podcast

Claire: I know. It is jarring though when you are like so you someone’s voice – that happens with NPR hosts all the time. And then you see them in real life and you’re like, huh, that’s not what I was expecting. And then sometimes you see them in real life, and they’re exactly like who you were expecting. Like Ira Glass, for example, who you’re like, yeah,

Joy: That tracks.

Claire: Yeah, that’s correct.

Joy: But I did that with the Ronna and Beverly show. This was a podcast, I listened to way back, probably 10-12 years ago when podcasts were really new. They had a show and there were these like two amazingly hilarious Jewish mothers, comedians, and they’re so funny. They’re so funny. If you ever have a chance, go back and listen to them, they’re worth it. But they have two very distinct voices. One is like very high in chipper and one’s like, really low and gravelly. Had them mixed up the whole time. So when I saw them on a video, it completely threw me off. I was like, no, this is so weird. Anyway, I am Joy. That is Claire. Thank you for hanging with us for another week of the podcast. This is the week of August 25th. And as of the release of this episode, you will be mere moments from your trip. Have you decided? The question of the week.

Claire: I know. I am going to rent a board.

Joy: All right.

Claire: It’s like $100 to rent one. They won’t tell you online exactly how much it’s going to cost to check your oversized bag, it says it could be up to $400. And because the surf bag is within inches of the limit. Although it’s not that heavy, the size is so big. Like I think it can go up to I want to say it’s 110 inches, which is like nine feet and change and my board bag is eight and a half feet.

Joy: It’s risky. It’s risky.

Claire: Yeah. Just everything, all the considerations. It’s 100 euro, which is, you know, since the Euros down, it’s 100 bucks to rent the board for the whole freaking week and have somebody else deal with transporting it. So now all I have to worry about is I don’t think I’m going to check a bag. Although my wetsuit is really thick.

Joy: I was going to say, isn’t that thick and heavy?

C It’s thick and heavy, and it would take up a half a carry on.

Joy: What’s the weather going to be like, while you’re there?

Claire: Yeah, great question. Do you do this? And I hope that other people who are listening to this where when you know that you have a trip coming up, you add that city to your weather app?

Joy: Oh, yeah.

Claire: So I had it added to my weather app for a couple of weeks. And it’s like mid 60s to low 70s and a mix of sun and rain.

Joy: Okay.

Claire: So it’s going to be cool and probably a little bit wet. It’s funny because in Colorado, which is the only place I’ve really ever lived other than Utah, which is even more dry than this, we don’t get rain. There’s no such thing as casual rain in Colorado. Maybe at most two days a year do we get what most people would consider just like a rainstorm. Not even a storm, just some rain. We do get storms – we get thunderstorms, but they’re very short lived. And you know, they’ll go they’ll blow through and maybe it’ll rain for 10,15,20 minutes, and then it’ll be done. That’s all you get for the day. But rarely do we get just like a rainy day. We just had one this week. And it was on Tuesday, and it like kind of rained on off all day. I’m not exaggerating when I say we maybe have one or two of those days a year.

Joy: A year. Yeah.

Claire: Where it’s cloudy all day. Or a mix of cloudy all day and raining, not raining, raining, not raining. Very uncommon. And so when it was doing that, I was like, oh, I’m going to get to Ireland and get to tell everyone like we just had our one rainy day a year where I live.

Joy: You’re like, I’m acclimated.

Claire: Exactly.

Joy: I’m ready for it.

Claire: And like nobody in Colorado owns a rain jacket. Or if you do you, only wear it once a year.

Joy: Totally. I remember when we would have afternoon rainstorms in Colorado, whatever like a handful of years ago when like we actually had afternoon rainstorms and now it doesn’t do it anymore, but we’d go to Red Rocks for concerts, and it was always so like touch and go with rain. So that’s the only time I’d really use like my raincoat.

Claire: Yeah, like no one owns umbrellas. There’s just no need. If it’s raining and you have to go somewhere you just wait in your car until the rain stops. I always talk about how I wish I lived in a cooler climate, but the reality is that I can’t move anywhere else because I can’t handle anything less than like 330 days a year of sun.

Joy: So someone did write you on –

Claire: Yes. Someone from Ireland –

Joy: Not Ireland, but LA. She’s like, I am an avid surfer. She’s an LA surfer.

Claire: Oh, I was thinking about the person that emailed us from Ireland.

Joy: No, we just got this email from someone that said, she travels a lot and has never checked her own board. There’s so many things that can go wrong. They could break it in transit, gets lost, whatever, whatever. So they just say rent it and call it a day. So there you go.

Claire: I agree. And that’s the recommendation I would give anyone about skis, and skis are way easier to travel with because there’s so much lighter and smaller. I’ve never flown with my skis. So I get it. And I completely agree. It was really more just like the sunk effort that I’d already put into it. And also the fact that I previously was told that renting a board – even the woman who I first talked to who had told me to reach out to this rental place, I had emailed them, and they never emailed me back. And it’s the same rental place we’re getting them from, but they’re like arranging it locally.

Joy: Right.

Claire: Anyway, whatever. A lot of people also messaged us and were like, you need to tell the surf company what happened. And like, yeah, I will continue to express my frustration with how that went down. But at the same time, they didn’t force me to buy a surfboard, I am renting one. I will be leaving on Saturday. I am very excited. And I am nervous, because I think I’m always nervous about trips like this. But I am especially nervous because – my Mexico trip I was nervous but it’s explicitly said this is a trip for all levels. You can be a brand-new beginner and come out. This trip is specifically like, we do not want brand new beginners. You have to be able to catch your own waves.

Joy: You actually email them you’re like, hey, is my skill level good enough for this trip?

Claire: Right. And they’re like, yeah, of course. And I’m like, are you sure? And so I really am feeling worried that I’m going to get there and they’re going to be like, oh, yeah, actually, maybe you should sit this one out. But if I get there and I can’t surf – and it probably would just be more like, if I’m uncomfortable. If there’s a swell or something, if I’m uncomfortable, I’m still going to be at the beach in Ireland.

Joy: Yeah, it’s going to be a win win, no matter what,

Claire: It’s going to be a win win. And it’s similar to my Mexico trip too where there’s like a lot of other activities. I don’t get what it is with surf retreats and sound baths. Like everyone I see, it’s like we’re going to do a sound bath.

Joy: It just goes hand in hand.

Claire: I mean, everyone here knows I am very onboard for any activity that basically just requires me to lay on the floor. So in that sense, very excited.

Joy: I’ll just prepare for a nap. I’m good.

Claire: There’s also a seaweed bath. Two types of baths. Sound bath and a seaweed bath where there’s basically there’s like a seaweed spa that you go to and they just wrap you up and seaweed. So that sounds nice. Looking forward to not being the palest person there or at least being like on par with the paleness.

Joy: Really, let’s be honest, this is like a dream trip for you.

Claire: It really is.

Joy: In all aspects.

Claire: It is. And that’s like why also I am pushing myself to take it even though I know that my skill level is like right at the bottom of where it should be. Because I’m like, when am I going to have a chance to do something like this again? I’m excited. I’m excited to tell you guys about it. And we have had some questions about we had sort of said we might do a surf trip for Joy and Claire. We’re still in the process of kind of feeling that out and seeing what might be able to happen. I think the biggest restriction that we would run into would be the trip size. When I went on that trip, it was only seven people. And so I think we’re going to need to figure out if that’s something that we, you know, between Joy and I, do we really only really want to do a trip we’re only like five or six additional people can come? And on one hand that does make it really manageable and really like – I mean intimate is not really the right word. But you get to spend a lot of time with each other. Like when we did our Costa Rica trip, I want to say it was 12 people and we did Iceland, I want to say it was like 14 or 15. I can’t quite imagine a trip based on an activity like surfing with that many people, but I could be wrong. So we’ll see. So TBD. We’re still we’re talking to the potential trip organizer still and seeing what our options would be. If it does happen. I imagine that we will be looking at like sometime April, May or June of 2023.

Joy: And on that same note, are we just going to make that like our 10-year anniversary party? Because what if people can’t go on like a trip trip?

Claire: I think we’re going to have to do both. We’ll have to do like something local also, at the Alamo again.

Joy: That was so fun. I would do that again in a heartbeat. That was so great.

Claire: I was at work and some colleagues they were talking about just going to the movies and how like, oh, it’s been so long since I’ve been in the movies. And the Alamo came up and was like, oh, I did this party once where we rented out the Alamo and I was like 39 weeks pregnant.

Joy: Such a good memory. I just remember the venue was perfect like the staff was perfect. Everybody got to have some food and watch Mean Girls. The Ned guys stopped by. That was the first time we met them. I was really shocked by how handsome they were. Not that I didn’t think they were. But in person, I was like, whoa, this is too much to handle for our party. I need a moment. No, they’re, they’re great. And so maybe Ned will also show up for our 10-year anniversary party. Because that was what our 300th episode My goodness.

Claire: Yeah.

Joy: Yeah. So we’re going to have to keep planning for that. And then maybe a surf trip with everybody too. We got to get back on that. I really miss our podcast trips. Truly some of the best memories ever.

Claire: Truly, I know. I actually got a text from Megan and Joelle last week. They went on a road trip and they were listening to the Iceland episode of the Camp TimeOut episode. Actually now that I’m saying that, I don’t think I ever texted her back.

Joy: [laughing] I hate when I do that, when I forget to text people. Do you ever do that? Or you write a text and you never send it? You’re like, oh, sorry.

Claire: Yeah, I do this with emails unfortunately too. A lot, where someone will write me an email like, hey, I have this question. And I’ll think to myself, oh, I need to ask someone else. Like, Oh, that reminds me, I have been needing to follow up on a similar question with someone else. And so then I’ll go follow up on that question from the other person and forget about the initial email. And then they’ll email me back like a week later and be like, hey, I’m just checking in on this. I’m like, crap, oh, well.

Joy: Just don’t write an email and say, “I’m just putting this at the top of your inbox,” because that’s a big pet peeve of mine.

Claire: Oh, I do that.

Joy: Okay. At work maybe. But we always get them for the podcast from sponsor people that want us to promote their stuff. They’re like, just throwing this at the top. I’m like, if you’re a spammy sponsor person, I don’t want you at the top of my email inbox.

Claire: I know. I get that a lot at work because I guess, maybe, I must be easy to find on LinkedIn or something. People always are emailing me. I get probably like 10 cold emails a day from salespeople. Like, first of all, why are you cold emailing me? Does that work? To be fair, I don’t have a work phone. They are always like replying, replying, replying. Like listen, if I didn’t get if I didn’t respond to your first four emails, what makes you think I’m going to respond now to this? Like, “Hey, how’s your engagement TikTok?” I’m like, guys, we don’t even have a TikTok account. Why are you emailing me? Did you even look at title look us up on TikTok first? It’s similar to when we get sponsors, and they’re like, “Hey, Joy” or they just write, “Hey guys.” Or “Hey, girls gone wild.” That’s my favorite. People constantly will be emailing us like, “Hey, girl gone wild.” If you think you’re emailing Girls Gone Wild, I am sorely disappointed to tell you that our email address is not girlsgonewild@gmail.com. Anyway, okay. So a couple weeks ago – so just to give you a little insight into our world, we are trying to pre-record a couple of episodes because I’m going to be gone. And then the following week is Labor Day. And I’m not getting back to like kind of halfway through the week. And so we’re pre-recording a couple episodes. We’re going to also have an episode come out with Laura Ligos, our favorite dietitian. So this episode, we are going to go back and answer a bunch of the questions that you guys asked on Instagram last week, just so that we don’t get too sick of talking to each other. And you don’t get too sick of us just like rambling about our lives. But first of all, I want to tell you guys that Miles’ first day of first grade was this week.

Joy: That’s so exciting.

Claire: And he is so funny already. He’s six and a half years old, and he wants nothing to do with me. We go to drop him off, Brandon and I both. Brandon got the morning off specifically so we could take him. And we got there and like, all the other kids are like taking pictures with their families. Some kids are crying. My child is running laps around the playground.

Joy: Just like at home.

Claire: Whose kid is this? And every once in a while, he’d kind of check in and be like, “Hey, is it time yet?” I’d be like, “No.” And he’d be like, “Okay,” and just go off and run another lap.

Joy: Oh my god. That’s amazing. I was really excited to start school to start first grade because I wanted homework. I felt like such – I know. I remember the first day of first grade coming home. We’re like playing with the kids in the front yard. My neighbor was like, “How was your first day?” And I was like, “I’ve got to go, I have to go do my homework.” And I felt like such an adult. I just remember saying that to her. I was like, “I have to go inside, and I have to do my homework.” Like, it was like the epitome of adult.

