female podcasters

Joy: Caffeine drunk. Which never really happens because I tend to not drink a lot of caffeine. But I had one extra cup this morning, and then I just had a latte. It’s noon, and I’m not okay. Not. Okay. I’m drinking a hydration multiplier right now. Maybe the hydration will multiply against the caffeine. Isn’t that how that works?

Claire: I’m pretty sure that’s how that works. It will help your liver.

Joy: Okay, great. Will it help this headache?

Claire: It works when you accidentally get drunk, so it’s got to be the same thing with caffeine headaches.

Joy: Perfect. And I just had a peanut butter cup, which is sugar.

Claire: Good idea, Joy.

Joy: [laughing] Well I needed to have an emergency snack because I’m really hungry, but I’m like, ah, I’ve got to jump on the podcast. You can’t really chew. So I shoved a peanut butter cup into my mouth.

Claire: I don’t know what you should have had, but I don’t think it was that. What could you have had that would have been just… like just nuts or something? Just a big bowl of nuts.

Joy: Aw man. I thought that was a good idea. I just need a lot of calories all at once.

Claire: I mean, true. But anyway.

Joy: Anyway, let’s talk more about my food issues.

Claire: Give the people what they want. Joy’s imminent caffeine crash.

Joy: Oh my gosh. Okay. So it’s almost mid-October. Where are we? What are we doing? We’re recording on a Monday.

Claire: It’s Monday afternoon. Thank you for being here with us in the future on Thursday.

Joy: Welcome.

Claire: We hope you’re having a great week. You have some fun developments in your life, which we want to share. In this podcast as a whole, we really are just going to spend a lot of time talking about work cultures, toxic work cultures, jobs, new jobs, old jobs, people’s jobs, other people’s jobs. Give that a lot of the time that it deserves because I feel like going through the last… I don’t even know how to say it anymore. The times that we’re currently in and will be in for the foreseeable future.

Joy: Right, it’s no longer unprecedented.

Claire: It’s no longer unprecedented. This is the new normal, which I also hate that phrase. I feel like it’s just changed the dynamic of our relationship to our work so much. So many people are getting new jobs, quitting their jobs, going out on a limb without a job lined up, and it’s shedding a lot in realizing your work culture has maybe been very toxic. Or maybe you have a story from long ago that didn’t even have to include the pandemic, so we’re going to talk about that today.

Joy: Yes. So we’ll start with good news. I got a new job, and I’m very excited about it. So for those of you who may not know, I left my previous place of employment back in early June. It was a kind of sudden, unexpected, kind of expected turn. I took a lot of time to really evaluate what I wanted to do. It was a little scary. I think I mentioned in previous episodes that I was in a place to do that. It was not something that – I always think of Brene Brown or Elizabeth Gilbert where people would come up to her and be like, “You inspired me to just quit my life and go travel.” And they’re like, ah, that kind of scares me. Not everyone can do that. There’s a little bit of that head in the clouds mentality where it’s just like, okay, realistically what can you do? We can’t just all quit our jobs and go look for a better one. So I realize that I was in a position that I could take some time and super grateful for that. I really took the past 4.5-ish months to decide what I wanted. Most of you know that I was working on the platform – and I still am. I’m closing out my case – but I went on the platform BetterHelp, which is an online telehealth platform for behavioral health therapy. It’s a great, great platform if you are looking for therapy. I know there’s tons of podcasts that are sponsored by them. They have a discount code. We do not. Which we probably should by now. But they’re a great platform and I highly recommend them for therapy and telehealth. So I was working for BetterHelp since July and realized I really like working from home, and I really like doing teletherapy. This is actually lovely, and I do enjoy just waking up, rolling into my home office, and doing telehealth. The patient population is amazing. I started thinking more about doing a work-from-home job. Fast forward, I got a job with a company called Ginger Health. I didn’t think much of it. The whole process of applying for jobs we can talk about in a minute. Claire and I always talk about how hard it is to go through the job-hunting process and applying to jobs. I cannot tell you how many jobs I applied for that I got the automatic rejection letter where I’m pretty sure they don’t even look at your resume. As a side note, I have not had to really look for a job since I started my professional career. My first job out of grad school was a friend recommendation referral. My second job from there was a recommendation friend referral. So this is the first time I’ve had to – I know people are like, “Oh, boohoo,” but truly I’ve been lucky in that most of my jobs have been friend referrals. Like, “Oh, we have this opening. You should apply” type of thing. This was really the first time – I’m 44 years old looking for jobs, getting on LinkedIn, making sure your profile is all fancy and doing all the recommended things you’re supposed to do when you’re job hunting, just feeling like I was beat down by the process. I know a lot of people have been through that as well, so my heart goes out to all of us in the trenches looking for jobs in that sense. But I applied to so many jobs, got so many rejections, did some interviews, liked some companies, didn’t like others, really truly tried to stay true to what I knew was a fit or not a fit. There were a couple jobs I interviewed for that I was just like, I can tell this is not something that I would want to do or just not vibing with them. Well when I applied to this job, I remember not thinking much of it. Which is kind of how it always works, right? Where you’re the least attached to something. So I interviewed with them. Really liked the vibe, really liked the company. They have an amazing culture from what I can tell. I sought out a few people on LinkedIn who already work there and talked to them about what it’s like to be a therapist there. So I start at the end of November for Ginger Health. They were recently acquired by headspace. Headspace is moving into the telehealth realm, which is really exciting too. So I’m kind of in this emerging telehealth world that’s growing and growing and growing, and that feels really exciting. So I will be a full-time therapist for Ginger Health, soon to be headspace Health, and I am super jazzed. It’s exactly what I need right now.

Claire: So explain what the difference between what you will be doing and a BetterHelp. Because when you first explained it to me, it sounded like, wait a minute, this sounds like the same thing. Just more.

Joy: Yeah, so I will be working for a company as opposed to contracting. BetterHelp therapists are contract only, meaning you get no benefits. Actually, I should back up. If you work a certain amount of hours with BetterHelp, you get some benefits. You’re eligible for some of the workplace benefits – health insurance mainly. But that’s really it, and they don’t consider you as an employee. You are just a contractor. Which is great if you have a private practice because then you have a bunch of different hands in the pot. You don’t have to have you’re just working for this one company. But I really wanted to work for a company. I was pretty clear on, I didn’t want to do private practice. I wanted to work for a company where I was on salary and that I had a full benefits package. Ginger has amazing benefits. There was a bunch of things that I wanted from an employer that I just didn’t want to keep doing contract work. That is the main difference is I will be on staff with this company having the whole benefit of clinical supervision with your teammates. I didn’t get that at BetterHelp, so you kind of feel a little bit lonely where if you have a clinical question, you just were kind of on your own or you ask your therapist clinical friends about it. This is a little bit more of that team culture. You’re actually working fora. Company again. So that’s really the main difference.

Claire: And it’s not like an app where anybody off the street can just sign up?

Joy: Not right now, not right now. Mainly with Ginger, and I don’t know enough yet obviously because I haven’t started with them. But Ginger, mainly their clientele are big companies that use them for AIP [00:09:17.24] services. At the moment, that’s what the clientele is. It’s not open to the public. But my hunch is it might be changing if headspace has acquired them. Who knows what the future will look like with that? But still telehealth. Still full-time therapy, which is what I’m used to doing. But I just haven’t done that in the telehealth space. So very similar to what I was doing at BetterHelp, but just more of a company culture feel.

Claire: More structure.

Joy: Yep.

Claire: Well it’s very exciting. And I think it’s also good to reiterate what you said about those 4.5 months that you were kind of figuring out what you wanted to do. That didn’t look like just reading tarot cards and doing vision boards al day. It was a lot of applications, a lot of being turned down, a lot of not even hearing back at all. I think that when you’re in the job search, it can be so soul sucking. And it really can feel so rejecting, and you can just feel like, somebody just let me do my thing. Why doesn’t anybody want me?

Joy: I’m a catch. Yeah.

Claire: I’m amazing. Where are these people? Why can’t I even get an interview? Or I’ve been in this situation where I get to that final round. I feel like, in my past, it’s always between me and one other person. And I’m like, don’t tell me that. Don’t tell me that it’s between me and one other person. I’d almost rather get screened out at the beginning than make it to the final round and then not get the offer.

Joy: Yes. Yes, it’s exhausting.

Claire: It’s exhausting. It’s brutal. And I know a lot of people are going through that right now. I was talking to somebody the other day who was asking me, what’s the deal with this Great Recession? Are you seeing that in your industry? Asking me, am I seeing that in my industry? So you guys know I’m in marketing. I have 10-11 years marketing experience. I work for a large corporation, and I’ve always worked for larger corporations for the most part. What I’m seeing in a lot of larger companies is that what’s happening is middle and senior middle – like managers and senior manager level people are quitting. Because they’re not getting paid enough or there’s no room for advancement because the pandemic changed things or whatever the case may be. Or they’re realizing their priorities are shifting. They want something new. Whatever the reason is. And instead of replacing those people apples to apples, the company is saying, okay instead of replacing this senior manager, we’re going to hire two coordinators. We’re potentially not going to promote anyone into that senior manager role. It’s just gone now. And instead, this team is a larger team with more entry level or lower-level employees. So there’s this bottleneck happening where there is this huge need for entry level – I would say less than 3-5 years of experience – type of employees, but the people that are looking are more in the 8-10+ years’ experience level. And a lot of those positions are being eliminated. That’s at least what I’m seeing in the corporate marketing world. It’s very complicated, but you’re hearing so many people, and it feels like these two disparate worlds. On the one hand, you hear these headlines of there’s this huge worker shortage. And on the other hand, you’re talking to your friends who are like, “I can’t find a job.” At least in marketing in corporate America, that’s what’s happening. It’s very frustrating and weird.

Joy: Yeah. I’ve found something similar with… well, a couple things too. When I first started applying, I just was throwing my hat everywhere that I thought was interesting and I tried to just be very open minded. At the same time, being picky. But you can’t be super picky because you just never know after applying to something that you’re like, “Oh actually, this is a job that I would really enjoy.” But I think what I expected. Because Scott is in a field where he gets job offers day in and day out. He’s just in a very different field where they are constantly offering him jobs because he works with a lot of different companies and they really like him. So I joked because I was like, “You have constant job offers, and here I am just trying to even get a response.” It’s maddening.

Claire: I have said this so many times. Brandon, who could literally kill someone at any moment at his job – he’s a surgical nurse. His job responsibilities are significantly more technical, significantly more black and white than mine. Right? We all understand the gravity of the situation when you’re in the room while someone’s having surgery and you’re in charge of getting the supplies out and making sure things are going well. So he recently started a new job. When he went to go apply for jobs, he applied to two jobs on Indeed. Just cold applied. Got two calls back, two interviews, and two on-the-spot job offers. Practically on the spot. Later that day, they called him back and offered him the job. This is not real.

Joy: It’s a little maddening. And there are definitely days where I was bitter. I look back on these 4.5 months and I had some pretty dark days that I will share with you in a mere moment. But just for advice for people who may be looking for a job – and please chime in and share your advice. We’d love to hear. We’ll post about it. But I think the main points that I learned was LinkedIn was my best friend. Really thought LinkedIn was better for searching for jobs. User-friendly. Indeed is a little bit harder. And Glassdoor and ZipRecruiter are a little bit harder to use, like filtering out what you really want if you’re specific. If you know what you’re looking for, I think LinkedIn is great for that. Really, really focus on making sure that your resume is not going to get kicked out of those automated application systems. So do some Google research around what key words that you need to use, the length of your resume. If it’s too long, it will automatically get kicked out of those automated resume systems. Some larger corporations use that to just week people out right away, so if they get hundreds of applications, you might not even get through because of that. That’s really important to research and look into. I had a bunch of people looking over my resume and refining it and editing it, so make sure you’re doing that. That was why, when I was getting really defeated, was I was like, oh my gosh I’m doing all this and I’m getting all those auto-generated emails. But the other thing that Scott and I talked about – and I had a meltdown one day in Whole Foods. It was the end of August. I had hit the three-month mark of searching, searching, searching. And at the same time, I’m trying to be mindful of taking a break. But I’m also searching. My full-time job in the past four months has been looking for a job. My days would be packed full. I’d see telehealth patients, and then in between that I’d be looking for jobs, applying for jobs, walk the dogs, take a break, see a patient, apply for jobs. Before I knew it, it was the end of the day. Time really does fly even though you’re unemployed. Because I really made it my mission to just really, really look for a job and make sure that I was doing that all the time. If felt that pressure, too, you know. I was also trying to be like, alright Joy, chill out and take a break. It was a balance, but I figured it out. I think that I also realized – after three months, I started to get worried. I felt like I was making some progress, but it wasn’t feeling like enough. Or it didn’t have as many leads.

Claire: Like 100 steps forward, 99 steps back. You get so far, and then just nothing.

Joy: Exactly, exactly. And I’d had some interviews, but I didn’t like the company or vice versa or I just wasn’t a fit. The other thing too is, hey companies, if you interview someone and you know you’re not going to hire them, can you just immediately send them a letter and say, “no thank you”?

Claire: Yeah. Don’t make us track you down.

Joy: Oh my God. There was one. I’m not going to say who it was. They completely ghosted me after I interviewed with them. It’s one thing to just say “no thank you” after you submit a resume. Most people don’t even send you an email saying “no thank you” when you submit a resume. But this team of people interviewed me and just ghosted me. This was probably 2.5 months ago when I interviewed with them. Finally last week I get an email saying you were not chosen for the position. I wanted to be like, “Duh.” Duh. Please, just be timely with that. It’s so, so unprofessional. Anyway. End of August hits, and I think I was just in an emotional space. There was a lot going on in my life. I went to Whole Foods with Scott one day. I don’t know what it was, but I got into Whole Foods and all I could think was like… you know how we had that conversation with Cherie Chan where she was like, “My goal in life is just to go buy groceries and not have to worry about it.” That’s really kind of what I truly just love about life right now is I get to just go somewhere and buy groceries and not worry about what I’m buying. I was in Whole Foods, and I had this panic of what if I don’t find a job and I’m going to have to start worrying about what I buy – this is who silly, you guys, I know. This is where I was – what if I have to start worrying about what I buy at the grocery store because I’m going to run out of my savings. I just freeze. Scott is like, “Hey, I’m going to run downstairs.” There’s a liquor store at Belmar that we always go to. He’s like, “I’ll meet you at the car.” Okay. And I just kind of go catatonic where I can’t process anything. I’m walking around the store, and I don’t know what I need, I don’t know what I want to buy. I just end up leaving, going and sitting in the car, and I just start crying. I’m bawling my eyes out, just have this full-on meltdown. Scott sits in the car and he looks at me and I’m bawling. He’s like, “Oh my God, what happened?” The last time he saw me, I was fine.

Claire: I leave you alone for 30 seconds, and you have an existential crisis.

Joy: Yes. And the other thing too was this grocery store was next to where I used to work at the vaccine clinic. I would always go to the lunch there. For whatever reason, too, I just got really angry and mad for the reasons I had left. I was like, “I’m so mad. I’m so mad.” I was just emotional. He’s like, uh… he didn’t know what to do with me. But I think the bottom line was I got over it, right. The next day was fine. I just needed to cry. But Scott was like, “Why don’t you start applying…” because I was also looking at jobs that were management level because I’ve been doing that for a long time. Also what I realized about management roles is people tend to hire from within. They tend to promote from within with those roles, which makes a lot of sense, especially coming in as a new manager from the outside is not always the easiest thing. So I think that that was something that I had to kind of – then I just kind of course corrected. I’m going to apply for jobs that are therapist positions where potentially I could move into management if I even want to. So I changed my course. But I think the whole point of that is I also kept the mantra of it will happen. Eventually someone will hire you. It’s kind of like dating. Eventually you will find the one. It’s so much like dating.

Claire: It’s so much like dating.

Joy: Where you’re waiting for someone to call. You’re like, “Do you like me?” The rejection thing.

Claire: And when you want to get an answer, you’re like, but I don’t want to appear needy. I don’t want them to think I don’t have anything else going on.

Joy: It’s such a game.

Claire: It’s so much like dating.

Joy: It’s such a game, yeah. I’m really grateful that I went through that experience. Obviously, I can look back and be like, I do feel pretty grateful – I almost want to stay abreast of what’s going on in the job market. I learned a lot from figuring out what is out there. I think that’s something I want to keep looking at or reading about jobs out there. I think that’s really important. Just because you have a job doesn’t mean you can just forget about that stuff. I’m not planning my next move, by any means, because I have the next move. But that is something that I learned, the value of seeing where the job market is and what positions are out there. It’s an interesting journey. Just from people giving me encouragement, I always knew that I’d find another job. I knew that. And if things got desperate, of course I could just keep doing telehealth. I was trying not to do that full time because I knew that I was also trying to do my best to not overwork and enjoy my time out of the full-time workspace, which I completely have. My tag line for anyone who knows me, who’s close to me, any time they’d be like, “How are you?” I’d be like, I’m living my best life. I’m having such a good time being home with my dogs, doing telehealth on my terms and just going to the neighbor’s house every day to play with the dogs. I still feel like I’m going to have somewhat of that balance. If anyone has job hunting tips to share, just email us. I think that’s something that a lot of people can relate to and we can share them.

Claire: So like we were saying before, there’s a lot of reasons that one may look for a job. And one thing we wanted to talk about also today is toxic workplace culture. We asked for people’s questions, people’s advice, people’s stories. We got a lot. I think the biggest theme I’m seeing. We’ll read a lot of the individual ones. The biggest theme that I’m seeing so far is the fact that if you are in a difficult work environment it really can impact your entire life. And it can impact your life for years to come, even after you get out of that job. I feel like there is so much gaslighting that happens in workplace culture. That’s another big thing I’m seeing is people when they go to ask for something, want a raise or ask for a promotion or even to ask just to leave a little bit early or need anything from their employer, they’re really given this response of, “Well, aren’t you just happy to be here? Don’t you like your job?” Or if they ask for help with a problem, they’re made to feel like the problem is their fault. There’s just so much where things are not a reciprocal relationship between somebody who is working really hard, wanting to do well, wanting to go onto that next level, and then when the time comes for that to happen the employer turns around and is like, “Well, what are you talking about? Why would you ever think that we would do that?” Just so toxic and gaslighty.

Joy: I also want to just briefly say that – because it reminds me of a conversation, the first episode I had on Girls Gone WOD feed when we did the relaunch with JK, is around the ability to even do this. I want to reiterate the importance of this is just not a toxic positivity girl boss statement of “just leave your job.” “If you don’t like your place of employment just leave.” That’s not what I’m saying. I think it’s just bringing awareness that you’re not crazy, that you’re not the one that is the problem, that sometimes the system is really messed up and you might not be able to leave. So what can you do to make the most of a bad situation while also possibly looking for other jobs? So I want to recognize that too that we’re not doing the whole girl boss, live your dream life because I don’t think that – most of us are in positions that we cannot just up and leave bad situations.

Claire: Totally. And that is also a theme I’m seeing in a lot of these emails. Of I knew this was toxic and I couldn’t leave. Whether it was financially I wasn’t able to look for another job. I was on a contract, and I couldn’t leave without being penalized. I think we covered earlier in the summer the situation where sometimes if you’re new in a career path or there are certain career paths out there where these sort of grunt jobs exist that you have to get through – which is stupid and toxic, but just because we think that it’s stupid and toxic doesn’t mean that that’s not the reality for a lot of career paths. The first email we got is very similar to what I’m talking about now where this person says, “I just left a very toxic workplace three months ago after working there for five years. When I look back on it, it’s the classic unhealthy relationship story. Love at first sight. Red flags that I ignored. Slowly realizing how bad it was and then figuring out how the hell to get out. The first year was great. I felt like it was where I always wanted to be and saw myself there for years to come. The next two years were when the red flags really came out, but I just figured it was part of any business. Different personalities and perspectives. During year three, I completed all the requirements for license that I had been working toward since I graduated and expected a promotion or recognition. I did get more responsibilities, but no extra compensation.” Another big theme. “My boss also started to critique everything and treated me like a child. I was a salaried worker, but If I left even a few minutes before 5, I was yelled at in front of the rest of the staff. When I came back from maternity leave, I was bombarded with paperwork, a lot of it past due and felt like I was being punished for taking time off. One month prior to leaving, I had my yearly evaluation and asked for a raise. I was told that it couldn’t be done right now, so I immediately started looking for a new job. When I handed in my resignation, I was yelled at and told it was disrespectful for me to only put in two weeks’ notice and somebody in my position should have given a month because of the workload that I had. I was also told that I should have talked to her first and she thought we were “friends” and I owed her more than that. She did not speak to me or look at me after I gave my notice and would give me messages through others. I didn’t realize how much it affected my mental health until a month after leaving when I got super upset and anxious because I needed to leave my new job about 15 minutes early and was so scared to tell my new boss as though he would surely get upset. He didn’t. I’m just getting adjusted there, and I’m so much happier.” I feel like that’s such a common thread of stories. And also the thing with the boss getting mad when you resign, huge red flag.

