Don’t go rogue on gift giving! We both have new jobs that are going very well. And our thoughts on botox and lip fillers.
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email: thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com
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This is Joy & Claire Episode 105: Gift Giving, Lip Fillers, and New Beginnings
Episode Date: December 16, 2021
Transcription Completed: December 29, 2021
Audio Length: 52:50 minutes
Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy.
Claire: Good morning, it’s Claire.
Joy: Good morning, good morning. It is so early.
Claire: Do we sound early?
Joy: I sound a little bit sniffly. I’ve got the sniffles.
Claire: I do normally wake up this early, but not to podcast. It’s not that early, guys. It’s like 7:30.
Joy: It’s early on a Sunday to be podcasting.
Claire: It’s early to use your voice. We need to do some vocal warmups.
Joy: Red leather, yellow leather. That’s really hard to do quickly.
Claire: Red leather, yellow leather. I mean, it is and it’s not.
Joy: Rubber. Baby. Can’t do it.
Claire: Rubber, baby, buggy, bumper. I saw this meme. The caption was like, “I’m losing it.” And the exchange was a Zoom thing. Somebody’s like, “Can you talk real quick?” And the person responded, “Well, not like auctioneer fast, but I can talk pretty quickly if I need to.” I was like, I’m going to say that next time. I feel like I could talk auctioneer fast.
Joy: You absolutely could. You know, Scott’s dad did that when they were kids.
Claire: Really?
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: That’s a fun fact.
Joy: It’s a very fun fact. He’s a real fast talker just in general, so I could totally see it happening.
Claire: People will occasionally comment like, “I thought I had my podcast on 1.5x, and I then I realized Claire just talks really fast.”
Joy: I can’t listen to podcasts 1.5, but I can do audio books.
Claire: I’ve never even tried.
Joy: Really? Podcasts are a little bit weird to me to do fast, but I feel like audio books there’s a cadence that all of the sudden I’ll be like, oh this is too slow for me. There’s also something very satisfying about finishing a book faster than it says it’s going to take you.
Claire: Yeah, like when you arrive at your destination before Google estimated.
Joy: Totally. Totally. Are you the type of person when someone says, “Do you have five minutes?” – what is your reaction? First of all, with friendship different. But work, work relationships? “Have you got five minutes?”
Claire: I’m going to turn the tables on you because I am that person.
Joy: Oh no. I don’t like that person.
Claire: I know. I am that person. I have been working from home at this point for so long – we all have, right? Especially by Thursday, Friday, I’m just so freaking sick of typing. And I was the person – in the office, I am the person who will just come over to your cubicle unannounced constantly. I am the stopper byer, one thousand percent. That is the equivalent in Zoom world of stopping by. “Hey, can I call you real quick?” Because I just always prefer to be like, let me give you a little backstory. Here’s this question I have. Versus spending ten freaking minutes typing all that out.
Joy: That’s true, that’s true. I guess I shouldn’t generalize because there’s definitely people that I worked with that I didn’t care at all because I like them. But if it’s people that I know say five minutes, but what they mean is an hour. That’s where I get weird. Because I’m like, no I don’t have five minutes because you’re going to take an hour.
Claire: I know somebody that I used to work with that they would IM me and be like, “Do you have a couple minutes to just debrief something?” And what that meant was, you’re going to be on with me for the next 90 minutes while I just vent. It’s like, okay. There’s a time and place for that once in a while. But it became kind of a regular thing.
Joy: Yeah, that’s that person. She would call me and say, “Do you have a minute?” This was at a previous place of employment. “Do you have a minute?” And I knew. She’s going to hold me hostage on the phone for an hour. It got to a point where I actually confronted her and said, “Look, I am willing to problem solve with you. But I can’t just sit here and listen to you vent and bitch about the company for an hour. I just can’t do it.” And she’s like, “Okay,” and she kept doing it. After that, I was like, I can’t talk to you. Once I set a boundary and you cross it, done. Bye.
Claire: I have this really sweet gal that I work with you is very – how do I put this? She’s the type of person that if you were to IM her and be like, “Hey, can you talk real quick?” She would immediately be like, “Oh my God, I’m getting fired. Something’s wrong.”
Joy: Yeah, that’s very triggering.
Claire: That signals the getting sent to the principal’s office feeling.
Joy: Totally.
Claire: So I had to tell her right off the bat.- as soon as I figured that out about her, I was like, listen. I’m going to do this, and I’m going to tee you up to be like, “Hey, can we talk for a minute? It’s just about this email. I have a question about whatever.” So that she doesn’t panic. But the first time I did it, she was like, “Is everything okay?” I was like, oh, I see that this is causing you a lot of stress. I’ll kind of set the expectation a little bit for people that I know that it freaks them out.
Joy: Which I think is good. I think that’s good because a lot of us carry baggage from previous places of employment. I think it has to do with age and experience and whatever. But I think right now, I’m obviously starting a new job. I’m two weeks in. And I find myself going, okay, this is a new environment. You don’t have to have a knee-jerk reaction when your boss emails you. This is not the past toxic environment anymore. I kind of have to talk myself through it of things to let go of and how I want to show up differently. If I am fearful of something instead of just making up stories in my head, being like, “I want to check things out” and being totally, totally open versus getting stressed out over it.
Claire: I actually got a new boss this week.
Joy: Oh, already?
Claire: The marketing department that I’m in, they have been on this hiring – they’re adding a ton of new roles. My role is not new. My role was a back fill. But throughout this year, they’ve added six or seven roles to the department, which is a lot. One of the roles is a director position, versus the lead. Which there previously was the lead, which most people would probably refer to as the VP of marketing. And there was a group of senior managers, but there was no director in between. That was fine when the team was smaller, but now that the team has grown, they wanted to add someone in between. So I got a new boss. It’s just very interesting to have just started, so barely know the dynamic of the person that I interviewed with. But then also to feel like, wait a minute, I didn’t interview with you.
