In this episode of The Frisco Podcast, Portrait Photographer Me Ra Koh, Professional Organizer Sue Yaghi, and Howard “The Dirt Doctor” Garrett join us in the studio to give a sneak peek of what you can expect to see at the upcoming 2020 Greater Frisco Home and Garden Show.
SHOW NOTES:
[00:20] Introductions[02:30] KonMari Method explained
[08:15] “The Dirt Doctor” discusses organic gardening
[14:21] The experience of photographing family portraits
[20:10] Where you can find Me Ra Koh, Sue Yaghi, and Howard Garrett online
LINKS & RESOURCES:
- 2020 Greater Frisco Home and Garden Show Website
- Me Ra Koh: Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter
- Sue Yaghi: Website | Facebook | Instagram| LinkedIn
- Howard Garrett: Website | Facebook |Instagram | Twitter
Connect with Lifestyle Frisco on:
Transcript
Machine-generated.
Welcome to the Frisco Podcast. I’m your host, Scott Ellis. And in this episode we’re talking about the Home and Garden Show that’s coming to Frisco on March 20th through 22nd I have a number of guests in the studio with me today. So, uh, I tell you what, instead of me introducing you guys, why don’t we go around the room and you guys can introduce yourselves and I’m gonna start with Sue.
Hi, my name is Sue Yaghi. I am going to be the home and garden show and I am going to talk about the basic methods of the KonMari organizing.
So you’re gonna be doing, talking to you have a booth there as well.
I do not have a booth. I’ll be talking on Saturday. I have two sessions at 11 and two and then on Sunday at one o’clock. Perfect. Okay. Howard.
Well, I’m the dirt doctor. I’m been, I’ve been in the landscape business all my life. I’m currently doing the radio talk show weekly that’s nationally syndicated. I’ve written 15 books on organic gardening, various specific subjects. And I, uh, just teach people how to go organic and stop using synthetic fertilizers and toxic chemical pesticides. We’ll be speaking three times at the event.
Okay. Very good. I’m sure we’ll have a number of questions for you. And last but not least, mirror.
Hi, my name is Me Ra Koh and I was a photo mom on Disney for several years, which is a show called capture your story. And I love empowering people with photo tips on how to capture their family. We’re going to have a booth there as well. We um, just came here from Seattle and have a local studio now in Frisco. So I’ll be on the stage giving tips on how to look thinner in photos, how to get high energy kids to like calm down for the photo. Just all kinds of tips that, you know, we just want when we’re working with kids, um, as well as have some of our fine artwork of families on display there.
Well, we’re going to have a lot of questions for you guys as well. So we’re gonna have some fun here today. And again, the Home and Garden Show is happening. It’s at the Star in Frisco. So if you didn’t get to go last year, uh, this is the second year at the star and it is March 20th through 22nd. So it’s coming up pretty fast. So, uh, let’s go ahead and dig in with a little bit of organizing talk here because you know that that’s a topic that comes up frequently, um, with some of our writers and other people that we work with at lifestyle Frisco. There’s so many families moving into Frisco, you know, kind of clean slate, new house, all that kind of stuff. So tell us a little bit about the KonMari method. What exactly does that mean? And we’ll go from there,
Right? The KonMari method really has three rules, uh, three basic rules. And the first rule is be honest with yourself and visualize your ideal life. What is your ideal life and why do you want to tidy? It’s not just about tidying or houses. Why do you want to do it? And trust me, once you are done, you will find out that your life is just a little more and less, more stress, fee free. And therefore you have a better life. So that’s number one. Number two are the rule number two is tidy in one go. Do not tidy. One room, do not tidy. One closet tidy in one go. Um, so you basically pile everything up. There are certain categories to go by, but basically you pile everything up so you see the magnitude of what you have. And the third and last rule is tidy by category. So you tidy. There are five categories in the KonMari method, clothes, books, papers, um, komono komono means miscellaneous, which is kitchen, bathroom, everything else. And the last one is sentimental. Sentimental meaning your albums, you know, the closets of albums and pictures, the pictures on the walls, sentimental item, psych, wedding dresses, um, maybe little trinkets, maybe the thousand Christmas cards that we’ve saved over the years. And we have, we don’t have the heart to throw those away. So that is sentimental. So once you go by these three