Joy: Oh my gosh. Well okay, so the thing that – and speaking from my personal experience too. When I started to notice some patterns that like, hmm, this feels a little off, I tried my best to put as much energy as I could into giving coworkers, people around me information about joy in the workplace. I was always an advocate for creating a healthy workplace and what that looked like. I think someone mentioned this too in one of the comments as far as like, hey, realize whether or not you’re part of the problem or if you’re just complaining all the time. Don’t play the victim. I completely get that too. Are you just constantly complaining? Or are you trying to figure out some part of a solution in the workspace? I get that. But at the end of the day, after 2+ years of what I felt like I was screaming into a void – please tell me as an outsider if you feel like “Joy, that’s not realistic.” I need to check myself too. But I would send out articles. I would send out podcast episodes. I would send out all this stuff about, “hey, we really need to incorporate this into our management team because research actually shows” – I’d listen to Adam Grant WorkLife all the time. “Research actually shows that workers will be happier. You’ll be more productive if you do these things as a management team.” And I would get crickets. Crickets. Nothing. Nada. No one would response. No one would be like “great idea.” And granted, I didn’t have a ton of power, but I also feel like does on one care?

Claire: You’re like, why am I here if you aren’t going to take any of my advice?

Joy: It starts to feel like, oh Joy is just the Pollyanna, let’s pat her on the head. Whatever. But I think that there’s only so much of that that your soul can take before then you just have to make a decision. So the piece of trying, it’s not to say jump ship the second things get bad. But how much energy you put towards how much of this I can control or at least influence versus I have zero influence, I have tried my best to influence this culture. It has not changed one bit, so therefore I get to decide now what my next steps are.

Claire: And one person wrote in and said, “Is it possible to mistake toxic work for a miscommunication because of ADHD?” Or I think you could spin that into any type of – I don’t know if you would need a diagnosis, but there are so many different ways of communicating. And I think that what you’re saying and to answer this person and those questions of perception, the answer is perception is reality. If you feel like you’re being overlooked. If you feel like you are in a toxic place. If you feel like your desires aren’t being taken seriously or you’re not being given the opportunities that you’re asking for or that you are constantly asking for help and not getting it or whatever the case may be, then that’s the reality. If you feel that way, then that’s how it is. You don’t have to go out and seek out all this external evidence. Perception is reality, and if you feel overlooked then that’s it. That’s the end.

Joy: Right, that is your experience. Again, I think there’s a lot of times where you have to talk to your supervisor or talk to coworkers or try to say, “Hey, here’s something I’m noticing. Help me understand.” Let’s go to JK’s podcast. Help me understand. Be curious. Never assume. All the things that you do in a workplace where you just try to get all the information. And then if you get all the information and you still feel like you’re overlooked or that you’re not happy – I have a weird feeling about not being happy at work. I think there’s way more nuance to that than what it sounds like, which is a whole different discussion. But if you feel like you’ve done everything that you can and your values are that you want to grow in a workplace and that you want to feel supported and heard and that you’re not getting your needs met there, then yeah, maybe it’s time to look elsewhere. But everyone is different too. Some people, they want to put their head down, they want to get their job done, and they want to leave. They don’t pay attention to all that stuff. This is not just a generalized experience either.

Claire: No. But what I think I’m trying to say is, if you feel you aren’t getting X, Y, Z need met, whether that’s interpersonal, communication, opportunities for advancement, opportunities for a raise, whatever the case may be. If you feel like that need’s not getting met, you don’t have to break your back trying to prove to yourself that you’re right. You don’t have to stick it out just because other people tell you, “You should just be grateful. My manager doesn’t even let me work from home,” whatever it is. You can play that comparison game all day long. But I think that there’s so many situations in jobs where we tell ourselves, “This isn’t that big of a deal. I should just be grateful.” Yes, it’s important to gut check with the people around you that you trust. But at the end of the day, you don’t need this mounting pile of evidence before you can start looking for another job if you feel like this is not a supportive place that you want to be. And you can also just tell yourself – we talked about this about leaving other types of relationships this year too. You don’t have to wait for it to get so bad that you’re crying in your car before you’re going into work or that all you think about is whether or not to leave your job.

Joy: Yeah. I think we’re also talking more about the difference between toxic workplaces and just general workplace headaches. Workplace headaches, too, it’s going to happen, but is it where you’re leaving every day crying? Or fantasizing about leaving or finding a different job? That’s information that you want to pay attention to. The other purpose of us having this conversation is to validate your feelings. Especially as women because I think there’s a lot of us that tend to explain it away or feel like we just have to put up with it or feel like we just have to take it, and then we just grit our teeth and move through it. Especially that there tends to be more males in power above us that that will really influence our decisions too. Of, oh we’re being too emotional or whatever, fill in the blank. This is an important discussion to talk about the realities of it of how other people handled it. Validate that if you’re struggling with this too, you can always make next moves and look for other jobs, obviously, while you’re in a job. It doesn’t mean that you’re jumping ship and just being like, hey everybody, quit your job and leave.

Claire: On that note, another one of the emails, she says, “One thing I continually ran into, which I’m still trying to understand if it was really something on my end that I needed to do better at or if it was toxic, was related to career growth. I was in my mid to late 20’s when I worked there. I had hoped to have guidance from my manager at how to advance to the next level. Whenever I brought it up or asked for help or areas of improvement, I was told that it was my responsibility to come up with this plan and then manage my manager to get there. I tried this on numerous occasions, only to not receive advancements. And when I would express my frustration, I was met with no constructive feedback. It was very frustrating and may have just been a bad manager experience. But I know of many other employees on other teams that had a similar experience of having to manage themselves and struggled to come up with a growth plan without any guidance. Due to this, most people ended up leaving when they realized advancement was not a priority. Is that a bad workplace, or is that greener employees needing to learn how to take control of their career?” Yeah, that’s a great question. And also, if you’re a greener employee who needs more guidance, then that’s not a good fit for you. We have a lot of folks who wrote in on Instagram. Somebody’s dealing with male favoritism on a team that she’s been on for ten years in finance. Again, working in marketing it’s pretty even split between women and men on my teams. But I can imagine being in a field like finance or somewhere else that is typically a little bit more male dominated, you have a whole host of other problems. People being asked or expected to work in the outside of working hours, always a red flag. I really feel for this person. “My boss is toxic, and management is just waiting for him to retire. Everyone else is leaving, and I can’t leave.”

Joy: Yeah, that’s very real. That’s very real. So how do you get through that? Honestly, in those instances, if there’s people at work that you can lean on that are positive influences and that you can limit your interactions with the people that really drain you, that is something that helped me. I would really stick to the people that energize me and tried to do as little interactions with the vampires who literally suck the energy out of you. But it’s hard. Because like I said before, this is not just an easy fix. I think it’s mostly recognizing when you’re in it and then saying, alright, here’s my reality but how can I work through it if I can’t leave.

Claire: The person who wrote that, we happen to know her and I happen to know she also has young kids. Then you also have all this stacked on top where you’re also depleted in other areas of your life. It’s also so easy to isolate the toxic workplace conversation without considering other areas of your life. Like I’ve had jobs where if I had maybe not had one kids – or my one sort of toxic job that I refer to a lot. If I hadn’t been in a situation where Brandon was in nursing school and had no bandwidth to do anything, and if Miles hadn’t been really young and we hadn’t been in this financial situation that we were in, my job might not have felt so toxic because I could have had other areas of my life where I could have gotten more support or felt more space to unwind or relax. But the fact that the rest of my life was also very stressful meant that a really stressful workplace, I just didn’t have any extra resources to put towards “self-care” or trying to manage my stress elsewhere.

Joy: Was that the same time that you were going through postpartum depression? Was that before or after?

Claire: It was like right after. I was coming out of depression when I started that job?

Joy: The toxic job?

Claire: The toxic job.

Joy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Claire: So I had just come off of 8-9 month of super hardcore mental –

Joy: And that’s pretty freaking draining.

Claire: Yeah.

Joy: You don’t just get over it, you know.

Claire: And honestly, yeah. As anyone who’s gone through depressive phased in their life knows, it’s not like the switch flips off one day. It’s like one day you wake up and realize it’s been a while since you felt that way. That’s a whole other episode.

Joy: It’s a whole other episode. The way that it sounds too, which it’s not, is you’re not bouncing around in a field of roses either. After it’s over –

Claire: It was so tiring.

Joy: Yes. You’re like, I’m exhausted. I want to read another one really quick that came in messages. It says, “Perfect timing. Friday was my last day in the corporate world of 2+ years. I didn’t get paid enough to continue living in California, so while we were working from home I moved back to Colorado for my bank account, my mental health, and my relationship. A couple months ago, upper management decided I couldn’t work from home full time. Even though that’s what we’ve been doing since March 2020 and other people have been doing it for longer. I think it’s all for the best though. The job was stressing me out and had been for a while. There’s a big generational gap between old school upper management and the younger generation who actually work. Red flags. Call employees “team members.” Everyone at the company who doesn’t have a family living with roommates because they can’t afford rent. Even my boss’s boss who’s been at the company ten years had to buy a house with her sister. Boss sending message after hours and during the weekend and much more. Is there any corporate job that isn’t like that?” I really want to know that as well. I was talking with a good friend right after I left my job, and she was like, “You know, Joy. I have yet to see” – I think I’ve said this in a previous expose. But she’s like, “I have yet to see you either drink the Kool-Aide and you just become one of those Stepford people. Or you get out of that altogether.” Because she’s like, “I’ve yet to see it in any corporate culture where it is done well.” And that’s unfortunate because I think there could be such a good shift and change in people’s mental health and employee retention, all of the things that Adam Grant studies for crying out loud. Which drive me crazy because I’m like, why don’t employers watch that research. But anyway, that’s another tangent. But I think it’s hard because what she mentioned about the generational gap, old school upper management will not die.

Claire: Not literally die, you guys. Not literally die. We’re not wishing death.

Joy: We’re not 9 to 5 here. [singing] “Working 9 to 5.”

Claire: I think that’s true. And something that I have experienced personally is that if you kind of have to come in guns blazing and say, “I won’t do that.” Like if you email me after work hours – I mean, I have two phones. And everybody’s like, “Why do you have two phones? Don’t you know work will pay for your phone?” I’m like, yeah, but I have my personal phone and I have my work phone and never the twain shall meet. After 5 o’clock, I put my work phone away and I don’t pick it back up until 9am the next morning. Sometimes there’s maybe 30-60 minutes of wiggle room on either side of those deadlines if I’m in the middle of something and waiting for a reply. But I don’t pick up my phone. And I turn off my phone on the weekends. People know that they’re not going to be able to get a hold of me. And if there is an extraneous circumstance, then I can discuss that ahead of time. Of course those are going to happen every once in a while, and that’s fine. I’m willing to do that if it’s previously communicated and it’s once in a blue moon. And so that has been me coming in and saying, you can email me any time you want. That’s your decision. If you want to email me at 7 o’clock at night, that’s fine. Maybe that’s because you have kids and you had to leave early and go pick your kids up from school and this is when you’re able to get to my email. That’s your prerogative. My prerogative is that I’m not going to see that email until 9 o’clock tomorrow morning. And I had to learn that the hard way from a previous job where I would be getting calls at 5 in the morning, 8 at night with these questions. And the second that I started saying, “No, I’m not going to answer your calls anymore,” it was like, “Oh okay, then I just won’t call you at that time.” It felt so scary. And it turned out to be this pretty straight-forward fix of saying, “Hey, I don’t start work until 9. I’ll get back to you at that time.” You have to be willing to own that and own that fallout from that. I’m the type of person, I have pretty thick skin, so I know that that would be so scary for most people that it would almost cause more stress that to just answer the email.

Joy: But I think that’s important. I think about my experience, too. There was this weird culture that started to develop where it was like, who could be the most – I’m going to use an unprofessional term – ass-kissy. And be the shining star, the gold star person. It was just kind of like, why are we competing? What is that about? It felt very, very high school. It felt Mean Girls. It was one thousand percent Mean Girls. Which is unfortunate because you have all this talent. You have a lot of talented people, and it is just going down the drain because of poor management. That happens everywhere, and I think it’s just really unfortunate. It, again, employee retention, all of the things I just mentioned, but that is something that when you start to all of the sudden see that, then you think that you have to participate in that culture because you have to keep up with everybody instead of drawing boundaries and saying, “I’m not going to check emails on the weekends or take calls on the weekends.” Then it’s like, well so-and-so is doing it, so then they look like the good – anyway, it’s so crazy. It’s crazy-making.

Claire: I have a coworker like that right now who will answer your 10 o’clock email. I’m like, good for her. One day, if a promotion comes down the line and they pick her over me because she’ll do the 10pm email, then let her have it. Because if that is what’s required to move up in this business, then I don’t want it.

Joy: Yeah, I want no part of it.

Claire: You have to be willing to own that because that’s hard. I think it’s also part of the job interview process. If you’re in a job that is toxic and you decide you want to look around and you get to an interview process, you have to be willing to ask, how do you encourage work-life balance in your employees? And you have to listen for an authentic answer. And you have to be able to ask other people that work there, what happens if you get an email at 8 o’clock at night, what is the expectation? Or what happens if you get a call at 6 o’clock in the morning, what’s the expectation? And you have to be really listening for the real answer. And you have to be willing to walk away before you even get in the door if it feels like that’s not going to be aligned with what you want. And hey, if you want to work weird hours, then that’s great. You can do that.

Joy: Good on you.

Claire: Good on you. I have had conversations where someone will say, “We have great PTO here.” I’m like, I don’t need two weeks to go to Mexico. I need to be able to leave for an hour in the middle of the afternoon to go pick my kid up from school.

Joy: Flexibility.

Claire: Right. I don’t need to be able to go backpack around Europe.

Joy: I don’t need two weeks to go to Mexico. I just think that’s funny because it’s true. You just need to be able to care for your family and drop things when you need to pick up your child.

Claire: Exactly. I need it to not be weird if I don’t answer your 3 o’clock email until 4 o’clock because I was out picking up my kid a couple days a week. Those jobs do exist. It’s just a matter of finding them and being willing to have the consequences of holding those boundaries. Because there might be consequences. The toxic job that I always refer to that I left, one day I looked at my boss and realized I don’t want her life. That, to me, was the moment where I really knew that I was done. To look at upper management and say I don’t want to make the sacrifices that it will take to get there. I don’t want that lifestyle. I don’t want to be checking my email.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: It’s one thing to have so much work that you can’t finish and maybe you want to work and get a little bit ahead in the evening. We’ve all had those phases.

Joy: Of course.

Claire: But if that’s the expectation, then that’s a different story.

Joy: Yeah. That’s a good point. I was very much in that mind space too where I’m like, if this is how they’re going to operate and this is how they’re going to treat people, treat professional smart people, I want no part of this. No part of it. Again, very sad. But I had to take a really good hard look and say, “No thank you.” If this is how they’re going to treat people, I’m out. Bye.

Claire: Is it Oprah, Maya Angelou? Who said this quote? “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

Joy: I want to say it’s Maya Angelou.

Claire: Yeah, Maya. And then Oprah.

Joy: And Oprah says it all the time because Maya, yeah.

Claire: Yeah. It’s like that is also true about corporate cultures. Believe your business when they show you who they are the first time. Believe the culture that they have, not the culture that they want to pretend that they have. I went into that toxic job that I always talk about, and before I started working there every single person was like, “Wow, I used to know someone who worked there, and they only worked there for a year.” Really high turnover. Famous for high turnover. And I was like, oh, interesting. [suspenseful noises]

Joy: [laughing] Careful. Really quick, I want to just point out the things that I’ve already noticed. And there’s no perfect workplace of course, but what I’ve noticed that’s wildly different from Ginger already, the place that I’m going to be working, is every single person I’ve talked to up until this point is a person of culture. Great, they hire a diverse staff. I’ve gotten lip service on that in the past where they’re like, “We need to hire more diverse staff,” but they never do it. So that was thing one. I’m like, great, they’re walking the walk in terms of making sure that they are hiring a diverse pool of people. They immediately talked about work-life balance in a way that was, again, walk the talk where they give you mental health days every month, they have a very flexible PTO schedule where you don’t have to have seniority. Which I know a lot of more startup type of companies do that, but the managers that I talk to specifically gave me examples of working with their staff to undo the damage that they have seen at previous work cultures. Meaning, hey, I’ve had to talk to some of my staff members when they were sick and trying to push through working when they were sick. Or encouraging them to take more time off even though they had just taken some time off. And trying to undo that “we have to work all the time and I can’t take this day off because I just took this day off.” Specific examples of actually saying I recognize that we are different in how we operate and that’s going to take some time to get used to was already a positive in my mind. Where I’m like, yeah, I’m probably going to have a hard time getting used to this because I came from such a different environment. But those are the things that I am already noticing that I’m like, this is why I want to work here. Last, let’s end with communication style really quick. Because I don’t want to also just make this all about, hey, if you’re unhappy leave.

Claire: Right.

Joy: So what else maybe is a nuance that could come into play here? Maybe you do need to sit down and say, “I’ve noticed some things that aren’t working here.” What are some things that you feel like people could do to maybe communicate or bring this to light and maybe make some changes? What do you think?

Claire: I mean, the biggest thing I think is boundaries. Those are so hard to do retroactively. Once you’ve been in a situation already for months or years where people around you have been emailing you, calling you at all hours of the day, expecting things of you that aren’t part of your job, that are wildly not part of your job, these things that once in a while are okay but if they’re regular parts of your day can lead to being burnt out is setting really hard boundaries around those and having the hard conversations with folks in order to put those into place and not making it feel personal to them. Maybe this is a conversation with your manager. Maybe it’s with your coworkers. Maybe it’s with all of the above. And saying, “Hey. I’ve been feeling overworked lately.” Maybe “overworked” is the wrong word. But “I’ve been feeling” fill in the blank – overworked, bunt out. “I’m feeling like I’m heading towards burn out and I don’t want to get there. I’m going to start creating some clearer boundaries around my work hours, and I’d like you to not expect to hear from me outside of hours of 9 to 5 unless there’s an emergency.” That to me is the biggest thing that you can do. And then how that’s received will tell you a lot, I think, about what your future options are going to be. I think that if your manager or your coworkers say, “Okay.” They might roll their eyes or say, “You think you’re overworked? I worked 90 hours last week.” Well, let them have that badge. You don’t need to compete for that badge anymore. Put down wanting to win the crown for wanting to be the hardest worker or working the most hours. Instead decide that you want the crown that says, “I know the difference between my workday and my home day.” Or “I have work-life balance that works for me.” Let your goal be to have a fulfilling life outside of work while still being an effective employee. You don’t have to be the teacher’s pet at work anymore. I think that’s the biggest thing that I would do. Again, I say that sort of, “Of course, just set some boundaries” because for me, that’s something I’m very comfortable with. But it can be so terrifying and feel so vulnerable because you feel like you’re putting yourself in a position where people can get mad at you or you can be seen as not being ambitious or not being hardworking because you’re willing to set those boundaries. And you have to be okay with that. I would say the only other one quick tip to lose workplace burnout that I would propose is really getting clear about your own communication style. This is where I think things like Myers-Briggs or Enneagram can really be helpful in helping you learn more about ways that other people can effectively communicate with you. The times when I’ve really appreciated things like Myers-Briggs and Enneagram – we have talked in the past about how they can be really overdone and they can really pigeonhole people. The things that I do appreciate about knowing those labels about myself is that they’ve helped me learn what communication things I just assume that everyone wants or needs or uses, only to realize that maybe this is something that’s specific to people with a similar personality type to me. So if you don’t know any of those labels for yourself, it might be helpful to figure them out and learn more about how you give and receive effective communication so that you can be aware of that.