Joy: You don’t know me.
Claire: Thankfully, I really like this person so far. And we were talking about something. We’re having this team-building activity this week where we’re all going to one of those experience kitchens where you all get together as a big group and cook a big dinner.
Joy: Oh, how cute is that?
Claire: Like a cooking lesson. It’s very my vibe, right?
Joy: So fun.
Claire: So fun. We were on a team meeting on Thursday, and somebody asked, “What are we making?” And the girl who was in charge of putting it together read out the menu. One of the things was a butternut squash galette. And someone was like, “What’s a galette?” And someone else was like, “It’s a type of pasta.” I was like, “No, no, it’s like a freeform pie. Crust on the bottom, and you kind of fold the edges.” Everyone was like, “Okay, wow.” I’m like, don’t ask the question if you’re going to make fun of me for knowing what a galette is first of all.
Joy: I know, I know, I know.
Claire: Guys, this is a pie question I happen to know the answer to, okay. If it had been a type of pasta, I wouldn’t have known. No one would know. But my new boss was like, “Oh, I knew that.” I was like, oh, we’re going to get along. A couple hours later, we were talking about something and he made a reference to something about bakeries. He was like, “Yeah, I was watching this YouTube show about this Bavarian pretzel bakery.” And I was like, oh, we’re going to be friends. [laughing]
Joy: You’re like, “We’re going to have a lot to talk about. Do you watch The Great British Baking Show?”
Claire: Oh, there have been several people so far at my job that I’m like, “Do you watch Bake Off?” And they’re like, “Oh, I love Bake Off!” And I’m like, “Cool, I have a Bake Off podcast you might want to listen to.” And they’re like, “You do?!” I am usually hesitant to tell people about the podcast because we talk about really personal stuff.
Joy: I know. I never share about it at work, but I’ll tell you a story in a minute when you’re done.
Claire: But I do tell people about the Bake Off podcast.
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: Because it doesn’t feel as personal. That one feels like a funny hobby that I have.
Joy: Totally. Totally, totally. Yeah. No, that’s really funny. It’s the whole new work situation. My new boss too. I guess it’s like the honeymoon phase with the job, like I’ve said before. I’m not going to sit here and say that any job is perfect, but I can already tell the vibe with this person. I’m like, oh my gosh, you’re night and day from my old boss. Just the whole company’s vibe is night and day from my previous place of employment. My nervousness to try to – I’m always that person that wants to get to know people at work. I definitely am not an introvert at work. I try to get in and participate, let’s say. I don’t want to become friends with everybody. I have really weird boundaries about that. I don’t really believe in becoming friends with people at work. Like good friends where you hang out outside of work. I’ve just never seen it work very well. Majority of the time, it ends up getting weird, especially if you go into a management role. But there’s been very few times where I’ve maintained a good friendship outside of work. Maybe that says more about me. I don’t know. Anyway, so I’m trying to participate in these meetings because I’m wanting to get to know everybody. They were talking about this creative hobby that one of my other coworkers has. My boss was like, “it’s so cool that I get to learn about everybody’s creative hobbies. I love learning that about you guys.” She’s like, “Is anyone else creative?’ And I was like, “Well, not in that way.” And she’s like, “Well, in what way?” And I was like, damn it. Why did I speak up?
Claire: Now I have to follow this up with a thing. What did you say?
Joy: I was like, “Well, I’ve been doing podcasts for the last eight years.” And then I kind of made a joke. I’m like, “Yeah, we were doing it before it was cool.” And then I’m like, dang it, why did I mention that? Now everyone’s going to wonder what I podcast about, and I didn’t want to follow up questions. I was like, Joy, foot in mouth, shut up, stop sharing. Luckily, no one asked a follow up question like, “Oh, what’s your podcast?” Just Joy, no, cut, stop. It was kind of like you’re trying to participate because no one else was participating. I will be that person. If Zoom gets really quiet and the boss asks the question and no one answers, I always feel really bad. So I’m always the one to speak up if there’s silence. My nervous chatter turned against me. I just hope nobody follows up and tries to look at what we do. That’s too soon. It’s too soon to know what we’re talking about.
Claire: I feel like when I started, they asked me for a little short bio of myself for the employee newsletter that goes out every week. I was like, what do I say my hobbies are?
Joy: Right, I think you told Jess and I. You don’t want to say podcast.
Claire: I don’t want to say my hobbies are podcasting and CrossFit because the people are going to think I’m Joe Rogan.
Joy: Exactly. Exactly.
Claire: No, no, no, no.
Joy: These two things are very – they come with a stigma. They come with a stigma.
Claire: For example, right now there is this – I don’t know if “marketing memes” are a category, but there is this marketing mem going around about personas. Like marketing personas. Everybody knows what that is, right? When you go through an exercise to figure out who the target market is for your brand or your product or whatever, and you typically write out age – like demographic exercise. So there’s this marketing meme, if you will, going around that is a picture of Prince Philip and a picture of Ozzy Osbourne. They’re the same age. They’re from the same town. They both live in a castle. They’re both multimillionaires. They are in the exact same demographic. And it’s like, “Be careful what you say about demographics.”
Joy: Yeah, yeah.
Claire: I want to say that about podcasting. There’s me in this column of podcasting and CrossFit. And then there’s like Ben Bergeron. [laughing]
Joy: Oh my gosh.
Claire: Wildly different category. So I ended up not mentioning either of those things. I put one of my hobbies as drinking coffee. I ran out of hobbies so quickly.
Joy: Baking, drinking coffee.
Claire: I did put baking.
Joy: Hiking.
Claire: What else do I do? But on a regular basis. And everyone at this company puts hiking. You almost can’t work there unless you like to hike.
Joy: “What’s your favorite spots?” And then all the follow up questions and you’re like, “I maybe go once in a …”
Claire: And every single person is like, “Oh, I like hiking and mountain biking and skiing” and blah, blah, blah. So I put those things. But that doesn’t set you apart at this job.
