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www.joyandclaire.com

Girls Gone Wod

email: thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com

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This is Joy & Claire: 99: Signs From the Universe if You Want Them

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

Transcription Completed: November 12, 2021

Audio Length: 44:05 minutes 

Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy.

Claire: And this is Claire.

Joy: And this is Joy and Claire.

Claire: Welcome.

Joy: Hi. Hello. Not going to talk about the date. I’m not going to take about the date. I saw a really funny – God, what did we do without the internet and memes and GIFs and funny tweets?

Claire: What were we doing with our lives?

Joy: There’s one I read today. Our friend Jess posted it. It made me think of me last week and actually this entire past two months. Is if we can just get through this month, we have one more month to go before we need to get through another month. [laughing] That was from @oldfriend99, Josh ‘Letterman.’ If we can just get through this month, we only have one – so it just made me think about the passage of time and how hard it is for me right now to stay present. Because to have that looming thing with Cadet, which is getting more intense every day. The hot tip I’m doing for myself right now is truly just stay present. Do not think ahead. Because if I think too much about it, it’s just making me sick to my stomach. I did have a good dream a couple nights ago. Which by the way, I’ve been sleeping like a champ thanks to Ned. We’ll get there in a second. I had a dream that Cadet was in turn-in. It was a really positive dream. I’m just taking that – even if it means nothing. I’m grasping at straws here to make it not as painful to let her go.

Claire: It totally means something if you want it to Joy.

Joy: Yes. It’s true, it’s very true. So we have three going away parties for her this week with the donor, the gal who named her – because we keep in touch with her- and our puppy raiser community, and then our neighbors. And Cadet’s sister is coming over, so we’re having a neighborhood little goodbye party this weekend. It’s going to be really, really good.

Claire: Aw, Cadet. 

Joy: I know.

Claire: Do you remember – well, obviously you remember the episode of Girls Gone WOD that we did with Michelle, the medium, where we talked about – that I personally don’t really believe in signs from the universe, and I also really don’t hold it against anyone else. I’m not going to argue with someone about whether or not those type of capital “U” Universe things are true because at the end of the day, it’s meaningful to you if you believe it’s meaningful to you. You can have those moments. You can have those signs from the Universe if you need them, if you want them.

Joy: Yeah, exactly. Everyone’s going to make fun of me right now and I don’t even care, but I do love the Long Island Medium. I do love Theresa Caputo, and I do listen to her podcast every week. Even though half the time, it really is just a conversation for her and that person, like in terms of the person that is on the other end of that phone call really gets this special, special gift. It’s amazing to listen to her channel. This is not a dig on her at all, but she ends up using the same language all the time, just to communicate the same kind of message. Overall theme is always the same. She’s so cute. Every time, she’ll say something like, “If you see a symbol or something that’s meaningful to you,” she always says, “it means that your loved one was with you at that exact moment.” She says it in this east coast accent. “Your loved one was with you at that exact moment.” I always say that to my mom because we always talk about signs from our loved ones. I’m like, “Mom, it means they’re with you at that exact moment.” Speaking of making meaning out of things that you just kind of have to. It just matters that it does something for you is – I think of an example from this summer. I was struggling with my next step and what I wanted to do, and I kept seeing this freaking butterfly hanging out around my house every single day. The same butterfly would come over and hang out with us when we were playing with the dogs. And by hang out, I mean it would just fly right in front of my face, and it would just hang out on a tree. Because we saw it every single day, it became this joke between my neighbor and I. We’re like, “Where’s the butterfly?” So I took meaning from that, of things are going to be okay. Because I had to. It meant something to me, and I don’t care if it was just a butterfly flying around. It meant something to me, and it kept me going.

Claire: Honestly, I feel like there is so much to that, and there is so much to any type of spirituality, ritual, any of that. If you want it to be meaningful, then it is. I think the cool thing is that it kind of goes both ways. If you’re seeing something – if you have a dream or you’re seeing a butterfly and there’s something that comes to mind and you want it to be meaningful, then it is. And also, you can make things meaningful just because you want them to be. And the other direction – you can create a ritual where there wasn’t a meaningful thing before. Or you can give meaning to a piece of jewelry or create a little alter, create meaning around a candle or anything you want. 

Joy: I mean, if you see my desk right now as you’re talking, my desk is full of things that are full of meaning. It is a mess and Scott makes fun of me. I’m like, no, there are so many little tchotchkes on my desk and cards and thing that when I look at it, it has meaning, and it reminds me of that person that gave that to me or whatever. But this also reminds me of the conversation we had with Casper. Making rituals. Which by the way, you can still get his daily ritual planner.