Joy: Yeah. And I think if you’re not meeting with your manager regularly, these are things – and especially if it’s not a great work environment, maybe you’re not. Maybe your manager isn’t communicating with you at all. But if you’re having frequent meetings with your manager, these are things that you should be talking about with that person. So it’s not just kind of coming out of nowhere. But if you’re not in a position where that happens, then yeah, it may feel scary to have this conversation all of the sudden. If you’re like, by the way, these are some boundaries. But I think there’s no risk in advocating to say, “Hey, I really want to do a good job here, but these are the things that I’m considering chaining. Let’s talk about it.” So it’s not just like you’re ordering, “This is what I need. These are my demands.” Because it can kind of feel that way when you’re asking for what you need. I think it’s important. If you can help it, don’t do it on an email.

Claire: Alright guys, thank you for joining us on this journey of professional development.

Joy: Professional development by Joy and Claire.

Claire: Professional development. Professional… what’s that word?

Joy: Still trying to figure it out.

Claire: Yeah, professional not knowing what we’re doing. We hope you’re having a great week. We hope that you’re not currently sitting in a job that you hate.

Joy: Yeah, hopefully.

Claire: Send us your job searching tips. We will share them. You can find us on Instagram @joyandclaire_, joyandclaire.com. If you are ever having a problem streaming one of our episodes through your favorite podcast app, every once in a while the feeds just get confused, the internet gets confused, satellites get out of wack, who knows what. Every once in a while, if you can’t find us for any reason, you can find all of our episodes at joyandclaire.com and can steam them directly from the website. It’s very easy. They’re always there. They’re posted there first mere moments before iTunes eventually picks them up and then everyone else picks them up. You can always find them there. And the majority of our past episodes are transcribed there as well if you are ever wanting to just read our episodes and imagine our voices in your head. Thank you so much for joining us. Please share our podcast with a friend, leave a review, and we’ll talk to you next week.

Joy: Love you, guys. Bye.

95: Failed Croissants

October 6, 2021 by Joy Parrish Leave a Comment

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This is Joy & Claire: Episode 95: Failed Croissants

Episode Date: October 6, 2021

Transcription Completed: October 17, 2021

Audio Length: 42:32 minutes

Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy.

Claire: And this is Claire.

Joy: And this is Joy and Claire. Happy Halloween!

Claire: It’s not even close to Halloween.

Joy: It’s October 3. I love October 3.

Claire: It was October 3. Thank you all for sending us your Mean Girls memes. October 3 forever. Mean Girls applies to everything.

Joy: Mean Girls applies to everything and truly is the best movie. When I was looking at all the Mean Girls posts yesterday – we’re recording this on Monday, October 4, which by the way I just got a news update that Facebook is down and Instagram is down. Which is really funny.

Claire: It explains, right.

Joy: It feels like the world just shut down. Like, what are we going to do?

Claire: What are we going to do?

Joy: Wouldn’t it be nice if it just went away for a few days and no one could use it.

Claire: I’ve been trying to post about my failed croissants and it’s not been loading, so I’ve been failing about posting about my failures. It’s just so meta. As I’ve said before, if I could go back in time and uninvent anything, it would be Facebook. It would be great. The world could heal.

Joy: You know how in COVID times we had to collectively just not do anything? I think it would just be nice to not have Facebook for a while. Just cut if off at the source.

Claire: And the problem is, I don’t use Facebook that often. I’m not scrolling Facebook. I definitely scroll Instagram a lot. It’s not that I feel like I just need to get off Facebook. It’s the culture of –

Joy: Everyone needs to shut down.

Claire: Everyone. We as a global society need a 70-day… 70? That’s a random number. Like a 90-day digital detox. We all just need to take out all the satellites, except for the ones that we need to call our moms.

Joy: Yes, exactly. And everyone that’s working at Facebook, just take a break. Everyone just take some self-care today.

Claire: They can afford to pay you some extra PTO. They can give you all a sabbatical.

Joy: Go to a COVID-safe vacation.

Claire: Or just go home.

Joy: Or go home and take a nap. I’m sure you work hard.

Claire: Keep the satellites that allow me to call my friends and text my friends and my family and get rid of all the rest.

Joy: That would be nice.

Claire: And I know you guys are like, “You don’t know what you’re saying.” I understand this is not a real scenario that we’re proposing for you guys.

Joy: [singing] We’re living in a fantasy.

Claire: I know that satellites are for more than Facebook and texting.

Joy: That’s not how it works, Claire.

Claire: Just want to throw that out there.

Joy: Just preemptively getting the people that are like, “That’s not how this works.” But the whole point of this was when I was looking at the posts for Mean Girls day. And I saw Aaron Samuels, Jonathan Bennett. I’ll never get over the time that we were very close to interviewing him.

Claire: Found out that we called him a “one hit wonder.” Which I stand by that comment. He was promoting his Mean Girls cookbook and then he got mad when we called him a one hit wonder. Well then, don’t… I mean, I stand by that comment.

Joy: We have a listener – and if you’re still listening to us, please come back and please bring Jonathan Bennett with you.

Claire: No.

Joy: She reached out to him to be like, “Hey, you should interview these girls. They love you. They’re a huge fan of Mean Girls.” And then he listened to one of our episodes, the one episode where we were like –

Claire: That was one time, Jonathan Bennett.

Joy: It was one time. We think you’re amazing and you’re wonderful and you still have an amazing, dreamy smile.

Claire: Called him a one hit wonder? That was one time! Oh well.

Joy: We lost our chance with Aaron Samuels. Anyway, I love how the whole cast still gets into it and they make a big deal about it. Lindsay Lohan posted about it. So happy Mean Girls day, everybody.

Claire: Speaking of Lindsay Lohan adjacent celebrities – in my mind, I was like Lindsay Lohan, ankle bracelet, Britney Spears.

Joy: Fair. They’ve been drunk in a car together before. It’s totally related.

Claire: Yeah, they’re related. Do you have any comments to make about the recent developments in the Britney Spears conservatorship?

Joy: I have a lot of comments. I’ve been weighing this. I am essentially a nobody, weighing in on someone I’ve never met, but there’s this very public life. I feel like I’m contributing to the problem if I talk about it. Am I overthinking it? because I’m like, am I just feeding the media beast of Britney Spears’ life? But I will say this. I think she’s lovely. I think she deserves to live a happy life. We don’t know all the details of the conservatorship, I’m sure. We don’t know all the details of what’s going on behind the scenes of her life. I still really worry about her mental health and that she’s getting proper care. I don’t know what kind of care she’s getting right now. But like, these are all the things I think about. I’m not going to weigh in on what’s happening. I truly think it probably needed to happen based on everything that we see and the documentaries. There was a really great Daily episode. If you guys don’t listen to The Daily podcast, I believe it was out September 29th maybe. But they talked a lot about the conservatorship and how this came to light and how she presented in front of a judge, that she wanted to have her own lawyer, all the updates that if you’re following this you’ve already heard. It was really well done. It just made me feel really sad again. I think any human being would look at this objectively and be like, this is just really sad. Because she’s so talented… I can’t help but think of the little girl you see on Star Search singing her heart out. That’s what I think about is the little girl on Star Search singing her little heart out and just wanting to be a performer and how did we get to this point. That’s what I think about is how was she with her parents and how they just traveled –

Claire: Like, how did we go from Mickey Mouse Club to here.

Joy: Yeah. And I just think there’s got to be something in the family dynamics and how she just missed out on being a normal kid and how she was in the spotlight. I think my heart goes out to her because I just see that little girl. You just don’t have anything close to a “normal life,” where everyone wants to weigh in on your life and you just deserve to be happy and make decisions about your life and having babies and having children and getting married and going on vacation wherever the heck you want to go on vacation without people intervening or taking pictures of you. To sum it up, my heart goes out to her. I hope that she gets what she wants for her best interest. And if she’s struggling with something that she’s working with doctors who are taking care of her properly, all of those things. It breaks my heart… it breaks my heart. She’s so freaking talented. I feel the same way about Lindsay [mispronounced Lo-HAHN] Lohan. Because Lindsay Lohan –

Claire: [mispronounced Lo-HAHN] Lohan.

Joy: I’m sorry. That was a total Scott Parrish.

Claire: Gruel.

Joy: Yeah, gruel. And Scott Parrish calls the Peloton the Pele-TONE. So he always pronounces these words and I’m like – but he does it unironically. He thinks it’s called the Pele-TONE. Lindsay Lohan. My heart breaks because of how talented she is. And here’s the other thing. Maybe they hate performing, or maybe they hate acting. So you don’t have to be dancing on the stage for us, but we are just like, “We’re entertained. Entertain us.” Like that whole thing of… they don’t owe us anything, but I think my hope is they’re happy not doing these things. Otherwise… I would love for them to come back and have a blossoming career, if they wanted that, because they’re so freaking talented. But maybe the industry just completely ruined them. I think about Lindsay’s documentary on Oprah years and years and years ago. And that was so sad. You could see Oprah trying to throw her a bone. Hey, we’re going to try and get you to come back and reestablish your life. She completely blew it. But there’s more behind the scenes. There’s so much pain there, and I can’t help but think about that.

Claire: I, as usual, do not have enough information about this to comment because I don’t follow celebrity gossip. But I did hear the thing about how her dad was being removed from the conservatorship. It’s hot news. It’s very tabloidy, very headliney. We have talked about it before. I think it is interesting. I’m more curious about it from the standpoint of, to your point Joy, how the public is viewing it and how it is such a complex issue, and we only see the very, very tip of the iceberg. Yet, most of us have an opinion about it. We’re chatting about it with our friends. What a weird life to live when your really private family issues are being discussed by people all over the world. That is what you sign up for when you become a celebrity, but I think this is an extreme version of that.

Joy: Yeah. And I don’t know if she had the consent at that age to sign up for this. I don’t even know if she… she was just so thrust into the atmosphere after that first hit. And in the early 2000’s, fame wasn’t what it is today.

Claire: For sure.

Joy: I could go off on many different trails with that one. I think it’s just something that for whatever reason we take this sick pleasure in weighing in on people’s lives. Because she posts on Instagram doesn’t mean that she owes us anything and that we get to weigh in. But yeah.

Claire: Yeah. I do still love following her on Instagram.

Joy: I do too. I do too because she’s just so Britney. I want her to keep being Britney.

Claire: I feel like it has to have been last year where the tweet was like, “Gonna drop acid and see if it makes Britney Spears’ Instagram make any sense.” [laughing] It’s great. I like her.

Joy: I love her so much. I really do.

Claire: Okay. In other news, I want to talk about my sad croissants because Instagram won’t let me post about them.

Joy: God. Tell us everything. [laughing]

Claire: So I’ve just spent the last three days making croissants, and they failed. If you’re listening to our baking podcast – I hope you are – it’s not our baking podcast. It’s our show about The Great British Baking Show. But I discuss baking on there a lot because it’s my favorite hobby right now, and it has been my favorite hobby for a while. I tried making some croissants from the cookbook called Aran – someone tell me how to pronounce that. A-R-A-N. It’s a Scottish word. And it’s the name of the bakery of a former Great British Bake Off contestant, Flora, who was on several years ago. She has since gone on to open a super cute little bakery in Scotland. So she has this cookbook, I love it. It has this chocolate cake in there that I make all the time that is a recipe of hers. This pistachio lime loaf that I made that was really good. So it’s this really super complex croissant recipe where the first night you make the dough, you let it chill completely over night. You let it chill for a solid 12+ hours. The next day you add the butter. So you just pound out this huge slab of butter, fold it up in the dough, fold the dough a certain way. Let that chill for another hour. Fold the dough in this certain way again. Roll it out, fold it again. Let that chill for another hour. Then cut it up and roll it up into the croissant. Let that chill overnight. And then you’re supposed to take it out. There is a little bit of yeast in this dough. You’re supposed to take it out, let the croissants come to room temperature, at which point they’re supposed to rise. And then you bake them. So mine, everything was going fine until this morning when I took them out and they never rose. So I don’t know what happened.

Joy: Rude.

Claire: Rude.

Joy: So rude.

Claire: So rude. Because all day yesterday I was just – occupying my brain all weekend.

Joy: Yeah, that’s so much prep time.

Claire: And honestly, the actual hands-on time, we’re talking less than 30 minutes. But you’re thinking about it the whole weekend.

Joy: Totally. You’re so excited.

Claire: It’s taking up so much space in my fridge because you have to keep putting it in and out of the fridge. So I have a whole fridge shelf dedicated to this. In a house where five people live, that’s a big deal. And anyway, so they didn’t ever rise, and I got to the point where I was like, I don’t think these are going to rise anymore. Even though they haven’t risen really at all. I try to let them prove for four hours. It was really violating anything I have every learned about baking when you’re trying to get layers. Typically if you want a flaky dough, you want the butter to be cold when you put it into the oven. So I was like, this is violating everything I feel like I know about baking with butter. And I put them in the oven, and sure enough the butter pretty much just melted. There was a little bit of a flake on the outside, but the middle of the croissants was just a pool of soggy dough and butter. I can just hear Paul Hollywood going, “It’s raw.”

Joy: Yeah. So now we’ve hit the point in our podcast where we go, what went wrong? Everybody call us and tell us what you think went wrong. Do you know what went wrong? Do you have any idea what you think went wrong?

Claire: So they were underproved. Something happened along the way. It’s not like I rushed the proving stage. Something happened between… I don’t know if maybe I could have done… something about the proving process. So I have two hypotheses. One hypothesis is that the dough got a little bit dried out in the fridge. And that can, as you can imagine, affect the elasticity of the dough. So imagine a piece of Play Dough versus a dry piece of Play Dough. A dry piece of play dough just crumbles, and a regular piece of play dough is a little bit stretchy. So as dough dries out, it gets a little bit less stretchy, so it would be less able to rise. That is my first hypothesis. We live in a really dry climate. It’s really hard to keep dough moist – sorry for all the people who – I should have put a warning.

Joy: Warning. Warning. Warning.

Claire: Warning. Content warning. Trigger warning. So that’s my hypothesis is that the dough got a little bit dried out as it was chilling in the fridge last night. Because once they were rolled, I just covered the baking sheet – when you’re in the folding process, you can really wrap it in plastic and it’s fine. But once they’re in the little croissant shapes and they’re on the cookie sheet, you kind of just cover them gently with some Saran Wrap. We don’t buy Saran Wrap really. I typically just reuse grocery bags. So it wasn’t sealed, and I think that’s something I’m going to do the next time is actually get something that’s going to cover it a little bit tighter. Then the only other thing I can think of is that when I took them out, they had been sitting on this cold, metal baking sheet in the fridge. So maybe if I had transferred them onto a room temperature baking sheet, they would have risen and maybe the baking sheet was still so cold that it took them too long to warm up. That’s my other hypothesis is that the baking sheet kept them colder than I thought for too long. So anyway, I’m just bummed. Because first of all, I used a whole entire pack of Kerrygold just out the window.

Joy: Ugh, that’s not cheap.

Claire: It’s not cheap. It’s like $6 worth of butter just gone. And I am still going to eat them, let’s be clear. But they’re not going to be as delicious.

Joy: Sure. But they’re not crispy delicious. This just reminds me so much – if you guys aren’t following The Great British Bake Off or our podcast, On Your Marks, Get Set, Bake!, it just reminds me right now, if we could just call up Jürgen – I feel like we need to make friends with Jürgen and have him on speed dial. He would be so helpful. I feel like he’s accessible. I feel like he would come on the show.

Claire: Yeah. He knows.

Joy: That’s our next goal.

Claire: Right, our next goal –

Joy: Because he’s a physicist.

Claire: I just want to listen to his cute voice.

Joy: So much science. That’s why I think baking is just so amazing because it’s exact science.

Claire: It is, and that’s what I like about it. It’s so funny because people will say, “I don’t like baking because it’s too precise. I’d rather just cook and throw a little bit of this and a little bit of that.” And I used to feel that way. But now, I love baking because while it is very precise, it still is so… it’s like a puzzle.

Joy: I was going to say, it probably feels like a puzzle or a challenge. Because if you miss one little thing…

Claire: That’s the thing. Yeah, with cooking you can kind of just a dish and a dash. With baking, all you do is follow the recipe and it’s no fun. And maybe that feels true for a loaf of banana bread or some basic chocolate chip cookies. But once you get to the point of really baking stuff that has to rise or baking stuff that has multiple, multiple steps, it is a puzzle and it really challenges you to figure out, okay how am I going to make this work? What’s wrong? And I actually was talking to someone about this – hi, Amanda – to my friend Amanda the other day. I don’t know if she’s listening to this. About bread baking. Because she also is a sourdough bread baker. I was saying, you know how a lot of times in Bake Off, the person who wins bread week often does really well in the rest of the challenge and a lot of times even wins. I feel like it’s because if you are a bread baker, if you have a lot of experience baking bread, you have had to develop an ability to troubleshoot as you’re going along the process. Because with bread, there’s so many different steps and there’s a lot of different things that can go wrong. So you develop that critical thinking to check in with your recipe as you’re going through it, which I think is really critical to any time you’re trying to get better at baking. That’s my very long-winded explanation of how my croissants failed. I don’t know if I’m ever going to try them again. Maybe next time. But it was such a long process.

Joy: You’re mad. You’re like, “Fine.”

Claire: It’s not even that I’m mad.

Joy: Just disappointed.

Claire: This was so anticlimactic. And it took so long and so much time in my fridge. You know, bread is one thing. And maybe this is how some people feel about sourdough is they’re like, why would I spend all this heartache trying to get this right when I can just go buy some sourdough. And that’s kind of how I’m feeling about these croissants. Why would I spend the time trying to perfect this when I could just go down the street to this really good bakery I have and buy these super crispy, flaky croissants. I’m not saying I’m never going to try it again. But I don’t think I’m going to turn around tomorrow and try to give it another shot.

Joy: Right. You’re not going to buy some more Kerrygold and take another stab at it.

Claire: No, I’m not.

Joy: What else are you looking at baking this fall? What are your faves? Soup? Pie?

Claire: Great question. Soup is not a bake.

Joy: Yeah, well. Making things. I’m going to bake some soup.

Claire: I’m going to bake some soup. Oh no. Do not come to my house for soup. I love soup. It’s one of my favorite foods. And every time I say that, I think of Jennifer Coolidge in Best in Show. She’s like, “We both like soup.”

Joy: She’s amazing.

Claire: She’s so funny.

Joy: She’s so funny. If anyone watched… was it the Oscars? Why am I messing all of these award shows up? I’m pretty sure it was the Oscars. It was recent. Oscars or the Emmy’s.

Claire: No, the Emmy’s.

Joy: Thank you. So the Emmy’s recently, she was just unbelievable. She was the star of the show.

Claire: She really was hilarious.

Joy: She truly is the epitome of “I don’t give an F.”

Claire: Yeah. She just owns her ridiculousness.

Joy: But not in a bitchy way. Not that that matters. Who cares if you are? But she just is very much, “I am in my skin, and I love every part of myself, and I own every part of my being.” And I aspire to be that. Her and Tracee Ellis Ross are my faves. Anyway. Yes, soup.

Claire: There’s also a part in Nacho Libre when Jack Black has a line that’s like, “I get to wake up at 5am and make soup?”

Joy: Is that how you feel? You get up at 5.

Claire: God, no. The only thing I wake up early to do is go hiking or go snow skiing. Those are the only two activities I will actually wake up early to do. And I always hate it. Even though I’m doing my favorite activities, I still hate waking up early.

Joy: But you’ll get up and do a WOD every once in a while, yeah?

Claire: Every once in a while, I will. It’s harder in the winter for obvious reasons. What else am I looking forward to baking? Yeah, not baking but soup. I have this chicken soup book called The Chicken Soup Manifesto. If you are a lover of soup, I would highly recommend this book. It’s hundreds… probably hundreds… at least a hundred recipes of different types of chicken soup from different regions of the world. Every culture has several traditional chicken soups. Chicken soup is sort of like a dumpling or – every culture has its hand-held carb filled with something. Like a samosa or a dumpling or a hot pocket. Every culture has its version of a stir fry or a gumbo, like a “throw everything in a pot.” And every culture really also does have some version of a chicken soup. A lot of them are for different seasons. So it’s so cool. We made this traditional Brazilian chicken soup. Maxine, who is our Brazilian au pair for those of you who don’t know, was like so psyched. And it was so similar to the soup that I make but it had these few little things where it was like, oh, it has potato and rice. You garnish it with lemon. I would never think to garnish a chicken soup with lemon that wasn’t a lemon-based soup. I would highly recommend it if you’re into soup. It has really given me a lot to work with when it comes to getting better at soup. That being said, more information about soup. The key to good soup is good broth. And the key to good broth is making your own. So if you go to my personal Instagram –

Joy: I legit just thought you just said, “the keto good broth,” and I was like, keto?

Claire: I mean, broth is keto.

Joy: Yeah. But I was like, are we dieting? Just kidding.