rules, you will really understand that once you’re done, Oh my gosh, my life is stress free. So you, if you start with clothes, you basically take all the clothes you personally have not talking about your partner. I’m not talking about your kids, I’m talking about you personally. You, whoever wants to start it has to do it, has to go through the experience themselves. Throw all your clothes on the bed, socks, underwear, jackets, coats, um, anything you have, um, scarves. Throw them all on the bed in a huge pile and take a look at it and say, why do I have all of this? Do I wear all of this? Do I use all of this? And then the, maybe the most, the biggest trademark that the KonMari method has is the spark joy. So you pick up every single item. You have to pick up every single item. And trust me, I have done this exercise. You pick it up and you look at it and you think, does this spark joy to me? If it does not spark joy to you, you thank it. You put it in a pile for giveaway. If it sparks joy to you, put it in the spark joy pile. And then later on we’ll talk about folding it and if you’re not sure there’s an item like, ah, I really like it but I haven’t worn it. I’m not sure that’s your maybe pile. By the time you’re done with the spark joy pile that I really hate this pile, and the maybe you will come back to that maybe pile and say, okay, I know exactly what I want to do. Usually there’s a couple of items that you’re still not sure about. I say hang them up in the closet, put them in clear view, don’t stack them somewhere. You’ll never go back to them. If you stack them, hang them up and take a look at them every day. Maybe in a week or two, maybe in a month or two you’ll say, why the heck am I holding onto this? I’m going to throw this away. Or Oh my gosh, I love this. I should wear this. As long as you’re wearing it, keep it in the closet and then move it to your spark joy pile, which will be hanging up.
So what are the key benefits of going through this kind of a process? I mean, what do people, other than making more space and getting rid of things that they’re not using, what are they really, really?
They’re Galing. They’re gaining the spark joy. So if you, if you think about it, if your closet sparks joy, your pantry sparks joy, your living room sparks joy, you’re going to spark joy on the inside. You’re going to be happy on the inside because everything is basically organized and then you think, okay, let me move to my second thing. What am I doing next? Has nothing to do with organizing. Has nothing to do with your house. Maybe it’s, gosh, you know, all my life I wanted to do something. I wanted to do this hobby, but I haven’t done it. So you do it because it sparks joy. You basically are teaching yourself a method of how to take care of yourself. I’ve worked corporate America for 20 years and I decided one day after I read Marie Kondo’s books, I decided I’m going to take a break. I’m going to quit my job. My 50 hour week job and just do what I want to do. And I went through the whole course, the training, the seminars, the practice, and I feel like I’ve really done what I wanted to do. I even garden, you know, if never gardened before. I don’t have a green thumb. I, I really am horrible at it. I’ve killed so many plants and finally I’ve taken the time to read through it to really learn how to do it. And I’m doing that. I travel because now I feel like while there’s nothing holding me back, there’s no one holding me back. So it’s about what you want to do, your ideal life. That’s why I said be honest with yourself and think, how do you visualize your ideal life?
Sounds wonderful. I can imagine for some folks it’s probably harder than it sounds at times that we used to get going. Um, but good practice. And speaking of gardening, what a great transition. We’re going to talk to Howard now, the dirt doctor who is also going to be at the Home and Garden Show and Howard, tell us what about the dirt doctor and what you guys are doing over there.
Well, if I teach you how to garden, will you come over and talk to my wife? I’m on the other end of the spectrum of that. Well, I as the dirt doctor, like I said, I specialize in organic gardening. I’m a practicing landscape architecture for a long time. I really don’t do that anymore. I do a little consulting on projects that are special to me, that I’ve worked on in the past. But the main thing I do now is teach homeowners, farmers, ranchers, and others how to go a different route, go this natural organic route. And I try to teach people about all the misconceptions on it. We are, we have a little bit of a difficulty because none of the universities teach what I teach in the United States. Not one, including where I went to school, Texas tech.