Claire: I think about that conversation all the time. If you guys still haven’t read that book or listened to the book, it’s so interesting. It’s called The Power of Ritual. If you go back around this time last year, we had him on the podcast. His name is Casper ter Kulie. He also used to host the podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. But this book was so, so, so interesting. I think about that a lot around this time of year, especially as we’re going into the holidays. It was just Halloween. After that conversation with Casper, I started learning more about my Celtic ancestry and learned a lot about Halloween. So a lot of Celtic rituals became what is now known as pagan and wiccan rituals. The last day of October, in that time frame, is the end of harvest festival in the Celtic tradition, and it’s also the New Year festival, and it’s also pretty much so many of those – I mean, Halloween in America draws from a lot of different historical ancestor ritual. But it has a lot of components of what we consider to be Halloween. You also see the same thing in Día de los Muertos where there’s just the belief that the physical world and the spiritual world are as close as they ever get on that night. And so I was reading a lot about that on Halloween and just thinking about that belief, that there are different times throughout the year where maybe our ancestors are more available to us. I don’t know really that I believe that, but it’s cool to think about. And just because I don’t believe it doesn’t mean it isn’t interesting and cool to think about and interesting and cool to connect with that cycle of rituals and beliefs. I was looking at, okay, how do you create a little alter. It’s like, open a jar and fill it with some dirt to symbolize the earth and some leave to symbolize the changing of the season, a black candle to symbolize the spirits. It’s just really interesting, and I think that as we go into the holidays – like last year, I know we asked a lot of people, what are some of your favorite traditions that you either have or that you want to do, and I think that was a cool thing and has been a cool thing about the pandemic and people being at home more is being able to focus more on that. I’ve been trying to think about, again, as we’re going into the holidays, what kind of holiday traditions do I want to make for my kids. And that’s also super fun.

Joy: Yeah. Well you think about belief in children and how children believe in magic. That’s I think why it’s so fun to talk to kids about Santa Clause or the Easter bunny or just watching movies that have magic. I think that’s why even adults still love Disney Land – at least I do. Because that whole magical wonder is so fun to believe in, just because it’s fun. It’s fun to think of characters walking around. It’s fun to go into the haunted mansion and see, are there really ghosts – it’s wonder, it’s something that you make up in your head maybe. But to think that there might be something out there is exciting. I think we all experience and express it in different ways, whether you talk about in the religious sense. I’ve talked about this on the Casper episode about how important it was to me when I was traveling – when I was in college or even when I would go visit friends in the States, but I was traveling abroad in college, and I would go to Catholic churches because it felt like home, even though maybe I wasn’t necessarily a practicing Catholic. Going to mass felt like home because that is what I was raised on, and just the ritual of mass is the exact same no matter where you go. So in a different language, just having the ritual and routine was like, I don’t know what they’re saying but I know exactly what’s going on. I think that’s just really important for each person. I know that that is very personal to each individual. I think it’s really cool to hear about people’s traditions and the things that they pass down from their families or that they decided to create with their own families. Especially this time of year because it’s the holiday season and there’s so much wrapped up in that.

Claire: On Halloween, I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid, the number one thing I looked forward to was coming home and jumping out all of my candy and sorting it.

Joy: Yep. I did the same thing. Dumped and sorted.

Claire: I would sort mine, not only by the specific types of candy but also by candy type. So chocolate went on the left and then it slowly evolved into hard fruit candies, like on a spectrum. For example, a tootsie roll would be in the middle because it’s chocolate, but it’s chewy, and chewy I think is more of a fruit candy characteristic in my opinion.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: So last night we were trying to coach Miles on sorting his candy, and he didn’t care. He was like, I just want to eat it.

Joy: I think I did just chocolate and the rest is all I cared about.

Claire: Chocolate and other. We told the kids on Halloween, “Okay, you can have three pieces of candy before you go to bed.” So Evie picked three tootsie roll pops. It would have taken her an hour to eat those things. I was thinking three little miniature KitKats. Which also, I would like to say miniature KitKats are my favorite.

Joy: Yeah, I had one today and it was delicious.

Claire: Never in my life would I be like, “You know what I want to do right now? I want to sit down and have five full-size KitKats.” But I will gladly sit down and have like 12 kid miniature… like s’more, it’s the same amount in my brain.

Joy: The fun size. Ben Schwartz just did a tweet about this too. The most fun-size thing that has happened about… God, I’m messing it up. Basically he said the most fun thing fun-sized candy did was not list the calories on it. The most fun thing. We don’t need to know that. Who cares?

