really finding. We as parents, we as educators need to understand that when our children are heightened like that, we're not going to get anywhere with them. And they're not really understanding what we're talking about anyway. And you've probably experienced it as I have. I'm upset with my child, they're upset with me. We're both like this and I'm just yelling about whatever it is I'm upset about. And they're just not hearing anything I'm saying and getting angrier and angrier. Doors are getting slammed. And we're not going to resolve that until we both can come back down here and we can look at each other and talk. And that new scientific evidence about what's happening in our brain chemistry is so exciting to understand so that we can relate better with one another and our children and help keep us out of where we just make that situation worse. I don't know if you've ever been in that, maybe with not your child, but with a partner or something. We've all had those fights where it just keeps, well, remember five years ago you did this and we're just, we're not getting anywhere. And so being able to bring that back down to where we can actually communicate is what we're doing. When we give people that boundary, if they say, no, I don't want to talk about it, and we can respect that, then we can all go back down to here and then we can be able to problem solve.

And I love the term processing time. I don't know if I've ever heard. Heard that before. So I mean, I've heard it in different ways, but not specifically that. I feel like it would be so cool when you're angry or when something's happening, upset or whatever is just to almost acknowledge that, okay, I need my. I'm having my processing time right now, and that's what's happening. And just not reacting or responding in any way until you feel recentered. So here's what I love about what you're talking about, Sally, is we're talking about the outside, right? The behavior, which is coming from who they are as a person. But then the other thing that you have your skill set in is the food side, which is nutrition. Nutrition. And then also from the budget Side. So, number one, with your. You being able to do this nutritious food on a budget, you're eliminating the reason why some people can't do it because you're showing that you can do it in an affordable way. Right. At least for the majority of the population that's able to do that at a baseline. And then you're giving them the nutrition side from the inside. So then, yeah, it's going to help them on the outside more. So I feel like everything we're talking about is so connected.

Yes, you're right, it can be. And I think that a lot of times, well, I know that what we eat has so much to do with regulating our emotions and, and our hormones and all the things that are happening. And that is especially true with our children too. And if we can work into our schedules time, I think that really what it comes down to is making the commitment to it and finding the time. And when you do that, you end up in the long run saving time. But you might have to spend a Saturday afternoon. Let's say, for instance, I used to do things when I had all the kids at home where I would make a week's worth of pancakes. I'm making pancakes for Saturday morning breakfast. But now I'm just going to make a week's worth. And I freeze them. And I freeze them so that in the week I can get them out, heat them up in the microwave and they've got pancakes that we made at home. We didn't stop at the drive through something maybe a little bit more nutritious than sugar cereal.

And you've cut out that time in the morning that you just don't have. Let's face it, we're all running against the clock to get out of the house. And you've already set yourself up for success for that morning because you have something to pull out of the closer at. Some of the other things that I would do, talking about breakfast specifically is I would buy cereal. I always use the example of Honey Nut Cheerios. So I buy the Honey Nut Cheerios, but then I buy the box of regular Cheerios and then I would come home and mix them and put them into a different container and they're mixed. So I'm cutting down on the sugar intake that my kids are getting in the morning. It's already mixed and it's ready to go. And no one knew the difference for many years when my kids were.

That's so smart. What an easy hack to reduce the sugar.

Yeah, it's an easy hack. Most of the time, the kids won't even notice. And of course, you can throw in some fresh berries or something like that in there as well. So, you know, it takes a little bit of planning to do that, but you've got those things already in place. I also did the same thing with how you can buy those oatmeal packets and they already have the flavors in them or whatever. I made my own. I bought the big thing of oatmeal and then I portioned it out and I put the brown sugar in and I put the raisins or whatever it is that my kids liked, a little bit of cinnamon and. And I just had them in sandwich baggies stored. And then here we have oatmeal ready to go. Pour it in the bowl, add the hot water, and they've got their morning breakfast. You've stayed away from the preservatives and you've stayed away from the price point of those easy, convenient foods by just taking that little bit of time to set those things up for the week. So. So once you kind of have an idea of what your family likes to eat, there's ways to hack and find a quicker version of that that you can set up for yourself. And I like the idea of calling it I'm setting myself up for success because you're walking out the door with a well fed child, you're on time and you're not having that feeling of my whole morning's falling apart.