Claire: Joy is afraid of diet words. No. The key to good soup is good broth, and the key to good broth is making it at home on your own. You can buy broth at the store, and then double bake it where you buy broth at the store and then add some of your own stuff to it and then strain it again. But if you go to my personal Instagram, which is @clairekho, I have a highlight saved called “Broth.” It gives you the basic recipe that I use for broth. It’s very, very loosely based on the Nom Nom Paleo bone broth recipe from probably ten years ago at this point. You can also just check that out. But she uses leeks and fish sauce, which I came to find I don’t really like leeks in my broth. Because I cook my broth for a super, super long time and leeks get too mushy and release some mush into the broth. And then fish sauce, she uses fish sauce – this is Michelle from Nom Nom Paleo – in a lot of recipes in place of salt because her cooking style is very Asian-inspired – she’s Asian and very Asian-inspired recipes. She uses fish salt in place of salt in a lot of places because she thinks it gives it a little more umami. I just don’t typically have fish sauce on hand, so I just don’t use that. Anyway. Yeah, really excited about making pies.

Joy: You know what I was thinking about? This is a weird memory. But around this time last year is when I was starting to feel the effects of Graves’ Disease. I didn’t know I had it until like November of last year. But I’ll never forget the only thing that sounded good – because one of the symptoms I was having was nothing sounded good, and I had no appetite – but the only thing I was eating was your pie. I remember you dropped off a pie. I have this memory of all I had breakfast, lunch, and dinner was that raspberry chocolate pie you made.

Claire: It was so good. That was a really good one. Yeah, you got diagnosed the first weekend of December because I think I bought that pie over to you for my birthday week.

Joy: Yeah, I remember that. I remember, yes. Because I remember it started in November, like mid-November when I was getting all the tests done. And then I was officially diagnosed the end of – yeah, it’s crazy.

Claire: Yeah. I feel like I remember that because I remember that you had just finished your pie, and then the next day you found out you weren’t supposed to be eating fruit or dairy.

Joy: I was like, whoopsies.

Claire: So a raspberry chocolate mousse pie… or sugar.

Joy: It’s all those things.

Claire: Well, good thing you finished it.

Joy: Yeah. I had a great time with it. I was like, “Whoops, didn’t know. Sorry.”

Claire: Oh well. Yeah, I love baking. I think it’s so fun to try new things. I don’t really have anything crazy on my list right now.

Joy: Are you still using The Book of Pie? The Book on Pie?

Claire: Oh yeah, The Book on Pie.

Joy: The Book on Pie, yeah.

Claire: Yes. Love that book.

Joy: You still highly recommend that one?

Claire: She’s developing another book, too, which I’m so excited for. I don’t really know what it is. I highly recommend The Book on Pie if you are a pie-maker. If you aspire to be a pie-maker, she really breaks down pie crust in such an approachable way. And all of her stuff is so great. Yeah, highly recommend. Plus, my cooking and baking docket.

Joy: I have some exciting news. We have a quick break for an ad, and our exciting news is Ned is back.

Claire: Ned is back.

Joy: Oh my gosh. I get excited about sponsors, but I get super excited about Ned.

Claire: I know.

Joy: If you guys haven’t been following us forever, Ned has been one of our sponsors in the past and they are back. I’ve been trying sleep blend. I’m not a bad sleeper, but I just was like, I’m going to try this. I want to optimize my sleep even more. And the first night that I tried it, I woke up and I was just like, oh my gosh. Like, I had hotel sleep.

Claire: What just happened? Oh yeah.

Joy: Yeah, yeah.

Claire: It’s like, where am I?

Joy: Exactly. And I’m just like, oh my gosh, I had amazing dream. It is incredible. We love Ned products. They’re high quality. They’re local. If you go on their website, you can see the farmers that make the product. It’s unbelievable.

Claire: And if you guys aren’t familiar with Ned, they are a company that makes high-quality CBD and CBD blends. Most of their stuff is oil tincture based, but they also are coming out with some capsule formats, which is really cool if you don’t like the taste of hemp or if you find it hard to take a tincture out of a dropper. Which, that can be tough for people if you’re really taste sensitive. Or if holding it in your mouth under your tongue for a minute can kind of be… I sometimes don’t love that delivery format. I like the option of being able to take the gel caps. They also have a lot of awesome blends specifically for sleep, specifically for stress, specifically for mood. We know that it has been a high-stressed year… not year, two years. We know that life is just high stress. The world is high stress. Similar to you, Joy, I don’t really struggle to sleep, and I’ve been taking their stress blend throughout the day. I love it because it doesn’t make me groggy. That’s the thing about CBD that I’ve at least found. It mellows me out, and it helps me relax, but it’s not like a Benadryl or something where it makes me groggy. And then Brandon takes it and has taken it this whole time, even in between our partnerships with Ned, because it’s great to know and trust the CBD that you’re using and the hemp source that you’re using. We highly recommend them. Check them out.

Joy: There’s so many CBD products out there. It’s so saturated. Just be careful where you buy your CBD. Just like with low quality alcohol, low quality CBD can have undesired effects. With Ned, you know that you’re getting the best of the best. So if you want to try the new destress blend from Ned, a brand that we love and trust, we have a special offer for our audience. Every order over $40 qualifies for 15% off and a free destress blend sample. Go to helloned.com/joy or enter JOY at checkout to take advantage of the offer. That’s helloned.com/joy to get 15% off plus a free destress blend sample on any order over $40. Thank you, Ned, for sponsoring our program and offering our listeners a natural remedy for some of life’s most common health issues. Everyone’s going to be so Zen.

Claire: So Zen. So now we want to tell you guys about something really cool that one of our listeners is doing. If you’ve been listening for a while, you probably remember some of the emails that we read from EJ. EJ is a wonderful, very active listener who we met at the Games a couple of years ago. They wrote in back when we were talking about career transitions – wrote in or called in with a voice memo. I think it was an email when we were talking about, can you really live off of your passion. So since that email, they’ve gone on to get a full-time job with a non-profit that does disaster relief and disaster cleanup. Joy, do you want to go ahead and read the email?

Joy: Here’s the email from EJ. “Hi Joy and Claire. I hope fall is treating you well. I was listening to Episode 91 and loved hearing the updates of how Miles is enjoying Taekwondo. I did karate starting at eight and kept going even though college. I distinctly remember being in high school doing karate and having this epiphany moment of realizing I had a say and control of my life. It was one of the most empowering moments of my life, and I am endlessly grateful for all that karate taught me. On a separate note, after emailing about job searching, I got a staff position at the nonprofit I was serving my AmeriCorps term with. I’ve since been sent to New Orleans to help with Hurricane Ida relief, leading a team of AmeriCorps members in disaster-relief efforts. We do debris removal, muck and guts, and mold remediation. We also rely heavily on volunteers to impact as many homes and clients as we do. I know a lot of people listen to y’all’s amazing podcast, and I’m sure some live in Louisiana and surrounding states. If anyone is looking for a way to help, they can sign up to volunteer with us for a day.” I’ll post this link for everyone on the show notes. “If they indicate they heard about SVP from y’all, Joy and Claire, Girls Gone WOD, etc., I can work with our volunteer department to make sure they’re on the same site together. It could be a mini fan meetup. Let me know if you have questions or thoughts. EJ.” Thank you, EJ, that’s so cool. They also said, “I should also add that in order to volunteer, you must show proof of vaccination. And we ask that volunteers wear masks while on site.” That’s a really cool idea.

Claire: If that’s something that you’re interested in, we will post the link in the show notes. And/or if you’re interested in knowing if other people from the podcast are maybe going to do it, send us an email thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com and if we get a couple of folks who are interested, we’ll connect you guys, or we might just send you directly to EJ. Once we see if anybody reaches out, we’ll figure out what the best next step would be to connect folks so that if you do feel like, “Oh, I’m going to meet some new friends.” I would also just like to say, we have a couple little pockets around the country where listeners over the years have found one another, whether it was from a trip that we did or whether it was from a challenge back in the day when we were still doing challenges, whether it was from a meetup, anything like that – now they are really close, and it’s so cool to think that we have this real life impact in bringing like-minded folks together and helping them find their communities and helping them make lifelong friendships. That could be you.

Joy: That could be you. I think that’s just one of the coolest things out of this podcast. People are like, “Yeah, we met out of your podcast and we’re BFFs.” Or “I was in their wedding” or whatever story. Just warms my heart. Speaking of heart, I can give a quick health update. Not that it has anything to do with my heart.

Claire: That was a rough transition, but I’m going to take it.

Joy: How is your heart? My heart’s great. I got updated bloodwork. I’m sure everyone’s like, “Okay, we get it, you’re fine.” But it always feels good to have data that shows that you’re continuing to improve. For me. I recently had bloodwork done. I think it was a couple weeks ago. And I got a flu shot, and I felt fine after the flu shot. Everything’s great. I plan to get a booster once it’s available.

Claire: Brandon got the flu shot, and even he felt fine. Brandon is a flu shot weenie. ‘

Joy: Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.

Claire: I feel also though, all of us just having gone through the COVID vaccine situation where the side effects were so varied but kind of intense. Some people got knocked out for a day or two. I feel like I have this heightened worry about – I never used to worry about vaccine side effects or vaccine immediate whatever side effects. And now I’m like, oh my gosh, what if I’m tired from this? I’ve never worried about that before for the flu shot, but Brandon is a flu shot weenie. He got his yesterday, and he’s been fine.

Joy: And he was fine, yeah. It was funny, we were in Westcliffe this past weekend. I was talking about getting the flu shot, and Scott’s like, “Yeah, I’ve got to go get mine. But man, I’m going to be out for two days.” And I was like, what? Are you serious? It’s such a man flu thing to say.

Claire: No. You’re going to be out for two days from this?

Joy: It’s fine. I was like, you’re going to be fine. it’s still that same old song and dance, Claire, where I try so hard to be empathetic. But one day if I make fun and he actually gets sick, I’m going to feel so bad.

Claire: Like the time when Brandon had dengue fever and I made fun of him. I know I’ve told this story, but in case you’re new here. Brandon went on a medical volunteer trip to Guatemala – or Honduras? Guatemala? Came back, had dengue fever. I didn’t know he had dengue fever. Obviously, I didn’t know he had dengue fever. I just made fun of him for being a weenie, and then it turned out he had dengue fever. And now he’s like, “Remember that time you made fun of me for being sick and then I had dengue fever.” And I’m like, “That was one time!”

Joy: You’re never going to live that down.

Claire: No. Never, ever, ever. And I even knew it at the time. I was like, aw man. That was my one card.

Joy: I know, I know, and I still feel bad. I just always feel like it truly is a man flu thing where they act like they’re dying and they’re not. But anyway, got the flu shot. Bloodwork is looking stellar. Meaning the last thing that I was trying to get back up is my TSH, which is my thyroid stimulating hormone. And that is going back up, and all is fine. I’m just going to keep getting rechecked, but I feel great and everyone’s like, “What are you doing? Is it still…?” Yeah, I’m still sticking to the plan as far as what I’m supposed to be eating. I’m not over exercising. I’m doing a moderate amount of exercise for me. I just listen to my body. What does that mean? I watch my heartrate. I don’t overdo it. I don’t crazy on workouts. I don’t try to run a bazillion miles. I just go out and do things that feel good. Truly moving for feeling good, not for punishing myself or feeling like you have to kill a workout type of thing. What are we doing for Halloween? What are you doing? Are you starting to talk about Halloween costumes for the kids yet?

Claire: Okay. As any parents will know, Halloween is a topic of conversation year-round probably in most households, the same way that Christmas is a topic of conversation year-round if you celebrate Christmas. Santa is never far from our minds.

Joy: And also, if you misbehave, Santa will see you.

Claire: So we actually try really hard not to lean into the Santa’s watching thing because –

Joy: You don’t want to paranoid your kids.

Claire: And Miles is really sensitive.

Joy: Oh yeah, yeah.

Claire: He just is really sensitive about that type of thing. We try not to overdo the “oh don’t be bad or Santa won’t bring you anything” card. We sort of try to talk about Santa the way that we talk about fairies or magic. Nobody really knows for sure if they’re real, and here’s things that make us think it is real. One day, he’s going to ask about presents, and we’ll just talk about, you know, Santa and how nobody really knows.

Joy: That’s a hard conversation because you’re just like, nobody knows.

Claire: Nobody knows for sure.

Joy: Adults don’t know what the heck they’re doing.

Claire: Right. In case any kids are listening, it’s hard because no one has ever really seen Santa, and we kind of just have to go off of that. Halloween, for a while Miles was wanting to be WALL-E. Which, fine, but kind of a lot of construction involved on my end for WALL-E. And he wanted Evie to be EVE. Which also fine, except turns out, I was looking online – okay, what are some ideas that she can be EVE. And it would be kind of hard to pull off without putting her in a cardboard cone.

Joy: Right. Which at her age, she would topple over.

Claire: She would fully topple over. Which would be hilarious but would be hard on everyone eventually. And she could have a little helmet on. That would be the head. So I don’t think that’s been completely ruled out, but lately he’s like, “I want to be a zombie.” He’s started watching Star Wars. Which I never in my life have ever seen the Star Wars movies all in a row. I’m sure over the course of my life, I have probably seen all of the Star Wars movies in pieces here and there.

Joy: Same here.

Claire: But I’ve never just sat down and watched all the Star Wars movies. And I probably have only sat down and watched two or three of them at all, all in one go. So at school in P.E., his gym teacher is really into Star Wars, so they play Star Wars theme – like instead of dodgeball, it’s Darth Vader astroblasters.

Joy: Okay, that’s cute.

Claire: It is cute.

Joy: It’s adorable.

Claire: He plays the Darth Vader music. Duh duh duh – while they’re playing. Which is cool. He came home one day, and he’s like, “Mom, do you know who Dark Vader is?” He calls him Dark Vader. He’s like, “Mom, have you ever heard of Dark Vader.” I’m like, “I have.” He’s like, “You have?” So we’ve been watching Star Wars. So then he’s like, “Maybe I should be Star Wars for Halloween.”

Joy: He’d be like a storm trooper.

Claire: He’d want to be a good guy, so he’s like, “Maybe I could be Chewbacca.”

Joy: Chewbacca. C-3PO.

Claire: Yeah, C-3PO. C-3PO is kind of annoying.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: And then what’s the other one? He’s thinking about Wild Kratts for a while. There’s just so much going on. And then Maxine really wants us to have a family costume. She has always wanted us all to dress up as the Adam’s Family. Because she wants to dress up as the Adam’s Family, but she wants an excuse.

Joy: Totally.

Claire: Which is cute and totally fine. I don’t know. I might just tell her, listen, you and Evie can be whatever you guys want to be. You and Evie just dress each other up in your group costume. But Brandon and I are not super into Halloween. We don’t really decorate our house. We’re not the type of parents who really go all out with costumes. I will 100% be doing a store-bought costume most likely. And here’s the other thing, parents who are listening can also probably really relate to this, no matter how clear your child is on their Halloween costume idea, the sooner you buy the costume the more likely they are to change their mind.

Joy: They will one thousand percent change their mind. [laughing]

Claire: So it doesn’t matter if –

Joy: I’m laughing because I’ve heard this so many times. “And now I want to be this,” and you’re like, I just bought the like a month ago.

Claire: So it doesn’t matter if they’ve wanted to be the same thing since November 1 of the year before, they’re going to change their mind on October 15 or October 29.

Joy: Someone at school is going to say something. There’s going to be a kid that has a costume that’s like, “I want to be that instead.” Yep, yep.

Claire: It’s going to be like, wait a minute, no. When the moment of truth comes to actually put it on, it could be October 29 and you could be like, “You have wanted to be this other thing for the last 363 days.” They’re going to be like, “No, I want to be something completely different now.” Remember that time that – okay, you guys all know our friend Jess by now. Remember that time her daughter wanted to be their cat. They have this orange tabby cat, so she bought – this is a genius move. She bought a Lorax costume and modified it to look like a cat.

Joy: Genius.

Claire: But then all of the sudden she changed her mind. She wanted to be something else. Sad for everyone.

Joy: And then you see parents just putting costumes together. I will say, I really enjoy social media on Halloween to see all the brilliant costumes that come out. That’s one of my favorite days –

Claire: And especially the dog costumes. Does JT still have his rainbow costume?

Joy: Oh, of course he has his rainbow costume.

Claire: Are you going to get him a different costume this year?

Joy: Probably. I feel like the rainbow costume has been like two years. So we’ll probably put it on Cadet.

Claire: Aren’t you going to dress up Cadet like a cadet?

Joy: Oh, we should do that. Yeah.

Claire: Oh yeah, you’re right.

Joy: Because her Wonder Woman costume from last year will definitely not fit.

Claire: Maybe it would fit River.

Joy: Oh yeah.

Claire: I bet it would.

Joy: You think so? How many pounds is she? You don’t know?

Claire: Like 55.

Joy: Okay, yeah, I think it would fit.

Claire: She’s turned into a giant horse of a dog.

Joy: Yeah, I love dog costumes. For sure. That’s my fave.

Claire: Alright guys, well on that exhilarating note, we’d love to hear your stories about Halloween costumes. We’d love to hear how you’re thinking about that. I know Halloween isn’t for another three weeks, so don’t panic.

Joy: But panic because it’s right around the corner.

Claire: If you are somebody who loves Halloween – like I know that there’s one listener, Nicky, who goes all out on her house every year. To the point where last year they did a quarantine theme, and people were calling the health department and were like, “Something’s going on in this house.”

Joy: Oh my gosh.

Claire: A little too close to home. So if you go all out for Halloween decorations, please send us a picture. We would love to see that. If you go all out for group costumes in your family.

Joy: Group costumes, family costumes, yeah, I want to see it. I want to see it.

Claire: And don’t forget to support our sponsor, Ned. Go to helloned.com/joy or use discount code JOY. Get yourself some really great CBD products.

Joy: Now is the time.

Claire: We love Ned. They are a Colorado-based company. We’ve worked with them a lot. They’re so great to us, so great to our community. So go check them out.

Joy: Get chilled out for the holidays, guys. You need to just chill. You need to chill.

Claire: I think by the time the actual holidays roll around, we’re going to have already been talking about them for so long that we’re going to be like, “And next up is… Valentine’s Day.”

Joy: Totally, totally.

Claire: We’re too far ahead. But still. And you can find us on Instagram @joyandclaire_. You can always find us at joyandclaire.com. You can listen to our other podcasts, Girls Gone WOD, which you can find anywhere you find your podcasts. You can also listen to our Great British Bake Off reaction podcast, which is called On Your Marks, Get Set, Bake!. This week we will be talking about the current episode as well as reviewing the jammy sandwich cookies that I will be making from last week’s technical.

Joy: Which by the way, if you don’t watch The Great British Baking Show because you’re like, well I’m not really into baking. Guys, I’m raising my hand here. I’m not into baking either, but the show is delightful. So take a chance. You will not be sorry.

Claire: And we will talk to you guys next week.

Joy: Bye, guys.

Claire: Bye.

GBBO Season 12 Episode 2

October 2, 2021 by Joy Parrish Leave a Comment

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94: Preparing for Holiday Diet Culture Traps

September 30, 2021 by Joy Parrish Leave a Comment

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Claire’s trade show experience, holiday diet culture traps, and Cadet nearing her college days.

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This is Joy & Claire Episode 94: Preparing for Holiday Diet Culture Traps

Episode Date: September 30, 2021

Transcription Completed: October 3, 2021

Audio Length: 46:41 minutes

Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy.

Claire: And this is Claire.

Joy: And this is Joy and Claire. It’s almost October. We have to do a countdown because it’s officially the fall. Countdown to the holidays.

Claire: I love it. Yes. Spooky sleigh ride.

Joy: Spooky sleigh ride. Your birthday sleigh ride. The holidays sleigh ride. It’s a lot of fun things.

Claire: There’s an actual, a literal sleigh ride you can take. Sleigh ride to an actual sleigh ride.

Joy: I was thinking about it when I was in Costco… maybe in July? When they had costumes already and that freaked me out. That just seems like yesterday, and here we are. I was walking the dogs earlier today. I’m sure there are some blow up yard aficionados that know that there are some very cool yard… blow up dolls, whatever they call them. Big Halloween pumpkins. Characters if you will. The neighbors down the street had these huge, huge skeletons. I’m thinking like 12 ft. To 14 ft. tall. Actually maybe up to 20 ft. tall. They were very, very tall. Huge. Two of them in their yard. They had a really spooky cemetery. I aspire to that and not one year have we done anything like that. However, Scott and I were looking at the blow-up figurines for our yard. Because almost every year we look too late and they’re always sold out. But they had one that was a Hocus Pocus one with the three witches.