Claire: That clearly is like a core memory because you were six.

Joy: Totally. And no one could tell me that that happened because I was the only one there.

Claire: Maybe you just dreamed it. That’s so funny. Miles is definitely a fan of homework, which checks out. I think fewer and fewer teachers are giving a lot of homework these days, especially in elementary school. Like really is there a reason? Looking back on my adolescence, I don’t feel like I ever gained anything from homework. The only homework that I feel like you can really justify is having kids read something at home so you can come to school and talk about it the next day. A because everybody reads at very different paces. And it’s hard. I mean, it takes a long time to read. So expecting everyone to sit there for 30 minutes and then read and then talk about it would be hard to do if you only have like 40 minutes of class. But when I think about like math homework, or even research projects, I just don’t really feel like I ever got a whole lot out of doing it at home. But you know, who knows? Maybe I’m missing the point. I mean, I will say, it’s not like homework prepared me for my professional life because I do everything in my power to not work at home, or like outside of work hours. So you can be like, school is preparing you for the real world. Like, yeah, guess what? If you graduate from school and have it normalized that you have to go home and still do three more hours work? Like maybe that’s why we’re in the predicament that we are today, with people experiencing wild burnout.

Joy: Oh, that’s so funny. That’s so funny.

Claire: Yeah, But happy first day of first grade, Miles. And then he came home on the second day and he was like, “Mom, I don’t want to go to school. It’s so boring.” Like dude, it’s day two.

Joy: You got to lock it up, man. You got to lock it up.

Claire: A little bit of a better attitude here because I am not having this conversation with you for the next eight months.

Joy: Yeah, yeah, you’re like, let’s get going. Well, okay. Well, congratulations.

Claire: And then Evie starts preschool. I think already give us update. Evie starts preschool the week after Labor Day, and Maxine is going to go work for a new family, which is really sad. And also, it’s the right thing at the right time. But I really don’t know what we’re going to do without her. Keep us in your thoughts as we navigate our lives without as much childcare support as we’ve had. Okay, so we’re going to get to some questions. But first, let’s take a quick break, rave and sing the praises of our sponsor, Ned. Ned, the makers of our favorite CBD products, I love their Daily Blend. I use the 750-milligram concentration Daily Blend. And I also love their Mello Magnesium drink mix. I love the Meyer lemon. It’s really such a part of my nightly routine these days that I’m taking it with me in Ireland. That’s as much as I rely on it. I travel with it. Now that I’m thinking about it, I got to make sure that things are under three ounces.

Joy: Yeah, be careful. But I’m very excited to announce that they have a new product out. As of the release of this episode. It’s called the Brain Blend, and I got to try it out. And it’s like, one of those things again, you don’t know how you’re going to feel after you take something new. Like the second I took it that day, I already felt like, Oh, I feel like I’m really just locked into what I’m supposed to be doing. Like my focus felt really good. I’m not saying it’s going to work for everybody. But it was a little bit of a coincidence. And then day two, I was like, this is actually working. So the new Brain Blend is another one that I am a huge fan of. I feel like they can’t do anything wrong. I feel like every product of theirs is just top notch because they are.

Claire: Also I just saw that they were named on the Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Private Companies list. They are number 364. So that’s exciting for them. I think it also goes to show that there’s a lot of confidence in their products. And you know, you can look back and be like I remember Ned back in the day. I knew them when. Try out Ned. Try out the new Brain Blend. You can get 15% off your order with discount code JOY or go to helloned.com/JOY. That’s helloned.com/JOY or use discount code JOY. And also don’t forget that they have a 30-day money back guarantee on your first order. So if you’ve been waiting for the right product to try, try out the brain blend and let us know what you think. And if you didn’t love it, then you can return it for free and get your money back.

Joy: I’m pretty sure you’re going to love it.

Claire: Thank you guys for supporting the brands that support our podcast. Joy. You got some questions for us?

Joy: I do have some questions. Well, we had someone asked about the progress of the Joy and Claire surf trip, but we already addressed that. So that one’s done. Tips on reaching more people with a podcast? Yes.

Claire: Oh, this reminds me. Somebody sent us a DM and said their daughter wants to start a podcast and they want to know what to get started. I think I need to just make an Instagram highlight about this finally, because we’ve been getting this question for years. And I need to look into how things have changed. The number one thing that we try to promote to people or encourage people with is that starting a podcast is actually so easy. There’s very little that you actually need to have. Really all you need is a computer that can connect to the internet. That’s really it. Headphones are great. Not necessary. A microphone is great, but not necessary. You can use your Apple air…

Joy: Yeah, Apple, the plugin one. Anything that is like wireless is not great for podcasting, because you’re always going to have the shorting out thing. But the Apple earbuds that plug in are really great. If you’re a guest on a podcast, those are great. Please do not use the wireless ones.

Claire: And it’s so easy to get your feed published. So I’ll put up some Instagram stories about that for anybody who’s ever thought to themselves, man, I’d really like to try a podcast but there’s just so much work that needs to go into it. It’s just really not true. You know, based on the fact you can just demonstrate it by how Joy and I have been able to do this every week for the last almost, you know, 9.5 years.

Joy: Yeah, we don’t have a professional studio. We just have little home studio.

Claire: It’s just us. We don’t have a team.

Joy: We do not have an assistant. Tips on reaching more people, I would say that if you can, try to get on other people’s podcasts or get people on your podcast. The more that you kind of do that give and take, what you put out comes back to you. I think the people that you invite onto your podcast, as long as you have a genuine interest in what they’re doing. I think that really shows. So I would say that’s number one. And then there are some things that you can read about. Claire, you can probably talk about this more than I could but just like keywords that you put in your title. You can actually Google some things about like, what do I need to put in my podcast title that’s going to draw more people. So there’s little tricks that you can do like that. But I also think that it takes time and patience if you’re if you’re newer to just build up your audience. Staying consistent is really important. Podcasts are a dime a dozen and a lot of them fizzle out really quickly. So if you are going to do a weekly show, and you start doing it every three weeks, people are going to be like, “Yeah, well, this isn’t going to show up on my feed.” So people need to know what to expect. They need to know what they’re coming in for. If you’re just going to do a series or if you’re going to do a weekly podcast, just be very clear about what you’re going to be doing. Those will be my top tips. There’s a ton more but for the sake of time,

Claire: Definitely the number one thing to do is to go on other people’s podcasts who have a similar audience to you. And then also invite them onto your podcast and have that cross pollination. Sometimes you can even ask if you can repost the episode that you record with them on your feed and vice versa. And then you get two episodes in one bang, I would say in terms of specifically speaking to your title and your cover art, make sure that it really is something where you can look at it right away and first of all, read it. And second of all, that it’s not too niche that you can read it and kind of know what you’re getting without having to dig too much further. Like imagine that if you’re scrolling through an entire category on iTunes, what’s a title that would jump out to you. It can feel boring to name your podcast, something like “How to Trail Run for Beginners,” or “Women with Tattoos Talking About Coffee.” But if you get like too punny, then people aren’t going to understand it. You know, don’t be afraid to just name it like “Two Friends Talking About Birds.” Like it doesn’t need to be too crazy, or too cutesy. And I think the other big thing that you can do is from purely an organic search standpoint of people, you know, Googling like “women’s podcasts about birds,” is transcribe your episodes and put the transcriptions on your website. And what that does is it creates a ton of text for Google to search through on your site. So that if people are searching for certain terms, and those terms are coming up regularly in your episodes, then that makes it that much easier for Google to find your site. So that’s just like a little SEO tip.

Joy: Speaking of birds, someone messaged us and was like, “The birds aren’t real conspiracy. The guy was in on it.” And I forgot to mention that. I do know that.

Claire: I listened to that too.

Joy: Yeah, I listened to some – maybe it was The Daily or maybe it was the Rabbit Hole podcast, or whatever.

Claire: I think it was the Armchair Expert, wasn’t it?

Joy: Yes, that’s right. The Armchair Expert. There was an episode. He’s been on a few but he basically created it just to kind of make fun of all the conspiracy theories out there. So all right, next question is have either of you tried pickleball? If you haven’t heard, pickleball is the new CrossFit. Okay, so I, I had a couple of clients, oh gosh, 10 years ago that were really into pickleball. They were like senior years, and they loved pickleball, so I’ve known about it for a really long time, but apparently, it’s becoming like the coolest thing for young people to do.

Claire: It is.

Joy: And it’s really funny to see.

Claire: Like, Lululemon has a pickleball campaign.

Joy: It’s so funny that that’s becoming a thing. I mean, good for them. Great, but I mean –

Claire: It’s super fun.

Joy: I have never tried it.

Claire: I’m not like a ball sports person. I’m not a team sports person.

Joy: I don’t like balls flying at my nose.

Claire: I need to avoid situations where balls fly at my nose. But it is so hot right now. And it’s so funny because I actually just today, like in this like DM group, I guess, with a bunch of women from Longmont –

Joy: Your WhatsApp? Oh, a different one. Okay.

Claire: Yeah, a different one with a bunch of women in Longmont. And it’s a couple entrepreneurs in the area that I know added me to this group. And somebody just today was like, “Does anybody want to learn to play pickleball? I really want to learn but I need some friends to try it with.” And then a couple of people in my office, one in particular, is so obsessed with it. And any time we have any sort of team outing, she’s like, “Well, we play pickleball.” So I haven’t tried it. I am not a big ball sports person. I’ve heard it’s super, super fun. I know Brene Brown is really into it.

Joy: Oh yeah, she does that and swimming. I mean, I only know that because I listen to her podcast religiously. But yeah, I’d be open to trying it. I used to just go to do like a racquetball… what is it called back in the Rec Center when I was in college? I would just go to like the racquetball courts and just hit a ball back and forth. But that was more because I was like really obsessed with exercise and I needed more things to do. So I would just like literally go hit a racquetball. But that was just because I was like, oh, I’m already done with running for an hour and a half and then weightlifting for another hour and a half, what else can I do? So that was not a great time in my life.

Claire: It might have primed you to be great at pickleball.

Joy: I’m sure that’s the reason. Puppy raising. New puppy on its way. Crate train. Pee breaks at night. So excited. Oh, congratulations for if you’re getting a puppy that’s really fun, and also exhausting. Really quick. I’m happy to answer questions. If you email me to me too. Maybe I should do a highlight on this as well. Like the must haves for puppy raising. But really quick, maybe top five. Definitely crate train. Definitely, definitely, definitely crate train. I am a huge fan of the snuggle puppy, which is a little soft, stuffed animal toy. You can do any stuffed animals, but just make sure the dogs are not chewing it. Because that can really cause a very big vet bill. But usually puppies, their mouth is so small and their teeth aren’t really like – I mean, they’re razors but they can’t really shred up a toy yet. But they love stuffed animals because it feels like their pack. It feels like there’s another dog in the crate with them.

Claire: And the snuggle puppy has a little heartbeat.

Joy: Yeah, it has a heartbeat. It has a battery-operated little heartbeat thing that you can turn on. But again, I always caution. Just make sure the dog isn’t eating it. You don’t want them to eat the battery.

Claire: River ate it.

Joy: Yeah. So those are the things that I –

Claire: We’re not surprised.

Joy: Yeah. That we keep an eye on because so far the puppies I’ve raised have not tried that. But CCI is always like lecturing us, as they should be very careful if you use that. Like, you better be on it. Like very, very cautious. The other quick tip about crate training is if the puppy is really crying at night the first few nights, put the crate right next to your bed because they just need to know that they’re not alone. And it really helps them feel like, when they’re away from their pack for the first few nights, that’s just really upsetting to them. They’re little babies, and they just really miss their friends and their brothers and sisters. So you just put the crate right next to your bed and that really helps. And then I also play the puppy calm station when they’re babies just to kind of get them used to getting settled in their crate if they have issues with their crate. Taking them to pee every couple hours. Puppies have very small bladders. So in the middle of the night, we would just wake up when we kind of heard them rustling. And you have to physically pick them up to go outside. Because if you just open the crate, they’re going to pee everywhere. Carrying them to go outside, putting them in the grass or the yard or whatever and letting them pee gets them used to going like knowing where they’re supposed to go to the bathroom. But yeah, toilet training is just patience because you have to get them use do you. I always err on the side of like taking them out as much as possible. Because you just want to catch them going to the bathroom. You want to kind of predict when they’re going to go to the bathroom and take them out before they go in your house. But accidents do happen. I mean, Joe, pooped and peed in our house a few times because he was like, “Yeah, this is where I go.”