Claire: I’ll sit down after eating a bunch of KitKats and I’m like, why do I feel so bad? I’m like, oh, it’s because I just sat down and inhaled the equivalent of four full-size KitKats bars. Which in my normal adult life, I’d be like, “Claire, this is going to make you feel like crap.” Because they’re tiny –

Joy: It’s like wine tasting.

Claire: Yes, it’s exactly like wine tasting. Or like getting a beer flight where you’re like, “Why am I drunk?” Because Claire, you just drank the equivalent of six beers.

Joy: Totally.

Claire: But they were in tiny glasses. 

Joy: It happens so fast. It just happens so fast. 

Claire: It’s also why I feel like people get so full without realizing it on sushi. Because you were like, it’s just a tiny –

Joy: Just a tiny little roll and you just keep eating them. You just keep popping those in your mouth.

Claire: And next thing you know, you’ve had like two cups of rice.

Joy: Yeah, how does that happen? So sushi, I feel like that happens. I feel like cereal, you could just keep eating cereal and never really get full. And then all of the sudden you’re like, oh my gosh, what did I just do?

Claire: You remember that Mitch Hedberg joke about spaghetti. He’s like, “I don’t like spaghetti because I’m never hungry enough to eat a thousand of something.”

Joy: [laughing] 

Claire: Oh Mitch Hedberg.

Joy: Oh Mitch.

Claire: Yeah, it was so funny when we were like, “You can have three pieces of candy.” And Evie, you know, she’s 2.5, so they say that rules don’t really make a lot of sense to her yet. Or if we were to say, “You can have three pieces of candy.” Miles is like, “Okay” and immediately starts searching through. And she’s like, “Oh, three” and just picks up three tootsie rolls. And then I’m like, “You can’t have three tootsie roll pops. It’s going to take you an hour.” So I was trying to explain to her, and she’s looking at me like, “Mom. You said three.” 

Joy: Yeah, those are the rules. 

Claire: And it just kicked off – honestly the hardest thing about Halloween is trying to put your kids to bed after trick-or-treating. 

Joy: It’s so much sugar and so much activity. They’re just wound up.

Claire: Sugar, activity, they’re completely out of their routine. What other night of your life does dinner end and then you get dressed up, go walk around your neighborhood –

Joy: Oh my gosh, so fun. This brought back so much fun memories as a kid because our dining room table was in the front of our house so the front window in the kitchen faced the street, so we could see all the kids hanging out outside. And we’d be sitting at the dinner table and my dad would shut the blinds. He’s like, “We’re having dinner without interruption.” And then we’d be like, “But Cindy’s outside.” So then especially on Halloween, we would barely sit down like half a butt cheek on the seat and hurry up and eat our food so we could get outside. But I have to recap just for the fans the neighborhood party we had with Pablo the pig. So if you’re not following along on Instagram, which is @joyandclaire_, I will on occasion post pictures and stories of our neighborhood pig Pablo. Our neighbors have, I think it’s three Jack Russell Terriers, and then Pablo the pig. Pablo the pig, he likes visitors, so – I said this before – the neighbors built up a fence to where it’s almost like a petting zoo where you can just go and visit Pablo, you can feed him vegetables, say “hi,” whatever. So he’s kind of turned into this neighborhood celebrity. This year the neighbors decided to have a pumpkin carving party for Pablo, so they had a bouncy castle for the kids, they had candy apples, they had pizza, the whole nine. Music, fire pit, hay bales to sit on. It was great. It was so much fun. 

Claire: It was like Pablo Fest, basically.

Joy: It was Pablo Fest, one thousand percent. So I got my werewolf onesie. I was all excited. Scott and I walk over there. I see all the neighbors that I knew. I start talking to them. Bouncy castle is going. It’s like this huge spaceship. I’m like, where’s Pablo? Because I didn’t see him in the Pen. And my neighbor Lisa turns around. She’s like, “He’s right there.” I looked through the crowd and the sea parts, and he’s sitting in his basket. Because they also have a Pablo mobile. It’s a huge bicycle with a huge built-on cage to take him on bike-rides. 

Claire: Because Pablo is a big guy.