Claire: That’s cute.

Joy: That I would put in my yard. And they had the Beetlejuice sand snake. That’s cute.

Claire: Good one. Our neighbors across the street – I feel like I’ve talked about this before – have this 10 ft. tall blow-up black cat. And then they also have a Santa. But the black cat, I’m going to be curious to see how River does because Luna hated it.

Joy: Oh interesting.

Claire: Because they’re directly across the street from us, and this 10 ft. tall black cat just stares into our front window for like four weeks.

Joy: Well it’s funny because, now that you bring that up, it’s really good training for Cadet to go by all of these – like when we’re going to Target or Costco and we go by the Halloween decoration section. And inevitably a Halloween decoration goes off, and it’s sensor triggered and then it screams at you or whatever. So it’s great training for her. I was like, oh great, she didn’t react to the one at Costco. But we’re walking a few days ago and there’s a scarecrow in someone’s yard. Just a cute little scarecrow. And she just stopped. And was just looking at it and backing away a little bit. I was like, oh crap, we got to work on this. This is definitely something you’re going to need to react to.

Claire: I got to go and find a scarecrow. That is funny.

Joy: Had no reaction to statues. Apparently, it’s very common for dogs to react to statues. So at one of our puppy training classes, we were walking by statues and whatever. They did fine. But a scarecrow. And it’s a friendly looking scarecrow, so we got to work on that.

Claire: I know. Not to Cadet. I was actually thinking of Cadet the other day because Evie and Miles have this remote-control WALL-E. You can imagine it. It’s exactly what it sounds like. It goes around the house like [robot sounds], making all the WALL-E sounds. And River was just kind of looking at it and I was like, I should invite Cadet over to have remote control WALL-E drifting directly at her.

Joy: Yeah, that would be good training. We try to do everything that we can to expose her to all of these random things. The weirdest stuff will trip her up, but once you expose her to it a few times she’s fine. Like the other day we were at Whole Foods. She’s been to plenty of stores. We got to Target, we go to grocery stores. But for whatever reason at this Whole Foods when the doors open, there were a lot of carts moving. And you know how the air, that ventilation system that’s right next to the doors that open and close, and it blows up at you when you walk into the store. And she kind of reacted to that, not in a bad way, but I could definitely see her being like, woah, that was a lot of stimulation. Yeah, we’re on the countdown, so I’m trying to do everything I can to make sure that she’s ready.

Claire: Okay. Give the update.

Joy: So the update is, for those of you who don’t know, maybe you’re new, Scott and I have been raising a puppy for Canine Companions for the past 18-19 months. We volunteer with this organization because I work with a therapy dog, a facility dog who is trained by Canine Companions for eight years. He retired and we really wanted to give back and stay connected to this organization, so we have been puppy raising for Canine Companions. Which means they breed their dogs specifically for service and then they send them out to puppy raisers where the puppy raisers volunteer for 1.5 years, up to 2 years, raising this dog, doing all these commands, classes twice a month, etc. trying to get the dog exposed to as much stimuli as possible. We’ve had Cadet since April 2020. She’s really been a blessing to have during the pandemic. All of our life has been, throughout this pandemic, is just focusing on our dogs, which has been great. So she goes off to college – I call it college because people can kind of understand that – advanced training November 12. Then she will be at Oceanside, California, which is where JT and I trained together. So when I applied to get JT, it’s a very long application process for Canine Companions. You don’t just sign up to get a dog. It is very, very selective. They really don’t just hand these dogs out to anyone because they are worth like $60,000 if you add up all the time and money. But you don’t pay for them. They give these dogs to people in need free of charge. When I applied to get JT, that was a really long process. I lived on campus training for two weeks with the dogs. Training with the best trainers. By the end of it, I knew all the commands and how to handle the dog. They just really set you up for success. So that’s where she will be. And she will be there also with her sister Capri. So we’ve been in touch. We see Capri at some of the puppy classes, so that kind of makes me feel good that she’ll be training with her sister too. So we’ll see. At any time during training, she could be sent home, which would mean that she would be… they call it a “change of career.” So instead of the path to being a service dog, she has a change of career and she just goes and lives her life out with us as a pet. Now if you’re a puppy raiser and you’ve raised multiple dogs, CCI, Canine Companions, really only allows puppy raisers to have three dogs in their home at one time. So puppy raisers will often continue to puppy raise and puppy raise, and so maybe over seven or eight years they already have three release dogs – change of career dogs. So at that time, sometimes Canine Companions will allow a friend to adopt the dog after they’re released. But it’s a very selective, very competitive process to get release dogs. So a lot of people joke, “Oh, I’ll take a release dog.” I’m like, good luck. It’s pretty much impossible to get a release dog unless you’re very close to a puppy raiser and have an impeccable track record of having an animal because they are very selective about who gets those dogs. But in any event, we only have JT. I shouldn’t say “only.” He’s the best. But if she’s released, then we will get to keep her as a pet for her natural life. So that’s kind of the story. I think what’s happening right now is it’s happening so fast where… just yesterday, it was September 1. And now it’s almost October 1, and I’m like, oh my God. The countdown in my mind has started. So Scott and I are already talking like, “Oh my gosh, we’re really going to miss how she drinks water” and “we’re really going to miss how she comes up to you with a toy when you walk in the house,” all these little things we’re really going to miss about her. But we knew this day was coming, and it’s going to be very difficult. So we’re going to fly out there with her, drop her off on Friday, the 12th. Canine Companions does this really great thing where they have a whole matriculation ceremony where the dogs go to college, and they have this cute little vest on. And dogs that are graduating, they have a graduation ceremony. Scott and I were going to go to Disney Land. We’re kind of rethinking it because it would be on a Saturday, and we’re like, do we really want to go to Disney Land on a Saturday? We also wonder if we would just like to come home after we drop her off. Maybe we just want to go home and be with JT.

Claire: Yeah, you are going to want to be home with JT.

Joy: Yeah. So we’re rethinking extending the stay. Because I don’t know if we’re going to have the heart to stay there. Scott brought that up yesterday, and I’m like, I think you’re right.

Claire: I think you guys should maybe have one day where you can go to the beach and eat your feelings and drink your feelings and then go home. Because knowing you – and you should have one day where you can go shopping.

Joy: That’s true. That’s true.

Claire: And then you should come home. But Disney Land, I think would be emotional.

Joy: When he mentioned that when we were on a walk the other day, “You know, that would be Disney Land on a Saturday.” That’s true. And I don’t want to stay until Tuesday. I want to get home to my pets and see JT and start the healing process of home without Cadet. So we’ll see. But yeah, it’s going to be really hard. And every puppy raiser you talk to, I’ll say it over and over again, they’re like, “It never gets easier.” It is very difficult to turn your dog in, but she’s just so special. I’m already excited to get her progress reports. Luckily as a puppy raiser you do get progress reports. So Canine Companions sends you a report every month, how she’s doing, how she’s learning her commands, what she needs to work on, so on and so forth.

Claire: And I know we’ve covered this in a previous episode, but once she gets there – so you’re basically teaching her the absolute basics, and then once the dogs get to advanced training, that’s when they decide what type of service dog they’re going to be, right?

Joy: Yes.

Claire: You haven’t been training her specifically for a specific type of service.

Joy: No. Really what they want puppy raisers to do is expose the dogs to as much as possible. So cars, taking her on car ride. We took her to the mountains, exposed her to wild animals. We have bunnies running everywhere. Making sure she’s not chasing bunnies. Cars driving by when we’re on a walk. Loud noises. Anything that’s really going to desensitize her from anything that would potentially disrupt her work as a service dog is what we’re trying to do. And then we have about 40 commands that we taught her. I believe at college at advanced training she’ll learn 20 more commands that are very advanced, that a trainer needs to teach her to do. Like opening a door, turning on and off a light switch, retrieving something from the ground and giving it to the owner. So that is something that she will do there, but puppy raisers don’t know what path they’re going to be on. She’ll be a service dog for someone with a disability or a PTSD service dog. They do have a hearing program. It’s rare, but a small percentage of dogs make it to the hearing program. So there’s a hearing program that she could become a hearing dog. And the skilled companion team, which is a child has the service dog but the parent is really the main handler if the child is unable to handle the dog. But the dog is really a service to the child. And then facility dog, which is what I had, which is an animal that works in a medical facility.

Claire: And because we always get this question when we talk about Cadet, if people are interested and have been curious about raising a puppy, what resources do you point them to? What would you say are the top few things that someone should know?

Joy: About raising a service dog?

Claire: Like, before you start to apply. What are they going to look for, what do you need to –

Joy: I mean, the basics are do you have a home that’s safe for a dog? Do you have crap everywhere that they’re going to eat? It’s very basic, but they do have someone come and look at your home to make sure that it’s a safe environment, that it’s a clean environment, that the dog’s going to be well taken care of, that you have a fenced yard. Because they do not allow the dogs to be left alone outside. So you really have to switch your mindset to being with this dog 24/7. You’re not allowed to have a dog door with a Canine Companion animal. Again, they are looking at you being with this dog as the top priority. So for them, dog doors mean the dog can just come and go as they please, and these dogs really need to learn to go to the bathroom on command. So I can’t just let the dog come and go as they please because then the dog doesn’t learn that when you take them out they have to go to the bathroom. So things like that. Fenced yard I already said, but really is a place that you can constantly have eyes on the dog. They don’t want the dog eating something in the back yard and getting sick. They also try to protect you as a puppy raiser so that you’re not having a dog that gets sick and you have all these vet bills. Because really unless you have a special circumstance from CCI and you can use some of their funding, you’re responsible for all costs of the dog while you’re raising the puppy. That is your contribution. That is what you sign up for. The time commitment, really, it is 24/7. And there’s a part of me, the one thing I just try to look at silver lining – which really, we’re just going to miss her terribly – but I really miss sleeping through the night. She has never been… [laughing] I know all the parents out there are like, “Welcome to my world.” But the whole time we’ve had her, she is not a good sleeper. She gets up at 2am, 2:30am every night to go to the bathroom, even as a full-grown dog. So I worry about her in college, being like, what are you going to do kid? You’re going to have to – so things like that. And really just having some time to do what we need to do without having to come home within like two hours. We do not leave her in the crate for long than 2-3 hours. We don’t really do much right now without her. There’s a little bit of selfishness within me that’s like, that will free up some time to do some things without her.

Claire: Which that’s by design and it’s a lifestyle for you.

Joy: It’s totally a lifestyle. So it will be different, and we’ll have a little more flexibly. Right now, we rarely go to concerts together. Scott has been going to shows on his own. Now if we go to shows, we’ve been to like one show together. But the whole time, I was like, we’ve got to get home. We’ve got to let Cadet out. You know. So I worry about things like that. I would say just know that it’s a really big commitment, but it really is so fun and so rewarding and you meet a lot of great people that want to know about raising a service dog. Of course, we hope that she can go on and change someone’s life. If she fails, she’ll still change lives in some way, shape, or form because she’s just such an amazing dog. But we of course hope that she passes. But all my friends and my mom are like, “We really hope she fails.” They say it tongue and cheek.

Claire: Your mom.

Joy: My mom really wants her to fail. Because my mom is like –

Claire: I know. For those of you who don’t know, Joy’s mom is just the sweetest, most pure woman on this earth.

Joy: Yeah. So that’s emotionally very hard for her to think about Cadet being gone.

Claire: Aw.

Joy: So anyway, if anyone ever has questions about Canine Companions, obviously you can go to their website and check it out and read about how to become a puppy raiser. They really set people up for success as much as possible, but it is a huge time commitment and money commitment. What I notice from the community of puppy raisers, because I have a lot of friends who are puppy raisers, is that there’s a lot of people that do it that are middle aged and older. So either their kids have left the house or they’re retired. Because it is something that takes up a lot of your time. So obviously, if I had kids there’s no way in heck that I could have done this because it is a lot of time and energy.

Claire: I know with us getting River – if you guys don’t know, our family got a puppy in March/April. Sometimes I look at what you do with Cadet and I’m like, oh my gosh, we don’t spend nearly that amount of time with River. And then I’m like, oh, that’s because River is a family pet, not a service animal. We want her to have good manners and be well trained, but she doesn’t have to be able to go into any facility, go on an airplane. We aren’t relying on her, and no one will ever hopefully rely on her as an extension of themselves. Which really, service animals are an extension of – you can see them as a tool that you use or an extension of somebody to help them with a disability that they have. That’s a whole other level of training.

Joy: It’s pretty amazing to see. And there’s plenty of great stories on Canine Companions. But just as an example – this just had everyone in tears because we went to… and of course, I am the recipient of one of these dogs, so I just know how amazing it feels to get one of these dogs. But now I really get how much puppy raisers… what they go through to raise these dogs. I don’t think you could know that unless you actually raised a dog. Hindsight, I keep thinking I really hope that I kept in touch enough with the puppy raisers. I’m still Facebook friends with them and we keep in touch. I think back like, did I do enough to show the appreciation that I have for them? So we were at a fundraiser for canine companions, and they do this great presentation of how this dog has helped one of their recipients. And he’s just the cutest 8-year-old with autism and he reads this letter about how his dog Miko has helped him be more social and he doesn’t get scared to go to school anymore. Just the most heartwarming, amazing story that he read to the crowd. And Mike is just with him the whole time. And the whole premise of Canine Companions is that people can live independent lives. I can’t think of a better example than this sweet little boy with autism being able to just walk around the whole fundraiser without his parents. His parents were there, but because he had Miko with him he wasn’t overstimulated. He could rely on the dog to calm him down. He had that calming presence next to him. Going to school is easier, going to social events is easier to him. Just things like that. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house after him reading his cute story. But these dogs are amazing, and they truly are trained to be with their human for the purpose of independence.

Claire: We don’t deserve dogs.

Joy: We really don’t. So I will just say lastly – and I did not mean to spend so much time on Canine Companions, but I’m also not mad about it – is people will often ask, “How can I train my dog to be a service dog?” And I have previously said this on a lot of episodes. So maybe I’ll post those episodes. It’s not really my recommendation to do it that way, but if you have questions about it email me and I’ll tell you why because I don’t want to explain it again here.

Claire: Right. I’ll give the nutshell version without – because I don’t have an associated soapbox with this. That if your dog is bread to be a service dog from day one, it’s still stressful for the dog but not nearly as stressful. If you try to take a pet and hold them to those standards, it can be overly hard on the dog to the point of being detrimental.

Joy: Well put. Thank you. Because I would have talked for like 20 minutes. And there’s always exceptions of course.

Claire: Totally, totally.

Joy: Because there will always be that one person that’s like, “Well my dog was a perfect service dog.” I’m like, yeah, there’s always exceptions, but as a rule that’s usually not a good idea.

Claire: Right. It’s better to start from the beginning. And easier and easier on the dog. Okay. So as we are heading into the fall – oh I guess I can give a quick update on my experience of going to my trade show. So last week, as I mentioned, I was headed to Philadelphia for a trade show. And for those of you who don’t know, I work in marketing for a large trade show corporation. It’s obviously been two years since we had our last trade show. Our last trade show was our big fall trade show in 2019. The group that I work with, pretty much we have two big shows per year, one in the spring and one in the fall with a smattering of smaller events throughout the year. And so we held our really big one in fall of 2019 and then our spring 2020 trade show got cancelled the night before it was supposed to start. Like we were already set up, we were on site. It was the first week of March. And you guys know what happened. So this was our first time back in a true convention center. The company that I work for has put on other trade shows, definitely around the world and even a handful already this summer in the US. Primarily in Vegas, or there were some in Florida. I think there was one recently in New York. So it definitely wasn’t the first – like, we knew a lot, and I think that helped. We work for this very large corporation that really knows what they’re doing, really knows how to do the modeling that’s required to keep this safe. But you still don’t know what you don’t know. And all that modeling is reliant on people following the rules. And as we all know, that is a pain point of humanity in America right now?

Joy: [dramatic] What?

Claire: What? I mean, there definitely were a few people that got really mad about the mask thing. But it’s like, there comes a point, particularly when you’re somewhere like a trade show where it’s like, listen. There are alternatives to being here. We have a simultaneous concurrent virtual event going on that’s the virtual version of this. So if you feel that strongly about not wearing a mask, feel free to not come. End of sentence. You don’t have to be here.

Joy: Period, the end.

Claire: And even myself working for the trade show organization, they were very clear with us. If you are not comfortable for whatever reason, no questions asked, you do not have to go. So that was really reassuring also, kind of going in feeling like at any moment I could pull the cord and be like, “I don’t want to be here.” Or even leading up to the event. Like the night before, I could have gone to my boss and been like, “Hey, I just can’t shake this feeling of anxiety. I’m not going to go,” and he would have been like, “Okay.” So I got there. It was wonderful. I would say that in the exhibit hall, there was an 80-90% mask compliance rate, which is really good if you think about a group of people.

Joy: Yeah, for sure.

Claire: And you know, at any given time, I did my best to just not stay in any one place for that long. Knowing that typically the x-factor is that time of exposure. Philly was great. I had never been there before. People sent me some recommendations. I did go to Reading Terminal, which I feel like next time I go there I need to have more of a game plan. Reading Terminal feels like the inside portion of Pike Place Market but much smaller. But that sort of like old school, indoor market. And it was very overwhelming. I needed a game plan before I came here.

Joy: I see, so you needed a plan plan.

Claire: You can’t just wander around and hope for the best.

Joy: Got it. Like entering The Louvre.

Claire: Maybe before the pandemic you could. So yeah, there was this donut place. And it’s a lot of Amish food stands and stuff. So I almost went to the donut place, which was highly recommended, but the line was super long and I was like, nah, I’m good. I got to see Megan and Joelle who are wonderful.

Joy: Megan and Joelle, I love them so much.

Claire: Megan and Joelle are two listeners who came on our Iceland trip. They came to Camp TimeOut.

Joy: They’re the best humans. They’re so great.

Claire: They live outside of Philly, and they were so wonderful. So I was supposed to go out to their neck of the woods and take the train, and it just didn’t work out. And so they ended up coming into town. I got in their car, and they were like, “Are tacos okay?” And I was like, “Are tacos okay?” Tacos are fantastic.

Joy: What? Do you not know me but at all?

Claire: Right. So it was so wonderful just to see them. And that was also so nice. Last time when I was at Expo East in 2019, I got to see Laura Ligos. It’s so fun for me when I get to see podcast people in real life.

Joy: Yeah, you get to see people almost every time you go out there. It’s so great.

Claire: I know, it’s so fun. And a lot of people that I was working with did that. They used the opportunity to show up a couple days early and stay with some friends and family on the east coast. It was really a cool opportunity. I think living in Colorado – if you’re not from this part of the country this probably won’t resonate with you – but I can drive six hours in any given direction, and I’m still going to be in Colorado. Well, not north. I drive like an hour north, I’m in Wyoming.

Joy: You’re in Wyoming, yeah.

Claire: But I could drive literally five hours west, four hours east, and six hours south. I’m still going to be in Colorado.

Joy: Yep, yep.

Claire: And that is not the case in Philadelphia.

Joy: Turns out.

Claire: Turns out. And there’s trains you can take.

Joy: I love the east coast, I really do.

Claire: Megan was like, “Can you take the train out here?” I was like, I don’t know. Can I?

Joy: Can I?

Claire: We don’t have trains.

Joy: Let’s find out.

Claire: So it just was really fun to… and it’s cool to be in an older city like Philadelphia and have that cool old architecture and statues.

Joy: Oh yeah. You can feel the history around you.

Claire: Yeah, very historic. So that was really cool. It was also interesting because Philadelphia has a lot of the same issues that a lot of other big cities are facing. One of those issues is people who are homeless not being able to enter the city. It sounds like to me, and I don’t know very much about this issue, but what I kind of gathered was that during COVID the city felt like the homeless areas were not safe in terms of transmission, so they really broke up a lot of those more congregated areas. So there’s just a lot more people who are physically sleeping on the streets in the middle of the day. I don’t spend a lot of time in cities, so to me that was just sort of like, it can be easy in my life to forget about the issues that I don’t deal with.

Joy: When you don’t see it, right. Yeah. I mean, I can’t speak for every state because I haven’t been in every state since the pandemic, but I have seen California and of course downtown Denver and the surrounding areas of downtown Denver where it’s pretty visible of how many more homeless people are either sleeping just in the grassy area by the capitol or they have tents popped up everywhere. I know that they were trying to get a specific area for homeless people to go in Denver and that kind of caused a stir. I don’t know the answer of how you start to solve that, but it was very also visible in California. People having campsites set up on the side of the freeway. So it’s really unsafe, and I’m sure the homeless shelters are really overpopulated, but yeah, it’s a big problem. It’s a really big problem.