And now I have to stop at McDonald's. You can also find, I know that eggs are incredibly expensive right now. Normally they're not, but you can make those English muffin sandwiches with some egg sausage patty, or you can even use the turkey sausage, which is a little bit healthier. And you can put that stacked in an English muffin, wrap it and freeze them individually. And you have a breakfast sandwich for.

The roast and you're putting the English muffin in the toaster and then you're cooking the egg or what is that? How does that look like?

I never, I never put the English muffin in the toaster. I just put it the way that it came in the package. But you could toast them ahead of time and then put your toppings on. And then I would wrap mine in plastic wrap and then also in foil. And then you just take it out that morning, pop it in the microwave, and you have warm breakfast sandwich to go. I do that for my granddaughter still now, and she can eat it in the car on the way to school.

That's so cool. I Love it. You're also eliminating that decision fatigue that you're getting when you're trying to figure out what you want to make or to eat, then you have so much more energy to do other stuff. So not only providing yourself with something more nutritious, you're giving yourself energy back.

Right. Another tool that I use for the what's for dinner? Question that we all dread is, again, it takes a little bit of planning, and it takes a little bit of getting used to being on that type of a schedule. But I would buy bulk. When I could, let's say five pounds of hamburger at a time, I would come home, I would section that out into one pound increments. I would put it in the freezer bag, but I would then put any seasonings or anything that needed to go with it. So if I knew we were going to have tacos that week, the taco seasoning goes in and it gets mixed in with it. It goes in the bag, it goes in the freezer or in the refrigerator, depending on what night we're going to have it. So I already have my taco meat ready to go. I mean, you could even go as far as to cook it ahead of time if you wanted to, and then have it in the refrigerator ready to go. And then you not only have tacos, which was your original meal, but two nights later, you can make quesadillas with the leftover taco meat. And you have created a whole nother meal with the same ingredients, basically, that you had. And you're stretching that one meal out to become different things. And so you can do things creative like that. I would make up all of my crock pot meals as well. So I would get a cheap roast and I would put that in the bag. I would throw the onion, chopped up, the potatoes, the carrots, whatever it is that you like in there, all the seasonings, and then that is ready to go. It just needs to go into the crock pot, turn on, and you've got a meal when you get home, or your insta pot now, or however it is you like to cook those things. But when we take that little bit of extra time when we have it on a weekend, Sunday afternoon, the rest of the family's watching football, and you can get in the kitchen and make up these meal packs or season your ground beef or cook it ahead of time, then again, you're setting yourself up for success. You know, Monday night we're going to have tacos, but then I can turn around and have quesadillas. On Thursday night, and that's a busy night because we have soccer or whatever the situation is, and you're still going to eat out from time to time, and you're still going to order pizza and you're still going to do things, but you have just more of a balance and you feel more prepared and everything isn't as scattered at the last minute. Like you said, with that decision fatigue. The decision's already made. We're having quesadillas tonight, and we're good to go. We've got all the stuff. I don't have to stop at the store. I'm not frazzled.

Okay, so, Sally, I have a pound of chicken tenders. They're in the refrigerator. What do I do? What should I do for the week?

For a week, a pound of chicken tenders.

We'll just say. Let's say the pound is irrelevant. We'll just say whatever the pounds are that I need.

Yeah. You know, you have a wide variety of things with that. If you cook those chicken tenders up, saute them up with a little bit of chicken broth, get them cooked through, you could then separate certain amounts, whatever size your family is, and you can season them accordingly. You could have one batch that maybe is just a general chicken seasoning on it. You could do another one with some teriyaki sauce, and you can separate those out. And then you just need the accompaniments to go with them. If you have a bag of mixed vegetables and some rice, you have a stir fry for one night. And if your other night, you just have some of those chicken tenders that you've just sauteed up with some chicken seasoning, you can just have Mac and cheese and a veggie on the side that you've taken that one thing that you might have thought, oh, I'm going to get chicken tenders because I'm going to make fried chicken nuggets. And you've taken that one thing you had that plan for and created other meals out of that. If you did fry all of it up as chicken nuggets and there was leftovers, you can use that for orange chicken with rice and broccoli. You can separate that out and continue to have that one ingredient stretch to feed you for different meals throughout the week.

