This time of year can hold some pretty hefty expectations of what it means to be a family. In this episode we are talking about what happens when the reality isn't all that you hoped for and how to manage expectations of ourselves and others around the holidays. Families look different for us all and they are ever-changing, so if you find this a tough season for any of those reasons or you are feeling bound up by the nostalgia trap of wanting everything to be perfect and magical, this episode is for you.

 

SEND US YOUR STORIES!

As always we love hearing from you and we are putting together a new call-in episode specifically around the best traditions, rituals or practices you have (or maybe had growing up) for Christmas or the holiday season. Send us your emails or voicenotes with your stories or experiences to [email protected].

Voice Note Submissions:

Here’s what you gotta do:

• Set your phone to airplane mode (helps field off interruptions) and get the voice note/memo app up. (for iphones search your apps for "Voice Memos")

• Record your message by hitting the red record button, checking the time is ticking and holding your phone like you would in a phone call. (Ah, the good old days when people used to use their phone as a phone…)

• Keep it snappy! We will likely only use submissions that are around a minute long!

• Share the recorded memo to an email and send it off to us at [email protected]

• Pat yourself on the back for your bravery and technological prowess!

Want to support us in creating Making An Effort? You can be our patreon for as little as just $5 a month and get access to extra content and first dibs on helping us with episode ideas and BTS features! Find out more here: patreon.com/makinganeffortpodcast

Welcome to our first festive episode of 2022! This is gift-giving for the lazy gals out there who just need some reassurance around this season of high expectations. We thought we'd get a head start on talking all things gift-giving, including a good old-fashion whine about how hard it is to buy for our husbands. We're sharing our best present ideas, and basically teeing things up nicely for our loved ones to buy us all the nice things we mention in this episode for Christmas. 

As always, we want to invite you to join our patreon community - especially on our brand new Sharecase tier! We have opened up a Marco Polo channel for anyone on our $10 a month tier just so we can share BTS of life where we are, all the things we're working on for the podcast and continue conversations with you after each episode! We would love to see you there - AND - becoming a patreon really supports us to keep our podcast running! Here's the link so you can check it out: https://www.patreon.com/makinganeffortpodcast

With Gabby having moved house recently and both Mel & Gabs having both done considerable renovations to their homes, this episode is dedicated to all things house stuff. We are sharing our regrets, our best decisions and our paint colour choice woes and of the ups and downs of making a house a home! 

We also have some BIG things coming up for our Patreon Community including a new partnership that's going to take our connection to you all to the next level! We are pumped. You can join our Patreon and get access to all the BTS for just $5 a month! Click here for all the info: https://www.patreon.com/makinganeffortpodcast

As always you can reach out to us with any of your own thoughts or feedback on [email protected]

 

*Trigger Warning* We want to give you a heads up that in this episode we talk about some pretty sensitive topics around sex, sexuality, religion and shame. Whilst we believe what we talk through is super important and ultimately hopeful, if this brings up difficult issues for you, look after yourself as you listen.

We are DELIGHTED to be joined once again by songwriter, musician and our all around legend friend, Audrey Assad! Together we decided to dedicate today's episode to returning to the topic of purity culture. Between the three of us, we are sharing how purity culture has shaped us, and the ways we are healing from it piece by piece.

We really hope you find something healing in us sharing our experiences. Feel free, as always, to reach out to us via email [email protected] with any of your thoughts.

We also have some BIG things coming up for our Patreon Community including a new partnership that's going to take our connection to you all to the next level! We are pumped. You can join our Patreon and get access to all the BTS for just $5 a month! Click here for all the info: https://www.patreon.com/makinganeffortpodcast

Do you have a bestie? Are we too old to have *actual* best friends anymore? Are best friends a thing reserved for carefree days when you could spend all of your time with your one person? What happens when you see your friends hanging out without you? 

How do guys do friendship? It's a mystery. We truly don't know. 

These are all the topics we're exploring today. It's a friendship-extravaganza. Welcome.

We have some BIG things coming up for our Patreon Community including a new partnership that's going to take our connection to you all to the next level! We are pumped. You can join our Patreon and get access to all the BTS for just $5 a month! Click here for all the info: https://www.patreon.com/makinganeffortpodcast

We thought it was about time we revisited a conversation about our bodies and body image. In this episode we share a little about the evolution of our mindset around body image; how tricky it can be to stay connected to the goodness of our bodies, how anxiety shows up, the nonsense of 'bouncing back' after having babies and all the ways we are trying to be compassionate towards ourselves and feel at home in the skin we're in.

To keep up with us behind the scenes and hear our newest community news, consider joining our Patreon for just $5 a month! https://www.patreon.com/makinganeffortpodcast We'll be hosting our virtual cocktail party reunion really soon for Patrons only, you should come!

Welcome back! This week we are divulging all the latest pop culture events du jour that are piquing our interest. Gabs has a short rant about the caliber of modern rom-coms and Mel gets into the current food trends she's not sure about... it's a juicy episode.

To keep up with us behind the scenes and hear our newest community news, consider joining our Patreon for just $5 a month! https://www.patreon.com/makinganeffortpodcast We'll be hosting our virtual cocktail party reunion really soon for Patrons only, you should come!

After three months and two babies and one glorious Summer, we are BACK! It has felt so good to sit behind the mic again and catch you guys up on the shenanigans of the last little while.

This episode is a roundup of all things Summer, having twins, what we've been up to with the usual dose of off-topic discussions and musings. We are so happy to be back!

To keep up with us behind the scenes consider joining our Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/makinganeffortpodcast We'll be hosting our virtual cocktail party reunion really soon for Patrons only, you should come!

You guys, this is our last episode of Season 3! We're signing out this season of the podcast with some hilarious, rotten and downright terrible summer job stories for you, our listeners (as well as our own). Thanks to everyone who submitted their stories via voicenote and email/text/DM. We love hearing from you!

Thanks, as always, for being such amazing supporters - we can't wait to come back soon with Season 4.

To keep up with us in the meantime (we'll be having a virtual cocktail party reunion in late summer) you can consider joining our Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/makinganeffortpodcast

This week we're sharing our summer plans. One of us is having two babies extracted from our bodies and one of us hopes to learn to surf 😂 We'll let you guess who is who.

We also get into the spiralling world of Mormon Momtok and the latest "soft swinging" scandal you absolutely don't need to know about but is totally worth a deep dive. Enjoy!