Joy: Oh, he’s 120 pounds. Yeah, he’s pretty big. I think he’s potbelly size. I don’t know much about pigs, but he’s not like a huge hog. I want to say 120 is what I overheard. So he was sitting in his little basket, just sitting there with an octopus costume on, and I about lost my marbles. I was beside myself. So anyway, they lined up all the pumpkins. The whole neighborhood carved pumpkins for Pablo. They put them in a circle. Everyone stood behind their pumpkin, and then Pablo, they lifted him out of his cage and he went and picked his pumpkin. And the winner was a pumpkin – it was genius. The family had carved a little piggy face and put an apple as the nose. Claire, your idea was right. I should have filled it with something. To be fair, he kind of sauntered that way right away when he got out of his basket. So any of us on the other side were screwed.

Claire: He’s like, “I’m meant to be over here.”

Joy: He’s like, “I’m going over here.” And immediately he saw the apple and he bit into it and they won. It was just so cute. I got to be the judge for the costume contest. And the kids got little stuffed piggies. The two costumes that I thought were the best was one little girl was dressed up like the queen on Alice and Wonderland. She had the cutest outfit, so I picked her. And then I picked this other little kid that was dressed as a minion. He got so excited when I picked him. It was the cutest thing ever. The whole night was just – this needs to be my Halloween every year. Or nothing, because I quit after that. Yeah, it was so pure. So that was my Halloween. And then I went home and handed out candy. Then we also watched – what’s the Freddie Kreuger dream? Is it Friday the 13th that we watched? Nightmare on Elm Street, thank you. Nightmare on Elm Street, we watched the original, which isn’t even that scary. It’s very 80’s scary. So I’m glad that I checked that off my list because I felt like I was doing a disservice to the 80’s because I never saw Nightmare on Elm Street. But I wasn’t really allowed to watch super – I didn’t want to watch super scary movies, even as a teenager. So that was our night. Yay Halloween.

Claire: My favorite costume I sent you that I saw on Instagram was the Michael Myers-Briggs.

Joy: Oh my God, that was so freaking funny. Please describe.

Claire: Okay guys, in case you’re like me and you’re like, “Myers-Briggs, that sounds familiar,” it’s the ENFJ –

Joy: Deep, very-involved, personality-type test.

Claire: And somebody was dressed up as Michael Myers-Briggs. So he was Mike Myers with the mask and the jumpsuit, but then on the back of the jumpsuit it said, “ENFP” because obviously he loves people.

Joy: It was so funny.

Claire: And he had a little name tag that said “Briggs” on it. That was my favorite costume I’ve ever seen.

Joy: That was genius. Yeah, I’ve never laughed so hard. When you sent that, I was dying.

Claire: If you saw some good pun costumes, please send them our way. I love a pun costume. I really, yes.

Joy: I love watching people’s brains come up with the most amazing costumes that you’re like, that is hilarious. Michael Myers-Briggs, please call us and tell us how you came up with that.

Claire: So today was my first day at my new job.

Joy: Congratulations and tell us about it.

Claire: So today, obviously we’re recording on Monday. I started my new job today. Here are some dispatches from onboarding remotely.

Joy: Good, because I have to do that in like three weeks.

Claire: It’s a lot. It’s fine. It’s just weird so far because – well also because my boss is off these next couple days. Which also happened to me the last time I joined. The company, my boss just so happened to have some PTO when I joined. So the weird thing about it is I feel like when you are onboarding, those first couple days are pretty slow. But when you’re at the office, you can kind of fill that time by, “Hey, if you have 30 minutes, can you come over here and walk me through how to put in a purchase order” or walk me through how to invoice something or walk me through how to load this thing into the database. Whatever, insert example for your profession. But when you’re working remotely, you don’t have those opportunities to grab people in your down time. So everything is a lot more formal. It will be interesting once I really get more in the groove of the actual things I’m doing instead of just going into new hire orientation Zoom jail. Will be those moments of, oh my gosh, I remember that they explained how to do this and I don’t remember what the next step is. And not being able to just lean over to the person next to you and b like, “Hey, I’m so sorry. Can you show me this one more time?”

Joy: Right.

Claire: So yeah, it’s a little weird.

Joy: Do you have Teams group or Slack or anything to chat with all your coworkers?

Claire: No, they use Zoom chat.

Joy: Oh. What?

Claire: What? I know. They have Teams, but they don’t use it. They use it basically as [UNCLEAR 00:21:27.01] a way to get stuff onto your point. But anyway –

Joy: Wait, Zoom chat doesn’t… 

Claire: Zoom has a chat. When you open it, it has –

Joy: Like an ongoing, forever and ever, you can use it?

Claire: Yeah, not just when you’re in the meeting. Because right, we’re all familiar with the chat function when you’re in the meeting.

Joy: Right.