Claire: Yeah, when we first got River, the first like four or five nights, we set a timer to go off every three hours to let her out. And I had like a little bit of a painful flashback about doing that to breastfeed. Because it’s pretty much the exact same thing. You’re supposed to do it for the first like couple days after you have a baby where it’s like, you know, set a timer and make sure you’re offering to feed them every couple hours. But it did really set us up for success in the long run, because it also helped us get used to knowing how long is too long. Or if you can get out in front of it, then you get a better sense sooner of like, how much can you really push it.

Joy: Right. And crate training really does help with potty training. It teaches them how to go outside more quicker. The other thing I’ll say about crate training is that for puppies, if you’re if you have a large crate, something that’s like way bigger, they should just be able to kind of turn around and lay down. It shouldn’t be very, very large when they’re little babies. That will prevent them from going to the bathroom in the crate because they don’t really like to pee and poop where they sleep. So naturally they’re going to whine and cry to be let out if you have a smaller crate. So what we have is we have this adjustable crate where we can put like a barrier to where when they’re little babies, it just kind of makes the crate super small. And then we take the barrier out and it’s a bigger, larger crate when they’re older. So those are that’s nice to have. It’s like an adjustable crate where you can adjust it as they grow and then they’re less likely to go poop or pee in the crate because of that, because it’s too small for them. And then they’ll whine and cry and let you know when they need to be let out. out. We do love this toy called the bacon keys. If you just Google “bacon keys,” that’s really good for puppies because it’s soft enough on their teeth. You really want to be careful with toys on little babies because you don’t want their teeth breaking. If you give them something too hard, it can break their baby teeth. And you might think, Oh, well, it’s their baby teeth. No, it can cause like major damage to their adult teeth too if they break their baby teeth. So everything has to be pretty soft. Don’t give them anything really hard. Just be careful on anything that they could ingest. Take everything off the floor. They will eat everything. And I mean everything. So the other thing that we do when we’re training puppies is we give them really, really soft training treats, so you never give them kibble. Most of the time we train the dogs with just some kibble out of their breakfast or dinner, but puppies can choke very easily. So you want to use very soft treats and maybe soak their kibble in water. Okay, those are like the top tips, but always happy to answer more if you want to email us. Next one, you’re going to laugh. Who is on your current laminated list? Five people. This is my friend Gary. I knew he was going to ask this. This is a total Gary question. Hi Gary.

Claire: What’s a laminated list?

Joy: Like people that you could hook up with, like free passes.

Claire: Oh, that’s not what I thought that meant. Like, who’s like your hall pass?

Joy: Yeah, like Ross and Rachel. Wasn’t it on Friends when they had like their laminated lists?

Claire: I am not a Friends person.

Joy: Okay.

Claire: I mean, I like watched it, but I don’t know it that well.

Joy: So they had laminated lists.

Claire: That’s a lot.

Joy: That is a lot. Right now. I have four or maybe three. Just like off the top of my head. But it’s really hard to think of… Like my first one, because we talked about Paul Rudd last week, I was like Paul Rudd for sure would be up there.

Claire: We were just talking about Chris Pine a couple weeks ago, and he’s definitely on my list.

Joy: Yeah, I think possibly Jon Hamm. I’m a huge Jon Hamm fan.

Claire: I mostly love him in that season of 30 Rock.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: He’s like so hot and dumb.

Joy: Rob Lowe. I just want to go with like the hot dumb characters.

Claire: Hot dumb guys.

Joy: Yeah. When he’s Chris Traeger. Oh my God.

Claire: My friend Heather always calls River a hot dummy.

Joy: Yeah, hot dummy.

Claire: She is a hot dummy. Let’s see who else…

Joy: Ethan Hawke would be one of mine. I’m Googling actors, which is so funny because I’m like, why am I not looking –

Claire: You’re just Googling actors?

Joy: Yeah, I’m Googling actors around 40 because I don’t want it to get like weird.

Claire: I mean, Ryan Gosling is definitely on my list. Yeah, he’s been on there for a long time.

Joy: Yeah. Did you have like crushes when you’re a kid for movie stars?

Claire: Oh, yeah. And you know, that actually brings up a great point. Leonardo di Caprio. Definitely.

Joy: Leo.

Claire: Leo. Leo and Justin Timberlake were my first celebrity crushes. To this day, if JT walked up behind me right now. I’d be like, “This call is over.”

Joy: The podcast is over forever and ever.

Claire: We’re sorry guys.

Joy: I think one of my first crushes movie star crushes was Elliot from ET.

Claire: [laughing] He was like this sickly weird little boy.

Joy: Yeah, but I was the same age as him. And then the other thing was the boy on Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. The boyfriend.

Claire: Oh, what about the boy from Hocus Pocus?

Joy: I don’t remember him.

Claire: Old timey. What was his name? He was like supposed to be a ghost. So many people are yelling the name.

Joy: Oh, Max Dennison.

Claire: Am I thinking of Max?

Joy: Oh, oh, okay. Max Dennison was the character name. And then his name is Omri Katz.

Claire: No, no, I’m thinking of Thackery Binx.

Joy: He’s cute.

Claire: Really cute, right?

Joy: Yes. Yes. Yeah, but the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids guy was like dreamy. Because I was the same age as them when I was watching the movie. And so I just remember being like [gasp] when she was in the kitchen dancing and he was watching her. I was like, oh my God. This is like the best. It was so teen angsty.

Claire: Like what you want it to be.

Joy: Yeah, it was not too angsty. But just like teen heartthrob II. That’s like how it felt watching it.

Claire: Sexual awakening.

Joy: Totally sexual awakening. It was like, what was it, the Goblin King. Oh, I just dropped my glasses.

Claire: Joy is getting hot and bothered.

Joy: Whoever wrote and said the Goblin King was her sexual awakening makes me laugh. From the Labyrinth. Oh my god. You guys kill me. You guys are so funny. Okay, so I don’t know. I think those are my main ones. If I didn’t say Ethan Hawke, we’ll add him to the list.

Claire: You did.

Joy: I feel like there’s some athletes in there that I really am just not doing a good job.

Claire: Oh sure, yeah.

Joy: I’m not doing a good job. So maybe we’ll give it some thought.

Claire: Okay, we’ll come back.

Joy: That was just a rough draft. That was shitty first draft, as Brene would say. Joy, do you need to follow any food or lifestyle guidelines to keep your thyroid healthy? Thank you for asking. For those of you who may or may not know, I had Graves’ disease a couple years ago. I saw naturopath and we were able to kind of put that baby to bed. We put it in remission. As far as lifestyle, yes, I am keeping my exercise moderate. I’m not doing heavy, like high intensity CrossFit type stuff anymore. So I’m keeping my exercise to be like mild to moderate exercise. I get plenty of rest. I do follow the diet that she had me on which is eliminating some dairy and some other things. I still will eat dairy on occasion. Like the other day I went to Postino with my friends, and they have these fabulous cheese boards. I’m like, I’m going to have some cheese. But the reason I feel okay doing that is because overall my life is a completely different place. Like when I had Graves’ disease, I 1,000% know it was from the most intense toxic workplace ever. I know that’s what it was from. So all these other things we had to kind of put on like the high blast full speed treatment to get it to reverse. So now that I’m not as stressed, I know that that is a huge benefit to me, but I still don’t want to just kind of like do undo everything that I worked so hard to kind of balance out. And I do get my thyroid checked every six months, maybe three to six months, just to make sure the levels are fine. They’re still fine. I just had it rechecked. So as far as food or lifestyle, yeah, I do my best to keep going on what my naturopathic doctor taught me to do. And I’m super forever grateful for that. Do either of you use laundry or dishwasher detergent that is more earth friendly? I love Mrs. Meyers everything.

Claire: The biggest thing that I do to try to be earth friendly is buy refills and that’s something that you can do with a wide variety of brands. A lot of them will sell bulk options. It made me think about it when you said Mrs. Meyers. We have a few like huge gallon jugs of Mrs. Meyers hand soap that we just use to refill hands so containers in our house and that is something that is overlooked as a really accessible option. You don’t need to have biodegradable everything. You don’t have to necessarily use the like the tablets. There’s a lot of different ways of doing that out there. But that is one that is really accessible to a lot of people. If you have a bulk market in your town. Cleaning supplies are often one of the number one things that they sell because they’re super shelf stable. So look around. Longmont has one. Denver has a few. And see what types of bulk options are available for you to buy refills. And then also as a fun part of that you get to buy like cute ceramic or glass hand soap dispensers to you know make your house really cute.

Joy: Which I really appreciate. I feel like I notice that when people have cute soap dispensers at their house. Like this is really great.

Claire: Totally. However I will also say that kind of the number one tenant of going lower waste is like don’t throw out all your plastic and replace it with glass and whatever right off the bat. Use your plastic ones reuse them for as long as you can. And then once they get to the point where – you know there does come a time. They’re not designed to be reused and so you probably can only reuse them a handful of times. But don’t just like go trash all your plastic stuff. Also I will say I don’t always buy this but at like Whole Foods, Vitamin Cottage, I think you can definitely get them online. They have these dissolvable laundry detergent strips. They are often sold in biodegradable packaging. It’s basically a condensed version of laundry soap because you know a lot of what you’re doing with laundry soap is just water with laundry detergent but you’re pouring it into a vat full of water. So either use of powder which comes in a cardboard box that you can recycle the tide powder is great for that if you’re if you’re sensitive, right but if you’re a little bit a little bit more sensitive skin, or you know you’re sensitive to fragrances or whatever, there are some dissolvable laundry –

Joy: Like free of everything. Oh yeah.

Claire: They’re like these sheets. It’s almost like, imagine like a giant – gosh, what were those things called? Those breath mints strips?

Joy: Yeah. Like Listerine strips.

Claire: You guys remember the Lysol strips?

Joy: Listerine.

Claire: Listerine, Listerine. Not Lysol. Please don’t drink Lysol. Don’t put Lysol in your mouth. Listerine.

Joy: Trump is talking to you.

Claire: The QAnon van is outside. It’s basically an enormous version of that except it was made out of laundry detergent and you can put it in. I actually found them to be really effective and our laundry, I mean, we go through a lot of laundry. Our laundry loads are humongous, and our laundry is really stinky. Kids’ clothes get dirty in a way that adult clothes do not. They actually get spills and just dirt, like actual just dirt. I just look at the clothes and I’m like, what have you been doing? Were you rolling around in the ground all day long? And the answer is yes, yes, they were. So those are some good options.

Joy: Fantastic. All right. I love cleaning products and it’s like the time of year when like pretty soon the fall scents are coming out.

Claire: I know, your Trader Joe’s trip is coming up.

Joy: I’ve got to prepare. I’ve got to train for it.

Claire: You’ve got to make a reel about it. I hope you’re ready to make some content.

Joy: [singing] I’m ready to make you some content. Bo Burnham, anyone? Okay. Next vacations for each of you? Well, we know we’re Claire’s going. I don’t have vacation planned yet. But that’s not because – I was talking to you about this. We were talking about this last week about like, I don’t feel the need to take a lot of vacation right now. Because, A, puppy raising sometimes it’s just hard logistics. But I don’t feel like we need a vacation right now. Like we’re going to, we’re going to eventually go back to Hawaii, I’m sure. But we have nothing planned as of yet.

Claire: Yeah, I was going to ask if you’re going to Hawaii. This feels like this time of year you normally go you haven’t been able to go the last couple years.

Joy: We’ll probably go next year maybe. I don’t know. I think COVID just really kind of –

Claire: It’s hard with the dogs.

Joy: Yeah, it’s hard with the dogs and COVID just kind of like slowed everything down for us. And we just are like, We’re fine. We’re fine, guys. We’ll figure it out. Has there been anything positive that was a result from diet culture? Your face says it all. The fact that we paused for a long time –

Claire: I’m really trying to think about it. I mean, I don’t…

Joy: Well, here’s the thing. The positive thing from diet culture has brought all the bullshit to the surface. So sure, everything used to be kind of like, you know, we had – if you want to go listen to Maintenance Phase, they go through all the diets. It’s an amazing podcast if you want to go through the history of diets. But if you think about the 80s where everything was low fat, low calorie, fat free this, fat free that.

Claire: Right.