For people like me that don't know how to make orange chicken, what do you. What are you doing with the orange chicken?

You go on Pinterest.

Well, so that. So what? You just said that. It's funny hearing you talk. It's like, okay, I could Totally do this. But then what happens is I would go, not, maybe not on Pinterest, but I would Google it, find a recipe, and then it has 20 ingredients. And then I'm like, forget it.

This is.

So what I end up doing is I literally do have this thing of chicken tenders. I ended up just putting salt and pepper on them and put them in the oven, and that's what I eat all week. But that is so boring. So that's what's. That's what I find interesting as you're talking, because you're talking about it in really simplistic terms, not some crazy 20 ingredient recipe.

Yeah. I would say that for someone that doesn't have a kitchen full of pantry ingredients that would possibly go into making an orange chicken is that you could start with seasoning packets. Next time you're at the grocery store, just stand there for a while and look at all the different things that you could make with ground beef. I mean, you make chili, you can make meatloaf, you can make tacos, you can make meatballs for spaghetti. And often we just kind of get boxed in in our thinking of the same five things we eat all the time. And we don't think about the different things we can make outside of the box with that one same relatively cheap ingredient and make it have a different flair to it. And that my suggestion to start.

Yeah, no, this is huge. I find it really funny. I'm hearing you talk and I'm picturing and the way you're talking, you're speaking in the way that I sort of set up the challenge with the comfort zone. Do you remember the circles where it was like, start here and then you edge outta your comfort zone. You do the other one. I think cooking is really similar. The salt pepper is one level. Then it's like, okay, great. Now you could do that. Now go another level and do seasoning packets. Now do another level and add some more sauces. And it's just interesting how these comfort zone things, you don't have to go from here, and I'm pointing for the people on the podcast, but from the right in the middle of that box that you're already at to the edge of your comfort zone. You could lead in kind of like what Sally's saying is just get some seasoning packets and start there.

Yeah, yeah. We don't have to go from never cooking for ourselves at home to Martha Stewart. We can take some smaller steps along the way and maybe you'll stay at seasoning packets and that's fine. But it gives you a place to go from where you are now. And maybe you'll love cooking and you'll start getting really into it, maybe you won't, but either way, you've picked up a few new tools for your tool belt and way to stretch your budget a little bit and not have to eat the same thing night after night or order out night after night.

I was also curious about that. You talked about Sunday would be a good day to do the planning. What would that look like for you? How do you get started with something like that?

For me, Sunday would look like grocery shopping would happen that probably morning. And I do grocery shopping, or I did when I had this family to feed every two weeks. So I spent quite a bit at one time. And the only thing that I would buy in between would be fresh vegetables or bread or milk. But I would just go and do this two cart shopping trip and get that bulk ground beef and get the bulk packs of chicken and things like that. And then I would come home and it would basically look like for me, an assembly line. I would have, here's the ground beef, we're going to section it out. That would go into the freezer bags and then one's going to get taco, one's going to get ingredients for meatloaf or however that's going to be. And once those are filled and done, then those go in the freezer. If I'm going to do chicken, it's going to be much of the same assembly line process. And of course I've already done the work ahead of time of what ingredients I needed because I made a list of what my potential meals are going to be for the next two weeks. So that is where your planning is going to start, is setting up that what do I have in my house? You always want to take an inventory of what you already have before you go to the grocery store. And then you say, what do I want to eat this next week? And then you start planning those meals out. And if you know that you're going to have tacos, then you're going to want to think of maybe some other things that you can do with ground beef because you are going to get a better price if you buy a bigger, you know, a bulk size 5 pounds or so. And then that way you are stretching your money in that respect and you're creating more meals than just looking at ground beef as hamburgers and tacos, let's just say. And so you're doing that planning ahead of time and then you're getting the ingredients while you're there for those things. And then that assembly line is just going to take place where you're just going to plot all those things out, get them sectioned and into your freezer or into your fridge or however that is going to be. I used to always take all of my fruits and vegetables, wash them that day. Carrots needed to get cut up, celery, any of those things for ingredients for what I was going to have later in that week would all get done at that time. Because nobody has time to come home after kids and soccer practice and work and chop up carrots and celery for their stew or whatever it is. If you haven't done, you can throw it in and you're good to go. So that would be what my meal prep on Sundays would look like. I might make that big batch of pancakes or I'd make maybe my oatmeal packets that I made at home. So I just have all these things ready and ready to go for the week. So then when you're getting everyone going in the morning, you might be able to say, hey, we've got pancakes and oatmeal today. What's your choice? They pick, we get it going and they're eating and everyone's happy and out the door.

