A few weeks ago, something happened in the world that I genuinely could not stop thinking about. Couldn't sleep. Sending voice memos to friends at weird hours. And even though the news cycle has absolutely moved on, I sure haven't, and I don't think you will either.

Four humans flew to the moon and came back completely undone by how much they love Earth. That's it. That's the whole thing. And I want to bring you into every beautiful, tear-inducing, quietly extraordinary part of it, including the part where the toilet broke, the part where Earth disappeared behind the moon, and the part that I genuinely think will stop you in your tracks.

Topics Covered:

• The crew of Artemis II and the historic firsts they each carried.
• What Commander Reid Wiseman said when he watched Earth disappear behind the moon.
• The 40 minutes of total silence on the far side of the moon, and what the crew witnessed there that no human eyes had ever seen.
• The Earthset photograph and where to find it.
• What Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen, Christina Koch, and Reid Wiseman said when they came home.
• The story of Carol, and the moment at 252,000 miles from Earth that Reid called the pinnacle of the mission.
• StoryCorps and their Mother's Day collection.

Do you have a topic for a future What I’m Loving episode?! Email us at frenchkissinglifepodcast@gmail.com

Link: Earthset photo (NASA)
Link: Carroll Crater naming moment (NASA livestream clip)
Link: Crew homecoming speeches
Link: Good Good Good quote carousel
Link: StoryCorps Mother's Day collection

______________________
Contact French Kissing Life Podcast

• DM us at @shawnnarstiver on Instagram or Facebook
• Connect with Shawnna Stiver on LinkedIn
• Email us at frenchkissinglifepodcast@gmail.com

Until next time, muah!

______________________

French Kissing Life is sponsored by Ampersand Copy and Content. Ready to convert browsers into buyers? If you want to master your messaging, stand out in a saturated market and become a crushed-on, go-to brand, contact us today!

Website: https://ampersandcopyandcontent.com/
Email: shawnna@ampersandcopyandcontent.com

Starting a business gets this very shiny reputation: freedom, flexibility, being your own boss. And then there's the version nobody talks about as loudly, the one where you're thinking about your business at 2 am because the to-do list is never actually done.

My former professor, Tom Swartwood, has spent decades working with entrepreneurs across industries, countries, and stages of business. He developed the entrepreneurship curriculum at Drake University, founded one of the first startup bootcamps for women in the United States, and is the kind of person who will tell you the truth about business ownership whether you asked for it or not. What you'll hear in this conversation is not a checklist or a roadmap. It's a perspective shift on what starting a business actually means, what separates the people who go for it from those who don't, and why the goal was never really about freedom in the first place.

Topics Covered:

• Why "freedom and flexibility" is a misread of what entrepreneurship actually delivers.
• The three questions every aspiring founder needs to answer before anything else.
• What Tom calls the most dangerous advice founders listen to.
• Why starting a business is less about you and more about everyone else.
• The Craig Newmark story and what it means to decide what "enough" looks like for you.
• What actually separates people who go for it from those who stay on the sidelines.
• Why entrepreneurs aren't big risk-takers, they're just comfortable with ambiguity.

Connect with Tom!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomswartwood/

______________________
Contact French Kissing Life Podcast

• DM us at @shawnnarstiver on Instagram or Facebook
• Connect with Shawnna Stiver on LinkedIn
• Email us at frenchkissinglifepodcast@gmail.com

Until next time, muah!

______________________

French Kissing Life is sponsored by Ampersand Copy and Content. Ready to convert browsers into buyers? If you want to master your messaging, stand out in a saturated market and become a crushed-on, go-to brand, contact us today!

Website: https://ampersandcopyandcontent.com/
Email: shawnna@ampersandcopyandcontent.com

Plants have names for a reason. And once you start learning what those names actually mean, you can't walk past a dandelion or a hawthorn tree the same way again.

In this episode, I'm joined again by Kim Gros, a New York City-based clinical herbalist, educator, and founder of an organic herbal product line. Kim leads plant walks in Central Park and has a gift for making the natural world feel alive through storytelling. We get into what plant names reveal across different languages and cultures, how ancient superstitions often turn out to have a scientific explanation, and how so much of our everyday language traces back to plants in ways most of us have never considered.

