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I Don't Love Homeschooling Every Day: The Truth About Hard Homeschool Days · Making Everyday Magic: The Podcast

• 0:00
  Okay.
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  I'm about to blow your mind as much as I come here and I talk about it.
• 0:05
  I don't love homeschooling every day.
• 0:07
  Welcome back to making Everyday Magic. My name is Shanna.
• 0:09
  If you're new here, we're homeschooling family of four.
• 0:12
  We are in our 10th year of homeschooling, and today
• 0:16
  let's talk about not loving homeschool.
• 0:25
  Before we go any further, please scroll down.
• 0:27
  Hit the big red subscribe button.
• 0:29
  Turn on that bell for notifications.
• 0:39
  And give this video a thumbs up.
• 0:40
  As always, you can find me down in the comments
• 0:43
  or over on Instagram at Making Everyday Magic.
• 0:46
  I know that it is crazy
• 0:50
  that I come here and I built this entire channel and community.
• 0:54
  I like to think is around something bigger than homeschooling.
• 0:56
  But let's not kid. It's probably not.
• 1:00
  I don't love it.
• 1:00
  I don't love it every day.
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  And if you think about it, bare bones, I mean, there's probably going to
• 1:05
  be able out there who clutch their pearls about it.
• 1:07
  Like, how dare you?
• 1:08
  How dare you chose this life?
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  Everyone and you don't even like it, which isn't the case.
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  It's the same thing is like being married or being a parent.
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  Some days is hard.
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  It is hard.
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  It is hard to deal with
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  the pressure, the pressure of
• 1:27
  other people's opinions, which you know, as much as I can say
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  FM, it just is still heavy and hard and grating,
• 1:36
  and it's hard to deal with the pressures of getting it right.
• 1:41
  The pressures we put on ourselves, the things that.
• 1:46
  I mean, they do matter, but
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  the things that in the day to day really don't even matter as much.
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  The lack of sleep, the stress, the stress, the cost.
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  And yes, I don't ever want cost to be a barrier to homeschool.
• 1:58
  But there's still costs.
• 2:00
  So time costs, emotional costs, the dollar costs, space.
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  There's just so much.
• 2:08
  There's so much.
• 2:09
  And it's okay to not love it every day.
• 2:14
  I don't love it every day.
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  There are times when you know, I never seriously.
• 2:20
  But you know, you think about what would life be like if my kids did go to school.
• 2:23
  What would it be like if they went back and
• 2:27
  went back, went, I guess, in my situation,
• 2:29
  and I think that's really fair.
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  There are a lot of expectations
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  that come just from being a parent, being a human these days, being a mother
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  to add on.
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  Also homeschooling, there's a lot that's hard and there's a lot
• 2:45
  that's heavy.
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  And it's again, it's okay to not love it every day.
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  It's okay to not love it every season.
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  It's okay to choose some years and to not choose some years.
• 2:54
  It is okay.
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  All of that is understandable and reasonable, but there are certain
• 3:00
  things that you can do when you're just not loving it every day.
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  Some of the things that I will do is I will change it up.
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  If I'm having a particularly hard day, I might just say, forget it.
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  Today we don't.
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  Today we clean the house because that's all I can think about.
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  So I've got to get this done before my brain can move on.
• 3:19
  Today we go do something fun because sometimes
• 3:23
  you just need to get out of the house and go to the zoo.
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  Eat a dollop.
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  Sometimes you need to go for a walk.
• 3:30
  Sometimes you need to feel the sunshine.
• 3:31
  Sometimes it is the first nice day in a long time and you hit the beach.
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  Some days it's not even about homeschooling,
• 3:39
  it's just that you would rather be doing anything else.
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  Some days it's that there's a fun performance.
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  Some days there's a friend's birthday party,
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  some days it's just better to be doing anything else.
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  A couch day, a pajama day, which is another thing we do.
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  Sometimes we keep doing school, though.
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  We do it in pajamas.
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  Some days we give ourselves an early cutoff time and just watch movies.
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  Sometimes we lean into
• 4:04
  the things that do bring us joy, because sometimes homeschool is not that.
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  And I love this way of life and I do appreciate it all the time.
• 4:12
  But some days it sucks in the same way that you love your marriage.
• 4:16
  But some days it sucks and some days your kids suck, and some days
• 4:19
  you don't want to be a parent and some days you just want to go,
• 4:22
  you know, travel the world so low and alone.
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  And I know that you guys get me.
• 4:26
  Some days are hard and some days just could pass a little faster.
• 4:31
  But I want to remind you that it is okay to not love homeschooling every day.
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  And by the time you see this video, it will be mid September,
• 4:40
  which means that some of you
• 4:42
  have been doing this
• 4:42
  for a couple of weeks, and some of you have been doing it
• 4:44
  for about six weeks, and some of you will understand.
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  And we're going to have this conversation
• 4:47
  again in the spring, because all the dark days, the dark days,
• 4:50
  there is something about the start after Christmas to like spring break time.
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  I don't know if it's like winter or what, because even here, where the weather
• 4:57
  is still pretty nice, like, oh man, it feels like it will never end.
• 5:02
  It just it just is day to day to day to day to day.
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  And it feels like it will never stop.
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  So we'll have this encouraging discussion again later.
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  Don't worry.
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  I just want you to remember that
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  the days are long and the years are short,
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  and that applies to homeschooling as well.
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  So there will be some days when you are struggling to get through anything, and
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  it is okay if you just do math and call it a day, and it is okay
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  if you get to your limit and you're done and you didn't get a single thing done,
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  it is okay if you hit your limit before you even see the shining faces
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  of your little cherubs that your birth to.
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  It is okay.
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  We all have it.
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  We all have those days.