Joy: No. But it’s funny how I get all shy about some of the hobbies. Podcasting, but I have to have a disclaimer. There’s some badge of honor about being like, “But we did it before it was cool.”
Claire: Right. But then that makes you sound even douchier.
Joy: Totally douchey. Where it’s like, “She’s got a hang-up about podcasting.”
Claire: We just got to own it.
Joy: Oh God. I totally was that geek that was trying too hard to be the cool person. Super chill. Breezy. Remember that episode from Friends that’s like, “I’m breezy.” And he’s like, “You can’t say you’re breezy. It just negates the breezy.” [laughing]
Claire: Okay, we also want to talk about a quick exchange that happened right before we hit record that we just glossed right over. We were talking about Joy’s –
Joy: A little sniffly.
Claire: Joy’s sniffly. And right before we hit record, Joy had JT in the room. She records in a spare bedroom in her house that’s been turned into a recording studio. And she’s like, “Oh, one second. I just heard Scott get up. I’m going to put JT out of the room so he can go hang out with Scott.” She opened the door, and Scott’s first words were, “You sound terrible!”
Joy: I said like one word. I was like, “I’m recording.”
Claire: And he goes, “You sound terrible. Oh no.” He immediately was like, “Oh, are you sick? You feel bad?” Joy’s like, “I don’t feel bad.”
Joy: I’m good, I’m good.
Claire: “You need to go to the doctor. I’m serious.” She’s like, “I don’t need to go to the doctor. I’ve got to record. Get out of here.
Joy: I’m like, “We are recording right now.” I’m shutting the door as I’m speaking.
Claire: I cannot go to the doctor in this moment. Thank you. Let’s discuss this later.
Joy: So the backstory is – okay, you can probably tell I’m a little bit nasally. I’ve got a bug, if you will. But Scott has been really sick for the last two weeks. Around Thanksgiving, I probably mentioned this, that he did not go to Thanksgiving with us because he was so sick. He tested for COVID, tested negative. It was probably a bronchitis type of thing. But it really hung on forever. Coughing, he was in bed. Probably in all of our years being married, I have not seen him that sick. There’s a part of me that’s like, I hate to do this, but I do get a little bit of man flu syndrome where it’s like, do you really feel that bad? So he is just fresh off of these two weeks comparing what he felt and thinking he gave it to me. Let’s knock on wood. I don’t think I have what he had. I think it’s probably either a lingering something, like maybe I caught a little bit of what he had or maybe I caught something at the grocery store. Who knows? I’ve been masking and hand sanitizing, but whatever. It’s flu season. I’m vaccinated. I’ve been booster. I had the flu shot. I feel like I’m pretty good. But also, crap happens. I think this is probably something that’s a minor cold. He’s like, “You should go to the doctor now.” Because he fears that if I wait, it’s just going to get worse and worse and worse. Maybe he’s right. But I just was like, this is the difference between men and women.
Claire: I agree with you that this is the difference between men and women in some ways. But also, I think the wild outlier behavior that he’s exhibiting is the willingness to go to the doctor.
Joy: That’s true.
Claire: The majority of men are like – the stereotype says that they want to just suffer. That they feel sick but won’t go to the doctor. You’re like, “Go to the doctor.” They’re like, “It’s fine.” And you’re like, “It’s not fine. Make a choice. Go to the doctor or lock it up.”
Joy: Bless his heart, I think he’s got a little bit of the hypochondria where any little thing he’ll start making it a big deal. He’s really good about going to the doctor, thank goodness. Because as we know, that one time Brandon had – what was it? Dengue fever or something?
Claire: Dengue fever.
Joy: [laughing] One of these days.
Claire: I’m never going to live that down. It was one time.
Joy: One time.
Claire: “She made out with a hot dog. That was one time.”
Joy: Yeah.
Claire: He had dengue fever and I made fun of him. That was one time.
Joy: One time.
Claire: If you guys don’t know this story. Back – this would have been, what? 2013? Brandon went on this medical volunteer trip to Guatemala. They stayed in this village. At the time, he was an EMT. He kind of just came with them and checked vitals. Whatever. It was a great trip. He came home, and he had already missed the first week of school. This is when he was getting his prereqs done for nursing school. I was like, you have to go to school. You’re in Organic Chemistry. You can’t just miss two weeks of O-Chem. And he was like, “I feel so sick.” I was like, “You’re not sick. You’re fine.” He legitimately had such a bad fever. He woke up in a puddle of sweat. He was very sick, and I just had no sympathy for him. Just get up and go to school. I was like, “You probably have an ear infection.”
Joy: Right.
Claire: Go get on some antibiotics and suck it up. And then it turned out that he had dengue fever. So to this day – that was 7, 8 years ago. If I ever make fun of him for being sick, he’s like, “Remember that time I had dengue fever and you made fun of me?”
Joy: He’s always going to use that, yeah.
Claire: I’m like, come on.
Joy: That’s my fear is one of these days – my whole mantra the whole time he was sick – I was bringing him tea, bringing him food, bringing him whatever he needed. Because there were times when I was like, oh my God, are you really this sick? But you know what? It’s not harming anybody. You have to live your life. He went to the doctor. He went to the urgent care once because he was worried that it was going to turn into pneumonia. To be fair, I was worried it was going to turn into pneumonia because that’s how much it was lingering. After a good week and a half of having a horrible cough, I was like, yeah, you can go to the doctor. But anyway, that’s a really funny exchange because I literally yesterday just started having a sore throat, a little bit of sniffles. And today this morning, he’s like, “You sound horrible. Go to the doctor.” I was like, can I just record? It’s fine. I’m going to push mute a lot. I’m going to cough. I’m going to blow my nose.
Claire: It’s going to be fine.
Joy: We’re going to get through this.
Claire: We’re going to get through this.
Joy: How are you doing on Christmas shopping? You done? Because I love a countdown. We’re on the third week of December. I’m going to Oklahoma next week to see his parents.