Claire: Yeah, I think it was just interesting. Again, I love traveling for work. And I think I really didn’t realize how much I missed it. I knew that I missed it, but I didn’t realize how badly I needed that separation between work and home that I haven’t really been getting. That’s my thing that I really just don’t like about working from home is that I really want and crave that separation between my home life and my work life. I’ve talked about that a lot on the podcast. So really getting that, like yeah, this is my work time. I can focus. I can be present. Of course, I’m still FaceTiming with my kids at night. Like there was one incident when I was there. Evie had something going on and I was FaceTiming a screaming toddler from the show floor. But I really have missed that. So it was nice to have that back in my life. And it did feel safe. It felt good. And they had rapid tests available on site for staff, so I took a rapid test before I got home. Took another one when I got home. I was really interested, and please correct me someone if I’m wrong, I was under the impression that rapid tests were not that accurate, and it turns out that actually rapid tests are pretty accurate and are more likely to give you a false positive than a false negative.

Joy: Oh. Chime in. Chime in, scientists.

Claire: Chime in, scientists. But that to me felt reassuring. I was looking it up before I went, and this could be wildly inaccurate but I did do some fact checking on it. Which I don’t like to just spew things that I read on the internet without two-factor authentication.

Joy: [dramatically] What?

Claire: I know. It’s amazing. A podcast who doesn’t actually read things offline.

Joy: Rogan.

Claire: Again, I’m very open to this being inaccurate, so please let me know. But the very broken-down way that I saw it was if 1,000 people were to take a rapid test and 50 of them were to actually have COVID, you would get 53 positive results. 49 of those people would be accurately identified, 1 would be a false negative, and 4 would be a false positive.

Joy: Okay. Those are good numbers.

Claire: And I was like, I would rather have a false positive.

Joy: One thousand percent.

Claire: And then have to get a PCR and quarantine until I find out it was negative – than the other way around. All that to say, I felt pretty good about it. And now I’m back. And then I’m going to go to Vegas. I hate Vegas actually, but it’s fine. They have great conference rooms. People are always like, “You get to go to these different cities, that’s so cool.” I’m like, it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter. A conference room and a convention center are the same anywhere you go.

Joy: Yep. When you have to go for work and you’re sitting in a conference center, you might as well be in Hawaii. You can’t really go anywhere.

Claire: The group I work for has a big show that happens in Geneva, and Brandon was like, “Oh my gosh, are you going to get to go to Geneva?” And I was like, it’s not going to matter.

Joy: Because you’re just working the whole time.

Claire: Because you’re just working the whole time. Yeah, you can show up a day or two in advance if you want to. Which of course I would if I were to get to do that. But a conference room and a convention center are pretty much the same wherever you go.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: So anyway, that’s my update. I went. I had a great time. I’m going to be in Vegas the end of October. Alright, as we go into the fall, another thing we wanted to touch on is the next season of diet culture B.S.

Joy: We’ve got to prepare.

Claire: We’ve got to prepare.

Joy: We’ve got to put our armor on. We’ve got to prepare our minds.

Claire: Not prepare our bodies because our bodies are fine the way they are.

Joy: Bodies are perfect.

Claire: It’s only September, and yet I am already seeing – just how Costco had Halloween costumes in June – I’m already seeing –

Joy: Hot tips.

Claire: Crap. Yeah, all these “one weird trick for a flat belly” tips about holiday eating and Halloween candy. Still seeing this B.S. about the quarantine 15. And name it, it’s out there and it’s going to be ramping up.

Joy: It’s going to be out there.

Claire: I feel like diet culture has seasons, the same way fashion has seasons, because it’s an industry made to profit off of you and not something that you actually need. If you need to let that sink in for a second. I feel like the two busiest seasons are prior to swimsuit season – which again, swimsuit season, not a real thing.

Joy: Swimsuit season. Right, right, right. “Got to get that bikini body.”

Claire: Right. Let’s just banish the phrase “swimsuit season” because it’s dumb.

Joy: By the way, I think I put on a swimsuit once this summer.

Claire: One time. I wore a swimsuit one time.

Joy: When I went to Arizona.

Claire: Versus last winter when I wore a swimsuit four or five times when I went to hotels and stayed in a hot tub. This year, I put on a swimsuit one time. And the other one is as you lead up to the holidays and we are all given this messaging that “you better be careful because you are an idiot that can’t control herself around food. You better start stealing yourself now for the gorging that’s going to take place, you idiot.” It’s so demeaning.

Joy: It’s demeaning.

Claire: You can do it.

Joy: We’re smart people, and it’s very easy to fall into those traps. Here’s a little crossover for us. If you go listen to the Girls Gone WOD feed, I interviewed Molly Bahr who is a licensed counselor and also specializes in intuitive eating and we talk a lot about this. Nothing is black and white. We’re never going to win the battle against the diet culture. It’s always going to be out there. We just have to know where we tend to fall prey to these things. So just noticing if there’s something on your feed that doesn’t sit right with you or makes you question your body or makes you feel bad about yourself, get rid of it. So like right now is maybe the time to just stop following some influencers for a season and see how you feel. You can always hit “follow” again.

Claire: Absolutely, they will always be there.

Joy: Oh, trust me. They will be there doing their videos. And I think that’s something that is really important to realize is we can sit here and get mad about it all day, but it’s never going to go away. So what we can say is educate yourself, be critical of who you’re following, build on the self-love. Not to sound cheesy. Love yourself.

Claire: I also think – this has really helped me when I’m facing diet culture – is that any time I hear a phrase that I’ve always sort of taken for granted, I’ve really been stopping and being like, wait a minute, is that true? A great example is when people use losing weight to be synonymous with either the word “Improvement” or the idea of “getting healthy.” We even get emails about this where people say, “I hear that we don’t need to constantly be dieting, but I need to lose weight to be healthy, so how do I reconcile those things?” More and more research is coming out that proves that your weight is not… not, not, not, not directly correlated to your health, that there are a million other factors that you can look at outside of your health. And yes, those do include exercise and changes to your diet to have more whole foods in them, but not with an eye to weight loss. A lot of time when we think about adding exercise or removing processed foods from our diet, we immediately, automatically equate those with the goal of weight loss.

Joy: Yes. And here’s the other thing I learned from Molly Bahr is, who cares? In terms of if you’re healthy or not. Why are we constantly focused on health? Of course that sounds like a silly statement. But are we also just tricking ourselves to be like, “Well, I still want to be healthy.” I think we were specifically talking about the whole photo of Lizzo and how people – they’re idiots – were coming out of the woodwork being like, “This isn’t healthy.” And it’s like, she feels confident in her body and she can find health how she wants it to be. And Molly was like, “And who cares? It’s none of our business whether or not she’s ‘healthy.’”

Claire: One thousand percent. One thousand percent.

Joy: We also need to step away from this whole “she’s healthy just the way she is,” and Molly’s also like, and who cares? It’s none of our business. It’s none of our business.

Claire: I’m not here to say you shouldn’t want to have a pain free life.

Joy: Of course.

Claire: Getting good sleep, a life where you live a long life.

Joy: Of course but be careful. It’s a slippery slope.

Claire: But I think that there’s so many other things that you can look at. For example, studies are showing that loneliness is as much of a predictor of lowering your life expectancy as smoking is.

Joy: You know what got me sick? Stress.

Claire: Working out and eating healthy.

Joy: Stress.

Claire: I know.

Joy: That’s what got me sick last year.

Claire: Totally.

Joy: And actually, overexercising. Everyone needs to kind of take a step back. Take the grips off of the diet and exercise. Take the holistic view of your life.

Claire: And we know that you guys have heard this. But for every message that you receive from diet culture, we want to be there to stand firm in the fact that just question those assumptions. Question the assumption that weight loss is synonymous with anything else. Question the assumption that exercising and eating fewer processed foods has to have anything to do with weight loss. What we often will also hear from people is, “I work out, I eat well, and I just can’t lose weight. Everything else is improving, but I can’t lose weight. What am I doing wrong?” The answer is, you’re not doing anything wrong. You’re doing everything right. If you’re feeling good, if you are moving your body, if you’re eating nourishing foods, and you aren’t losing weight? Okay. That’s fine.

Joy: Yeah. Yeah.

Claire: Just step away from the weight loss as your ultimate goal.

Joy: Ultimate goal. Guiding light. Guiding principles. It’s so hard. I know it’s hard.

Claire: It’s so hard. And also, we here at Joy and Claire really never want to speak into absolutes. So I’m not saying that there are never any health diagnoses or situations that will not be improved by lowering your body weight. I know that there are. But I think they are few and far between. And I think they are, at least, fewer and farther between than what we tell ourselves.

Joy: Well said. I just want to point out, something that’s also – we’re just referencing all of our podcasts here – but we’re doing The Great British Bake Off, On Your Marks, Get Set, Bake! show. And last week, a listener actually wrote in and we’re going to mention this on the next episode too, but I caught this and I was like, ah Prue, come on. But even Prue who is a judge on the show. She was eating something and she’s like, “It’s worth the calories.”

Claire: That’s her tagline.

Joy: Oh really?

Claire: “It’s worth the calories.” That’s her tagline.

Joy: Oh I haven’t heard her say that on the show before.

Claire: Yes. Always her, always has been.

Joy: Maybe I blocked it out.

Claire: I think it is one of those things where in the past it would be easy, and not just easy but everyone has done this. Like, oh isn’t that such a cute tagline. It’s sort of because of the age that she comes from. Not like “because of her old age,” but because of the era that she comes from. But I don’t want to just chalk it up to that, like, “Oh, it’s fine that she does that because when she was first getting popular that’s what we talked about.” Because it is the same as anything problematic. We want to call it out now. And when you know better you do better. And I do think it’s problematic that she’ll say, “Oh, it’s worth the calories” being the highest acclaim that she can give.

Joy: Got it. Okay. Yeah. It just really… that caught my eye too. And ear. These are the things that I catch because it’s like, oh… that’s from diet culture and I don’t want to think about food that way. And I actually don’t. I don’t ever be like, “That’s worth the calories.” Yeah. It’s an ongoing thing.

Claire: Totally. Oh, diet culture.

Joy: If you want to send your rants, people, listeners out there, we would love to hear a voice memo. If you just need to confess some things and get it out of your system, maybe the things that you’re either dreading coming up to the holidays, things that you’ve struggled, and we can walk us all through it together.

Claire: Rant to us about the person who’s going to be at your holiday meals who is going to comment about what you’re eating.

Joy: Yeah. Put it in the Burn Book. We can all talk about it. We’ll keep it anonymous, but we want this to be a safe place for you to land. We can get through this together.

Claire: Alright guys, well… that brings us –

Joy: Can I bring up one thing really quick? I know we’re almost done.

Claire: Okay.

Joy: So the other day, I was jonesing for something comforting on TV and I couldn’t find anything. And all of the sudden I turned on Twilight. I was like, this is kind of getting into the fall, Halloween-y movie, vampires. That movie does not age well. Have you watched it recently?

Claire: Was that movie ever good?

Joy: Well let’s just put it this way, I guess it didn’t really hit me how creepy he is. And he’s kind of a stalker.

Claire: Have you listened to Shit, Actually where she covers Twilight?

Joy: Yes. I had to just call that out again. And by the way, Lindy West, Shit, Actually is such a great book because she really goes through all the movies.

Claire: And she has this newsletter called Butt News. Which at first I was like, why did she call it Butt News? But every time I say it, I’m like, hahaha, butt news.

Joy: She’s the best.

Claire: She’s so funny. And she reviews a different 90’s movie every week, and they’re so funny. So this past week she did The Blair Witch Project. And it’s hysterical.

Joy: Oh my gosh, I need to read that. I need to read that. So yeah, I got a kick out of that. We were watching it, and Scott was doing some work on the computer, so he wasn’t really paying attention but he’s in the same room as me. He was there. It was on TV. At one point, you know the scene where they’re all playing baseball and running really fast or whatever? And he looked up and he’s like, “What the fuck am I watching right now? Are they playing baseball? What is going on?” I’m like, yeah, this is kind of a weird movie.

Claire: Now that I notice this…

Joy: Now that I notice this, everyone’s kind of a creeper.

Claire: So creepy. So creepy.

Joy: Yeah. It’s kind of a shame when you see movies that don’t age well. You’re like, aw man, they just didn’t get that right. They really didn’t.

Claire: Which, by the way, we were reminded by somebody when we were having the conversation a couple weeks ago about movies that did age well and I brought up Ghostbusters, someone was like, “You know, if you watch that again, Bill Murray is pretty problematic.”

Joy: He’s a perv, yeah. He’s a full on perv in that movie. And I remember watching that – and oh my gosh. Total tangent. But when I watched Labyrinth on my birthday, someone wrote in and was like, the troll king – what was he called? The goblin king. She’s like, “Oh, the goblin king was my sexual awakening as a kid.” I was like, oh my gosh, I don’t know who mine was. Not that you knew what that meant, but you definitely had a moment where you were like, [sound of interest].

Claire: Totally. Yes.

Joy: I’m trying to think of who mine was. The only thing that comes to mind would be Top Gun.

Claire: Oh yeah.

Joy: The volleyball. I just remember being not a teenager, I was definitely a preteen. Just feeling things.

Claire: Wow, this is an interesting –

Joy: Interesting warm feelings inside. [laughing]

Claire: Oh no.

Joy: But I had to laugh so hard. Whoever that listener was, I hope you’re listening right now because that made me laugh so hard. She was like, “The goblin king was my sexual awakening.” [laughing] That was so good. Oh man. Such a weird movie. It’s such a weird movie.

Claire: Super odd.

Joy: We can end on that.

Claire: Alright guys, if you would like, you can support the podcast by going to eattoevolve.com, discount code is JOYCLAIRE15. And despite the 15, it gets you 20% off your first order. They have so many tasty foods. You an order as much or as little as you want. You can get it delivered every week. You can do a one off. All their stuff freezes really well. I’ve been freezing a lot of stuff that I get and saving it for a rainy day. So when you order from Eat to Evolve, you support the podcast. We are so grateful for you guys. Another way you can support the podcast is by sharing us with a friend, by leaving a review, by sharing about us on your social media. All of those things really help us. Even just taking a screenshot of the episode, posting it in your Instagram stories, and tagging us goes a really long way. So thank you so much to everyone who reaches out every week. Let us know what you think. Go comment on our Instagram posts. Anywhere, any place that you can interact with us, that helps us spread the word and get more people into this community.

Joy: Thank you.

Claire: You can find us on Instagram @joyandclaire_. You can go to joyandclaire.com. You can email us thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com. Don’t forget about our other two podcasts, Girls Gone WOD and back for the second week this week will be On Your Marks, Get Set, Bake!

Joy: Bake!

Claire: And that is a podcast that goes through The Great British Baking Show. Last week was week one. This week I will be baking a malt loaf, spoiler alert, to talk about from the technical. And I’m trying to figure out what the heck malt extract it. Hopefully by the time you hear this, I will have figured it out.

Joy: Hit me up.

Claire: Because they don’t sell it at King Sooper’s. Alright guys, we’ll talk to you next week.

Joy: Bye, guys.

Claire: Bye.

93: Favorite Clothing Brands, Emmy Awards, and Q&A Time!

September 23, 2021 by Joy Parrish Leave a Comment

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Our go-to clothing brands, the update on our new podcasts, and a listener Q&A!

EAT TO EVOLVE

DISCOUNT CODE JOYCLAIRE15

www.joyandclaire.com

Girls Gone Wod

email: thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com

Instagram: joyandclaire_

This is Joy & Claire Episode 93: Favorite Clothing Brands, Emmy Awards, and Q&A Time!

Episode Date: September 23, 2021

Transcription Completed: October 3, 2021

Audio Length: 52:59 minutes

Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy.

Claire: And this is Claire.

Joy: And this is Joy and Claire.

Claire: Hello.

Joy: How’re you doing? Happy September – yep, still September. I hope you have a great day. We’re here recording. It feels great. It feels like fall weather. Sweater weather.

Claire: It’s the first week of fall.

Joy: Sure is.

Claire: The autumnal equinox is behind us.

Joy: There’s a full moon today, right? Today’s the 20th.

Claire: I think it was yesterday.

Joy: Okay.

Claire: Or late in the night last night.

Joy: I’ve been getting the notifications on my astrology apps. Not the official moon “this is what’s going on,” but astrology will tell me.

Claire: Got it. So yeah, the equinox is tomorrow. But by the time you hear this, it will be past. And we are just barreling right into winter.

Joy: We sure are. Are we ready? Did you get your boots? Because I’m not leaving the house these days.

Claire: Let me talk to you about boots. So, as you guys might know, I don’t know how much I’ve talked about this in the past, but I’m sure it’s come up. I love boots.

Joy: Your annual boot boot adventure.

Claire: Yes. And every year I have my annual boot buy for myself. Last year I didn’t do it. I love boots so much that if I didn’t limit myself to one pair of boots per year, I would just have way too many boots. So this is my thing. So I bought this pair of boots from Bohme. You know that store?

Joy: No.

Claire: Well, it’s a store, and they have a lot of things.

Joy: I trust you.

Claire: I bought these cute boots. So first of all, I asked the internet what sort of boots do I wear with a straight leg pant. Because we all know, it’s not fashionable anymore to wear skinny jeans. Which I eye roll. Obviously, I’m sarcastic saying that. But I do have some straight legged pants now, where I didn’t two years ago, the last time I really worried about this. I feel like my ankle book, my cute little zip up ankle booties, are not going to look good. So I asked the internet what type of boot do I wear with a straight leg pant. And the internet said Doc Martins. And I said, no, no thank you.

Joy: Let’s try that again.

Claire: Let’s try again. So then the internet said, okay, how about a Chelsea boot. I feel like that could be interpreted a little bit more widely. So I bought these boots from Bohme.

Joy: Is it like a play on bohemian? Is that what they’re trying to do? I’m pulling up the website right now.

Claire: Yeah, TBD.

Joy: Okay great. Someone will tell us, and we’ll feel stupid because it’s probably really obvious.

Claire: It probably stands for –

Joy: [singing] “La Vie Bohem.”

Claire: Buy… our… home… made… things. I don’t know what the “u” would stand for. Then I bought these boots from there. They were these light, almost like a super light grey, almost close to a white Chelsea boot. Then they came, and they’re fine, but they’re really, really thin. They’re not going to be warm. So womp womp. We live in Colorado. I need a boot, a real boot, not just a cute boot. So then two days ago, Kodiak, which is a brand I love, which has another boot that I already have, came out with this new style of boot called the Sauveur, and I’m going to buy it.

Joy: Sauveur. Croissant.

Claire: Croissant.

Joy: Can you please record your dad saying “croissant” one day?

Claire: Yeah, in the Burger King drive thru. “Can I get a croissant-which?” “I’m sorry, a what now?”

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: Yes. So I’m excited about it, and that’s my boot update.

Joy: Okay. What are your favorite brands? Not workout brands because we’ve talked about workout clothes. but what are your clothing brands that are your go-tos?

Claire: Oh, just in general for all different clothes?

Joy: Yeah, the things that you always – like whenever I go to Nordstrom or Nordstrom Rack online, I Google the same brands all the time. What are your go-tos when you go to a website?

Claire: Yeah. I am really into Everlane right now. I really like their pants. They have really great, basic t-shirts that I love.

Joy: You know what that reminds me of? When we went to Venice.

Claire: Yeah, I did. That was my first experience actually purchasing Everlane things.

Joy: And it was such a great store.

Claire: It is a great store.

Joy: They have great – what Scott Parrish would say – staples and really good basics.

Claire: Totally a staples brand.

Joy: Such a staples brand. I got a really nice, crisp white t-shirt from there that I love. But I get nervous wearing white t-shirts. I don’t know why. It’s like, why not just wear the white t-shirt? I get nervous I’m going to get it dirty. Whatever, it’s so stupid. It’s a great t-shirt.

Claire: If it gets stained, you can just tie-dye it. That’s what I eventually do with all my white t-shirts.

Joy: That’s a good point. So yeah, Everlane, what else?

Claire: Everlane is probably my biggest one. I wear a good amount of Patagonia. I like their basic sweatshirts. I don’t know if I have any other brands that I really gravitate towards, like I definitely want to look for that brand. I like Madewell jeans. They’re kind of nothing special, but they’re very consistent, which I appreciate.