Topics Covered:

• Why stories help us remember plants better than properties do.
• What plant names in different languages actually reveal.
• Botanical sexism and how it connects to your spring allergies.
• Why dandelions have a very literal (and unexpected) name in French.
• The pagan roots behind bringing holly and pine inside for the holidays.
• How superstitions about hawthorn flowers turned out to be scientifically accurate.
• Where "caught red-handed" actually comes from.

Connect with Kim!
Website: https://moonstoneandmulberry.com/
Shop herbal remedies: https://herbalremedies.moonstoneandmulberry.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moonstoneandmulberry
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MoonstoneandMulberry/

______________________
Contact French Kissing Life Podcast

• DM us at @shawnnarstiver on Instagram or Facebook
• Connect with Shawnna Stiver on LinkedIn
• Email us at frenchkissinglifepodcast@gmail.com

Until next time, muah!

______________________

French Kissing Life is sponsored by Ampersand Copy and Content. Ready to convert browsers into buyers? If you want to master your messaging, stand out in a saturated market and become a crushed-on, go-to brand, contact us today!

Website: https://ampersandcopyandcontent.com/
Email: shawnna@ampersandcopyandcontent.com

Something has been sitting with me lately, a contradiction I couldn't quite shake. I've always thought of myself as someone who loves change. Enneagram Seven, chases novelty, has a podcast called French Kissing Life. And yet when change actually shows up uninvited, I freeze. What I've landed on is that I'm not actually afraid of change. I'm afraid of uncertainty. And once you see the difference, you really can't unsee it. There's also a quieter, sneakier version of this that I've been living, and I wanted to talk about both.

Topics Covered:

• The difference between fearing change and fearing uncertainty, and why it matters.
• Why our brains treat unexpected change like a threat (and what's actually happening neurologically).
• The hair growth analogy that reframes how we experience gradual vs. sudden change.
• What the research actually says about stress, uncertainty, and adaptability.
• The distinction between novelty you choose and change that arrives uninvited.
• How chronic deferral, "I'll do it when things settle down," is just fear wearing a productivity disguise.
• The two questions worth sitting with this week.

Resources:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/03/opinions/uncertainty-is-good-for-you-jackson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=267cB6tNeUc

______________________
Contact French Kissing Life Podcast

• DM us at @shawnnarstiver on Instagram or Facebook
• Connect with Shawnna Stiver on LinkedIn
• Email us at frenchkissinglifepodcast@gmail.com

Until next time, muah!

______________________

French Kissing Life is sponsored by Ampersand Copy and Content. Ready to convert browsers into buyers? If you want to master your messaging, stand out in a saturated market and become a crushed-on, go-to brand, contact us today!

Website: https://ampersandcopyandcontent.com/
Email: shawnna@ampersandcopyandcontent.com

Sometimes life gets so full of hard that you forget you're even allowed to want something light. That's where Lori Blachford found herself after seven years of caregiving and loss, and it's what led her to start snatching up small, slightly unpredictable experiences just to feel alive again.

What started as "bucket list quickies" got a necessary rebrand and became bucket list minis, a practice of saying yes to the weird, doable, low-stakes things right in front of you and building a list of things you've already done instead of things you're still waiting to get to. In this conversation, we talk about blacksmithing classes found on Craigslist, piano lessons that may or may not summon Elton John, and a garage that somehow contains both hot steel and denture molds. But underneath all of it is something I think a lot of people will recognize.

Topics Covered:

• How seven years of caregiving led Lori to the idea of bucket list minis.
• Why minis are opportunities you snatch up, not goals you write down and wait on.
• Ross Gay's Book of Delights and how it shaped Lori's thinking about everyday joy.
• The piano lesson that may or may not have summoned Elton John.
• How Lori's brother with Down syndrome was already living the mini philosophy before she had a name for it.
• What it feels like to build a list of things you've already accomplished.
• Holding joy and grief at the same time, and why that's not overindulgent.