Claire: Most shipping deadlines are at the end of this week. Hot tip, the majority of retailers, ground shipping or guaranteed 3-day shipping ends by the end of this week for most places. So if you don’t want to have to pay even ore for shipping. So yeah, I’m pretty much done. There’s probably one more thing I want to give Brandon. I need to get my mom something. I feel like moms are the hardest to shop for. And my dad, my dad’s so hard to shop for.
Joy: Your dad is?
Claire: He’s just very – and I get it, because I am also like this. Where he is very picky. I’m pretty picky when it comes to gifts. Don’t give me something just to give me something. If you don’t have a reason to think that this is something that I actually want and will like, then just ask me. Don’t go out on a limb.
Joy: Don’t’ go rogue.
Claire: Don’t go rogue. Don’t go rogue. We always talk about this.
Joy: Brandon always goes rogue.
Claire: He always goes rogue. My perfect example is one year he bought me this sweatshirt that was a zip up hoodie sweatshirt. He’s like, “I noticed you don’t have any zip up hoodie sweatshirts, so I got you one.” Well, the reason I don’t have any is I don’t like zip up hoodie sweatshirts. I like pullover crew neck sweatshirts. Don’t go rogue. If you notice I only have one type of something, it’s not because I haven’t had an opportunity to buy the other type. It’s because I don’t want the other type. And he sees it the opposite, that if you have all one type of something obviously it’s because you would like a different type to branch out. I don’t want to branch out. Let the record show, I don’t want to branch out. I like what I like. My dad is very much like that. But he is way more to the extreme. I feel like I like what I like and don’t branch out. If you do branch out, I’m not going to get mad about it.
Joy: Right, you’ll appreciate it.
Claire: I might with Brandon. I’ll be annoyed because he should know this by now. But the majority of people in my life, I don’t expect them to know that about me.
Joy: Right.
Claire: Except now that you do because you listen to this podcast.
Joy: Don’t go rogue.
Claire: Mugs and cookbooks, guys. You can’t go wrong. But my dad, the phrase that I would say about my dad is it’s not the thought that counts with John Hay.
Joy: So what types of things have you?
Claire: I pretty much just get him golf balls.
Joy: Okay.
Claire: Every gift for every holiday since I was like four years old, I just get him a pack of Titlist golf balls.
Joy: Which is great.
Claire: You always need more golf balls. So I don’t know, that’s probably what I’ll get him.
Joy: With my dad, it’s always guerrilla tape and work glove. It’s all he wants. He wants guerrilla tape and work gloves. Very specific work gloves. Don’t go rogue on them. He likes what he likes. But there was a couple things I got for my parents this year. I actually think he’s going to like this. I may have mentioned this last week. I went on an Amazon wish list that was Oprah’s curated Amazon wish list. There were some really good gifts on there. There was a beanie with a light on it. My dad loves a flashlight, and he likes warmth. So he’s going to love this beanie. He’s always looking for something. He’s always got flashlights.
Claire: He’s always rustling in the corner somewhere.
Joy: Yeah, and he’s up early. He’s going into the garage early. He needs a flashlight so he doesn’t slip on the ice. This is perfect. He doesn’t have to carry something. But anyway, those types of things, I’m like, this is perfect for him because I know he would actually use this. But yeah, it’s hard to do. Would you ever buy your mom or Brandon something like tickets to the Meow Wolf or tickets to Van Gogh? An event, like something that you go to and experience.
Claire: I would do that for Brandon, probably not so much for my mom. My mom is also like – she and I share this problem of we have theories about the types of things we should like, but we never actually buy them for ourselves. Like nice shoes or something. I have one pair of nice shoes. I look at other nice shoes all the time. Or like bags, things like that. I talk myself out of it. I get that from her, talking myself out of buying. Which is fine in some ways. Yeah, I have lived my life perfectly fine with my one pair of nice shoes and my one bag. Or I look at nice shirts for work and then I talk myself out of them because I have enough nice shirts for work. That might be true. And also it makes it so that if I ever get into a situation where I actually need something new, I have analysis paralysis about it. And so she’s like that. So sometimes I’ll get her something that I know that –
Joy: That she has talked herself out of. That’s good. I can appreciate not being a bag person. I’ve never been a fancy bag person. Or purses or whatever. I use the same Lululemon festival purse that I’ve had for – I mean, I think I bought three of them in different colors because I love them so much. But I just can’t – I think when Scott and I were first dating, this was when he introduced me that he is a gift giver. One of the first gifts he gave me was an awesome pair of Nikes. Of course. And then another gift he gave me was this awesome, awesome beautiful purse that I still have. But it was just too big. I’m not a purse person. I don’t like carrying purses on your arm. I like a crossbody. I find it fascinating the people that get really obsessed with like Coach purses – you know what I mean? That to me is a very fascinating hobby, to be into purses. I would never invest that much money into purses.
Claire: Oh my gosh, it’s unbelievable. You know the crazy goop list? They have these $50,000 safari excursions.
Joy: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was going to be like, like vagina weights? Yeah.
Claire: All the goop lists are crazy. This really extravagant one where they list all the most elaborate gifts you could ever give, and they’re like a gold-plated submarine. You’re like, why would I want a gold-plated submarine? But someone out there wants a gold-plated submarine. So. One of the things on that was a $5,000 Air Jordan workshop where you make your own.
Joy: That’s pretty amazing. That’s pretty amazing.
Claire: I don’t feel like Scott is a DIY type of guy.
Joy: No.
Claire: But I could imagine someone who’s so into sneakers being like really into that idea.
Joy: There’s definitely shoes where you can pick your own colors, and he’s done that before.
Claire: Customize them.
Joy: Customize them. He’s definitely done that before. Maybe he would.
Claire: I feel like it would be very specific person that would want to actually build their own from the ground up.