Joy: And so people started really following diets, I would say a little bit blindly, because I’m not sure what was really prevalent in the 60s and 70s. But I feel like at least on my radar, just because of the age that I was that I saw it on television. And then like 90s 2000s, I feel like the internet really brought to the surface that diet culture is BS. So sure, I think diet culture ran its course and now we can push against it. I know that’s a little bit of a non-answer. But that’s what I think

Claire: it’s hard to imagine reverse engineering diet culture out of our society. And so it’s hard to say like, oh, well, without diet culture, we wouldn’t have body positivity. I can’t say that for sure. Because the reality is that as long as there have been human societies, or at least that we know of, there have been preferences for different physical attributes.

Joy: Correct.

Claire: That really aren’t grounded in anything other than just the trends of the time. So it’s hard to say like, oh, well, if diet culture wasn’t around, then you know, there would be no fatphobia. We can’t necessarily say that to be true. Because who knows what would have taken the place, or who knows what other culture –

Joy: I mean, we can go down a long history of people, racism, classism.

Claire: Absolutely.

Joy: We could go down the long history.

Claire: That’s what I mean. You know, we definitely blame culture for a lot. But at the same time, diet culture was a symptom of a larger problem as well. It wasn’t necessarily the cause of all of this. And so it’s hard for me to say if diet culture was useless and we didn’t get anything out of it. Because I think in some ways it’s not bad to put a microscope over these different metabolic functions of the human body and learn what we’ve learned because of diet culture. I think the way that that information has been used has kind of like been used against us in a lot of ways. But that might be something I would say what’s positive about it is that we have a lot more information about the way that fat and carbs and protein and everything impacts our bodies that we probably wouldn’t have had without it. But I’ll have to think about that once more.

Joy: Yeah. Maybe we’ll talk about that with Sassy. That’d be a good Sassy question. PMD microdermabrasion review? So I got that tool that everyone thought was a vibrator.

Claire: Not a vibrator.

Joy: Not a vibrator. It is amazing. So it has this little – it’s the thing that sucks the dirt off your face, like when you go get a facial, Claire, and they use that little vacuum. It’s kind of like that. I will say there’s a learning curve like any tool of how to use it. So you do have to kind of like start chill, and then you can ramp it up. Because it has like levels of suckage. Feels really weird saying that. It feels great.

Claire: Still not talking about a vibrator

Joy: Definitely not, and it is great. I’m kind of obsessed with products on my face right now. So I’m using the Ordinary line, which you can get at the Ulta in Target. Which is another just dream the Ulta in Target, the Starbucks in Target. Like what else is target going to come up with? The Ordinary is a great brand for serums. I love their undereye. Caffeine produces puffy eyes. Anyway PMD. I will say I wouldn’t buy it full price. The fact that I got it like the Nordstrom sale $100 cheaper than the retail price. I would not pay $300 for it. $200? Sure, that’s like two facials worth.

Claire: Right.

Joy: But I’m going to have it for a while. I’ll get a lot of use out of it. But I wouldn’t pay $300 for it. So wait till it goes on sale again.

Claire: Black Friday or something

Joy: Exactly. Which is right around the corner.

Claire: You know I hate that phrase.

Joy: I know you do. What are Joy’s recommendations for high quality T shirts again? That is James Perse. Forever and ever favorite brand of clothing. But listen, guys and gals and people, do not buy it full price. You know my rule with anything, don’t buy it full price. You can get it on sale always a Nordstrom Rack. So I always just go the Nordstrom Rack website. And I searched James Perse. And I sort by newest. And I look through the things that have just arrived and I buy it in my size. They do have weird sizing. Their sizing is 1,2,3,4. So just look at their measurements. For reference, I’m a size three in their shirts. Large shoulders, and I like things a little bit baggier in their style. They last. I probably have shirts of theirs of that line that have been 10 plus years. They don’t fade, they don’t break apart. They last forever and ever. I wash my clothes all the time. They stand the test of time, except for white. White gets little pit stains, but you can get those out with bleach.

Claire: Yeah, that’s not their fault.

Joy: It really isn’t. All right.

Claire: Your dirty body is not their fault.

Claire: Just to weigh in on this. I really liked the Everlane boxy cut T shirts. If you’re a little bit more petite, they are a little bit cropped, but if you are a little petite then it’s kind of just like hits you right at the top of your hips, which is really a nice flattering cut with the high waisted jeans. Which also if you’re petite maybe you’re running into the problem that I’m having where like all the jeans have a 12-inch rise. And that is like to my diaphragm. I have multiple pairs of jeans right now that come up to above my ribcage.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: I was wearing a pair the other day and I like tried to take a picture. I was going to do reel. And I stood in from of the camera, and I was like, I look like half pants right now. My body is just half pants.

Joy: Just eating up half your body.

Claire: Did not make the reel. Because all I can see is this like 12-inch fly.

Joy: Oh, that’s so funny. Okay.

Claire: But Everlane.

Joy: Everlane. That’s good. I have one of their shirts too. Ideal birthday day? Do you have an ideal birthday day? You’d get up and go on a hike probably,

Claire: Um, ideal birthday day. Okay, so here’s my here’s my question. My follow up question. My birthday is at the end of November. And so my ideal day can’t really take place at the end of November. Because it’s normally like –

Joy: Well, would you fly somewhere? Where would you go?

Claire: Maybe, yeah. I mean, if we’re talking ideal ideal, I’d probably like get up go get on a private jet.

Joy: I was going to say I’m going to get on a private jet and go somewhere.

Claire: Yeah. And maybe I would at the strike of midnight, I got on our private jet, and I’d go either somewhere with like some really nice mountains or somewhere with the beach. I’m not picky. Either or. I’d eat some really good baked goods. Maybe I go to France and pick up a croissant. And then I would just like relax and hang out. And while I was gone, I would have someone like sanitize my house and clean all the things and do all the house projects that need to get done so that when I could come home, my house would be exactly the way I wanted it. Yeah, that sounds nice.

Joy: That sounds amazing. I would take a private jet to Los Angeles. And I’d drink juices all day and I’d shop you.

Claire: You would just sit in Erewhon.

Joy: I would sit in Erewhon and I would try every product. Every product is so –

Claire: Joy would just rent out Erewhon for yourself and any celebrities that want to come.

Joy: Any celebrities, you’re welcome to join. I would shop. I would go to all the stores in Hollywood and all the stores that Cupcakes and Cashmere goes to because they look adorable.

Claire: You basically like live your dream Southern California influencer birthday life. I like that.

Joy: I’d go to Mozza. You want to come with me? Come on over.

Claire: I will come back for that. I’ll come back from my birthday croissants to have some Nancy Silverton.

Joy: Alright. That’s lovely, lovely, lovely.

Claire: Alright, that really is it for today.

Joy: That’s it for today.

Claire: You can find us on Instagram at @joyandclaire_. You can find us online at joyandclaire.com. You can email us thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com. Don’t forget to support our sponsor, Ned. That’s helloned.com/JOY or use discount code JOY today for 15% off your order. Try out their new Brain Blend. You’re going to love it. And we will talk to you next week.

Joy: See you later.

Claire: Bye.

Joy: Bye.

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140: Conspiracy Theories

August 18, 2022 by Joy Parrish Leave a Comment

Popular conspiracy theories, Claire’s surfboard conundrum, update on Claire’s job and new house, and wonderful workplace appreciation.

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Girls Gone Wod

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This is Joy & Claire Episode 140: Conspiracy Theories

Episode Date: August 18, 2022

Transcription Completed: November 1, 2022

Audio Length: 48:17 minutes

Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy.

Claire: And this is Claire.

Joy: Hi.

Claire: Hey!

Joy: How you doing?

Claire: Hey girl, hey.

Joy: Hey girl, hey. Now I can’t get that song out of my head something. “Something so strong” from Crowded House. You probably don’t know Crowded House Yeah, we were just talking –

Claire: I don’t know if any idea what you’re talking right now.

Joy: Well we just did another podcast episode, which we’ll share when it comes out because I don’t think it’ll be out for another month when we’re releasing this episode, but we were talking a lot about music and bands and I was talking about when I got hit in the face with a drumstick by –

Claire: When you got punched in the face by Regina George.

Joy: Yeah, Liam Finn, who’s Neil Finn’s son. Neil Finn was in Crowded House. And then I have a Crowded House song in my head. So there you go. Full circle. You’re up to speed.

Claire: Welcome.

Joy: Awesome.

Claire: Welcome. Okay, two things.

Joy: What?

Claire: First thing, dear listeners, I need to tell you that I almost had a rage stroke this morning. Not even a rage stroke. Well, hear what happened and then decide. So everyone knows my surfboard conundrum right now. I have ordered not one but two surfboards.

Joy: Do they know? Oh, wait. Okay.

Claire: I own two surfboards, one of which is like this beautiful custom hand shaped board. The other one of which is like a foamy basically. And I’ve been kind of trying to say like, because the surf trip I had coming up in Ireland, the website was like, you got to bring your own board, you got to bring your own wetsuit, you got to bring your own stuff.

Joy: It’s like right around the corner too.

Claire: It’s in two weeks. Yeah, you’re on your own. So I purchased a surfboard for this. I looked into like renting boards in Ireland There’s not a lot of options. I looked at everything I could think of to not have to fly with a board. I had reached out and I was like and was pretty much told like, “Nope, you got to bring a board. Here the rental options, but they’re few and far between. Would really be easier if you brought your own.” So I purchased a board. I purchased an eight-and-a-half-foot board bag, which is literally the length of this entire room. Like I can’t even stand it up straight because my ceilings are eight and a half feet tall. And this morning we’re in this like – they made this WhatsApp group for everyone. And this morning. I get this message and the WhatsApp group from the organizers. It’s like, “If anyone needs to rent a board let us know.”

Joy: No. No. [laughing] Oh my God. Oh no. You have been stressing about this for months. Months. Like, it is probably the top thing that you stressed about.

Claire: When I tell you I was speechless at this message.

Joy: Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

Claire: You guys, hundreds upon hundreds of dollars have already been spent.

Joy: So much time and money.

Claire: The board bag itself was $400. Just the bag.

Joy: Oh my god. Oh my god. So when you originally asked, they were like, “No, you’re on your own.”

Claire: Yes. And then a different person – so the person I asked was like the coordinator of this entire, is like the owner of the local surf company that this has been contracted through. But then the person who this morning sent that message is like the coordinator for the retreat and is a little bit like closer to the organizer.

Joy: Sure.

Claire: So I think the person originally asked who was like the person we were supposed to sign up with, she was the contact. It wasn’t like I reached out to the wrong person. The information she was given was like, no, you have to bring your own board. It says on the website bring your own board. So now, here’s my conundrum. After what, I’ve been signed up for this for like what a month or two? After daily stress about how I’m going to get to Dublin. Not even get to Dublin. From Dublin to Sligo, which is like a three-hour drive, with an eight-foot board. After figuring all this out, after buying all the things. I had to buy fins. I had to buy a wax I had to buy leashes. I am fully equipped now living in Colorado with these surf boards where I will never have a reason to use them, where like I will never be able to use these without putting them on an airplane.

Joy: Right.

Claire: Do I just leave them here to be wall decor?

Joy: You can’t return them at this point?

Claire: No.

Joy: Is anything returnable?

Claire: I think the board bag maybe could be returnable. But the boxes are long gone, and these things are very hard to ship. Like, the act of returning it.

Joy: Sure.

Claire: I mean, who knows, maybe the board bag because I got it from backcountry.com and they’re pretty good about returns. But nonetheless. I might as well keep the board bag because I have to keep the boards. I live 1000 miles away from the nearest ocean.

Joy: Anyone want to buy a surfboard?

Claire: if you want to buy a surfboard, I have eight-and-a-half-foot board. It’s a hybrid soft top. So it’s not like a full on foamy, like you still like need to use wax with it, but it’s soft on the top. And then another one that’s like a full-on fiberglass board. Don’t ask me how I ended up with two. It’s a story that I’m not willing to recount

Joy: Okay.

Claire: I mean, it’s nothing like dramatic.

Joy: But you just don’t want to talk about it.

Claire: I just don’t want to talk about it.

Joy: You’re over it. Yeah. So now you –

Claire: Speechless. So now, do I? I mean, it’s not a no cost game to get these. It’s probably going to be a couple hundred bucks to check these bags.

Joy: Sure. Yeah.

Claire: And then once I’m there, transporting them, I have figured it out and have just been charging forward with blind optimism in my own ability to carry a nine-foot board bag. It has wheels.