Do you have a master list that you're pulling from, from food that you all have liked?

Yes. I mean, that's a great place to start is just ask the questions. What are the meals that my family likes? What are the meals that the kids eat? When we put it on the table, they eat well. And how can we make variations of that? Or how can we. If we have enough, how can we section them out? So, because you don't want to eat ground beef every night either, so you want to know that you're going to have tacos on Monday, chicken on Tuesday, and then, oh, we're going to repeat the ground beef and have those quesadillas or something like that. So you kind of can get your master plan going from things that you know that your family already likes and we'll eat.

Is there anything that I did not ask you about either of these topics that you want to share?

You know, the other thing that I was going to say about the food preparation and you could plop this in wherever, but if you make that time on Sundays, this is just something I learned really early in my life is use your Sundays to set. It's your rest days the way I've always used my Sundays. But it's Also, the day to set yourself up for success for the coming week, set your family up. If you do all that preparation ahead of time, it's going to save you all that time later on in the week and everything's going to be easy to do rather than having that constant frustration. And so think about things when you're grocery shopping, comparing prices with maybe a big block of cheese, for instance, how does that compare to two or three bags of the pre shredded cheeses? It might be a better deal to get the block and just take the time to shred that cheese on that Sunday in your food processor and put it in bags yourself and have that shredded cheese. Depending on the age of your kids. Those are things kids can come in the kitchen and help with and be a part of. And a lot of times when we do the price comparison, those items like that are cheaper when we buy the bigger, non processed version and we can go home and process it ourselves. And it doesn't take us that long when we're already doing our Sunday afternoon in the kitchen, getting ready for the week and calling your kids anytime once they're to an age where you can have them in the kitchen safely and everything. My kids grew up doing this and now they're doing it with their families as well. So it's also a good tool to pass on to your children and have them be a part of it. Kids will eat better when they're invested in the food that they're eating and they've made a contribution. We've seen that over and over again too. So.

Yeah, and I love that because you're circling back now to the social, emotional side and you're now connecting your family together in a way that's unique and giving that opportunity for them.

Yeah, it's a great time to have those conversations that maybe you didn't get to have during the week. It's a great time to. I always would ask my kids, what went well for you last week? What didn't go so well? What would you like to have this week? How would you like things to go this week? And so we could talk about good and bad things and then we could talk about how we could set our intention to have things go better. So those Sundays are just golden opportunities to work in the kitchen and have a chance to talk about how do we want our week to go. Totally getting that social, emotional connection again.

Wrapping it all together. Sally, that's perfect.

It's almost like you should have a podcast.

I want to have one.

So just so you guys know, we talked right before we went on, because as you guys know, I'm doing a do the thing, start a podcast challenge. And so I'm excited to. To be able to. To talk to you more about that. But do you have. While we're on. We might as well talk about it since I just opened the space up. But do you have an idea of what you want to do it on? Is it this specifically or.

No? I. Well, I shouldn't say no. That's where my hang up is. I have two stumbling blocks with it is not knowing the know how of how to get it all set up and how to get started. And that is something that you have offered to help me with and help in that challenge with, and then being able to narrow down my focus, I think has been my biggest stumbling block. And. And I'm starting to feel like it's not that important. I feel like podcasts lead themselves, if that makes sense.