So we’re, we’re battling all the time. What people are coming out of school, uh, having learned and go right into using the synthetic stuff and the toxic stuff. Um, my big love is trees of the three talks that I’ll be doing. One is about the fabulous trees of the world. And I, I start that talk by uh, uh, explaining how to properly select and plant trees and then get into the management of trees. I have a completely different approach, a simpler approach than most people in the landscape business use. And then I cover some of the most fabulous trees in the world. Some of them are here in Texas, the national champion pecan tree. I’ve consulted on help the owners for a long time. And it’s in Weatherford, Texas. It’s about an 850 year old [inaudible] tree. We cover that and show the whole story of how in trouble it was when I started working with them and how, how it looks today. And we cover some of the big, uh, special trees in my yard, including my dog, our recent rescue dog, Nellie’s climbing tree. And yes, she climbs it and she climbs all the way to the top, sometimes chasing squirrels and birds and things. That’s been an experience. But then we also cover a 3000 year old tree in Wahaca, Mexico. That’s a Montezuma Cypress. And I try to teach people that even though they’re in Wahaca, it’s that old and has a 50 foot diameter trunk. You can grow it in Frisco or Dallas or, or Denton, Texas or
I don’t know if that would fit in most of our yards, but it sounds amazing.
Oh, it’s like it’s, it’s a ball Cypress. It’s just a little faster growing version. And most people up until the time we started talking about it, thought it would freeze here. They needed to be down in a tropical place. But that’s not true. But the main thing I tried to teach people is this natural organic approach, um, works better than any other approach. Some people think that if it’s organic, it has to be wild. And you know, it’s okay for some of the university guys say, well, they’ll work for Garrett at his house where he’s sitting on his compost pile under his pyramid, smoking marijuana. But you know, it really won’t work in corporate America and it won’t work for most of us. Well, I designed the landscaping. It’s the Frito lay national headquarters, and it was organic for many years until a university related people got back in charge of the maintenance and changed it back to the toxic way, which was a very big disappointment to me. But anyway, we, the main thing we teach is there, works better and it works better in every way, including from a financial standpoint because you can say 40 to 50% on your water bill using organic techniques.
Interesting. So is there anything I can do to make that live Oak in my front yard grow a little faster news for sure. One of the main things I teach people is a little process. It’s not a product. It’s a process called a sick tree treatment, which is something we devised years ago to save. The red tip for tinny is the [inaudible] Frazier eyes that were dying out all over the South. And we came up with this process called a sick tree treatment. And if you simply apply that to your tray out, I’ll guarantee you without even seeing it, this’ll work for you. The first step of that process is to take the soil off the base of the tree. So the flair that that part that looks a lot of people think is part of the root system. It’s actually part of the trunk. You expose that flare to the rest of the sick trade treatment. It will put on new growth, uh, much faster than it’s ever grown. It will eliminate insect and disease problems if it has some kind of a parasite in it, like mistletoe, that’ll go away. If woodpeckers are pecking holes in the trunk, you know the sapsuckers that will stop. It’s a pretty a amazing thing and it’s very simple to do.
Interesting.
And we’ll teach you how to do that.
All right, that sounds good. So you’re doing it a couple of different talks.
Doing three will do on trees. One on it, a natural organic insect control and one on probably fruits and vegetable growing at home and soil improvement and that sort of thing.
Do you talk about grass at all?
Talking about turf? Uh, all the way from turf, the interior plants, orchids, you know, trees. I tend to, uh, spend the most of my time on trees because that’s where the most money’s involved. That’s where the biggest investment is. Plus for a homeowner and a commercial owner as well. That’s the one thing that you can do in landscaping that will actually increase property value.
Interesting. I did not know that.
Grass and ground cover and shrubs. Yeah, cow look nice. But the trees will actually increase the property values pretty substantially.