Joy: Yeah, but still pretty big for a small human.

Joy: Yeah, not a big human over here. Nope. I am not. So do I just reach out and am like, “Hey, actually, yeah, I do want around a board.” Or do I stick to my guns and say like, no, I’ve come this far. I’m taking these GD boards to Ireland come hell or high water.

Joy: I mean, my first reaction is like, there’s no way I would want to travel with something like that.

Claire: No way.

Joy: Convenience over, you know. I would just –

Claire: What do I do with these freaking surfboards?

Joy: I’m sure there’s a place to sell them. People take the weirdest stuff in Colorado. You never know. Someone could be moving to California.

Claire: That’s true.

Joy: You never know.

Claire: If you’re listening to this and you’re like, I have been really wanting an eight-and-a-half-foot hybrid soft top fiberglass board. Or if you want my eight and a half foot custom fiberglass board that is this beautiful mint color, please email me.

Joy: You really never know.

Claire: thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com I have fins and wax and leashes, everything you need.

Joy: Fully outfitted and ready to go if you would like to go on your own surfing adventure and you need some gear.

Claire: And you need some gear. I’ll give it to you cheap. Yeah, just man. I’m speechless.

Joy: You’ve just put so much time and energy into the logistics of getting the surfboard there. And then you just get, I mean, this is like something I would love to know yesterday.

Claire: Exactly. Something else that could have been brought to my attention yesterday. Exactly. So again, I might just do it anyway. I have come this far.

Joy: Sure.

Claire: I will spend $400 to check these damn bags.

Joy: How much does it cost to rent, then?

Claire: I don’t know.

Joy: I would figure that out first.

Claire: It’s going to be cheaper to rent.

Joy: Yeah, then I would just rent it and not check the bags. Yeah.

Claire: Welcome to my Sunday morning.

Joy: Wowsies.

Claire: I know. It’s been an emotional roller coaster. Also, I have a question. And this question could go either way. Let’s take this in as lighthearted of a way as I could mean it, and you’ll see what I mean in a second. I was thinking about this the other day, I was driving down the road, and I was thinking about flat earthers, and it’s got me thinking.

Joy: Oh, don’t even call them flat. earthers. It’s like there’s othering – I’m kidding.

Claire: Yeah. Exactly.

Joy: Yeah, I just remember someone got mad because we were like, anti-vaxxers. And they’re like, “As if it’s just the others.” And I’m like, you kind of are.

Claire: I mean, I don’t know what to tell you.

Joy: You kind of are. I’m calling myself a vaxer.

Claire: Right. I’m a pro-vaxer.

Joy: I’m a pro-vaxer. Calm down, everybody, calm down.

Claire: It’s alright. I have anti-vaxxer friends, so I can say that.

Joy: Actually, let me let me stop you really quick before you move forward. Because I was talking with one of my good friends last night over text and she was saying like, “Oh, my husband doesn’t like this guy because he doesn’t call him a friend even though they’ve hung out a few times. He doesn’t call him a friend because he thought the election was stolen.” And she thought that was silly. And I go, “To be fair, I don’t think I’d be like – she’s like, “That’s kind of silly, isn’t it?” I was like, not really, not to make

Claire: I agree with that judgment call. I agree. Okay, so on that vein – and we’re already going down the wrong side of the road. So let’s back it up and take the other fork in the road. What are conspiracy theories that you kind of believe?

Joy: Oh, that I kind of believe?

Claire: Or that you fully believe. What conspiracy theories are you like, “Yeah, that could be true.” But like, let’s keep it lighthearted. Conspiracy theories, but don’t get weird.

Joy: Don’t get too weird. Well, can you give me some options that come to mind?

Claire: So my conspiracy theory, and this one is actually pretty dark, that I definitely could believe is that COVID was created in a lab. Not that it was like released on purpose by the US government but that like this is a virus that was created in a lab and like somebody didn’t change their shoes before they went home that night.

Joy: Okay.

Claire: That’s the conspiracy theory that I believe. That’s actually the main one. I’m trying to think of other conspiracy theories that I kind of believe.

Joy: Yeah, I will say okay, the one that comes to mind for me that Scott and I will joke about, and I think there’s a little bit of him that believes it, is that secret societies control the world.

Claire: Okay, I reposted me on this the other day. Like a tweet. They’re like, “Conspiracy theorists are so useless. They’re like, ‘five mega wealthy billionaires control everything,’ and it’s like, yeah, we know.”

Joy: I mean, it’s kind of true. I kind of believe that I do think there’s these underground meetings that happen. I don’t know where underground, but it’s in a basement. It has to be.

Claire: Remember the movie Richie Rich where they had like a lair inside Mount Rushmore?

Joy: Totally. Or what’s that movie? You know what I’m talking about. The bone something.

Claire: Austin Powers.

Joy: Yeah, sure, that one with a car that he can’t back up and he keeps backing up. I believe in that. I think that there’s something to that.

Claire: Do you think that the moon landing was real?

Joy: Yes, I agree. I do think the moon landing was real.

Claire: I just Googled mainstream conspiracy theories, and this is like top 30 conspiracies theories.

Joy: Oh.

Claire: Um, the Earth has been sucked into a black hole. I didn’t know this one. The European Organization for Nuclear Research is at the heart of a lot of crazy conspiracy theories, including the belief that when they discovered the Higgs Boson particle in 2012, it inadvertently created a black hole and Earth was sucked into it. These believers think the world ended in 2012, but we haven’t realized it yet. That would check out.

Joy: What do you think about UFOs and Area 51?

Claire: I don’t think I believe in Area 51.

Joy: Really? Okay.

Claire: Do you believe in like extraterrestrials as a genre?

Joy: I don’t know. But here’s the thing, I kind of believe in spirits. You know, I’ll see a ladybug and I’ll be like, “That’s my grandma.” So who’s to say?

Claire: If a ladybug can be your grandma? Why can’t aliens be real?

Joy: Exactly. So I can’t be too much of a hypocrite.

Claire: I definitely believe in aliens. I don’t know if I believe that they’re visiting us. Okay like, apart from whether or not aliens have ever made contact with humans, do you think there’s other life in the universe?

Joy: Yes. Because of those new pictures of the universe that just came out.

Claire: They’re like, oh my God.

Joy: Yeah. So it’s like, woah, we’re not alone. The X-Files is real. So yes, I think that there’s something to that. I’m going to stay open minded with that one.

Claire: Okay. Evie is in here again. Do you have the hi? She whispered, “Hi.” Can you hear here? Do you want to sing a song?

Joy: What’s your morning song? Do you sing songs in the morning? Or it’s too early for that.

Claire: Oh, this one is hilarious. Disney created Frozen as a distraction. People have long discussed the conspiracy that Walt Disney used cryogenic technology to freeze himself when he died. Even though the Disney family refutes that claim, reasonably so. However, a new theory that the Walt Disney Company created Frozen as a way to hack Google’s search algorithm and distract consumers from information about the late Walt Disney’s possible frozen procedure.

Joy: Woah, that’s hilarious.

Claire: Why would you care? Why would it matter if Walt Disney was cryogenically frozen?

Joy: Yeah, like, it’s fine. But do you remember the weird theories about like, secret things that were in movies that were like –

Claire: Oh, yeah. Some of those are real.

Joy: What was the one in Aladdin that was like, “Do you want to have sex” or something?

Claire: Oh yeah.

Joy: Or like the dust spilled out “sex?”

Claire: Or it was a penis or something?

Joy: It’s always something weird.

Claire: Yeah. Um, okay. This one is more local to us. Do you believe that DIA is the Illuminati headquarters?

Joy: No, definitely not. Definitely not.

Claire: There are so many conspiracy theories.

Joy: But the Blue Mustang –

Claire: Yeah, that’s real. He killed the guy.

Joy: Yeah, it’s very terrifying.

Claire: Okay, so people who don’t know Denver International Airport has so many conspiracy theories around it. I feel like we’ve talked about this before potentially.

Joy: Yeah, maybe.

Claire: Where people think that like it was constructed on like old Navajo burial grounds.

Joy: Which that could be true.

Claire: Sure. That could be very true. Or that underneath it is like underground headquarters of the Illuminati. Or there’s like all these hidden Illuminati references. Like people will say like, “Well, if you look at it from above, it spells this thing out.” Which anyway, I don’t believe any of the Denver International America, the DIA conspiracy theories.

Joy: Yeah. Now this takes me to more movie conspiracy theories. Did you ever see Three Men and a Baby?

Claire: Oh my gosh, like, I mean, that movie was from like, the early 90s, right?

Joy: Yeah. So I mean, it was a pretty popular movie when I was a kid. Look it up, Google it, but it was three big movie star guys. Tom Selleck was one of them, I think. So there was this scene where they’re in the baby’s room. You could see like a boy standing behind a curtain. And the lore was like, you know, there was a young boy that was killed in that room and like his ghost is in the scene. And it is kind of freaky, but I think it later came out that was like it was just a cut out of something like a prop that was stored wrong. But it does look a little weird.

Claire: That’s what someone would say. It was a prop that was stored wrong.

Joy: Right? Yeah, exactly. Like trying to cover it up. But if you look up ghost from Three Men and a Baby, you’ll see. So there’s things like that. I actually live for that stuff. I love seeing like random things in movies or things that are wrong in movies. Do you remember on Clueless when Tai and Dion are in the jeep, she hits something or she or she goes through a stop sign and Dion looks to the left and she goes, “You ran that light,” and she’s like, “I totally paused.” When Dion looks and turns around, she has a nose ring. And before she doesn’t have a nose ring, and then she looks that she does have a nose ring. Those misses are my favorite. I love stuff like that.

Claire: Um, okay, here’s one. Apparently, there’s a conspiracy theory that Prince Charles is a vampire.

Joy: I mean, where do you come up with this stuff?

Claire: I don’t know. I just Googled it.

Joy: But who starts this stuff?

Claire: Let me finish the explanation because that’s the first question. Why? Well, the Prince of Wales is related to Vlad the Impaler, who was the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and many royals in Charles’s bloodline were known to have the disease porphyria, which is an iron deficiency that causes people to be sensitive to sunlight. That just sounds like inbreeding.

Joy: Well, I’m sorry Keith Richards is a vampire then because come on. He’s more of a vampire.

Claire: Okay, this is one of my here conspiracy theories. That Keanu Reeves is immortal.

Joy: Oh, I love that.

Claire: I love that one.

Joy: I kind of love that. I love Keanu Reeves. But so is what’s his name from like all those… Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

Claire: If you “Google “Keanu Reeves is immortal,” it’s great. Because there’s all these old like Victorian paintings where it has people and you’re like, oh my god, that doesn’t like Keanu Reeves. Y

Joy: Paul Rudd is immortal.

Claire: Oh, Paul Rudd, yes.

Joy: Paul Rudd is my favorite. I love him so much.

Claire: Do you believe in Bigfoot? Or what about like the Loch Ness monster?

Joy: Loch Ness monster. I will get into it when they have documentaries around it. Here it is, here it is. X-Files I want to believe like I want to believe. “Like I want to believe,” to quote X-Files.

Claire: I’m open to the possibility that those things are real.

Joy: It’d be so fun if it was. You know, people dedicate their lives to this stuff

Claire: Seriously. Which is bizarre. Okay, here’s are some ones that feel a little bit – we’re all really living in The Matrix.

Joy: I could see that. You know, we are. I think so.

Claire: Which could also then lean into this next one. The moon isn’t real. People think the moon doesn’t exist. They think the moon is simply a projection. The Titanic didn’t actually sink.

Joy: See, stuff like that will make me mad, like the Titanic. That that treads into, hey, people lost family members. You don’t mess around with that.

Claire: Totally.

Joy: You don’t mess around with it.

Claire: Like how people don’t think that COVID is real. And it’s like –

Joy: Oh, yeah. Or like, what’s his bucket… I’m not even going to say his name. But the guy that’s been in the news recently that – actually I’m not going to say it. But was talking about a shooting that was not real. I don’t even want to repeat it. But that level… to get money in just controversy. You shut your mouth right there. Now I’m all fired up.

Claire: That’s why at the beginning of the conversation, I was like, there’s two roads we could go down. Let’s keep it light. Let’s not go down that one that like is going to cause us to just… yeah.

Joy: Yeah, because that one just kind of set me off. But as far as like The Matrix, I think about, like how social media influences us. And then that’s a whole rabbit hole of – actually there is a great podcast about the rabbit hole. But how social media does influence us. And that scares me.