Here are some actions you can take, whether you have 5 minutes or 50:

• If you have 5 minutes, check out the article that Lori wrote for dsm magazine:
  • https://dsmmagazine.com/2026/01/13/think-small/
• If you have 50 minutes, brainstorm a short list of 5 minis you could snatch up in your own life. Remember, don’t overthink it and don’t try to make it something grand or overly time-consuming. The point of the whole exercise is to simply let yourself try something new. Just go do it!

Connect with Lori!

Lori Blachford is a journalist whose words have carried her from news reporting to magazine editing, from grant writing to ghost writing, from marketing to community building, from corporate to academic to nonprofit work. In other words, she can write her way out of (and, more often, into) anything. She is the former Chair of Magazine Journalism at Drake University and a current second-grade reading mentor at Howe Elementary School in Des Moines, Iowa.

Email: loriblachford@gmail.com

______________________
Contact French Kissing Life Podcast

• DM us at @shawnnarstiver on Instagram or Facebook
• Connect with Shawnna Stiver on LinkedIn
• Email us at frenchkissinglifepodcast@gmail.com

Until next time, muah!

______________________

French Kissing Life is sponsored by Ampersand Copy and Content. Ready to convert browsers into buyers? If you want to master your messaging, stand out in a saturated market and become a crushed-on, go-to brand, contact us today!

Website: https://ampersandcopyandcontent.com/
Email: shawnna@ampersandcopyandcontent.com

Spring doesn't always arrive the way we expect it to. One day it's a blizzard, the next it's pushing 80 degrees, and somewhere in the middle of all that, we're supposed to feel refreshed and ready. But what if the transition itself is the invitation, not a problem to push through?

I'm excited to welcome back expressive arts therapist and trauma-informed care consultant Emma Sullivan Uebele for a conversation about what this season actually asks of us. We talk about what's really happening in our bodies as the light returns, why spring can feel surprisingly tender even when it looks beautiful, and how creativity, in the simplest, most accessible forms, can help us come back to ourselves and find what Emma calls a grounded hope, one rooted in the present moment rather than floating off into what we think spring should feel like.

Topics Covered:

• What the body and nervous system experience as light returns.
• Why spring can feel disorienting or emotionally tender, even when it looks beautiful.
• Grounded hope and why hope untethered to reality can lead to burnout.
• Simple ways to reawaken creativity after a slower season.
• How art-making brings the brain into the present and why that matters.
• Making art for the process, not the product.
• Emma's spring journaling ritual, what she takes from winter, and what she leaves behind.

Here are some actions you can take, whether you have 5 minutes or 50:

• If you have five minutes, try the exercise Emma shared. Grab a pen and a small piece of paper… and just draw something you can see right outside your window. Not what you think it should look like. Just… what’s actually there. A tree. A branch. A shadow. The way the light is hitting something. Remember, the goal isn’t to be good at it. It’s to pay attention. And to give your brain a break from everything else… and come back to the present moment, even just for a few minutes.
• If you have 50 minutes, or you want something a little more guided, Emma has just released her Spring Blooms expressive arts workbook, which is designed to walk you through this exact seasonal transition. It includes a series of creative exercises, prompts, and reflections to help you reconnect with your creativity, process what’s shifting, and move into spring in a more intentional way.
  • https://emmasullivan.art/shop/p/spring-blooms-expressive-arts-workbook

Connect with Emma!
Website: http://www.emmasullivan.art/
Expressive arts workbooks: https://emmasullivan.art/shop
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emmasullivanart/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-sullivan-uebele/

______________________
Contact French Kissing Life Podcast

• DM us at @shawnnarstiver on Instagram or Facebook
• Connect with Shawnna Stiver on LinkedIn
• Email us at frenchkissinglifepodcast@gmail.com

Until next time, muah!

______________________

French Kissing Life is sponsored by Ampersand Copy and Content. Ready to convert browsers into buyers? If you want to master your messaging, stand out in a saturated market and become a crushed-on, go-to brand, contact us today!

