Warning! At the beginning of the episode during our snack we discuss Santa and you might not want little ears to listen. But after that the coast is clear.

With the end of the year approaching we reflect on 2018 and share our personal highlights plus the best books, movies, products, meals, and podcasts we enjoyed. We also year from past Erica and Kelsey to see if the years we predicted came true. We snack on the ultimate holiday cookie: dark chocolate covered peppermint Joe-Joe's and the not so ultimate pfeffernusse.

Things we mention on the show:

Episode of The Nuanced Life with discussion of therapy

Kelsey on Goodreads

The Heart's Invisible Furies (Erica recommends the audiobook)

Bad Blood (audiobook)

The Great Alone

The Magnolia Table Cookbook

Girl, Wash Your Face

Little Fires Everywhere

Where the Crawdads Sing

Imagine Me Gone

Get Out

A Star is Born

Culinary Dropout

Kelsey's standing desk (desk built to be standing desk height which for Kelsey is 41 inches)

Tommy John lounge joggers

The Glitter Revival earrings

Pink Yeti

Instant Pot

Senegence mascara

Our episode all about podcasts we love

Slow Burn (both seasons)

Jen Hatmarker's For the Love! podcast

The Mom Hour

Straight and Curly podcast ep 2018 Year in Review

Finish

Louise Penny mystery novels

Tana French mystery novels

The Silkworm

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The holidays are here! But along with the merriment the season can also bring stress. We have tips and encouragement for you about self-care and managing stress during the winter holidays.

First, we tried out a juniper latte and it's not as scary as Kelsey feared. Then we talk about ways to manage stress and prioritize self-care around the holiday topics of:

+ Getting the "perfect" gift for everyone

+ Travel

+ Expectations for Christmas morning to be "perfect"

+ Extended family

+ Hosting

+ Indulgent foods everywhere

+ A packed calendar

Things we mention on the show:

Highlights magazine

RXBars

Over the River and Through the Woods - The Mom Hour

December Intentions for Busy Mom - The Mom Hour

Tommy John lounge pants

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For a very hyggelig episode we discuss all things hygge. First, we take a hygge quiz to find out how hygge we each are. Then we share our hygge wins and challenges. We both decide we need emergency hygge bags in our lives ASAP.

Mentioned on the show: Tommy John underwear.

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In our fall book club we are discussing Laurie Frankel's novel This Is How It Always Is. In the book, parents Rosie and Penn, and their family of five children, must come to terms with the true identity of the youngest boy, Claude, who wants to be a girl. During the episode we also mention a book we discussed previously, The Heart's Invisible Furies.

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We start with French press coffee sweetened with Iconic Cocktail Cascara Vanilla mixer and crunch Honeycrisp apples dusted with cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice – delicious!

On the show, we chat about the family dynamics and values we grew up with. Then we talk about the dynamics and values we are trying to instill in our families and how we're trying to do that.

Things we mention on the show:

The Baby Tree

It's NOT the Stork!

Siblings Without Rivalry

Happy Stitch Shop our listeners can use code "Erica15" for 15% off!

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It's the episode that needs no introduction. But if we were going to give it an introduction we would say: Grab your pumpkin spice latte, find a pumpkin patch, and light all your fall candles: it's Fall Extravaganza! There's a thorough fall snack tasting followed by the annual fall candle blind sniff test, Falliday gifts, and discussion at great length of fall habits, activities, fashion AND MORE. You know what they* say, "It's not fall until it's Fall Extravaganza!"

*Erica and Kelsey

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Things we mention on the show:

Spilled Milk podcast

Fall treats from Trader Joe's:

Pumpkin Cranberry Crisps

Greek Yogurt in Pumpkin and Apple Caramel flavors

Maple Leaf Cookies

Pumpkin Joe Joe's

Candy Corn Popcorn

Dairy Queen Pumpkin Pie Blizzard

Pumpkin Caramel Kringle

Smitten Kitchen pumpkin cinnamon rolls

Not Perfect Linen shop

Mustard cardigan - found!

Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn

And Then Comes Halloween

Pumpkin Soup

Ox Cart Man

In November

The Little Tree

The Night Circus

A Gentleman in Moscow

Fall fringe earrings from The Glitter Revival

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This episode is sponsored by Epic! a digital subscription library for kids in preschool through age 12 that we both enjoyed using with our kids. Listeners can get a two month trial of Epic! for free by visiting www.getepic.com and using the promo code NEIGHBOR.

We want to make sure you know that our next book club book will be This Is How It Always Is so grab a copy and join us for the next Girl Next Door Book Club in November!

We chat all about those indispensable and distracting devices that we all now carry around: our phones! We wax nostalgically about the phones of our past and what we thought about texting when it first appeared. Then we talk about how we use our phones today and how healthy our habits are around phone use. Plus we share our favorite apps and the apps we wish someone would invent.

Things we mention on the show:

Society6 and Kelsey's wood grain phone case

The joy of missing out

A Beautiful Mess, Canva, and VSCO photo editing apps

My Fitness Pal

Pocketcast podcast app

Google Keep

Pepperplate

T. Alan Wood Designs and the desk Kelsey bought (customized to be standing height)

Connect with us on Instagram / @higirlsnextdoor and on Facebook.

Sign up for our monthly newsletter and see show notes on our website: girlnextdoorpodcast.com

We love to get your emails: [email protected]

Your reviews on Apple Podcasts really help the show - thank you so much!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is sponsored by Epic! a digital subscription library for kids in preschool through age 12 that we both enjoyed using with our kids. Listeners can get a two month trial of Epic! for free by visiting www.getepic.com and using the promo code NEIGHBOR.

We both sent little kindergartners to school for the first time this year so we're talking all about that sweet first school year. We chat about how to get kids ready for kindergarten and what the first day and weeks have been like for us. We're also sharing some tips about school routines that will make everyone's life easier. And Kelsey reports on some misadventures on bike commuting to school. If you have school-aged kids Erica's book Candid Classroom: What Parents Want to Know and Teachers Want to Tell Them is a great resource!

Connect with us on Instagram / @higirlsnextdoor and on Facebook.

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We are side hustling ladies but lately it seems everyone has a side hustle. It can look easy and fun but that's usually not the whole picture. We've pulling back the curtain to talk about the side hustles we've had and what we have going on now – including this podcast and both of our writing careers. We talk about what we've learned, whether we make money from our side hustles, and what advice we have for side hustlers out there.

Things we mention on the show:

Erica's business, Lips by Ladd

Copper Quail Style

Kelsey's blog, RISING*SHINING

Kelsey's other podcast, Matrimoney

Elise Cripe and her Get To Work Book

An interview with Toni Morrison and how she got started writing

The War of Art

Bird by Bird

Glennon Melton Doyle

Big Magic (and our book club episode on it!)

I Know How She Does It

168 Hours

#amwriting

How I Built This podcast

Happier in Hollywood

Why We Write

Erica's cute zippered cactus pouch for cords

Yogi Refreshing Mint Vital energy tea

Lemony lentil soup

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For summer book club we discuss Tayari Jones' novel An American Marriage about a newly married couple ripped apart by forces beyond their control.

Connect with us on Instagram / @higirlsnextdoor and on Facebook.

Sign up for our monthly newsletter and see show notes on our website: girlnextdoorpodcast.com

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.