The Weekend Edit No. 3: Changes

An announcement on the upcoming changes to Okay McKay and a poll!

Good evening! How was your week?

When we started this newsletter, I was so excited to have another creative outlet to share on, even if I wasn’t 100% certain on what that sharing would look like. I just knew something was calling me to this newsletter and we had to get it out ASAP.

That was back in October.

It started out as one newsletter going out every week, filled with a personal essay or an interview or a little life update here and there. But something kept tugging at me to finally do something I’ve had in the back of my mind for months, and it was born from a simple little game we play every night with our kids around the dinner table.

Keep and Delete.

Here’s how it works: We each go around the table, one by one, and list the best part of our day (the Keep) and the worst part of our day (the Delete). We’ve been doing it for so long now that the kids ask to play before we even sit down, with each of them taking turns begging to be the first to go. They love it, and I love that they love it.

The whole premise, to me, is about the intention of leading a whole life, not just a happy life, because we know bad things are unavoidable and, if we strive for a life where nothing bad ever happens, we’re almost sure to always be let down. I want our kids (and us!) to understand that life will have its ups and downs. It’s not just about how perfect or imperfect your life is, because if you look hard enough, you’ll be able to find both the good and the not-so-good in every single day.

You may not be able to tell from my online presence, but it’s sometimes hard for me to focus on the good of each day. I can usually find the bad in it, but taking the time to remember a very good part of my day, especially if that day was unremarkable, is difficult for me. So I thought this new exercise would help a bit.

My friends say I am a romantic, and that I love to take simple (maybe even mundane), every day moments and make them seem bigger than they are. I don’t even think I realized I did that when they told me, but I can definitely see now that I’ve been doing that for years. I have always been fascinated by the little moments that make up our day and our life.

I have been toying around with the format of it, and have pretty much made up my mind, but I wanted your input. My first and main thought, since they will be posted every evening, is to keep our Keep & Delete posts to the newsletter homepage only, meaning they won’t be sent out to your email every night, and then still do the Tuesday post every week that will be sent to your inbox.

What do you think? I don’t want to bombard you with emails about our days every single night, because that seems excessive, but if they live only on the homepage of Okay McKay, you are free to read them (or not read them!) anytime you want.

And then going forward, the Tuesday newsletter will be for paid subscribers only, whereas the Keep & Delete posts will be for free subscribers.

To help nail this down, I would love your input in the poll below:

Thank you so much!

My hope is that you will feel comfortable, whenever you feel up to it, to share your own Keep & Delete for the day and we can discuss in the comments and all laugh, commiserate, vent, and just be ourselves. We have always loved this online community that is with us from channel to channel, and we would love to extend that to this more intimate space.

I know that was a lot. SO! To wrap it up, going forward, you can expect a Keep & Delete post on here every day (free for everyone), and then the Tuesday issue will still be sent out (for paid subscribers). Sound good?

And my favorite part of Keep & Delete is that the best and worst parts of your day don’t always have to be earth-shattering or even carry much weight to them. They can be as big and as small as you feel comfortable sharing, or at least as big or small as you want to remember them by. I think we will look back on this time in our life, years down the road, and remember the good and the bad times, in hopes that they all add up to a ‘whole’ life, not just a happy one.

Thank you, as always, for reading dear friends, and have a great weekend, y’all!

This week we felt very grounded. We didn’t hang out with anyone and we didn’t go anywhere, choosing to stay home and focus on getting our house picked up and school work. It’s been a slow week, and for that, I am grateful.

I had a little day date with my mom where we went thrift store shopping for some outfits, and it made me realize just how grateful I am that we live close to our moms.

We went to parent/teacher conferences all afternoon yesterday, where we heard mostly good news from our children’s teachers! There was some tough-to-hear news, but overall we left feeling proud. We love our little community at their school so, so much.

We also changed the curtain setup in the living room! Before, we had curtains flanking the far sides of the window wall:

Now, we moved two of the panels to the middle so that they’re evenly spaced over the whole wall. We just did it today and we’re still living with it to see how we like it. Thoughts?

We are officially up to 25 lambs at the farm! Which is both so sweet and so stressful. We may have to look at selling some of them because we’re quickly running out of hay (currently on the phone buying some more as we speak) and it’s just too many for us to manage right now. Dixie, our friend who lives at the farm, is taking care of all the lambs as soon as they come out and it’s just a lot to handle.

PJ just pulled this little girl today:

In other news, we ordered the appliances for Holiday House! We can’t wait to show you. They’re the nicest appliances we’ve ever had, and we’re doing something we’ve never done before design-wise, so we’re excited to see it all come together. Stay tuned!

And speaking of the kitchen at Holiday House, we also had it measured for countertops a few days back!!! Hoping to get those in in the next 2-3 weeks. We know the color we’re going with and we think it’ll tie everything together beautifully. It’ll be a strong, hardworking kitchen with depth and personality.

We also took the sink out there this week! It’s the same one we have at our house in town, which is our favorite ever because it’s so big and fits every last dish. PJ was at the farm earlier today and texted me this photo of it in place:

I think we’re going to love it there.

If you’re not already, may I recommend following thisoakhouse over on Instagram? It’s the account of Nancy Meyer’s daughter, Annie Meyers-Shyer, and she documents fixing up this gorgeous old home that was the house her husband grew up in. She posts a lot of beautiful inspiration photos, like the one above, and is taking you through every step of the renovation process. I love seeing the choices she’s making because, like her mom, she has great taste in design, and I can tell it’s going to be an absolutely stunning home when she’s finished.

My mom brought by this delicious cabbage soup with sausage in it, and it was the best thing ever to eat on a cold winter evening. I asked her for the recipe (she said she combined two different ones) and if she shares it with me, I’ll post it here!

And for dinner tonight, I’m making a slow cooker honey garlic chicken using this recipe from WellPlated.com. It’s been cooking for a while now and is making the entire kitchen smell divine. The whole thing took 10 minutes to put together, if that. Here’s the sauce:

I’m going to serve it with jasmine rice and baked broccoli. Should be delish!

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That’s all for tonight! PJ is at the farm late, the kids are at his mom’s house, and I popped on over to my mom’s to visit and finish up this newsletter.

We hope you have a lovely weekend, friends! We’ll see you Tuesday. xoxo

PJ & Thomas