Joy: I think he would want to be in the room with the people and the artists that designed the shoes, that have all the lines of shoes. He would want to be in the room just watching. He went to Seattle this past week for a couple concerts. He went to the Pearl Jam museum. You guys. I’ve never seen so many pictures of Pearl Jam paraphernalia through my phone. He was so excited. He was so excited. It was really cute. If you don’t know, Scott is #1 Pearl Jam fan. He’s like, “All the jackets that Eddie Vedder wears are so small. He’s a tiny guy.” I was like, is he really? You just see Eddie Vedder larger than life. By the way, if you want a good listen, I love that Audible does this. Audible has done some amazing artist series. I think it’s only on Audible. Which I can post the link to our Audible account, which we rarely use, but you can use that link if you want a free listen. It’s called “I Am Mine” by Eddie Vedder. Basically they have this whole artist series where they go through a lot of their process or maybe how they started, talking about the songs that they’ve written, and that one was really good. So shout out to Eddie.
Claire: Shout out to Eddie Vedder.
Joy: [laughing] Shout out to Eddie Vedder. But as far as the Christmas shopping goes, there’s definitely things that I could buy one more thing, but I’m drawing a line. No, you’re done.
Claire: Yeah, that’s fair.
Joy: There’s always more you can buy, and you feel like you have to overdo it.
Claire: I feel like that with my kids. There’s always one more thing. We’re really lucky. Brandon’s family gets the kids so many presents. They get so much stuff. Last year, we literally spent like two years opening presents.
Joy: Two years?
Claire: Two hours, two hours opening present. This is way too much. So I told myself this year, we personally are only getting the kids three or four things because Brandon’s family really gets them so much stuff. Which I’m really grateful for, and I was like I don’t need to overdo this. But it’s so tempting. Like the other day I sent Brandon to Target for like paper towels, which I had preordered and paid for. I was like, “Pick them up at Customer Service. Do not pass go. Walk in. Go to Customer Service. Pick up the paper towels. Leave.” And he calls me like 20 minutes later and he’s like, “Hey, I’m at Target. I’m just looking at this microscope. I’m thinking maybe for Miles?” I’m like, “We have enough presents for Miles! Get out of there.”
Joy: This was a mission. You had very specific instructions. Do not look at the toys.
Claire: Do not look at the toys.
Joy: Oh my gosh. But it’s really hard. Like I was going on the Target app. I was trying to shop for my sister-in-law last week. I got on the Target app, and all of the sudden I see they did this line of clothing and toys and houseware with Lego. I was just like, oh my gosh. They had this really adorable puffer jacket. You could take off the sleeves. It was very much convertible. You could take off the bottom half, so it could be a long jacket, or it could be a vest. And they had this cute pocket on the front. I was like, I do not need any more puffers. I do not need any more jackets. I’m fine. But I wanted it so bad. This is how it happens. By the way, this is what I’ve been subscribing to. JK from The Muscle Feed, who’s been on the Girls Gone WOD podcast a few times. He had this great suggestion. I think we talked about this offline. We talked so much about how we love a certain thing that we’ll buy multiple shirts or whatever. The things that you like, you just keep buying the same thing. He’s like, “I don’t need any more graphic tees. So whenever I see one, I’ll look at it and if I want to buy it right now, I’m just like, ‘Nope.’ And I put that same amount of money that it costs into my savings, and I label it ‘graphic tee that I didn’t need’ type of thing.” That’s actually brilliant. You see how much money that you’re saving. Truly, it’s not about limiting. Hey, if you want something, great. Buy it. But there’s a certain level of, I don’t need any more sweatshirts or running shoes or whatever. And then you just put that into savings. I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately. So I’m going to put that puffer jacket, I’m going to put that money into savings, and we’re going to be fine.
Claire: My whole family just got new puffer jackets. Those are the last thing we needed new of. Every single person already has multiple of these, and now we have more. I can’t stop myself when it comes to puffy jackets. I just can’t.
Joy: When you live in Colorado. But here’s the other thing – you know I love fashion. You know I love makeup. You know I love all of it. And I live in a city and a state that you just don’t have a lot of opportunity – let me just say, at my age. I’m not going out. I work from home now. So I really just need to be presentable from the waist up. I feel like that is something that I’ve been thinking a lot about. Where you spend your money and blah blah blah. I just think about how something like that $5,000 Jordan designer thing. Or if you see something on the news about some type of memorabilia that sold for $20,000. I’m like, oh my gosh, that is just crazy. You have a piece of memorabilia that, sure, it’s something that they look at that as an investment. But I can’t wrap my head around spending that much money.
Claire: It’s still an item. Like, it’s a thing.
Joy: Yeah, it’s a thing. That’s where I get really caught up. Because I’m like, this is where I can never be a billionaire because I just get way too caught up in, “Oh, a private jet costs a million dollars?” Even if I had billions. Yeah, it’s whatever.
Claire: Well, first of all, when it comes to never getting dressed up. I kind of wonder in this day and age, where is a location where you get – I think anywhere you go at this point, any city in America where you need to get dressed up. Maybe there are some places where it’s a little let weird. That’s the thing. In Denver, you could show up dressed up to any restaurant, and it wouldn’t be weird. It’s just very uncommon. So maybe we just need to do that more. We need to be like, you know what, we’re getting dressed up tonight and we’re going out because I want to buy something dressy.
Joy: Which is fun, and I’m all for that. But people in Los Angeles I bet would beg to differ. Like Scottsdale. I always think of Scottsdale because every time I go there, I’m like, oh my gosh I can’t hang.
Claire: Really?
Joy: Oh yeah.
Claire: Tell me more about this Scottsdale. Because Maxine’s boyfriend lives in Scottsdale, and I just imagine it being golf courses.
Joy: Well, it is. But it’s a very wealthy part of Phoenix metro area. I don’t know. Without going into a lane of offending a lot of people, I think I would just say there’s a certain group of people – there’s very much a competition of appearances. Maybe I’m just transferring this to the group I grew up with in high school.