Claire: Oh yeah.

Joy: Of like commercials and ads and the content that you are fed, because we are constantly looking at our phones. I would love to be behind the scenes of what they decide that you see, really kind of are fed, especially around election season, when people are clicking on A, B and C and then they’re just kind of fed more conspiracy theories. There’s a lot of interviews around that.

Claire: Yeah, that’s really real.

Joy: Of people who are like, hey, I ended up on QAnon site and rest is history.

Claire: Right. But because you like started out in this pretty logical, somewhat logical place, and the links – it’s almost like being the frog in the pot of boiling water analogy where you don’t realize that the things you’re reading are more and more crazy because they kind of blend into each other. And you end up just sort of this natural crescendo into being a crazy person.

Joy: Yes. Which yes, if you’re in QAnon, we said that.

Claire: Yeah, not sorry about that. Um, here’s one that’s pretty popular in Boulder Chemtrails. Are you familiar with this?

Joy: No.

Claire: You know how sometimes planes will have like invisible jet streams coming out of them? People think that that is like chemicals that are being just like spread over the earth to various reasons. So it says, “As airplanes travel, they leave behind long water condensation trails called contrails. These cloud-like tracks dissipate quickly, and sometimes you can’t even see them. But to some conspiracy theorists, these condensation trails are much more nefarious.” I love that word. The “chemtrails” conspiracy theory holds that condensation trails are full of other chemicals that scientists and governments are seeding into the atmosphere. Why? Pick your reason? It might be biological warfare, population control, geoengineering, or an attempt to manipulate the weather.” I’ve heard this one a lot in Boulder. People think that they’re releasing who knows what into the atmosphere.

Joy: [laughing]

Claire: Oh, this is my favorite one. We’ll end with this. That birds aren’t real.

Joy: Oh my gosh, birds aren’t real. Who was that guy?

Claire: I don’t remember, but I love it.

Joy: A website like birdsarentrreal.com or something.

Claire: Peter McIndoe.

Joy: Great.

Claire: Birds aren’t real conspiracy is a movement developed by Peter McIndoe who started spraying the idea in 2017. Let’s see here.

Joy: And then it just took off and took off.

Claire: Yeah, they have birds aren’t real, but rather they are surveillance drones made by the US government.

Joy: I will say – this is weird. I want to know more about this is when we talk about things on this podcast and next thing you know people are getting ads about something weird, crazy, whatever. Right?

Claire: I mean, that’s all very engineered. If someone follows us, and we follow someone or we post a link that goes back to a site that tagged someone in it, or has it in the comments, or has it in the transcript or in the SEO. All of that’s connected. I was reading an article recently that was like, and I’m sure a ton of people have seen this, where it was an author who was like, “You know, I went and stayed with my mom for a couple of days. And next thing I know, I’m getting web ads for her toothpaste. I have never talked about her toothpaste. I’ve never purchased it. I’ve never even used it. But she has my whole life used this specific brand of toothpaste. And suddenly I’m getting Facebook ads for this type of toothpaste. Just from like being around her.” And it’s like, yeah, well, your phone can tell that you are with this person.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: You guys are pinging the same locations, you guys are both checked into the movie theater or whatever. And so even if it doesn’t know who that person is your mom, you’re constantly being compared to other lookalike audiences. So it’s like, okay, let’s take everyone who has checked in at this restaurant in the last six months. And you know, like, have other similarities about them. And I will extrapolate from those similarities that you might have similar shopping habits and maybe in a similar socio-economic demographic. So I’m going to start giving you these products.

Joy: People will send us ads of things that we talked about on the podcast or funny things that we’ve said on stories. I think when I was talking about the Nordstrom vibrator, they started getting ads for vibrators. Yeah, I’m so sorry. Yeah, sorry. And I’m sorry that it did it again now.

Claire: [laughing] I’m sorry for repeating it again now.

Joy: Alright, let’s take a quick break, shall we? Speaking of sponsors and ads that we hope you get this one. [laughing]

Claire: Oh, no.

Joy: Oh, we’re just laying it on thick. Well, you know that our favorite sponsor Ned sponsors our podcast. They are loyal supporters of this podcast. I recently got my latest batch of the Sleep Blend. You know how I feel about sleep. You know that I love the Sleep Blend. It is such a great addition to my nightly routine because I know winding down, I’m going to be laying in bed. I’m going to just lull into this wonderful sleep. I sleep so well wanted to take the Sleep Blend, and daily routines are really important to us. And I think that when we’re talking about CBD products, you think about all of the products that are on the market. There’s so many CBD products to choose from. It’s really important to us that these products are science backed. They’re chock full of premium CBD full spectrum active cannabinoids, terpenes, flavonoids, and trichomes. I don’t know if you know what those are, but they’re really good with Ned. Ned’s full spectrum hemp oil nourishes the body’s endocannabinoid system to offer functional support for stress, sleep, inflammation and balance. They have full transparency. They share third party lab reports, who farms their products, and their extraction process, all right on their site. They have over 2000 5-star reviews. If you heard Ret on one of our podcasts, he talks about the farmers, he talks about playing binaural beats while they’re bottling it. These products are so good and good for your body.

Claire: And so intentional. One of the main reasons that we love Ned and we love the brand and we love the founders, everything they do is so intentional. I think as part of that daily ritual, like just knowing that all the way starting at the foundation of the company through the farming through the bottling through every single thing has that incredible layer of intention. Even down to like the artwork on the little tubes that they come in.

Joy: Right. Handwritten number batched.

Claire: Totally. It just makes it feel so authentic. And you’re like okay, this is something that I can really trust and this is something that I really feel good about putting in my body on a daily basis.

Joy: Become the best version of yourself and get 15% off Ned products with code JOY, Go to helloned.com/JOY or enter code JOY at checkout. That’s helloned.com/joy to get 15% off. Thank you, Ned, for sponsoring the show and offering our listeners a natural remedy for some of life’s most common health issues. I want to ask for an update on how your job is going and how the new house is going. Because we haven’t heard about – well I shouldn’t say new job. It’s been actually almost a year, right?

Claire: Almost a year.

Joy: It feels new because we haven’t checked in about job. But more importantly, how’s your new house?

Claire: Yeah, the house is getting there. You know, we moved in at the end of May and then our whole family got COVID right away and then we just like dove headfirst into summer. And so it’s been kind of an uphill battle to get things organized and arranged. We finally have most of the main floor painted. We have the kids’ rooms in a pretty good spot to where we want them. Our room is fine. I feel like your own bedroom is always like the most neglected room in the house in terms of organization and decoration, which I think is ironic, but I even feel like celebrities – like when they would do Cribs, their whole house is immaculate, and then you’d go into their bedroom and it would look like just like a mattress on the floor.

Joy: Right.

Claire: A dirty duvet cover and you’re like, oh, celebrities are just like us. They don’t make their beds either. Do you make your bed every day? I bet you do.

Joy: Yeah, I do.

Claire: I would have like 50/50. A lot of times I’ll make my bed at night right before I get in. Just like make sure everything’s in place.

Joy: Okay. The reason I do it is JT gets on the bed sometimes. So I just can’t handle the thought of dog hair all day, so I have to make the bed, put all the blankets on top, so that he can lay on top of it.

Claire: Aw, JT. Everything we do, we do for JT.

Joy: We really do.

Claire: I feel like after you live in a house for a couple of months, you kind of start to be able to prioritize things little bit more and think, okay, what are the first couple big things we’re going to tackle? Luckily, nothing huge has come up in the first couple of months of living here. This poor girl who is on my team moved into this beautiful house in downtown Boulder, and within a month they had to replace their sewer line.

Joy: No!

Claire: Like 15 grand, like dig into the street.

Joy: That’s not cheap. What? Did that not come up in the like…

Claire: So, it did. It came up in the inspection. But what came up in the inspection was not as severe as what the problem ended up being.

Joy: Oy, oy.

Claire: So they were like, oh, there’s like a weakness in the pipe, and we can just sort of like put this sleeve over it and it’ll be fine. Then the sleeve wasn’t enough, and they ended up having to replace the whole thing. Knock on wood, nothing like that has happened here. I mean, I’m sure in the winter, like more things will come up. We have to replace our garbage disposal. It just got a hole in it. Apparently, it is very old. But other than that, we’re really loving it. I would say probably a third of our stuff is still in boxes.

Joy: And you sold your old house, right?

Claire: Oh, yeah. So we sold our old house. We closed on our old house sale like about three weeks ago. And I really feel like we dodged a bullet with getting our house under contract when we did. It was just like the week that we put our house on the market, the market just slammed on the brakes. And we were very much anticipating that our house would sell in a weekend, which is what the house we bought was sold in, which is when we bought the house, we had to get it in the first weekend. The market for the last I mean really like six or seven years has been to the point where every house in the market that is in livable shape has gone in a weekend. And suddenly with interest rates going up and everything, it just slammed on the brakes the first week of June and that was when we listed, and so it took us three weeks to sell our house. We were panicking. I mean, not panicking, but trying very hard to stay cool. We ended up getting less than what we listed for, which also has been unheard of. Which not by a lot but and thankfully like the buyer’s financing was totally fine and everything worked out. We even were able to close like a week early. So I felt really grateful that we were able to get that done. But when we bought this house, we somehow qualified for both houses, which I know I’ve joked about this, but I have a hard time if my grocery bill is like $50 extra or $100 extra that week. Let alone thinking that I can have another house just goes to show you what you can “qualify” for. A mortgage is just absolutely fake money.

Joy: That’s a conspiracy theory I believe in. Money isn’t real. Bitcoin all the way. I’m kidding, kidding, kidding.

Claire: Also definitely Bitcoin, definitely less real. Less real than real money. But yeah, that mortgage money is not real stuff. The amount that you can qualify for is not real and not based on anything. And it was also very mentally taxing to know that we still have that. Even when we’re under contract, we still had to go over there mow the lawn and make sure the sprinklers were running and make sure that like it didn’t fall into disrepair, basically.

Joy: Right, you go over there and you’re just like, “The pictures don’t look like this on the on the Zillow ad.”

Claire: Right, like shoot, we’ve got to update this. So that also has been the main reason that we haven’t gotten this house our current house into as good of shape was because a lot of the times like if we had an afternoon, we had to –

Joy: Right, you were managing the other one.

Claire: So anyway, we’re getting there. Like I said, I think about a quarter of our stuff in still in boxes. But of that quarter of stuff that’s still in boxes, probably half of that is stuff that like is like Christmas decorations or camping gear, that it’s bound for storage anyway. I’s in our garage right now, which I’m really hoping that we can get our garage to the point where we can park in it before winter. But I’m loving the house. I’m really glad that we moved. Having a little bit extra space is so nice. Having a table to sit at when we eat is so huge. Every night when we’re sitting down eating, it’s like this is what we’ve been missing.

Joy: This is what you’ve been missing.

Claire: Yeah. And our neighborhoods really great. We have wonderful, amazing neighbors. They have a three-month-old baby who we babysat yesterday and she –

Joy: Aw, three months old. Little nugget.

Claire: Yes, and the kids were like entranced.

Joy: Oh, that’s so cute.

Claire: They were just crowded around her.

Joy: How was Evie?

Claire: Oh my gosh, okay so the baby was smiling.

Joy: Evie is the baby is the baby, so she’s never right baby.

Claire: Right. She loved it. The baby was smiling and Evie was like, “She loves my dress.”

Joy: Oh, I love that so much.

Claire: Every time she would smile, she’d be like, “She loves me.” It’s like, “She does love you, Evie.” It was so cute.

Joy: Oh, that’s so cute. That’s so cute. Three months old.

Claire: She was born like the week before we moved in.

Joy: That’s so fun.

Claire: And then my job is going great. I love my job. I feel like everybody knows I work in marketing for an outdoor apparel company. Based in Denver, I love it. We’re getting ready to get go into a really busy season of like fall and holiday. The outdoor apparel company that I work for is very heavily based in like winter activities.

Joy: Are you not allowed to say it on the podcast?

Claire: It’s not that I’m not allowed to say it.

Joy: Okay, okay.

Claire: It’s like a well-known brand.

Joy: Sure. You just want to be respectful sometimes.

Claire: I think if people are paying attention, they could easily infer where I work.

Joy: Sure.

Claire: It’s more just that like, because I say things on here a lot of the time, not about my work, but like I wouldn’t necessarily – I like to keep the keep my worlds a little bit separate.

Joy: Sure. I totally get that. I totally get that.