Claire: But there’s also –

Joy: Like an app that you can use.

Claire: If you’re on enterprise Zoom on a corporate Zoom account.

Joy: Didn’t know that. I think ours is going to be on Slack, so I’m very excited.

Claire: I thought we were on Slack, but no. My last company was on Teams, which is also fine. So anyway, you know, that is what it is. It’s interesting. Today felt very – I don’t want to say disorganized because the meetings that I did have were very well organized, very to the point, had clear this is what we’re going to accomplish in this meeting, this is what we’re going to teach you, here’s what you’re going to learn. But my down time has just been the Jeopardy theme song. I guess I could clean the kitchen, I don’t know.

Joy: I anticipate that my first week too. Because they already told me there’s certain meetings that I attend. But other than that, I’m not going to be seeing clients for at least until they get me onboarded, so I’m going to have a lot of down time. Which is fine. Ease into it. But still, it’s hard to get used to. Because usually you’re at work and you’re like, I’m going to get my office put together. Oh, I’m going to go check out the kitchen.

Claire: Right. At least I know I’m going to go out to lunch with my team.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: Right? Or whatever. So that’s been weird. I feel like the requisite first-day lunch with your team, I definitely wish that I was going to have. But their office is technically located in Denver. Their office is still technically closed. They’re anticipating potentially opening it in January, but everyone I’ve talked to is like, it probably won’t. It will probably be pushed. But even once the office is open, I still won’t be going in every day by any means. My team is going to remain remote/hybrid. It’s just interesting because – I know Joy is going to edit it out, but I just had a big mid-sentence yawn.

Joy: I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen you yawn while you were recording.

Claire: I’m tired. It was a day. All of the sudden.

Joy: Sorry to bore you, Claire.

Claire: Like when your AirPods are running out of battery and they’re like “dee de de due.”

Joy: [laughing] That noise. “Dee de de due.” That’s the weirdest noise, and it startles me every single time. I’m like, how dare you?

Claire: I feel like that’s what my body just did. Ding ding ding ding. 

Joy: That’s a great sound effect for what just happened. Okay.

Claire: Okay. Back to my first day. But I’m excited for the job. I’m excited to get up and running. It’s just weird to be on remote onboarding where that dead time truly is like, “Hello?” 

Joy: I’m still here. Is everyone okay?

Claire: Do you need anything? Snacks? Condoms? That’s a Mean Girls reference. I’m not bringing condoms to my coworkers. Please do not call HR.

Joy: Please do not call HR. 

Claire: But I’m excited. It’s been good. It was nice over the weekend to not have anything I had to get done. There was nothing in the back of my mind, until I remembered that I never submitted my final expense report. So I’m going to have to figure that out. I decided to go to Vegas two days before I left.

Joy: Yeah, got a big expense.

Claire: Yeah, I got to do that. So anyway, yeah, it was a good first day. I’m excited for it. I think the biggest thing that I… I feel like it’s weird to talk about salary, and obviously I’m not going to use real numbers. The big thing that I think is so interesting about this job is that I’m making twice as much as I was at my last job. The reason that I bring that up is because at my previous job, it was one of the places that has a great culture, very open-door policy. There’s a lot of perks. And they’re kind of known for not paying all that well. And then to go to another job where there’s also a great culture and a lot of perks. And a super competitive salary. Just really to me makes me realize it’s not all about money, it never is all about money, but money matters also. And if you have every thought to yourself, oh there’s no such thing as making as much as I want to make at a workplace that’s not going to completely ruin my life, I would challenge that a lot. Granted I’ve only worked here for one day, but I know a lot of people who also work for this company that have nothing but amazing things to say about their culture. So I’m really hopeful. I’m excited about that for me. I’m saying it also as a challenge for anyone out there who thinks they can’t get paid more. Or that if they want to get paid more, they’re going to have to sacrifice the “perks.”

Joy: Yeah, that’s a really good point. I feel like this could be a conversation for a whole five episodes because there’s so much wrapped up in this too of education and networking and who you know. Because I can just hear people being like, “Yeah, but.” Which I understand. I also think I’m very aware because I’m reading the book Maid right now that I’m just like, oh my gosh, there’s a lot of inequity in pay in a lot of areas. But just on the larger scale, generally speaking yes, because in my last position I felt the same way where I had limiting beliefs around it because in behavioral health you just kind of settle for a “life of poverty” – I’m saying this totally quote unquote – because it’s usually seen that if you work in behavioral health, you’re not paid a lot. It really depends on a lot of factors. But you can make money in this field, and you don’t have to settle for work cultures that are toxic. I’m speaking from my previous place of employment. Now I’m in a space where I’m like, oh, they have really competitive pay, they walk the walk. Granted, I haven’t started yet. But again, I reached out to people who were like, “This is the first place that I actually feel like it checks all the boxes.” To just keep looking, even if you’re not in a place to leave your current role, just to keep looking. I think there’s a lot of benefit to that