Claire: I can see what you’re saying, if there’s a cliquiness.
Joy: There’s a cliquiness. The appearance is very, very important. Let’s just put it that way. The appearance is very, very important. So when you go out, that is very apparent. It’s very prevalent in that city.
Claire: And I guess when I think about dressing up, I think about a cocktail type of attire type of dress up. Not a separate branch of casual where your casual wear is just really nice. I can’t imagine a world where – I was thinking about this last night. Miles had this Ninjas Night Out at karate. It was kind of like a lock-in where you drop your kid off for like five hours, and they just kind of babysit them for you. I had on effectively pajamas when I was dropping him off. It was the middle of the day. It was five o’clock. And I was thinking to myself, I’m so glad that I’m not the type of person that thinks I can’t go run errands in my leggings and my socks. I have my ski socks and my sandals on and my leggings. And my ski socks are kind of crumpled up at the bottom because I don’t want to pull them up over my leggings. And I have that big – Joy, for my birthday, got me this big, fleecy yellow sweatshirt that is very cozy and also looks like this big, fleecy, yellow thing. It’s yellow and fleece. You wear it and it’s like –
Joy: It’s a big bear hug.
Claire: But it’s bright yellow. There’s no getting around that you’re wearing this like… like it could not be more casual when it’s going with everything else.
Joy: Right, right.
Claire: It’s sort of the sweatshirt equivalent of a bathrobe.
Joy: But so cozy. This is clearly my comfort clothes. Like right now, I’m wearing –
Claire: You are also wearing the sweatshirt equivalent of a bathrobe.
Joy: Yeah, I definitely have a sweatshirt bathrobe on.
Claire: And I just had this moment of, oh man, I’m so glad I don’t care about getting dressed up to go to the grocery store or drop my kid off at karate or whatever.
Joy: Anyway. Here’s the thing. You do you, right? I guess we all – but I think when I think about the things that I want to buy and spend money on… whenever we go shopping and Scott will pick out this awesome ragged bone dress and be like, “This is awesome.” Where would I wear that? Where on earth? I wish I had a place to wear that. Maybe we should go out more. Anyway. People in Dallas are going to write in and be like, oh let me tell you a thing or two. [laughing]
Claire: Please tell us. If you have moved to a town and unwittingly showed off to drop your kid off at karate wearing leggings and ski socks and everyone around you had their outfits on and you were like, “Oh no,” please tell us if this happened to you. Because I can imagine.
Joy: I really want to know.
Claire: If I lived anywhere other than Boulder County, I think I’d have culture shock. Because Boulder is particularly very casual. You can show up at any establishment at any time in leggings and ski socks and someone else in there is also going to be wearing leggings and ski socks. You could show up in July in leggings and ski socks. Literally, I don’t think I’ve gone anywhere where at least one person wasn’t wearing socks and sandals. It’s like the Boulder thing. It’s horrible by the way, but you can’t resist it. It’s just so convenient.
Joy: It’s so convenient. Yeah, it’s so convenient.
Claire: Yeah, but if I moved anywhere else, I think I would have culture shock about it.
Joy: I would like to hear about it. Where you live, whether or not you feel pressured to do something with yourself before you walk out the door. And I’m not saying I don’t do anything. I’m just saying I don’t go out of my way. Even right now, it’s really funny because now that I work from home and I really only have to do a little bit of doing up my face and my shirt. I’m like, oh I’m always in sweatpants now. Is this a bad thing? Is this a bad thing? I have to tell a quick sad story that’s not sad at all. It’s just kind of funny and ironic. Over the past month, I’ve had really bad allergies in my eyes, and I think it’s a reaction to makeup. I’m like, this is the universe playing a cruel joke that I can’t wear makeup right now. It has been really, really bad to where even when I wear mascara, my eyes would get really red, my eyelids would get really red, around my eyes. It would just be this severe allergic reaction. Yeah, apparently this is the same thing where you can just develop an allergy over time. All of the sudden, your body can be like, “We don’t like this.” I’m like, my body doesn’t like makeup anymore? This is so sad. So I haven’t been wearing a lot of makeup because of that. But luckily, I found a few products that are helping.
Claire: Okay. I had a similar experience, and I think it had to do more with my contacts than anything and starting at a screen all day. First of all, fun fact, your body can develop and allergy to contact lenses.
Joy: Oh my God.
Claire: Over the course of your life, if you are someone who has been wearing contacts – like me. I’ve been wearing contacts since I was in third grade. But basically what happens is your body comes so, so, so, so, so sensitive to the types of crap that inevitably builds up in your contacts that even if you have the type of contacts where you throw them away every single day and put new ones in every single morning, your eyes can become oversensitive to the bacteria that just naturally occurs in your eye but builds up on your contact lenses throughout the day. So there are people out there who over time just get to the point where they physically can’t wear contacts anymore because their eyes reject them. I thought I was getting to that point like two years ago.
Joy: Oh really?
Claire: I ended up changing contact brands and having to go through five different brands to find one that didn’t do that. I also had a similar experience with mascara recently. I was asking on my personal Instagram for mascara recommendations for people who have sensitive eyes. The one that I tried that I’m really liking, it’s Tarte is the brand. It’s called like “surfer lashes” or something. I really like it, and it does not irritate my eyes as much as before. I was using a L’Oréal one. I tried the really classic Maybelline one, the pink and the green cap. I tried a lash scope, whatever that one was that Julie Bauer recommended like five years ago and I never update my –
Joy: Yeah, your mascara usually expires and you don’t use it.
Claire: No, not that I don’t buy a new one. Once I find on that I like, I’m just like, “I’m going to use this for the rest of my life.”
Joy: Oh, got it.
Claire: She recommended that to us like five years ago. And I was like, oh I actually really like this one. So I just kept buying it. Yeah, that one was bad. So if you are the type of person, if you have really watery eyes or you have contacts and you feel like you can’t wear mascara with your contacts and keep looking at a screen all day, try the Tarte mascara. I have found success with it. What did you find that worked?