Claire: That’s my only reason for doing that.

Joy: Yeah, I totally get that.

Claire: It’s not a secret. Yeah, I don’t have like an NDA. And again, it would probably take most people two seconds to figure out where I work.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: But yeah, I just I also don’t want them like it like coming up in our SEO.

Joy: Sure. Oh, yeah. Sure. Sure. Sure. That makes total sense. Yeah.

Claire: So but I love it, I have a great team, I have really good work life balance, which I kind of hate that phrase. Here’s what I’ve landed on. In a job, I think in order to feel like your job is not taking over your life, your schedule needs to either be consistent or flexible, you need to know that you’re starting and ending at the same time, you’re working a certain number of hours, certain number of days and like have very little variance in those parameters. Or you need to have the ability to fit it in wherever. Maybe you don’t have a specific start and end time, or you don’t have certain days you work. But if you have to take off for two hours in the middle of day to go to a doctor’s appointment, you’re able to do that. With this job, I really have both consistency and flexibility. Where I am not expected to be at work before certain hours except on specific for a specific reason that I know well ahead of time. I’m not expected to work late except for specific reasons that I will know ahead of time. And also, you know, if I have to leave to go pick my kid up from school, I can just put a block on my calendar and there’s no questions asked.

Joy: That’s great.

Claire: It’s awesome. And you don’t have to lie about it.

Joy: No. Which is so silly.

Claire: I don’t have to say anything about it. But if someone were to be like, “Hey, is this thing on your calendar flexible? Can I schedule a meeting?” And I say, “Oh, actually, I have to go pick my son up from school. I can’t move that.” They’re like, “Oh, okay. I’ll find another time.”

Joy: Yes.

Claire: Like, I don’t have to pretend that’s not what I’m doing.

Joy: Yes, I think that’s so important. I

Claire: t’s hugely important. And I think that it’s also really modeled by my leadership, which I think is huge, where in the same exact way, I’ll reach out to my boss and say, “Hey, you know, I’m trying to schedule a meeting. Your calendar is really full. Do you have any flexibility here?” And he’s like, “Oh, actually, you know, that’s like that Friday, my son’s in a hockey tournament, and I blocked it off. I’ll be available by text, but I’m not taking any meetings that day.” And Friday is a bad example because none of us have meetings on Fridays anyway.

Joy: Right, that’s so cool. We have that at my company as well. And at first it because I came from such a horrible culture, coming into the company I’m at now everyone was like, yeah, can you just make sure your calendars are shared, just like that whole transparency thing. And at first, I was going to this place of like, oh, they’re just going to be micromanagy because that’s the culture that I came from. And what it is, is just no, we just need to be transparent. Because if I go look at other people’s calendars, if I look at a lot of the leadership calendars, they have the same thing. They’ll say, “Do not schedule, Sophie’s ballet practice,” or whatever. They’re blocking out time for their children, for their personal lives. It’s modeled, so you feel supported doing the same thing. There’s just something really lovely to that.

Claire: Totally. It’s wonderful. And it’s like, hey, this is the world that we live in now.

Joy: Yes.

Claire: We all have proven that we are trustworthy, we can work from home.

Joy: We can be productive from home. Like, I had to take JT to the vet last week, and I had to cancel a couple of clients that I did on my own. I just blocked out the afternoon and it’s no big deal. It’s just no big deal. And there’s no question. And I was going to tell you this. I was like, tell me what your reaction would be to this. My old company, one of my peers. So a fellow manager who also left, our boss used to schedule a standing meeting with her at 4pm on Fridays.

Claire: No. That is passive harassment.

Joy: So passive harassment. And that’s exactly the type of person she was. It was horrible. When this coworker told me that, I was like, “Are you kidding me?” And it was such a manipulative power move. And I [sound of disgust]. That’s all I have to say when I found that out. I was like, “Are you kidding me?” She’s like, “Yeah.” I’m like, [sound of frustration]. So happy to be out of there.

Claire: I mean, I even told the people who work for me like, hey, listen, I know we have a certain amount of PTO. But if you need to take a day and not enter it, if you are getting your work done, I don’t care whether you “take your PTO” or not, and no one else but me is checking. Don’t abuse that, and I know you won’t abuse it. That’s why I’m telling you this. But like, even there are some sort of corporate rules. And I’m not, you know, meaning to say that this person has even done that, or my team has even done that. But that’s kind of how I feel about it is like, listen, even when it comes to PTO, why are we still doing this? Why are we still limiting the amount of time that people need to go do what they want to do? Yeah, I will say that I appreciate PTO. Have you ever worked for a company that has unlimited PTO? That’s what I do right now. So the last time I worked for a company that had unlimited PTO, it was used in the other direction, because you didn’t have PTO that you had to take.

Joy: Right.

Claire: Because PTO is on the books, it’s a financial liability, like it hits a budget, and if you don’t use it, you have to pay off to pay it out. Right. And so in that way, you know, like, kind of in the beginning of the summer, when things slow down, they’ll send out things that are like, hey, please remember to use your PTO. You have it. Go out there and do some stuff. Not only do we want you guys to like use it and live your life, but also like it’s a financial liability. When that’s not the case, if you are in a toxic workplace, it will often turn into not having PTO. Where people will be like, “Oh, I haven’t taken PTO all year.”

Joy: It’s the badge of honor.

Claire: It’s a badge of honor that you don’t use your vacation.

Joy: Whereas now, when we were hired with unlimited PTO, it was kind of like one of the obvious benefits and every single place I’ve worked up to this point, has you either earn it, you bank it, you know, when you leave you cash it out, or whatever. So going into it, I thought, well, this is really amazing, because they’re really kind of putting it it’s like when you need it, just take it.

Claire: Yeah.

Joy: There’s never a time that I’ve felt – the odd part about it, because where I work now also gives us two Fridays off a month if we need it. No questions asked, you just don’t work on Fridays. And I don’t even use those because I feel so flexible. Sometimes I’ll just work like a half day. But because life is so much easier now because I can just walk into my home office and then I turn off my computer at the end of the day, and I walk out into my house that I don’t feel like I need all this additional time off to recover. So I do find myself swinging the other way where I’m like, I just don’t really need the time. And my supervisor will always be like, “Are you scheduling time off for yourself?” I’m like, “Honestly, I don’t know if I need it right now.” And she’s like, “Okay, just make sure you think about that.” I will. We don’t have any vacations planned. Like trust me, we’re good about planning vacations. We just haven’t really been in the space to do it. And I don’t feel like I need it. I don’t feel like I need all this like timeout to come down. Because when you work in a healthy workplace, you actually enjoy what you’re doing, and you don’t feel so stressed out that you need all this time off. So it’s a smart way of working. I don’t know if everyone feels that way. But I think it’s kind of genius.

Claire: For sure. I agree. So if you’re listening to this, and you’re like, these workplaces aren’t real. This is not what work is like. I feel so stressed out. I log on at 7am on Monday morning. I don’t log off till 7pm on Friday night. Or even like I never log off. I mean, some people thrive in that. They think it’s great. But if you’re listening to this, and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, what you guys are describing is like a job utopia that is not real.”

Joy: It’s real.

Claire: It’s real.

Joy: It’s really real.

Claire: You too can have a job.

Joy: I’ll send you some job openings to come into my company. The thing that I remember in that my old work is I can see how you can get swept up into a work culture. So it’s very easy to think that that you’re doing well, that you’re really hustling, and to be so blinded by a toxic workplace. I think that’s also something that we really don’t understand until we’re out of it of like how bad it was like, I’m sure I’ve mentioned this, but there were times when after I left my previous company, I had two cell phones because I had a work phone and then I had my personal phone. And I remember I would always put my work phone in the kitchen on the weekends. And I would just turn it off. I’d turn off all notifications. I would just mute it so it wouldn’t ring or ding or anything. But I remember throughout the weekend anytime I would pass that kitchen counter I would turn on the phone to see if I got any messages. And I would always have this jolt of like [gasp] am I going to have something for my boss that’s like you know punitive and whatever, snarky because that’s how she was. So I was like, okay, I would always kind of brace myself. And after I left, I found myself walking by that same kitchen counter almost reaching for a phone that wasn’t there. And it took me so long to come down from that feeling of like, okay, what’s she going to email me next that’s punitive and mean? And it’s just a weird thing. Now I’m like, Oh my gosh, I can’t even imagine that coming from anyone at my office because everyone’s just so amazing. But those things once you’re out of it, you don’t realize how you’re like, yes, it can be better. There’s a better way. And it’s so much of “that’s how it is” that you’re in that culture. But everyone’s just trying to survive in that culture, that you think that’s normal. And it’s not, it’s not okay.

Claire: Totally. Alright. Well, all that to say, obviously, you’re enjoying your job too.

Joy: Yes. And we are both in good spots.

Claire: Yes. Yes. New jobs.

Joy: New life.

Claire: What’s the plural of us? New jobs new…

Joy: We…

Claire: Nope, uh uh. You asked some questions. Let’s wrap this up with a couple of listener questions from Instagram. And we’ve not left very much time for this, so we will get to most of your questions on our next episode.

Joy: Future. Talk about everyday versus bougie coffee order.

Claire: Okay. My everyday order is either an oat milk latte or a cold brew with a splash of oat milk, and my bougie coffee order is the sweet cream collagen iced latte from Just Be.

Joy: Whoa, that’s really good.

Claire: You remember that one? I actually just went to Just Be this week for lunch and Jennifer was there and she was so cute.

Joy: I love Just Be. Well, my everyday coffee order is the one I make at home because I love my Nespresso and yes, I still use it. I have the Nespresso Virtuo. Fun fact, if you are sick of ordering – because the thing with Nespresso machines is you can’t get the pods from a store until now. You have to either go to a Nespresso store or order them online. But now Target sells Nespresso pods.

Claire: Oh. I’m surprised it took that long.

Joy: Made by Starbucks because I think there’s like some connection. I don’t know if they own one another whatever. But Starbucks makes Nespresso pods.

Claire: Wait, wait, wait. Let’s just do the genealogy here. It’s a Nespresso Starbucks in a Target,

Joy: Yes. Nespresso pods

Claire: It’s Starbucks in a Nespresso in a Target.

Joy: Yes. You don’t get it in the Starbucks.

Claire: I’m trying to make a Starbucks in a Target reference here.

Joy: I love that very much. Yes. I just want to be clear, it’s sold in the coffee aisle. You don’t have to go into the Starbucks to buy the pods, but you have to go into the coffee aisle. Let me just look at this because we purchased a few incorrect ones. If you want the full coffee, you have to get the 8-pod pack. The 10-pod pack is an is an espresso.

Claire: Espresso for your Nespresso.

Joy: Yes, exactly. So if you got the 10 pack, just know you’re getting espresso pods. We want the eight pack if you want a coffee pod, so we will supplement our Nespresso order by getting the Starbucks Nespresso at Target.

Claire: Got it, got it, got it. What’s your favorite Nespresso color pod?

Joy: I really liked the basic ones so what I tend to order is – I do not like flavor coffees. Gross. I don’t like anything – like they’ll do like special chocolate fudge, hazelnut, caramel. No, thank you. So I will get just like the Costa Rica, Ethiopia. I like the Colombia and Mexico coffee for the virtuosos. So I get the basic stuff. Sometimes I’ll get like Stormio, Melozio. Intenso is good. Those are the standing like they’re always available to order, but I never buy like the special ones. So just so you know, Target sells those pods. They cost about the same, so you’re not like sending any big amount of money unless you have a Target Red Card, which I don’t understand if you do not link your target red card to your debit account what you’re doing because you’re saving 5% on every purchase, and that is not sponsored. I always am like, why aren’t people doing this more often? And if you have the app, you can get all those target circle discounts. It’s my favorite thing to do. Okay, and then if I am doing like a specialty coffee order, I will do the honey almond milk flat white at Starbucks because I love it.

Claire: ’m not a big Starbucks person.

Joy: I know you’re not. Or the lavender latte at Just Be. If we’re going to go to Just Be together, lavender latte. Oy, good.

Claire: Okay, let’s do one more question. That was a really long.

Joy: Yeah, we really went far with the Nespresso, but I really had to tell you all about a secret at Target.

Claire: It’s true.

Joy: I’ll answer this one really quick. Someone missed it. Any update on the bone marrow donation? It was cancelled. The patient went a different treatment route. I will be notified in the future if they need me. I will be here waiting. I think they were probably like worried about keeping me hanging for so long. And so they just canceled it for the time being because it sounds like the patient has other treatment options. So that’s a good thing.