Claire: If you want to. If that’s something you feel –

Joy: Yeah, if you want to. But I think it’s important to talk about it. I’ve talked to the gal who runs School of Betty all the time, Bri – and maybe we should have her on another time just to talk about money. Because it doesn’t have to be the main thing, but you can get to a point where you’re like, I just really want to be able to pay my bills and not stress about paycheck to paycheck every month. So larger conversation for a different day, but I think that’s important for you to bring up because it’s something that’s okay for us to strive for.

Claire: And I want to make it more okay to talk about. I think that’s the other huge thing is that particularly women we feel very shush shush shush. You’re not supposed to ask about how much money people make. You’re not supposed to talk about it. It’s rude. I just think we’re always doing ourselves a disservice if we’re not talking about wanting money because it makes you feel like you’re not allowed to want more. And if you are, you’re being selfish.

Joy: Exactly.

Claire: And if you are, you’re not grateful for what you have. We’ve talked about that fallacy of if you are looking for something else, it means you’re not grateful for what you have.

Joy: Right, right.

Claire: And that’s a belief that a lot of us grew up with. That is something that we really have to be intentional about challenging in a variety of places in our lives. That just because you want something more doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re ungrateful for what you do have. It just means that I like what I have and I want more of it, or I like what I have but I want something different. And it’s okay.

Joy: And being confident to ask. A lot of the times when I was in a position where I’m like, oh, I want to ask for a raise or I want to ask for more money, I would think, what would a male do in this situation? And when I was applying to the current company that I’m going to be working for, I just asked some question – I guess I don’t want to give details. But I asked some questions around either raises or bonuses or something along those lines. And they were like, we don’t do that because we’re very committed to pay equity and making sure that every person is paid within the same range, whatever gender you are. And I really respect that. I think that’s another reason why I love – well, it’s a double-edged sword with Colorado with pay transparency where they’re listing salaries or –

Claire: Required to list salaries.

Joy: They’re required to list the salaries, yeah.

Claire: And then companies outside of the state don’t want to do that are like, “And if you’re from Colorado, you can’t apply.”

Joy: Yeah, you can’t apply, which I think is so silly. I appreciate that also because that is where we’re trying to –

Claire: And that tells you right then and there everything you need to know about that company.

Joy: Yes. Totally. I remember seeing a job from Nike where it was like, “Colorado don’t apply,” and I was like, Nike, do better. You just had the whole thing with Allyson Felix. 

Claire: I know.

Joy: It drives me crazy. So Nike, do better.

Claire: Just do better.

Joy: Yeah, just do better.

Claire: Did you get my “just do it” pun?

Joy: I did get it.

Claire: Okay. Just making sure.

Joy: I got it. I was like, “Just do… better.” I think the moral of my story is be confident and ask for what you want. I know it’s easier said than done.

Claire: I want to go back to what you said earlier. I don’t want to take away from the fact that there are a lot of real barriers out there for people. I think without minimizing that reality, the point I’m trying to make is there might be such a thing out there for you and there likely is such a thing out there for you as a job that pays better and has the culture that you want. It’s not either-or anymore.

Joy: On that note, let’s take a quick break and hear from out amazing sponsors Ned. 

Claire: And by “hear from them,” you mean talk about them.

Joy: Talk about them and rave about them, yes. I’m going to go ahead and repeat myself because I’ve been using the sleep blend. It’s a newer product. It’s amazing. I’ve been taking it a half hour before bed. I follow the instructions. You just take a little dropper under your tongue, and I sleep like a baby. Hotel sleep. I feel really good. I actually have a Sleep Number bed, so I track my sleep score every morning when I wake up. It’s just data. And I’ve been getting amazing sleep, so please support the podcast by supporting our great sponsors, Ned.