Website: https://ampersandcopyandcontent.com/
Email: shawnna@ampersandcopyandcontent.com

What if the first signs of spring have been whispering to us all along?

In this episode, I’m joined by clinical herbalist and educator Kim Gros for a gentle conversation about the plants that quietly announce spring’s arrival. We explore the stories behind these early bloomers, the nourishment found in seasonal greens, and how paying attention to nature can reconnect us with our own rhythms of rest, renewal, and growth.

We talk about early spring greens like nettles and dandelion, why bitter plants have long supported the body after winter, and how observing the natural world can help us become more present, more connected, and maybe even a little more whole.

Topics Covered:

• How plants signal the changing of the seasons.
• Why winter invites rest and restoration.
• Kim’s path back to her lifelong love of plants.
• The magic of plant walks and plant folklore.
• Early signs of spring in the natural world.
• Spring greens like nettles, dandelion, and chickweed.
• A slower, more grounded approach to seasonal wellness.
• Reconnecting with nature through simple observation.

Connect with Kim!
Website: https://moonstoneandmulberry.com/
Shop herbal remedies: https://herbalremedies.moonstoneandmulberry.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moonstoneandmulberry
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MoonstoneandMulberry/

______________________
Contact French Kissing Life Podcast

• DM us at @shawnnarstiver on Instagram or Facebook
• Connect with Shawnna Stiver on LinkedIn
• Email us at frenchkissinglifepodcast@gmail.com

Until next time, muah!

______________________

French Kissing Life is sponsored by Ampersand Copy and Content. Ready to convert browsers into buyers? If you want to master your messaging, stand out in a saturated market and become a crushed-on, go-to brand, contact us today!

Website: https://ampersandcopyandcontent.com/
Email: shawnna@ampersandcopyandcontent.com

Color analysis has been having a major moment lately, and after seeing it everywhere online, I finally decided to try it for myself. What started as simple curiosity quickly turned into a bit of a plot twist when my results left me with more questions than answers.

So I brought those questions to someone I trust. In this episode, I’m joined again by Christy Meaux of Cohesive Confidence to talk about how color analysis really works, why different experts can sometimes see different things, and what happened when we revisited my own results together. If you’ve ever wondered whether your favorite colors are actually your best colors, this conversation might surprise you.

Topics Covered:

• What color analysis actually measures and how the process works.
• The difference between warm and cool seasonal palettes.
• Why two professionals can sometimes reach different results.
• My personal color analysis plot twist and what we discovered together.
• How color affects confidence and personal presentation.
• Simple ways to start using your color palette without replacing your whole wardrobe.

Here are some actions you can take, whether you have 5 minutes or 50:

• If you have five minutes, Elf Cosmetics has a free quiz on its website that can help you understand what your unique color season is. Be wary that you may not get fully accurate results, as a quiz like this is limited in its analysis of your unique skin tone.
  • https://elfnalysis.elfcosmetics.com
• If you have longer, and you want to check out Christy’s color analysis service, I’ll leave the details in the show notes. She has graciously offered a $50 off discount for listeners. So if anyone wants to book a Confident Color Analysis + Personal Brand Presence, just use the code “FRENCHKISS50” and you’ll get $50 off.
  • https://cohesiveconfidence.com/color-analysis

Connect with Christy!
Website: https://cohesiveconfidence.com/
Book a color analysis: https://cohesiveconfidence.com/color-analysis
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cohesiveconfidence
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christymeaux
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cohesiveconfidence

______________________
Contact French Kissing Life Podcast

• DM us at @shawnnarstiver on Instagram or Facebook
• Connect with Shawnna Stiver on LinkedIn
• Email us at frenchkissinglifepodcast@gmail.com

Until next time, muah!

______________________

French Kissing Life is sponsored by Ampersand Copy and Content. Ready to convert browsers into buyers? If you want to master your messaging, stand out in a saturated market and become a crushed-on, go-to brand, contact us today!

Website: https://ampersandcopyandcontent.com/
Email: shawnna@ampersandcopyandcontent.com