Joy: Well I, first of all, I had to put – I mean, it was so bad. It was so itchy that I had to put eczema cream on my eyelids. Which, I know.
Claire: Oh my gosh, ow.
Joy: Yeah, it was really, really painful. But I got a very – I can’t remember the brand, but I can share it if people are interested. I got it at Target. I had to be very careful because obviously you don’t want that to get in your eye. But I was just like, I’m desperate. And then I got this awesome. Aveno nighttime moisturizer that has changed my life. So once I got my eyes a little calmed down, I tried a little bit of The Honest Beauty from Jessica Alba yesterday, and that has not caused a reaction so far. However, I only put it on my top lashes and barely put any on. Just to be like, I want to try this out. I mean, are the mascara companies trying to kill us? I feel like there are so many mascaras that I use – I’ve used two different ones in the past month just to see if it was… but apparently, I have to get a hypoallergenic mascara now. And I’m really worried about putting on eye makeup. Like, I can’t put on eye makeup right now. Which is really sad.
Claire: I also feel like maybe this is just our body’s way of telling us this is a really sensitive part of your body. Don’t keep putting crap on here all the time.
Joy: Yeah, exactly.
Claire: I would also like to say, I tried the Beauty Counter mascara, and it created the same reaction. So whatever it is. You know when people are like, “It’s because there are all these crappy ingredients in normal mascara. You have to try Beauty Counter.” Apparently, those ingredients were not the culprit. I also think that there is something that’s so odd about feeling like I want to wear makeup so badly that I will go through the process of my body rejecting it to find the one that works.
Joy: Yeah, it’s so weird.
Claire: Also, a lot of people recommended to me when I was putting that post about mascara that I just get my eyelashes tinted. Which I have done, and it does not create the desired effect.
Joy: No.
Claire: I need the volume.
Joy: Yeah, I’ve had my lashes tinted before, and I feel like it’s barely like a whisper of mascara.
Claire: Right. I have dark eyelashes. That’s not the problem. I need the volume that mascara brings.
Joy: The lengthening and the volume.
Claire: I also have gotten eyelash extensions and I loved them. But they were first of all, very expensive. And second of all, who has two hours every 3-4 weeks to lay there and have them do your individual little eyelashes? Not this girl.
Joy: No, no, no. No.
Claire: No, no, no.
Joy: Anyway. I was going to give a quick Sex and the City review of the new episodes, but maybe we’ll wait for next time.
Claire: I mean, how many episodes?
Joy: There’s only two episodes out right now.
Claire: What’s your initial impression?
Joy: My initial impression is, I appreciate the effort and I appreciate the nostalgia, but I’m just really feeling old watching it. Because this was a show that most of us, if you are in your 40’s or maybe your 30’s, if you watched it, it’s probably women in their late 30’s and older who really connected with this show. I was in my mid to late-20’s when I really got into it. It was just one of those things where you feel like you’re just so parallel to your lives and can relate to them. And now it’s just kind of like – I don’t want to say it’s sad to watch it. But I get a little sad watching it where you’re trying to make “fetch” happen type of thing. I just, I don’t know how I feel about it yet. I could talk hours about what they’ve done to Miranda’s character. This woke, white woman that’s really awkward, and it’s bizarre. I’m not going to give a spoiler, but if you can get past it, the first episode I was like this is the most boring episode ever.
Claire: But there’s only two episodes, and you need to get past the first one?
Joy: So far.
Claire: Okay. I was like, this feels like…
Joy: They’re releasing more, but only two have come out so far.
Claire: I feel very strongly about shows where people are like, “You just have to get past the first season.” I’m like, I don’t want to just have to get past the first season. I want to enjoy the whole thing.
Joy: I want to enjoy the whole thing, yeah. I almost was like, I want to watch it just because I want to watch the clothes. And I do like Jessica… Sarah Jessica Parker. Joy… Sarah Jessica Parker.
Claire: I was like, Jessica who?
Joy: I always want to see what she’s doing because she’s just great.
Claire: Right. It is sort of a moment of – that was the whole show.
Joy: Fashion, and yes. And the characters really were amazing. So then I went down a rabbit hole of watching old episodes, which I spent an entire day doing that. But Charlotte clearly has had some Botox so her face doesn’t move, and that makes me feel weird. I feel the same way about Jennifer Aniston by the way. When I watch Morning Show, I’m like, your face doesn’t move.
Claire: Your face is supposed to move.
Joy: And it drives me crazy.
Claire: I feel like there are some women like that where you can tell they’ve gotten a facelift when they didn’t really need a facelift, so they’re upper lip is sort of smooshed across their face.
Joy: Yes. And it looks kind of insane. I want to know what Britney had done. Britney has the same thing.
Claire: It’s a facelift.
Joy: Is it? I don’t know how to explain it. And they all look the same.
Claire: Okay, grab the extra skin on the backside of your jawbone and pull it up under your ears and tell me that that isn’t what is happening to your lips.
Joy: Yeah. I just…
Claire: Maybe not on Britney. Maybe it’s a combination of Botox and lip filler. I think in some instances also a facelift.
Joy: Someone tell us which celebrity that has maybe done it, but I have not actually seen a celebrity that looks good.
Claire: Or counter point, you have seen it and you haven’t noticed.
Joy: That’s the thing. I want to know – Lady Gaga had some work done. I think she looked great, but she still has that lip thing that doesn’t move.
Claire: The lip thing in a trend right now. It’s a trend to have big, unmoving lips.
Joy: It doesn’t look good, you guys. It doesn’t look good to get lip filler and then all of the sudden your lips are like this.
Joy and Claire: Like this.
Claire: I feel like we talk about this a lot because now I’m feeling like we say “and you pucker your lips like this” a lot, and I can’t imagine what other context.