Joy: When you have your go-tos, it’s good. I like to shop at Nordstrom Rack because things always go on sale. I learned that from Scott Parrish, too. We’ll go shopping, and he’ll be like, “This will go on sale in a couple months. Can you wait?” Yes. The only thing that I want so bad but I can’t – again, you can buy whatever you want, but I cannot justify spending $500 on a pair of – your face. You don’t even know what it is yet. Like, “No.” I still can’t justify it. I don’t care how much money I will save up. On Golden Goose sneakers. Do you know what those are? They’re amazing custom Italian sneakers. Every pair is different. Just Google it. Golden Goose shoes. They have awesome patterns. Some are high tops. Some are low tops. Some have glitter on the back. Some have cheetah prints. Every single pair is unique, and they’re ridiculously expensive. They’re super cool. I posted this once on our stories I think where I was like, “Okay, these shoes are amazing. Do I justify buying these?” And one person wrote and was like, “Yeah, they’re actually ridiculously comfortable.” And I think there’s a couple of sites that you can get them discounted. And Cherry Creek Mall, which is one of our Denver fancy schmancy neighborhood malls, has an actual Golden Goose store now. Which eventually of course they’re going to go on sale.

Claire: Of course it does.

Joy: But at the same time, I don’t even know if I’d spend $200 on a pair of sneakers.

Claire: And then, do you wear them?

Joy: That’s the thing. Where am I going? That sounds really silly because you can wear them anywhere. But I don’t go anywhere.

Claire: Like what are you going to do, wear them to Ulta? If you can’t even bring yourself to wear a white t-shirt because you’re afraid you’re going to spill on it, a $25 t-shirt, you are never going to wear these shoes.

Joy: Well, shoes are different. I don’t worry too much about getting shoes dirty. I don’t care about that. But I think it’s more of these – practical.

Claire: Do you think you’d care about it if you spent $500 on them?

Joy: Yeah. But I’m not as weird about getting shoes dirty. It’s just more of where would I wear them? If I lived in LA or if I lived in – I do live in Denver. But guys, we don’t wear fancy stuff here. If you wear fancy stuff, you’re visiting from out of town and you’re downtown going to a show or something.

Claire: Or people will look at you like –

Joy: Yeah, it’s just not the vibe in Denver. We’re very casual cool. So anyways, that’s kind of the thing. I don’t know how I got off on the tangent of being able to – oh, I think it was just shopping at Nordstrom Rack. I can’t always spend full price on things. It’s just a rule in my head. I know this is going to go on sale. But I like to look at Nordstrom Rack. I always look for James Purse. James Purse is my favorite. Very good staples. Very expensive if you buy it full price. I’m talking like $80 for a t-shirt. Never going to happen. I’m never going to spend full price on a James Purse shirt. Unless I was on vacation and I went to the actual James Purse store. One time we went to a wedding in Aspen, and [laughing] – this does have a point. Scott and I got to Aspen, realized that we left the outfits that we were going to wear to the wedding in our closet. It was just hanging up behind the door. We took all of our luggage, but we forgot to take the hanging whatever.

Claire: You forgot to grab the hanger bag.

Joy: The hanger bag.

Claire: The garment bag.

Joy: Yeah. And we got there, unpacking our clothes in Aspen. This is what, a 3.5-hour drive?

Claire: Yeah. I was about to say, for those of you who are not familiar, Aspen is a like a 4-hour drive. And it’s not an easy drive. It’s got a lot of traffic. You’re winding through the mountains. You’re not about to turn around. It’s not a hop, skip, and a jump.

Joy: Yeah, no. Goldie Hawn does not live that closet to us. So we were like, oh crap, we have to go buy outfits for the wedding. So there’s a James Purse store of course in Aspen. So of course I had to spend full price on a James Purse dress that I still wear to this day. But that’s the only time that I splurged on a James Purse full price. But anyways, great t-shirts. The t-shirts freaking last forever. I have some James Purse t-shirts that I swear to you I’ve had for ten years, and they look good as new. So if you’re worried about the price. Listeners out there, if you’re like, oh my gosh, I would never spend even $40 or $50 on a t-shirt, they do last forever and ever and ever. And ever. And ever. I wear them all the time. They don’t get holes. They don’t stretch. They don’t get worn when you wash them. And they have good skirts. I have a couple pair of sweats that he has, but mostly I really like their shirts because they fit really well. And then I also love Sorel boots for the winter. Again, this is a brand that if I was working in an office right now, I’d probably splurge on a new pair of Sorel, but because I’m mostly working from home right now, I’m just using the pair – I have two pair right now. And then I wear a lot of Patagonia as well. I love their jackets. Levi’s for jeans. It kind of depends. I like the curve line. It used to be called the curve line, Curve ID. But I think they’ve now just changed it to stretch or something like that. Those fit really well. And then I shop a lot at Target for JoyLab for athleisure wear. But Target has some really good basics that last, like seasonal stuff. I try not to spend money on clothes that you just know are going to last you for a season, like the whole disposable clothing thing.

Claire: Yeah, speaking of clothing, I had to go shopping today, and it was the worst.

Joy: Tell us about it.

Claire: Okay, so I’m going to a trade show this week. If anyone’s at Expo East in Philly, send me a DM. I’ll be at the info booth.

Joy: Yay, go see Claire.

Claire: We can pull our mask down to ask where the bathrooms are. I know it’s going to happen, and I’m just going to rage about it.

Joy: They’re going to pull your mask down… or they’re going to pull their mask down.

Claire: They pull my mask down, and I’m going to punch them in the face. No. So we have this trade show. Most of you guys know I work, basically, for a trade show company. We have this big show. It’s in Philadelphia. If you are at the Expo East this week and you’re listening to this, come find me. In order to go to the show, you have to wear a mask the whole time and either show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID that’s within I think 72 hours of the show starting. You know, that feels okay. It doesn’t feel awesome because it’s still a lot of people indoors. We’ll just see how it goes. It’s definitely the strictest standards you can have for a large group of people. So anyway, all that to say. It’s been really two years since my last trade show because the last trade show I went to was this trade show in 2019. I don’t really like a lot of the stuff that I wore then. Looking back, I’m like, what did I even wear that whole week? I must have gotten rid of a lot of stuff. So there’s four days where I have to be on the upper side of business casual. I don’t have to wear panty hose.

Joy: Hose. Do people wear panty hose?

Claire: Yeah.

Joy: Tights.

Claire: Yeah, I don’t have to wear panty hose, but – okay, quick question. In your mind, are panty hose and tights a synonym?

Joy: No.

Claire: What’s the difference to you?

Joy: I would say panty hose are covering up your legs to just make them look shaved and not flaky. Like sometimes I have dry skin, and you don’t have to look at the bruises on your legs. And then tights are like really dark black tights, colored tights, thicker materials.

Claire: Panty hose are more sheer.

Joy: Yes.

Claire: And tights are usually colored and opaque.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: I was just curious about that because when I was a little girl and I would wear tights to church, I feel like all little girl options are tights.

Joy: Agree.

Claire: But also, people call leggings tights sometimes.

Joy: Yeah, that’s true.

Claire: As a point of clarification.

Joy: Alright, I like that.

Claire: So I don’t have to wear panty hose. It’s not quite that formal. But most of the people there who work with my company, the men will all have suits on, like jackets and ties. Maybe not a suit suit, but you’re wearing a jacket and a tie if you’re a guy. And the women will mostly be wearing skirts and tops or dresses. It’s pretty formal, particularly given that I work in a pretty informal industry. So I have one dress that I know I love, one jumpsuit that I don’t even know where I got it but I found in my closet and was like “this will work.”

Joy: What color?

Claire: It’s like dark blue.

Joy: Okay. I feel like I saw you in one that was rust colored. Did I make that up? … Maybe.

Claire: Yes. I wish I had a rust-colored jumpsuit. I would love a rust-colored jumpsuit.

Joy: I think maybe Cat has one from House of Pod. Maybe it was her. You should borrow it.

Claire: Yeah, Cat’s a probably solid 8” taller than I am.

Joy: That’s true.

Claire: But apart from that. Which, we watched Cat’s dog for like the last six weeks and she finally came and picked her up last Monday and it was so sweet.

Joy: You probably got so attached.

Claire: I mean, honestly, it was kind of weird because she’s a herding dog and then we have this giant, lab-mix puppy who’s just so dumb and has no awareness around other dogs. So to put a border collie mix with this giant bumper car of a puppy, it was very funny.

Joy: That’s really cute. That’s so cute.

Claire: But I think because of that, Maya, Cat’s dog, didn’t get too attached to us because River was just so in her face the whole time. She’s like, oh my God, leave me alone.

Joy: She’s probably like, yeah, I’m ready to go.

Claire: Right. So anyway, I decided I needed to go shopping. This is going to be a long story. So I went to J.Crew Factory, Nordstrom Rack. I was like, it’s fine, I can go to LOFT. LOFT, I can just find something. The LOFT in the mall area in Boulder closed, so sucked for me. Madewell. Which I walked to the Madewell, and I buy Madewell stuff online not all the time but not irregularly, but I walked in the store and I was like, “I’m in old.”

Joy: Oh. I’m in old.

Claire: I feel so old in here.

Joy: That was a typo when I texted that, right? Okay good.

Claire: A couple weeks ago, Joy was saying something and she was like, “This makes me feel like an old.” I was like, “An old!”

Joy: I’m old.

Claire: I’m an old. And then I went to J. Jill where I returned to feeling like a young.

Joy: A young. [laughing]

Claire: The lady was like, “What are you shopping for?” And I was like, “A trade show.” And she brought me some dressing. They were all just completely shapeless. Two of them were paisley. I was like, okay.

Joy: You know what, I really wish you had a Marine Layer up there because we got a Marine Layer down here.

Claire: [gasp]

Joy: And Marine Layer would have been perf. Yes, I forgot to say.

Claire: Okay, I will say Marine Layer is my absolute go-to for sweaters.

Joy: Marine Layer is amazing by the way guys.

Claire: I love Marine Layer. Oh my gosh, I wish I’d known that. I would have made a trip. I love Marine Layer. Where is it?

Joy: It’s right by the Denver Central… Kitchen? Denver Central Market, is that what it’s called?

Claire: Yeah, in RiNo?

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: Oh my gosh, I wish I’d know. Okay, well next time.

Joy: Yep.

Claire: I went to Anthropologie just on a hope and a prayer. Because Anthropologie, let’s be honest guys, is not for people who don’t know how to shop.

Joy: Right.

Claire: You have to be able to put together and outfit in order to have success at Anthropologie.

Joy: Oh yeah.

Claire: You have to be able to conceptualize an outfit.

Joy: Right. And they have outfits organized where you can see outfits put together.

Claire: Sure.

Joy: If you want to spend $1,000.

Claire: Right. There was one dress. I was like, “This could work.” It was a really cute, structured dress. It was definitely way more boho than my style. But I was like, “This could work.” And it was $280. I was like, dang it.

Joy: Yeah, yeah.

Claire: I didn’t buy a $60 candle to make myself feel better, but I almost did. One of those candles that’s basically in a mixing bowl.

Joy: I mean, is it kosher – don’t arrest me anybody – to buy something and then return it?

Claire: So here’s my thing about trade shows. When you wear something in a trade show, you really wear it.

Joy: Okay, it’s not like an evening – okay.

Claire: I have definitely in my life bought something and then – I always do this to myself. I wait until the night before. And I did go to Target and Kohl’s, and Jess keeps being like, “Why don’t you go to Kohls.” Read five text messages ago. I went to Kohls.

Joy: I went to Kohls. I know, we’ve been text messaging about this whole journey. Claire’s like, “See above.”

Claire: See above. I went to Kohl’s.

Joy: Jess, I know you’re listening. We’re going to get text messages just about this. This is going to be very meta because Jess will listen to our podcast in real time.

Claire: Where we talk about her texting us.

Joy: Yeah, she’ll text in real time. Yeah, we’re going to get some texts. Hi, Jess.

Claire: [laughing] I’ve never had success at Kohl’s in my adult life. Never once have I walked into Kohl’s and been like, that’s what I want.

Joy: I don’t think I have either.

Claire: And Target is not quite dressy enough. Anyway. I even went to Lulu just as a Hail Mary because sometimes they have some slacks looking things or a sweater. And then the icing on the cake of all of this is I only have ten minutes before I have to leave to pick up Miles from school. I’ve gone to all the places.

Joy: You’ve exhausted all of it.

Claire: And I don’t have time to go down Pearl Street or go to another type of mall. I’m done, and I’ve not been successful. I didn’t find a single thing. There was one dress at J.Crew that could have worked, but it didn’t. They didn’t have my size. They only had it in like a 00. So I was like, I’m going to get myself a smoothie bowl. That sounds amazing and refreshing and will perk me back up. I go into the smoothie bowl place and the guy in front of me is some young, d-bag with an ironic mullet wearing a fishnet face mask. And I just left. I literally left.

Joy: You left. You left. You know, that’s a big “F” you to Boulder because Boulder has a mask mandate right now. He’s doing a big f you.

Claire: I stood there for a minute and looked at the menu. And this guy, he’s not only wearing a fishnet mask, but he’s griping over the fact that their granola had added sugar. He’s like, “Don’t you guys have anything that doesn’t have added sugar?” I was like, “Get out of line, Joe Rogan.”

Joy: Oh, Joe Rogan.

Claire: And he was some probably 25-year-old just idiot. And I left. I was like, I’m not going to stand here and listen to this person be an absolute –

Joy: Oh my gosh.

Claire: I just want to kick him in the shins and leave.

Joy: A mesh – did he make it himself? Why do they even sell those?

Claire: Why? Because of the people like him. Anyway. And then as I was walking out, these two women were walking by and they were like, “We can go there. They have lattes.” And the other girl was like, “Oh, I don’t drink lattes.” And I was like, get me out of here. Get me out of Boulder. I’m from Boulder, and I’ve come to kind of hate it.

Joy: Yeah, sometimes, you’re like ugh.

Claire: Why can’t you just be like, “I don’t like lattes.” No, “I don’t drink lattes.” It has to be a statement about you. I don’t do –

Joy: I don’t do gluten.

Claire: I don’t do gluten. Okay. No one asked you whether or not you do gluten.

Joy: I can’t. Okay, this is the other thing. I’m not eating dairy right now or for the foreseeable future because of the stuff I was doing on my Graves’ Disease plan, blah, blah, blah. I was talking to Mom Sandy the other day and she was making ice cream for some people, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they had all these dietary restrictions. I was like, if someone’s going out of their way to make ice cream and trying to do all these different dietary restrictions and I got there and some of it happened to have milk in it, I would freaking eat the ice cream. A one-time deal isn’t going to kill you.

Claire: Like unless your throat’s going to close.

Joy: Exactly, exactly. I’m not going to have an allergic reaction. Exactly. I know that I will – yes. That’s a great clarification because I don’t want to get hate mail. Like Sandy cannot have fish or peanuts. She will literally go into anaphylactic shock.

Claire: She will die. It will be the last thing she ever does.

Joy: That is the end of Sandy.

Claire: Sandy is a people pleaser, not to death.

Joy: Not to death, right. Oh my gosh, I will never forget the time we were riding in a car with her and I opened up a bag of peanut butter pretzels and she immediately was like, “Oh my God, there’s peanuts.” I was like, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” I totally forgot that she’s allergic to peanuts. She will bring almonds on a plane and pass them out to people to be like, “Please don’t eat peanuts around me. I am severely allergic.” Anyway, love you Mom Sandy. Yeah, with the dietary restriction thing, if you can have a smidge of flexibility, do it. There’s times where I’m not going to be that person that’s not going to budge.

Claire: The “I don’t do gluten” example comes from a time in my life when I was doing grocery store demos and people would come up to the table. I would be literally standing there demoing bread or cookies and they would walk up and be like, “Does this have gluten in it?” And I’d be like, “Yeah, it’s bread.” Like, “Oh, I don’t do gluten.” Or “Does this have sugar in it?” Yeah, it’s a cookie. “Oh, I don’t do sugar.” You just came over here just to tell me that. This isn’t a restaurant where you’re asking if there’s something in something else. You went out of your way to come over to this sample, this poor 20-year-old making $9 an hour sampling at Whole Foods to be like, “Oh, I don’t do gluten.” Or the one time someone was like, “Do these have sugar in them?” I was like, “Yeah, they’re cookies. But it’s organic.” Trying to be friendly. They’re like, “Organic sugar is just organic cancer.” I was like, wow.

Joy: Some people. Some people. Some people.

Claire: Just why?

Joy: There’s a lot of people, yeah.

Claire: I have to tell you this. My mom, she owned this demo company. So she brokered between the brands and the stores and put the demos into the stores. She ended up doing a lot of the demos herself. Not a lot, but a good amount when she couldn’t find somebody. One time she was sampling Mrs. Meyers, the soap. They came in these little, tiny paper cardboard –

Joy: Yeah, like little packets when you rip them open.

Claire: Yeah. Then it’s like cardboard, like waxy cardboard. Then this elderly woman came – I think she was in a wheelchair – came up to the table. She didn’t speak English. She took one. A couple seconds later, my mom noticed her out of the corner of her eye spitting and spluttering. She had taken it, thought it was like milk or something, and tried to drink it.

Joy: Oh no, no, no, no.

Claire: And now is like foaming soap at the mouth. My poor mom had to run over and help her. The customer service got involved. They cleaned her all up.

Joy: Oh no. Oh no, whoops. Oh my gosh. Oh. My mom and I were in Arizona last month. We were at a farmer’s market and this guy was sampling pistachios that had a cream chili mix powder flavoring on them. I love green chili and Scott loves green chili. I’m like, I’m going to get a bag for Scott. But he was passing around these samples. My mom puts the whole thing in her mouth. I’m like, “Mom, it’s a pistachio. You have to peel it. They’re not peeled.” And she was like, “Oh my God.” She’s chewing the shell.

Claire: Oh no.

Joy: I was like, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I forgot to tell you they’re not shelled. You’re going to have to shell that thing,” and she just spits it out. Beware of the samples. Beware of the samples, especially when there’s cherries or a pit. Don’t break a tooth. Be careful. I was going to ask you too, for your trade show, is this the first trade show since the pandemic that you’ve gone to?

Claire: Yeah.

Joy: That’s crazy.

Claire: So the last big trade show I went to was Expo East 2019, which as in Baltimore.

Joy: Right, I remember that. Because you got to see Laura Ligos there too?

Claire: Yes.

Joy: So great.

Claire: Then I had a couple smaller events in November 2019. And then obviously in March 2020 I went to Anaheim to the convention center, but we cancelled the show.

Joy: Oh my God, I totally remember that. I totally remember that. Speaking of California – and sorry, I’m getting whiplash going back and forth here, but I wanted to read this @overheardla. If you don’t follow the Instagram account @overheardla or @overheardnewyork or whatever, it’s really funny. It’s basically people that overhear conversations and they post them because they’re hilarious. But it reminded me of this post they did when we were talking about the dietary restrictions because it says, “Guy: Can I get a latte? Waitress: No, we’re out of almond milk. Guy: Can I just have it made with regular milk? Waitress: Oh wow. I’ll have to ask. But I think we can do that?” That’s such an LA thing. LA is a different world.

Claire: Yes, oh my gosh.

Joy: It really is. But I love it so much. Okay. And then the next post that just came up is the –

Claire: Oh, The Bake Off.

Joy: The Bake Off. So you want to tell the people what they want.

Claire: So let’s actually recap a little bit because we got a question about this. What’s the difference between all these podcasts? Obviously, On Your Marks, Get Set, Bake! is a podcast where we just recap The Great British Baking Show, so that’s easy. The first episode by the time you hear this will have already been released in the UK. I don’t know what the distribution is in Europe. And then on Friday it’s coming out in the US on Netflix.

Joy: I’m so excited.

Claire: And then on Saturday morning if I remember to pack my podcast stuff, which I’m looking at it right now and I better remember to put it in my suitcase –

Joy: Do it, do it, do it.

Claire: We will be recording and releasing our first episode on Saturday afternoon. So that’s On Your Marks, Get Set, Bake! The difference between Girls Gone WOD and This is Joy and Claire is a little more subtle. When we had Girls Gone WOD – and we explained this a little bit last week or the week before – when we had Girls Gone WOD, it started out all CrossFit all the time. It evolved into more health and fitness lifestyle. And so we changed it to This is Joy and Claire, which now is just whatever we want to talk about. So Girls Gone WOD is still a little bit more fitness and health and diet focused. So the first few episodes that Joy has revamped have been interviews with dietician, with intuitive –

Joy: Intuitive eating counselor. Mom Sandy.