I can imagine that certainly is going to attract buyers as well if you have trees.
And that’s right.
Good to know. All right, well that’s something to definitely look forward to it. The home and garden. Show me fun. Let me find, look forward to talking to people. Absolutely. All right. So let’s go over to Me Ra and talk a little bit about photography and you’re gonna tell us how to look sexy, right? Pictures, even if we’re not.
Yes.Well, what are my passion really is my husband and I work together. And it’s really about diving into the story of who you are and your family and this season of life. And, and so we have this, um, really beautiful, rich photographic experience that we take families on when they, uh, come to us about a shoot. And the first step is to dive into a phone call. We call it a discovery call and just discover with them through a handful of just thoughtful questions, what is like most meaningful to them about one person in their family right now, whether it’s their spouse or their, um, one of their kids. And just really kind of go into what is, what is unique about this season? What stands out to them? What are those little details that you know, are often so fleeting and, uh, and that we just never wanna forget.
And through that we start to build a creative vision around how to capture this family in this season of time. And, and it becomes this, you know, by the time if it’s a family of four, by the time we actually do the photo shoot, we’ve done like almost six calls sometimes with one about each one. And the kids want to with both the parents about each other and what, you know, what made them first fall in love with each other, which is always like this great, um, refreshing kind of exercise and the midst of like the busy-ness of life, right? And that’s what really guides the creative vision. And so everybody I think obviously wants to look their best and photos, but I think that when we start digging into why this is meaningful to capture this time in my life, all of that starts to like come to the surface versus being, um, really stressed or overwhelmed about our, all our outfit’s going to match or like, do I need to go shopping for new things for us to wear? Because that’s almost like a side thing, can compare it to the emotion of why we love each other and what means the most to us right now in life.
I love it. So you guys really kind of dig in deep and there’s a lot going on before we even get to shooting the pictures. Yes. I feel like I, you know, I’ve been a photographer for almost 20 years and in the beginning I definitely started where, you know, I’d meet a family at a park and I would just take photos of them maybe laughing or smiling together. And I think I realized over the years that as great as that is, and it was like fun as those photos are to capture what is so meaningful is to like take the time to actually talk to the families, dig into who they are, and then let what they share with us, guide exactly what we’re going to shoot. So there was this little girl, she’s, I’m five years old and she has two best friends, um, Rosie and Crack. And they’re her little hands, her right and left hand that she makes dinosaurs with and they’re like her best friends. And I would have never have even have known this if I hadn’t done a call with the mom on just this little girl. And, uh, and so we ended up doing this whole family portrait where everyone had their little hands as their little dinosaurs cause her dad had taught her this. Whenever she’s lonely, she can have Rosie or Crack to keep her company and uh, and that just like, you know, that’s a completely different, uh, story to capture.
That’s fantastic. And everyone just looking at the camera and smiling, I have a friend named Crack, I don’t even know where to go with that. Yes.
And so for them to have that on their wall, to like anchor back to visually and celebrate that when the daughter’s first day of kindergarten came and, uh, you know, in August this year, uh, she told her mom that Rosie and Crack gonna stay at home. But she felt like she was okay to go without them. But I just thought, I know Bob was in tears. It was off. I was like, I’m so glad that we captured that in it’s on the wall because I never want to forget that time in our lives. Yeah. That’ll be good fodder for embarrassing her when she’s a teenager too.
So it was family photography, what you specialize in. Yes, it’s been my focus and passion for, yeah, like I said, like 20 years, I’ve published five different books. I often appear on Live with Kelly and Ryan, um, worked with Oprah and the Nate Berkus show. And then we had our Disney show for, I think it’s still actually playing, cause I still have three and four year olds come up to me almost 10 years later and show me their phones that they’re taking of their favorite things. I’m on their parent’s smartphones and stuff. And so family’s has always been our focus and families can be everything from, gosh, the couple that came in two weeks ago from Arizona to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary and what their marriage is meant. So we interviewed all of like their adult children and asked them what their mom and dad has taught them about life and what they all like when they think of them together, what do they think of? And it was so great. It’s like them playing cards and, and grandpa always cheese and so we, you know, that was like the creative vision of capturing the two of them playing cards and I’m cheating in the midst of it, but for them to like always have that for generations of that’s what they loved about who they were and what they represented to the family.