Oh, a hundred percent. That's what happened to mine. It evolved as it went. Yeah.

If you have something you want to talk about that you feel would be valuable to other people, you'll find your people.

Totally.

And it will just kind of build its own life around it, is how I'm feeling. But I feel like in the past, I've been very like, well, do I talk about social, emotional, Do I talk about food and nutrition? Do I talk about health? And always feeling like I needed to pick one area of focus and maybe that's not necessary.

Oh, yeah. As you were talking, I wrote down. Ask Sally.

Is that.

I wrote down. It was just that. Because I feel like you have a lot of wisdom in all the different areas. But you know what the nice thing is, and we'll end it here, because I don't want to. I want to do that on a separate thing and I'll. We'll share with you guys what Sally ends up doing, because I know you're probably going to be interested after hearing her talk, but you also could change the name of the podcast and you could. You could start one and then decide to stop and then do another one. So it. It's kind of just opening your mind up to all the possib abilities, which it sounds like you're there right now, which is exciting.

Trying to. Yeah, yeah, it's exciting.

Yeah. Because if I think about even me, I wish I would have heard you and your wisdom 10 years ago. And so someone now that's hearing you 10 years where they're kind of at. I'm glad I'm Hearing it now, too. But just knowing how your lived experience now can help so many people, which is really that concept of breadcrumbs. I talk about it a lot. I haven't. I don't think I've talked about it in this challenge yet. But this. This whole thing about starting with your husband being the one that was the sole breadwinner, and that caused you to then get interested in the cooking and the budgeting and the doing what you did and then ended up getting that job. And these breadcrumbs have now led you here.

Yeah.

And I'd love you to share. Okay. So you get one piece of advice for the listeners on doing the thing. And doing the thing could be anything, as you've seen. It could be finding your voice. It could be helping kids with interpersonal skills, and it could be cooking name or do the thing or just the advice.

I'm going to say that my advice is on do the thing. Do the thing with your kids on social, emotional learning in the sense that just give it a try. Try to touch base with them. If they're upset about something, try giving them space to feel it and not to judge it. And just start there. It's just one small little thing. And then see how you can build on that. So that would be. My advice is like you say, and the challenge is do the thing. Just do it. You don't have to have all the knowledge that I have. You don't have to go buy a book. You don't have to understand all the reasons why. Just try it. Next time your child's upset, ask them about it, and then just let it be. Acknowledge that it's okay to be mad, and then ask them how they want to handle it. Do they not want to talk about it? Do they not? And just. You're going to make mistakes. I make mistakes. With the kiddos I work with, we make mistakes, but that's how we learn and grow. And the important thing is, is that you're making that effort. You're doing the thing.

And that's what I realized recently, because everyone asks me, stacey, what's the thing? What's the thing? And it's funny, because I'm always like, the thing doesn't matter. It's the do part. The do matters. You pretty much said that, too, which is interesting.

We're all going to have different things that we need to do. So it is the do. Yeah, we'll stumble and fall along the way, but that's the only way we're ever going to get better. So just reach out and talk to your kids and ask them how they're feeling and then let them fill it.

Well, I'm so glad we met and this was amazing getting a chance to have you on here and be able to do this with you.

Thank you.

I'm excited to listen back and write down all my notes and my plan for next week.

Me too. Yeah.

And do you have any place where people can follow along with you right now until the podcast is going to?

Currently, the only place that I have is my Facebook, which is. And I'm on Instagram and both of them are just my name, Sally Connor. You can find me on Facebook. I don't have. My account's not private, so you can just ask to be my friend and then you can see different things that I post about both of these topics and other things as well. And then hopefully there will be more to come as I get a podcast going and stuff. And feel free to instant message me or send me a message on Facebook and Messenger if you have any questions or you want any more information. I have lots of areas I can point you in for things you can read online about both topics and also both topics intertwined, like how nutrition affects our children and affects their moods and how we can help cut out some of the preservatives and the sugars in our diets and things like that. And I'd be glad to help people.

Amazing. Thank you so much.

Thank you.