Joy: You look like Sebastian.
Claire: You look like Sebastian.
Joy: [laughing] I just want to know – there’s this girl I work with. She has very large lips. She has a lot of lip filler. And that’s her choice. But it’s to the point where I’m like, how do you…
Claire: I wish you could see Claire’s face. I’m not making fun. Objectively, I don’t think anyone looks better. I think they look great as they are. You know what? I have seen before and afters of celebrities who’ve had nose jobs, and I think, oh, that’s a cute nose. But I never think –
Claire: You never think, oh yes, your upper lip should be that big.
Joy: Right. Exactly.
Claire: Or, oh yes, your face should not move.
Joy: Exactly. Like Kim Kardashian – you see all the Kardashians beforehand and they’ve had so much work done. But they’re beautiful to begin with.
Claire: And that’s not even a realistic – if you basically start from scratch and rebuild your face –
Joy: Rebuild your face, right. They have all rebuilt their entire bodies. They’re robots. But when I look at them when they were kids – or at least teenagers when you could see what they actually look like. They’re cute. Okay sure, now their noses are slimmer or whatever. But I’ve yet to see someone who’s had lip injections where I can’t stop staring at their lips because their lips don’t move. They look like they got stung by bees, and their lips are swollen.
Claire: And maybe if you’re someone out there and you’re like, hey, I get lips done and no one has ever noticed…
Joy: They’re just not telling you.
Claire: I will say – for example, I definitely know of some people, friends that I have who I know get lip filler but you would never know.
Joy: Okay. Really?
Claire: Yes. And I also think, to bring up Julie Bauer again, when she first started getting – and I don’t want to comment on Julie. She’s our friend. But I will say, she is someone who when she did her first blog post about lip filler, I was like, oh my gosh. I never would have thought that she was getting lip filler. I appreciate that she is very open about the injections that she gets and is realistic and is like, hey, my face looks like this because I get work done. And I love that about her that she’s very open about that. So that other people aren’t like, “If I start eating Paleo, I will have perfectly smooth skin.” No, there’s more to it than this. I remember specifically the first time she was like, “Yeah, I’ve been getting lip filler,” I was like, oh, I never would have known. So there are people out there that I think can accomplish it. But I also think right now there is a trend where it is the look. The look is to look like you’ve had lip filler.
Joy: Right. That’s interesting, yeah.
Claire: The look isn’t a natural look that you’re going for. The look that people want is, oh I want the bee sting look.
Joy: Yeah. Maybe… hmm… good for you, not for me.
Claire: Good for you, not for me. I agree with that.
Joy: Good for you, not for me. I think I just also appreciate –
Claire: You also have really big lips, I would say.
Joy: Yeah, I know.
Claire: You have big lip privilege.
Joy: But I don’t have big boobs, and I’ve never been like – I considered it…
Claire: Okay, you considered it. Every small chested girl out there has considered it. I had fake boobs for like five years. Hated it, got them taken out. In my 20’s, in case you didn’t know that about me. Now you do. But I have really thin lips. Particularly my upper lip is really thin. And I’ve definitely thought about it. What if I do just a little bit? I’ve done this in the mirror before where I lifted up my lip a little bit.
Joy: Yeah. But just –
Claire: But is it worth the risk of going too far?
Joy: Yeah. I don’t know.
Claire: And it’s so expensive.
Joy: It’s so expensive.
Claire: It’s like $500. I wish you guys could see what I’m doing. Don’t we all? We stand in front of our mirror and we hold up our skin and wonder what it would look like. Or we look at the filter on Instagram stories and are like, oh that’s what I would look like with a nose job.
Joy: Yeah. Now they have a filter where they give you lip injections.
Claire: Yeah, actually that filter has made me be like, maybe I should get lip injections. I look good.
Joy: That filter has probably caused a lot of people to get lip injections.
Claire: Yeah. You know what, you do you.
Joy: You do you.
Claire: If you want that lip, go get it.
Joy: I think when I see that – going back to the Sex and the City episode, it’s distracting to me. Because I know what they looked like before. So I can’t help but stare at what happened to your face. No one’s getting out of this life alive. And no one’s getting out without aging.
Claire: I always think about that quote that’s like, “Growing old is a privilege not afforded to many,”
Joy: So true.
Claire: Yeah, we aren’t all going to have the privilege of growing old.
Joy: So true.
Claire: Embrace it. And also, don’t overthink it. If you want to go get an injection in your face, by all means.
Joy: That’s fine. Yeah.
Claire: Joy is going to sit over here with her big lips and judge us all.
Joy: I really will.
Claire: For needing to get work done and we’re going to have big lips. Joy is just genetics. She’s going to be sitting over here wearing her bold lipstick while the rest of us look like we’re drawing on our faces with Crayola marker. If I wear bold lipstick, it looks like I’m a picture that a kid drew to outline their mouth.
Joy: [laughing] You do not.
Claire: [laughing]
Joy: You do not. [laughing]
Claire: It’s a line.
Joy: you do not look like that. You do not. Oh my gosh, okay.
Claire: Let’s wrap it up. Alright, guys. Well you can find us, if you want to have even more Joy and Claire in your life, find us on Instagram @joyandclaire_. You can go to joyandclaire.com. We have all our episodes there. We have our gift idea you can check out if you’re looking for some last-minute gifts. A lot of our episodes are transcribed on our website, if for some reason you just want to read through them. They’re not transcribed in real time. They get transcribed a few weeks later by our awesome transcriptionist, transcriber Caroline who lives in Thailand and is wonderful and transcribes all our episodes. You can email us at thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com. Tell us about your really realistic lip filler.
Joy: Send us some pictures of how realistic your face work has been.
Claire: Joy, get off your lip high horse. Some of us need a little bit of help.
Joy: Put me in my place.
Claire: Yes, please. And that’s it for this week. Have a great weekend.
Joy: Love you guys.
Claire: Bye.
Joy: Bye.
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