Claire: Be both use it. We both love it. If you guys go to our Instagram, I did one of those reels last week where I point to words – only for Ned would I make a reel like that. If you’re not familiar with CBD, I explained a little bit about it in the caption on that post. Also, just as a reminder, you can go to helloned.com. Go to their FAQ page. They answer a ton of questions about using CBD, about what it’s used for, who can use it, how it works. Go to their website. Check that out. They have a lot of awesome education on there. One thing that we love about Ned is that they third-party test every single batch of all of their products. So unlike a lot of other CBD companies, which will put averages of the content of their products on the label, they actually third-party test every single batch. So you know exactly what you’re getting, and it’s third-party verified, meaning it’s not just them tooting their own horn. It’s a really objective look at exactly what you’re getting in the product, which is so important. Any time you’re taking something that’s a supplement – which CBD is just another herb and botanical, it’s just another type of supplement. When we think about it that way, we really are thinking about the quality. We’re thinking about the sourcing. We’re thinking about that third-party testing. And we love Ned for providing all of that right on their website.

Joy: If you want to try the new destress blend from Ned or the sleep blend, a brand that we love and trust, we have a special code for our audience. Every order over $40 qualifies for 15% off plus a free destress blend sample. Go to helloned.com/JOY or enter JOY at checkout to take advantage of this 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 podcast and offering our listeners a natural remedy for some of life’s common health issues. Thank you, Ned. So next, do we want to talk a little bit about stuff? No. Do we want to dip the toe into the diet culture, or do we want to have a little update on just November being a really big month? Which way do we want to go?

Claire: I feel like they’re related. So a couple weeks ago we talked about how diet culture is coming. The holiday diet culture is coming for you and for me and for everyone. A piece of that conversation though that we often hear from you guys but don’t always really address because it’s so complex is the question of, but what if I want to lose weight? What if I want to go on a diet? What if I want to take up a physique course? What if I want to run a marathon every day for the next hundred days? What if insert goal in here. Oh – I’m getting a visitor. 

Evie: Hi, mommy.

Claire: Hi, sweetie pie. We talk a lot about avoiding diets and not being made to feel like you have to go on a challenge or you have to worry about your holiday eating or winter layer, whatever it may be. One thing that we don’t talk a lot about but that we get a lot of questions and comments about are people saying, I get it. I don’t have to buy into diet culture. I don’t have to shrink my body. I don’t have to do any of these things. But what if I want to? What if I want to go on a diet? What if I do have physique goals? And what if I want to lose weight? What if I can accept the fact that maybe I don’t need to “do it for my health,” but I just want to do it? 

[Evie chatter in the background.]

Claire: There’s a little Evie feedback in the background – It smells good? – So what if I want to do it? Is there a healthy way? In the immortal words of our friend Laura Ligos, I think the answer is, it depends.

Joy: Yeah, it depends. I was just going to say that.

Claire: I do think there is space for that. There is totally space for you wanting to do a challenge just for at the sake of having some routine in our life or try different things in your diet just for the sake of getting information about your body – She’s sitting on my lap, so if you hear any small voices, that’s what’s going on. You’re not hallucinating – I’ve been thinking about that because recently – I mean, I’ve talked about this a million times, but I don’t like working from home. It feels very isolating to me. It zaps my energy. And one of the biggest things that helps is getting really regular movement. But it’s so easy for me to talk myself out of that because of the busyness of my day, the fact that there’s a two-year-old on my lap right now. There’s a million reasons that I can talk myself out of it every single. And not even “making excuses” or taking rest. The reasons that I’m not doing it don’t fall into any of those categories. It’s just that I talk myself out of it. Can I combat that by setting a goal and saying I want to work out three times a week for at the rest of the year? Or we’re going into the darker time of the year where it’s harder to feel energetic anyway, so can I set a goal to help myself with that? Then I hear those voices in my head that are like, don’t do it, Claire. You don’t have to do a program. I don’t know. It’s this weird kind of reverse –

Joy: I think the diet culture has been the big, bad monster for years and years and years. I think each person is going to handle this differently, but we just don’t want to fall into a trap of hating ourselves and doing it from a place of hate. But like with anything in our life that we “use,” whether it be a substance or food or exercise, there’s really nothing wrong with exercise. There’s nothing wrong with food. There’s nothing wrong with substances. It’s a relationship to it. So if you have a relationship that is “I have to do this” or “I have to do this because I’m such a horrible person” or “I have to do it to fit into whatever jeans or piece of clothing because I don’t like how I look.” I feel like the narrative around it is what I personally have an issue with because I just want everybody to be happy, whether you exercise or not. It doesn’t have to be in your life. I think that, to quote Laura Ligos again, she would say, it depends. For someone who has a history with eating disorders, it might be something to say maybe work with a therapist on that. Or not. It’s not our job to police that. I think especially with a recent post that we made a comment on. A, you don’t have to comment about that because they’re making a choice. But kind of where I had an issue with this particular post was, this person is kind of stepping out of their lane. I have an issue with that because I think it would be harmful to others. So to each his own, but especially with influencers. We’ve said this before. When they take a stance and they act as a professional that they can guide people to weight loss, I think that’s a big problem. I think that is a huge problem. That feeds into the diet industry, and I have a problem with the diet industry and the messages that it feeds. That is separate from just exercising and wanting to live a life that makes you feel good, in whatever way that looks.