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  But what we have is the freedom to say today's pajamas.
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  Today there's no math. Today is the movie day.
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  Today is a park day.
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  We have that freedom.
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  Whereas if it were sending everybody
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  out into the world to a job and to school
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  and to a poor teacher, or if we were the teacher,
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  we wouldn't have the freedom to acknowledge that sometimes.
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  And what it really is, is a mental health day.
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  And you guys know,
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  I mean, there are seasons of life where you're moving an illness.
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  There are times
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  when you just have to set it down, but you got to be ready to pick it back up.
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  And the days are long, but the years are short.
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  So you're going to
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  forget about the one day when you didn't do everything like you planned
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  and you'll feel guilty.
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  Don't worry, it's going to happen. It's going to suck.
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  Give yourself a little if it gives you any, here's your permission slip.
• 6:32
  Shauna said it was okay.
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  Shauna said it was okay to. Not today. Okay?
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  Not every day. Don't hear me, hear me.
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  Not every day, but something that I have found.
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  The gift of consistency is that I build in extra weeks and extra days.
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  So if you guys are new here, you may not know that when I plan my homeschool year,
• 6:52
  I plan academically for about 3032 weeks
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  and I time out 3436 weeks. Why?
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  Because we will not.
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  We will not.
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  And I like to account for that.
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  That gives me a certain amount of peace
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  when it comes to the day where we will not.
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  But I know it's okay.
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  Same thing with why we do four day school weeks.
• 7:13
  We do for day school weeks because there is always something else to do.
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  Our first week of school, we started back to a lot of our events.
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  We started back to Girl Scouts.
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  I had a dentist appointment and we had a friend's birthday party at the beach.
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  Yeah, so four day school weeks allow me to give myself
• 7:30
  that grace when there's a day when we're just that day.
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  I don't love homeschooling that day. I just don't want to that day.
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  I just don't want to with people or my kids or my house or whatever it is.
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  It's built in and it's accounted for it.
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  And that honestly saves me so much guilt,
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  stress, pressure, just knowing that it is okay to not.
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  You know how I know that?
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  Because previous Shawna made a point that there were days
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  to not in the calendar and you can't have too many.
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  Again, I'm not saying don't do anything, I'm not saying that.
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  But what I am saying is
• 8:01
  there will be times
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  and there will be seasons when you don't like it and the early times,
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  and there'll be seasons when you have to put it down.
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  And there will be times and there will be seasons
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  when you're doing it anyway, even if you don't have a deep love for it.
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  And that's okay.
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  I don't want you to wallow in that.
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  So you need to check on that, okay? Keep your temperature gauge.
• 8:17
  If that becomes more often the case than not, maybe not for you.
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  I know you're going to hate me for saying it, but it's okay to quit.
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  Guys. It's okay to change your mind.
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  Just like I say in my house.
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  My homeschool is a collaborative experience and so is yours.
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  Everyone has to be getting what they need out of this.
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  So if you hate every day, if you hate every single thing about it
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  every single day, please do not, please do not, please send them on their way.
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  Please send them to school.
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  Okay.
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  Let go back to being the fun mom and not the homeschool mom.
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  And that's okay.
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  That's okay.
• 8:43
  It is okay to not love this way of life.
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  It is okay to quit. It is okay to pivot.
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  It is okay to outsource math if math makes you fight every single day.
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  But that is the only drop. Outsource.
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  Now get you a math tutor or hire someone else.
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  Calling grandpa. Get the cousin over.
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  You don't have to
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  suffer the win when it comes to homeschool,
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  but there's going to be days of suck, so you'll know the balance
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  and don't keep going just because you think you should.
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  Don't keep going just because you said you would.
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  Make sure that you are doing all of these things for the right reasons
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  and that everyone's on board.
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  Okay, because maybe, maybe your kids
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  are the ones who hate, homeschool and hate every day of it.
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  And maybe you just have to adjust to that being the reality and adjust accordingly.
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  So I just want to remind you that we're not all going to love this every day.
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  And that's okay.
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  You're not going to love everything every day.
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  Just like the things you do love deeply, truly, every day.
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  Homeschool is not fragile like that. And it's okay.
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  You can pick it down,
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  put it down, you can pick it up, and you can also change your mind.
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  So just a little friendly reminder.
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  Don't come at me, don't hate on me.
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  Just a reminder that nothing's permanent.
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  Everything's temporary. And some things just have seasons.
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  Maybe it worked great for a while and now it doesn't. And that's okay too.
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  Maybe you're just coming to this and you're having a really hard few weeks.
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  There's always an adjustment period.
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  I know it's the worst. It's not worst.
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  Just like parenting, okay?
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  You just have to get through the
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  sleepless nights and then it does get a little easier.
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  But maybe it's also just not for you.
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  That's okay too, I promise.
• 10:15
  I hope that you found it is helpful, entertaining, informative.
• 10:17
  If you did, please scroll down.
• 10:18
  Hit that big red subscribe button,
• 10:20
  turn on the bell for notifications and give this video a thumbs up.
• 10:22
  As always, if I'm you right on down in the comments
• 10:25
  or on Instagram at Making Everyday Magic, I would love to hear.
• 10:28
  Whoa, what is something that just set you off for a day?
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  Maybe you dropped your freshly baked local bread on the floor,
• 10:38
  or maybe you forgot to turn on the coffee pot.
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  What was something where you were just like,
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  not today.
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  Because we all have those days.
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  There's just,
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  you know, you know, you know, I know, you know, you get me, you feel me.
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  But just just a reminder.
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  Not even on the bad days, we can keep making everyday magic.
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  And honestly, if you if you change, if you pivot, go to the beach instead.
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  It's a pretty great day.
• 11:07
  And that's a winning day by.