Claire: CrossFit athlete, Mom Sandy. So people who are very much in that health and fitness world. Versus This is Joy and Claire, which is more of stream of consciousness, what do Joy and Claire want to talk about this week.

Joy: Yeah. Basically if you want to just listen to us chit chat, that’s what you’re getting there. Which you will get on Girls Gone WOD. And that’s the other thing is I know we are still – it was more of an experiment to bring that back to see if there was an interest because we really missed releasing on that feed. We’ll kind of evolve to see how many episodes we release on Girls Gone WOD. And obviously I have a lot of time right now to work on multiple podcast streams. But if I get a full-time job again, that might change. But I really just wanted to expand back to the fitness focus. For a lot of reasons. I missed it. It’s an important topic that people really wanted to hear. We’re getting feedback from people that they’re like, “You are my safe place to talk about this stuff. I don’t like going to certain podcast because they’re really more diet culture, and you were a place where we could talk about this safely that didn’t feel like it was too wrapped up in macro counting or exercise or weight loss” or whatever. And we do talk about those things, but in the realm of how we navigate this world and struggle with body image still and like to work out and like to live healthy lifestyles, whatever that means.

Claire: So hopefully that answers the question. And ideally by the time you hear this two days from now will be the first episode of Season 2 of On Your Marks, Get Set, Bake! I am so excited.

Joy: So excited. That show I really think last year was such a beacon for us to be able to do that project because of COVID and we were in the first year of COVID. It was just so lovely. I have such fond memories of working on that every Saturday and releasing it every Saturday and watching it every Friday night and taking notes, like “I wonder what Claire’s going to say about this?” And meeting all the bakers, and the host. If you guys don’t watch The Great British Baking Show or The Bake Off, whatever it’s called wherever you are, I think the podcast is really fun to listen to even if you don’t watch the show.

Claire: But you might also watch it because it’s delightful.

Joy: It’s delightful.

Claire: But if you can’t, if you listen, you can still track. I relistened to a few of the episodes last week, and I was like, aww, this is just so fun to listen to. Even though it’s myself.

Joy: I’m so fun.

Claire: I am so hilarious and easy to listen to. [laughing]

Joy: I like me.

Claire: I like myself.

Joy: It’s so good.

Claire: It was funny, I was at the office last Friday, which I rarely am, and I was listening to a few older episodes. My boss’s boss came in and was like, “Hey, what are you listening to?” And I was like, “Myself.”

Joy: My podcast.

Claire: He was like, “Really?” I was like, yes.

Joy: I always listen to them. I listen to them when they’re released because I have to make sure that I edited it correctly. And especially now with three, I’m going to miss something, I just know it. But I will never go back. I listen to it once, and then I’m done. I’m listening to it the whole time when I’m editing. I’m always like, I just need to listen to make sure it sounds okay. And of course there’s always critiques in my head of what could have been done better and how I could have been better, but I like listening to it when it comes out. With everybody else listening to it. Really quick, the Emmy’s were last night, and I just have to say I am in love with Ted Lasso. If you have not watched that show, it’s on Apple TV, and it is so good. So that’s just a feel-good show if you are looking for a new show this fall. They released Season 2, which Scott and I are waiting to watch together and binge it. Which crack me up because I don’t care to binge shows. Like The Morning Show released their second season, that’s also on Apple TV and I love it because it’s Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Anniston. I’m just going to watch it every week. I kind of like the anticipation of a new release to be like, oh I’m going to watch the show, and sometimes I’ll rewatch the show from last week. But Scott, he’s waiting for the entire Ted Lasso to be released before he starts it because he likes just to binge it. So we have not started Season 2 yet, but it is the most wholesome, pure, good feeling characters. You just fall so deeply in love with the characters on Ted Lasso. They just completely took all the Emmy nominations. I think every category had three nominations from that show. While they didn’t win every Emmy, they won a lot. And I was so, so happy that Jason Sudeikis won an Emmy because I’m like, that is the best revenge because his wife left him for Harry Styles. The guy has a special place in my heart, especially because he wrote that show. And then one of the lead actresses on Ted Lasso won an Emmy and she’s just delightful. I was very excited to watch that. I love watching award shows. Scott and I love watching award shows. We love the fashion. That’s my hot take from the Emmy’s of 2021.

Claire: I still haven’t seen Ted Lasso and I need to. We don’t have Apple TV.

Joy: You will definitely be able to tolerate that show. It’s not high stakes. It’s not stressful. It’s not awkward. It’s just wholesome, heartwarming. Just so good. It’s so good.

Claire: Okay. Do we want to do some Q&A?

Joy: Let’s do it.

Claire: Let’s do it. Let’s start with – oh I love this one –

Joy: Before I forget, my last hot take is to watch Hacks on HBO with Jean Smart. It is so good. So, so good. Okay. That’s all.

Claire: Okay.

Joy: Moving on.

Claire: Question number one, you ready? Build your perfect sandwich.

Joy: I love this question so much. I love this question so much. You know, in Mesa, Arizona they had a sub shop and I can’t remember the life of me – everyone in Mesa is probably screaming… Ned’s! It was Ned’s! Ned’s Sub Sandwiches in Mesa, Arizona had the best sandwiches. And all I can think about is all the meat that they put on it and this coleslaw type of stuff with the most amazing dressing on it. I would kill for a Ned’s submarine sandwich right now. So I don’t necessarily think that I’m building the perfect sandwich myself, but I would just say Ned’s in Mesa, Arizona is my favorite sandwich hands down.

Claire: That’s amazing. I feel like it kind of depends on my mood what my perfect sandwich is. But it would definitely include some kind of a pickled thing, like a pickled onion or some kimchi or some sauerkraut, something in that realm. Definitely a lot of melted cheese. Definitely a roasted red pepper thing. Mmhmm.

Joy: I would kill for a grilled cheese sandwich right now. And don’t even at me with the freaking vegan cheese. It’s not the same. Please don’t. It’s not, it’s not the same. Oh – how do you feel about BLT’s? Because I like a good BLT.

Claire: I like them. I like a good BLT. Okay, let’s do a couple quick ones. Is Dazzle Dry worth it? What is Dazzle Dry?

Joy: Okay, Dazzle Dry is a nail polish. I have it on right now. You know how the hottest thing comes around and they probably pay for a lot of marketing and all the sudden you see it on your Instagram feed and everyone’s posting about it and you’re like, is this even worth it? Like right now I’m seeing a crap ton of ads for Athletic Greens. I’m like, why do I need this in my life? It seems to be the hottest rage. Part of me is like, maybe they have a big budget for marketing and they’re getting all these influencers to talk about it. So I’ll just say this, Dazzle Dry nail polish, it’s not going to change your life. However I will say it’s worth the money if you don’t go and get manicures. I think if I was to rank a nail polish, Dazzle Dry is probably one step above Essie. And I use Essie, I buy from Target. Essie nail polish lasts about a good week if you’re not super hard on your nails. Dazzle Dry lasts about 8-9 days. So it is true what they say that it lasts. However, I’m also someone that hates long nails. So the second my nails start to get long, I’ll cut it off and I’ll just start over and I’ll put new polish on. The thing that I do like about it is the application process is really easy, meaning they have a three-step process. You put a base coat, then you put the polish on, then you put the top coat on. And the top coat dries super fast. I’m talking probably faster than any dry drops or any top coat quick-dry stuff that you probably have done before. Because I have a couple things that I really like for quick dry, but this is super, super fast. Meaning you could probably cook a meal after you do your nails and you wouldn’t be messing up your nails. So I do like that. I will say that I bought a kit. I think it was a Valentine’s Day special. I would wait for the specials. But it does make up for if you do go to the salon and get manicures, I do think it’s worth the money. But if you don’t want to spend that much money on Dazzle Dry, I would say Essie is a good step down from that that lasts close-is as long. Essie is E-S-S-I-E.

Claire: This is another quick one. Can Claire give an update on Brandon’s new job and schedule and what the struggles are with that? So Brandon started a new job at the beginning of the summer in June. He used to work at a hospital and now he works at a surgery center. The biggest thing that changes was that he worked the normal schedule 7-7 at the hospital, and he now at his new job instead works four tens. He doesn’t have any weekends, any holidays, or any on call. But his schedule is a lot less strict, in the sense that when you work at the hospital unless something crazy is going on, you get off at 7. You have to do your transfer to the other nurse, but not even really, like when he worked in surgery because you would be on call but it wasn’t like working on the floor where you have someone else coming in. So it’s definitely been an adjustment because probably 10% of the time he gets done early, and then probably 20% of the time he gets off late, and then the rest of the time in there he gets home right around the time he’s supposed to. It’s been a struggle because when you have kids and you have so much going on, it’s hard to not know what time to expect your spouse to get home. Especially when it comes to school pick up and that kind of thing. And then now that Miles is doing karate and that’s in the evenings. We’re kind of just more getting used to it. It was a bit of a learning curve because I was really used to, other than Brandon being on call, I was used to knowing when he was going to get home pretty much exactly. And so I just kind of had to get used to being more flexible in the evenings and not planning on having him around. And if he is home, it’s kind of more of a bonus. But I really like the fact that he doesn’t have to work weekends, of course. Not being on call is huge.

Joy: Oh my God, I remember that. That was a huge stress.

Claire: Yeah. And it’s obviously super nice for him to have holidays off because then we just don’t have to worry about it. Because when you work at the hospital at the beginning of the year, you put into a pool a request with all of your coworkers about which holidays you want to have off. You kind of have to know in January whether or not you’re going to ask for Thanksgiving off or Christmas off or whatever. It’s nice not to have to do that anymore. Okay. How do you spend so much time on social media without wanting to pull your hair out? We don’t spend that much time on social media and we do want to pull our hair out.

Joy: Yeah, I would say I get on there a few times a day, maybe four or five times a day sometimes. And I try to just limit it, meaning I know that I will just mindlessly scroll – and especially right now, it sounds really silly, but because I’m not really working full time, I’m keeping myself pretty busy and I’m not really sitting on my phone a lot. But when I am, I try to limit the time that I’m actually on social media. I’m doing more stuff like, maybe I’ll be on Words with Friends. Which I’m on by the way. I still have people from this podcast that friended me on Words with Friends and we play all the time. It’s like my favorite thing to do, and I just do something that enriches my brain. But I still want to pull my hair out. There’s things that I see – and we talked about this a little bit on the Girls Gone WOD podcast with Molly Bahr about how you obviously need to curate your feed but limit what you see on social media. It’s hard not to get swept up in things, but you have to realize that you’re opening yourself up to stuff that you’re just not going to like. There’s going to be stuff on social media that you’re going to see and you’re like, ugh, that just doesn’t land very well. So I try very hard to either limit my time when I’m feeling like that. And what you’ve said before Claire where you’re like, am I in a space to be open to whatever comes at me when I open social media? Like, am I in the space to hear this? If we get comments or things. Every once in a blue moon, we’ll get a comment that I’m just like, really? It does make me want to pull my hair out.

Claire: You said it. I don’t have anything to add. Just that I think we’re on social media less than we probably appear to be.

Joy: Yes.

Claire: Which is a good thing. Okay. Public speaking tips.

Joy: Public speaking tips. Practice.

Claire: Do you like to public speak?

Joy: No, I don’t. I didn’t used to. I used to be horrible at it. But I will say that – I feel like I’m saying that a lot. “I will say.” I got that from Mom Sandy. She always says, “I got to say.” Public speaking tips. I used to hate it and be really bad at it. Podcasting made me much better at it, and I think that it has to do with practicing. Because you’re speaking on a microphone. You have to learn how to speak clearly and not use a lot of filler words and all that stuff. I remember when we first started podcasting about 6 months to a year in and I would have to do some speaking at work, I would feel really fluent in public speaking. Or I would feel better at being in front of people and talking. I know that sounds silly, but if you can go to Toastmasters or you can do something where you’re in an environment where you can practice. I don’t think the tricks of imagine everyone naked and just don’t be nervous, that didn’t work for me because the only way that you can get over that fear is to practice. Maybe it’s practicing speaking into your phone and doing voice memos just to yourself and doing a voice memo diary to yourself and you’re just talking. But other than that, I don’t know if I have any tips other than truly if you wanted to get really good at it and you feared being in front of people, which I think just comes with a level of anxiety period. There’s some low-level anxiety. Maybe you’re not totally nervous. Then maybe take a Toastmasters class. Or even just do something on Zoom where you have to talk in front of people.

Claire: Yeah. There are definitely public speaking coaches out there. I think the thing about practicing is when people are being interviewed or when they have to talk on stage, if it’s not a speech that you have completely memorized – which that is its own difficult thing.

Joy: Can you imagine the people that do Ted Talks? How do they do that? Oh my gosh.

Claire: I mean, I think it’s hard because when you’re on a stage in front of people, it’s really hard to replicate that and it can make you feel really nervous and you can almost like black out. Like, what am I saying?

Joy: Oh my gosh, you totally dissociate because you’re just like [distressed sound].

Claire: And it really does come down unfortunately to practice, which is this Catch 22. You don’t want to do it because you’re not good at it, but you can’t get better without doing it.

Joy: Right. And maybe you do smaller crowds, smaller crowds, smaller crowds. When we started doing live shows, that made me nervous. But we started small. I think our first live show was 20 people or 30 people, and then we had 60-80 people, and then we had 100 people. So it slowly starts to build. Granted, we didn’t do a ton of live shows, but it was enough to where I started to feel a little more comfortable.

Claire: And I think there’s also a part of it where it’s not necessarily that you get better at it. It’s that you realize that stumbling over words or losing your train of thought is not as detrimental as you think it’s going to be, not as fatal, and you can kind of just pick it back up. Think about it. If you’ve ever watched a speech or seen somebody speak, it actually kind of breaks the tension in those moments where they actually say the wrong thing. Or I actually meant to say this before. During the pandemic, I’ve been doing so much presenting on Zoom. I have been hosting a ton of digital events for my job. And that’s the biggest thing I learned is people are so afraid to mess up or lose their train of thought or stutter or whatever, but when you do people are just like, oh.

Joy: It’s not a big deal, yeah. It’s just not a big deal. I remember, too, this reminds me of something that helped me was when I was teaching aerobics classes and spin classes. Teaching any type of fitness class really forces you into being a public speaker. Maybe if you could get into some kind of adjacent job where you’re teaching. But I remember thinking whenever I would teach spin, the instructors that I loved the most, if you messed up you just keep going. You don’t acknowledge, you don’t say sorry, you don’t acknowledge it and draw attention to it. You just keep moving forward. And that’s what I think is really important. But I would say practice, practice, practice.

Claire: Okay let’s see here. We have a couple questions here about raising kids. It’s definitely a string of questions that are all related. How old is too old to have a child? If I only have one child, what can I do to avoid only child issues? Is it possible to raise a bilingual child if I’m not personally 100% fluent? Some pretty specific questions. And I think the answer to all of them is it kind of depends.

Joy: It kind of depends.

Claire: I know that those are a lot of questions that people have before they start having kids. I know for example Shane Farmer and his family, their kids go to bilingual preschools. I think that they do speak some French. I’m not sure if they’re fluent in French and a little bit of Spanish. But his kids are very adept – I don’t know if they’re fluent, but they’re very adept because they go to a bilingual school. I do think that those are the types of things where if that’s something that you want to have and want to do, those options and those opportunities are out there. How old is too old to have a child? I think that’s a question you have to answer for yourself. I think the same thing with what can you do to avoid only child issues? What do you consider to be only child issues?

Joy: Yeah, a part of me is like I’ve seen plenty of – we could ask the same question about three kids and how to avoid the middle child or the oldest and youngest issues. I don’t think there’s a bad thing with being an only child. We could talk about how my brother and I have the twin thing and how we dealt with those dynamics. There’s always going to be some type of birth order dynamic and an only child dynamic. If you ask me, I’ve worked with kids and families over the years, it doesn’t matter as long as you have love for your child and you raise them with good values and you have a good supportive family. I’ve seen so many people who have issues as an only child or middle child or – you know what I mean? That isn’t a thing to have issues for just an only child.

Claire: And I don’t want to say that to say these are dumb questions, don’t worry about it.

Joy: No, no, no, no.

Claire: But more so to say these are the types of things that we do all think about and worry about. Especially if you’re thinking about having kids, there’s a bagillion unknowns and you do want to start thinking about those things ahead of time. And the answer is, it depends. It depends on who you are as a person. It depends on the support system you have around you. It depends on what your values are that you want to prioritize for your kid or your kids. I think if I could go back in time and give my pre-child self one piece of advice, it would be you are going to have way less control over these things than you think you are because your kids are going to be the people that they’re going to be. I know there’s this whole big nature vs. nurture psychology theory. But anyone who’s ever had kids, you know that to some extent even before they’re born your child has their own personality. Evie and Miles were completely different in utero. Even their little personalities of kicking around in there were so different. You kind of have to take their lead. You really don’t have a choice.

Joy: Yeah, you don’t have a choice.

Claire: As much as I wish you did.

Joy: Alright, should we do a quick one to end? I like this one. How much time per week is it okay to watch TV? [laughing]

Claire: Oh my gosh.

Joy: Let’s just do this. How many hours a week do you think you personally watch TV?

Claire: Watch TV?

Joy: Yeah. Watch a show, watch TV.

Claire: One…

Joy: One hour a week?

Claire: I don’t watch TV or shows. But I spend a lot of time on Instagram. I spend a lot of time on news websites. I’m on the computer all day every day. I maybe will watch part of a movie with Miles on the weekend.

Joy: So you’re very little watching of the TV.

Claire: It’s unusual for me to end my night with a TV show. It’s not like it never happens, but it’s probably a couple times a month.

Joy: Wow, okay. We’re very different. Because Scott and I like to watch the news. I think I’ve said this. We like to watch the news with Kyle Clark, 9NEWS, and then Lester Holt, and then 9NEWS again. They have a 4, 5, and 6 – anyway, we’re so old. And then we’re eating dinner during that time. Most of the time, we’ll pick a show. Right now because it’s football season… this sounds really bad. It’s not bad, but it sounds bad. But because Scott has all this football to watch, I kind of get free time to be like, I’m going to go watch what I want to watch. But normally we’ll have to pick something we can watch together. But we’ll watch a TV show or a movie or something. That’s every night. That’s a good four hours a night.

Claire: I just don’t have time for that.

Joy: And that’s just –

Claire: It’s our different lives.

Joy: Yeah, different lives. Again, this is a good question of it depends. I don’t think it’s a bad thing. Sure, there’s probably something – we could go out and take the dogs for another walk, but we don’t and we enjoy it.

Claire: That’s the thing. My nights go I finish work, I immediately start cooking dinner. I feed my kids. We maybe try to go for a short walk as a family. We come home. Bath time. Evie goes down while Miles – like, Miles will watch a show or he’ll play on his iPad for a little while, do an activity on the iPad or something for maybe 30-40 minutes. And then he’ll have a snack and go to bed. By then, it’s 9 o’clock. Now I have to take a shower and go to bed.

Joy: Now you have to wind down and go to bed.

Claire: Exactly. I just don’t have time. If I did, I would. And not to say, gosh Joy. It is. It’s so different.

Joy: It’s totally different. Alright. Well that’s it for this week. I wish you a good trip on your trade show. And… let’s give the listeners a little plug for Eat to Evolve.

Claire: Yeah. So you can go to eattoevolve.com, discount code is JOYCLAIRE15. That gets you 20% of your first order. So delicious. The other night I got home a little bit late and just heated one up for dinner.

Joy: Okay. I’m not a huge – is it pulled pork and carrots? I think it’s the pulled pork. I’m not a huge pulled pork person. That’s not what I would gravitate towards, but I just happened to pick it. I’m like, I’m just going to try this. And it was really good. So I’m like, I’m ordering that again. So the pulled pork and carrots is really good.

Claire: I will say, most of their shredded meat, whether it’s beef or pork, a lot of times I worry that that stuff’s going to be dry and it’s not been dry.

Joy: It’s not been dry. Good job.

Claire: Highly recommend. So please, support the podcast by supporting Eat to Evolve, discount code JOYCLAIRE15. Thank you, guys, for listening. If you’re in Philly let me know. Don’t forget, On Your Marks, Get Set, Bake! comes out on Saturday. If you are not subscribed, you can go to the link in our bio on Instagram and subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or really anywhere you get your podcasts. We will talk to you next week.

Joy: Bye guys.

Claire: Bye.