Claire: Yeah, I think that’s a good point. Where is it coming from? What is the motivation behind it? And really, only you can tell that for yourself. Is this coming from a healthy place? Are you in a place mentally where you can actually arcuately judge if it’s a healthy place?

Joy: So I think just going into this season is just to be mindful of that and to remind yourself that you don’t have to change your body if that’s a goal of yours. We can’t police the internet. As much as I want to say, please just don’t feed into the diet culture, but move your body if it feels good. My rule of thumb every morning when I wake up is, what do I feel like doing? If I feel like doing nothing, I do nothing. If I feel like moving, I move. And there’s no “you should.” There’s no schedule. Every once in a blue moon, I think about running a race again. And I don’t have rules around that either. I just think, that might be fun, but I’m not sure if It’s the best for my body. I think back to what happened with Graves’. You know, so I think these are all thoughts that I still have. I don’t feel negative about it, and I don’t feel the “shoulds” around it, and I think that’s what’s the difference between the old me and the new me.

Claire: Something you said there too about waking up and asking your body what does it need, it also reminded me of the question we get a lot about people who are starting intuitive eating, which is if I’m going to intuitive eat, then that just means I’m going to eat a whole cake every day. For some people if you were to say, only exercise if you feel like it, they’d be like then I’m never going to leave the couch. Sometimes that’s how I feel. If I waited to want to exercise, I would never exercise. But then if I’m honest with myself, I do feel my best when I’m get movement. So how do I reconcile those two beliefs? The way that I reconcile them is realizing that actually if it was up to me, I would want to move my body. Maybe it wouldn’t be to do a yoga class on an app or something. But I would want to move. My preferred types of movement are not always available to me because they’re logistically intensive to get out of the house and go hiking or whatever. So what can I do in place of that that is in my garage that might not be my first choice but still accomplishes that goal? I think for me I struggle a lot more with that mindset than I do with any type of mindset around food. Yeah, it’s definitely just a conversation that I have with myself constantly.

Joy: I think we can all relate to that. Okay, so let’s just be our assignment for this community is for everybody to send us your thoughts and feelings about maybe stuff that’s coming up around the holiday season that we can all start this dialogue together. It doesn’t have to be black or white, and if you’re struggling with something around diet culture, or if you’re like, yeah, I’m really struggling because I do want to lose weight, or I want to gain weight, or I want to change the look of my body. I think it’s just something that we want to talk more about because we don’t want to make it like this taboo subject because I think it’s nuanced and it’s different for every single person and every single body. I’d love to hear from what everyone is either struggling with or dealing with. Maybe it’s not even a struggle, just something that you’re kind of going through. Or maybe something comes up for you around the holidays that you want to tackle. Let’s talk about it.

Claire: I feel like that’s kind of the end of our time.

Joy: We’re leaving with an open-ended question.

Claire: We are.

Joy: So you can email us.

Claire: Email us as an assignment. If you so choose. Should you choose to accept it, your mission is to email us with your thoughts about that question. Alright guys, thank you for joining us again for another week of This is Joy and Claire. Don’t forget, you can listen to either of our other two podcasts, Girls Gone WOD, which is focused on health and fitness with a lot of interviews with amazing people with different expertise. Different experts from around the fitness world. And On Your Marks, Get Set, Bake! which is our weekly podcast following along with The Great British Baking Show. This week, I’m supposedly going to make a baclava. So we’ll see how that goes. Please don’t forget to support our sponsor, Ned, helloned.com. Discount code is JOY. Thank you to Ned and thank you to you guys for supporting the brands that support our podcast. Follow us on Instagram @joyandclaire_. Don’t forget to tag us in your Instagram stories. That is a super easy, really impactful way to get our name out there and help us continue to grow this community, continue to grow this podcast, continue to do what we love. Just get onto Instagram stories, write a little note about what you liked about this episode, tag us so that we can repost it, and that is super helpful. So that is another way that you can help us out. Thank you guys so much, and we’ll talk to you next week.

Joy: Have a good one. Bye, guys.

Claire: Bye.

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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.