What are the books that you’ve written? Let’s go ahead and get those out there while we have it.
Yes. Okay. The first one is called beauty restored and the second one is your baby and pictures, then your child and pictures and your family and pictures. And that’s a series I did with random house it you can find at any bookstore on Amazon. And the last one is work happily ever after. And it’s for entrepreneurs who are wanting to like get better with their branding and messaging.
Interesting. Okay. We’ll be sure to link all of those up. And I think while we’re at it, why don’t we go around the table real quick and we’ll kind of go back in the opposite order we just did starting with you. Where can people learn more about you and find you online?
Absolutely. Me Ra Koh that’s, it’s just my name. It’s M-E-R-A-K-O-H, so merakoh.com. I’m on Instagram under Merakoh and Me Ra Koh The Photoh Mom on Facebook. Me Ra Koh The Photo Mom. I like.
Okay. Howard,
Well, excuse me, my website is Dirtdoctor.com. Uh, we uh, can be found on the radio syndicated on Sundays. We do three hour, uh, live call in talk show that, uh, uh, goes out of, uh, six 60 the answer in the Dallas Fort worth area, but it’s on about 250 stations cross country. We created an online course because none of the universities teach what I teach. And it is through the nonprofit called the Texas organic research center [inaudible], which we’ve, we, uh, run, um, my book, so range from plants of the metroplex, which is the one I did years and years ago when I was just started through the Texas bug book to the now the organic manual that we did with mother earth, um, uh, news. And, um, there’s other books on all kinds of subjects, herbs, trees, various things.
And they’re all books that you’ve written.
Yeah, these are all my books and they’re available on [inaudible] website dirtdoctor.com and bookstores. There aren’t very many these days, you know, and so it’s probably easiest to find it on our website or in some of the local stores that sell organic gardening products. We also do, uh, a column and I’ve done it for a long time. I’ve done it since the early eighties, I guess on, uh, in the Dallas morning news and it’s called organic answers and it runs every Thursday.
Okay.
So that’s a few places people can get some additional information.
Okay. And Sue, well, I have no books, [inaudible] Uh, but you can find me on, on online at sueschicinteriors.com. And I do interiors. I am, um, by trade and interior designer and have done that for 20 years. Um, so you can find me there. I do interior design, I do commercial design, which is more my husband, my specialty for 20 years. Uh, I do organizing, I help with house moving. So if you’re moving, if you decide you want to move from one place to another, I help you with that. I also help older people transition or you know, go from a full house to a studio or a condo or whatever that is. And um, believe it or not, I have had adult children call me up and have me go help their parents who, you know, aren’t physically capable of doing this on their own.
Okay. Well a whole lot of people moving to Frisco and even within Frisco. So I’m sure those services will be handy. I can’t believe we’ve already rocked over 20 minutes already, but this has been a lot of fun. Just a little bit of a teaser of what people can expect at the home and garden show. So definitely get out there. Again, that is going to be March 20 through the 22nd at the Star. And you can go out and you can meet Sue and learn a little bit about organizing using the KonMari method. Be sure to get out there and say hello to Howard because we all have plants and trees and things in our yards that we’re trying to take care of. Some like me are not very good at it. So I appreciate the, the advice today, Howard. And then of course, last but not least, we have a Me Ra who is doing a talk or two on a photography. So guys, thank you very much for tuning in. Again, check the Home and Garden show. Uh, we’ll link all of this stuff up in the show notes for you. And as always, you can find the Frisco Podcast on Google play, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or pretty much any place you’re gonna find a podcast. You’re gonna find us to go out there, leave us comment, give us a rating. We’d love to hear from you. Talk to you next time.