Claire: Yeah. Okay. There’s really no other short questions.

Joy: favorite snack?

Claire: I feel like we answer that all the time.

Joy: But it changes all the time.

Claire: Okay, what’s your favorite snacks right now?

Joy: My favorite snack right now is the Wild Planet tuna salads.

Claire: Those little like –

Joy: Yes! They’re so good. You actually can buy them on… this is… I feel… actually, I’m not going to apologize because I wouldn’t make this on my own because it’s just convenience and they have sustainable packaging. But Wild Planet has these awesome tuna bean salads. And I order either from Thrive Market or they do sell them on Amazon, and I’m obsessed. I’ll have one for lunch every day.

Claire: They sell them at Whole Foods too.

Joy: Great. Yeah. That’s a snack or I’ll have like as a side dish with lunch or whatever. They’re delicious. They’re delicious.

Claire: My favorite snack right now is overnight oats. I really consider them to be a snack. Like I’m not going to eat that as my whole breakfast. It’s just not enough food unless they make like four cups of oats, which is not the experience I’m going for.

Joy: I love overnight oats.

Claire: I love that they’re cold.

Joy: Yeah, Sassy has got some good – Laura Ligos has great recipes in her cookbook if you want to go to her website and order her cookbook.

Claire: I will say – she’s great. It’s a great cookbook, two great cookbooks. I was posting about it on my personal Instagram and somebody was like, “What is your recipe for this? Because I feel like all the recipes are so complicated.” I go as basic as possible. I do a cup of vanilla almond milk, a cup of Bob’s Red Mill rolled oats, a scoop of protein powder. That’s it. That’s all that’s in mind.

Joy: Oh, protein powder? I’ve not tried that yet. That’s a good idea.

Claire: I just, I have a hard time getting protein in my day.

Joy: So do I.

Claire: So I like to kind of sneak it in.

Joy: Yeah, I think we all do.

Claire: Yeah. So it’s really easy to just put it in there. It just makes it a little bit sweeter. I use vanilla protein powder, but you could use whatever you want. And I sometimes will just like chop up a peach and put it on top right before I eat it because peach season in Colorado is a big deal and it’s here. And it’s only like two or three weeks long, and we’re right in the middle of it right now.

Joy: I just bought a huge pallet of peaches at Costco and I’m just like eating them constantly.

Claire: Yeah, yeah, get there.

Joy: I just really try not to everything. I know there are like a thousand recipes out there if you want to get fancy, but for me, it’s just about convenience. So that’s what I do. Alright guys, we’ll answer more of your questions in future episodes. We actually have a few weeks coming up because of my upcoming surf trip where I may or may not be dragging a surfboard across the world where we’re going to be recording much episodes ahead of time for that trip. So we’ll have a chance to get to all your questions. Thank you so much for being here. You can find us on Instagram @joyandclaire_. You can find us online at joyandclaire.com You can email us at thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com Don’t forget to check out our favorite sponsor, Ned. That’s helloned.com/JOY or use discount code JOY for 15% off all your orders. Don’t forget that your first order has a 30-day money back guarantee. Give them a shot.

Joy: Got nothing to lose.

Claire: Support the brands that support our podcast. We will talk to you next Thursday, just like every Thursday.

Joy: All the time forever.

Claire: Bye.

Joy: Bye.

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139: Flavors of Validation

August 11, 2022 by Joy Parrish Leave a Comment

Our favorite live music memories and favorite bands to see in concert. Prioritization of thinness and seeking validation for weight loss. Rage against the before/after photos and much, much more!

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email: thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com

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This is Joy & Claire Episode 139: Flavors of Validation

Episode Date: August 11, 2022

Transcription Completed: October 31, 2022

Audio Length: 43:11 minutes

Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy.

Claire: And this is Claire. Good morning.

Joy: How is everybody doing? Wherever you are, we are here with you.

Claire: That sounds like the beginning of a Backstreet Boys song.

Joy: [laughing] You know they came to concert here a couple weeks ago?

Claire: What?

Joy: Yeah. I’m kind of kicking myself that I didn’t go.

Claire: Joy!

Joy: Well it was at Green… whatever it’s called?

Claire: Fiddler’s Green.

Joy: Yeah, Fiddler’s Green. And I was like, I don’t want to travel down there. You guys, this is where snobbiness kicks in, and I’m like, “I don’t want to drive that far.”

Claire: It’s less than an hour. Not far.

Joy: It’s not that far. But it’s also just a part of town where I’m like, so exhausting.

Claire: It’s hard to get to.

Joy: Because I live close to most of the popular –

Claire: Yeah, you live a cheap Uber ride away from most of the other venues.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: When I was in early high school, I was really into pop punk.

Joy: Like Fallout Boy?

Claire: Not even Fallout Boy. I would consider that to be pop emo. Like Green Day.

Joy: Okay.

Claire: Randomly, I have seen Green Day in concert more than anyone else.

Joy: Okay, next time they come, will you go with me? They are my favorite. To this day, the best concert I’ve ever seen.

Claire: Honestly, I could take or leave their music just if I’m driving, but they do have such good concerts.

Joy: Oh, the concerts, yeah.

Claire: I’m not going to just turn on Green Day while I’m drinking my coffee.

Joy: No, definitely not. But I appreciate their music so much, just because they’re Green Day. I get very attached to bands and their relationships to each other and because they’ve known each other since they were like ten years old. I always get into the stories of that.

Claire: I’ll totally go with you. I remember seeing them at Red Rocks. I was 14. This would have been 2002 or 2003. And then I saw them at the Pepsi Center in probably 2004.

Joy: Oh, I bet you I was there too.

Claire: Stop it.

Joy: The Pepsi Center one was so fun when all the confetti fell.

Claire: And I was on the floor.

Joy: So was I!

Claire: Oh my gosh.

Joy: We were probably next to each other.

Claire: Probably just danced right by you.

Joy: We never knew what was to come.

Claire: I mean, I was young enough that I couldn’t drive myself to either of those concerts.

Joy: Oh, that’s so funny. I went with a guy – hi, Jerry.

Claire: Hi, Jerry. In general, I am not that into live music. I feel like for me, I don’t like crave that kind of experiential music. To me, music is something that’s on in the background.

Joy: Okay. Not like Scott Parrish level of like, he’s into it.

Claire: No, and I appreciate that this is not the way that most people – I mean, a lot of people buy music as part of their personality.

Joy: For sure.

Claire: And I don’t begrudge that at all. I’m not like, “Ugh, what are you doing?” I get it. I’m just not that person. Which saves me thousands of dollars a year probably.

Joy: Same here. I am not at that level. I will go to see people I have a really strong connection to, but I don’t get into it on the level of Scott where he is going to at least one concert a month. At least. Because he just has to see live music.

Claire: And then I think that there is another subset of that personality type which I think is music festival people.

Joy: Oh yeah. Music festival people. I was actually just talking about this when I got my haircut, and she was talking about how she goes to this dance – we were talking about Burning Man and Coachella.

Claire: Man, Burning Man and Coachella are like their own personality trait.

Joy: Yeah, exactly. They definitely are in the DSM-5. So the festival that she goes to is just like this local dance festival that’s at the Bronco’s Stadium parking lot, and they do it every year.

Claire: Maxine went to that.

Joy: Oh, she did? How fun. And I can totally see how it would be a young, clubbish vibe.

Claire: Yeah, and you have your outfit.

Joy: Yes.

Claire: You have the whole thing. Yeah.

Joy: So I was talking to her, and I said, there’s a part of me that really wants to experience it once. But I would just have to do a lot of drugs to get through it. And then I’m also like, I don’t do drugs, so that might actually be a bad thing because I don’t know if I would enjoy it. But anyway, basically I’m like, do I need to experience Burning Man at least once in my life just so I can get dressed up? Or do I just let that go? Or Coachella?

Claire: You know what? You could just dress like that and go out to dinner in Boulder.

Joy: Yeah, it’s true. Because I fit in in Boulder.

Claire: Yeah. People would be like, “Oh look, that lady is going to get some sushi.”

Joy: But you know what, it just feels like it is an experience –

Claire: I agree. It’s a whole experience. I have some friends who are like lifelong music festival people.

Joy: Yeah. Do you have friends who will be the three days in a row Fishpeople?

Claire: Oh, one thousand percent. I have those people.

Joy: I don’t get it. Please tell them. Gypsy Kings. Please make it make sense to me.

Claire: Widespread Panic.

Joy: Please make it make sense to me.

Claire: You know what, let’s be honest though.

J: Look, look. I have those friends.

C: I do too. Okay, I’m going to out myself here, and just say that I cannot stand jam band music.

Joy: I can’t either.

Claire: In the same way, I also don’t even really like jazz.

Joy: Okay. I have no opinion about it because I have not steeped myself in –

Claire: I think jazz – again, I don’t want to slam jam bands because I don’t know anything about them. So me, jazz is more culturally interesting.

Joy: Yes, for sure.

Claire: I can appreciate it from the standpoint of this was a huge musical – there’s so much –

Joy: There’s so much history there.

Claire: History and culture there. But I don’t like listening to it. And for the same reason that I don’t like listening to jam bands. Which is that in my brain, I need a song to have a start, a stop, a chorus. I need to be able to follow along. If I’m listening to a song and I look up 20 minutes later and I’m like, “Is this the same song, or are we on a different song now?” I’m not having a good time. My brain is not enjoying that.

Joy: But are you okay with the ten-minute version of the Taylor Swift –

Claire: No.

Joy: What the hell is the name of that song?

Claire: I don’t know.

Joy: I just listened to it yesterday. “All Too Well,” yeah.

Claire: I mean, I guess, fine. I can sort of appreciate it objectively. That’s an interesting artistic decision or whatever. But I’m not going to be like, “Ten minutes of this, give it to me.” I don’t know. My brain needs a little bit more structure in my music listening.

Joy: Yeah, I can appreciate that.

Claire: I don’t like just sort of long, rambling songs.

Joy: I don’t either.

Claire: So that sort of precludes me from most music festivals. I also can appreciate that – I mean, I get it. You’re there with your friends and you have outfits and you may or may not be taking some substances that help you just relax when the song just keeps going forever and ever. So anyway. All that to say –

Joy: It’s an interesting thing. I’m glad we’re talking about this because it is so interesting to me. We do, we have those friends that will go to three nights in a row of Fish. Or three nights in a row of Widespread Panic.

Claire: I work with this guy who he’s a little bit newer to the team. Recently at a sales meeting, he did a little “intro to me” slide. Because he was giving the presentation and he was like, “I know a lot of people here don’t know me yet. Here’s a little bit about me.” And one of them was that he has been to like hundreds of Widespread Panic shows.

Joy: Oh no. When they hold that as a badge of honor. Are we going to have to worry about you?

Claire: To be clear, I used to go to a gym in Broomfield. I loved the owners, and it was called Widespread CrossFit.

Joy: Okay. Because of Widespread Panic.

Claire: That guy was so into Widespread Panic that he named his business after it.

Joy: Yeah. And okay, there’s a part of me – just before people get upset and think that we’re trash talking – there is a part of me that wishes that I could get into something like that. There is a part of me that wishes that I was obsessed with one band, with a sports team, with a football team, with a basketball team. To where you’re getting all the gear and you’re getting all amped up to go to the concerts, and it’s a yearly thing with your friends. There is a part of me that wishes that I had that bone in my body, and I just don’t have it. I just don’t care enough to be like, “Yeah, let’s go!” I’ve always been this way. And I know that not everyone goes and does drugs and drinks a lot. But I associate that with in order to really have fun standing around and tailgating for hours beforehand. I’m not going to just sit around and… I don’t know, play games. There’s a part of me that’s like you kind of have to do some drugs or drink to sit there for hours. I don’t know, maybe not.

Claire: Maybe a less blanket statement way to say what you’re trying to say is that for me personally to find something like that interesting, I don’t imagine I could be engaged in that for that amount of time unless I was intoxicated.

Joy: Exactly, yeah.

Claire: That is not something that I personally find a lot of joy in, being intoxicated for an entire day.

Joy: No, I don’t enjoy that, and I would probably be asleep before the band took the stage.

Claire: Right.

Joy: That’s a whole other issue. It’s impressive for those of you who do that.

Claire: I would go to three nights in a row of Britney Spears.

Joy: I would 100% go to Vegas and see her if she went to do her residency again and I could stay in the hotel that she was in. I would do that one thousand percent.

Claire: So we say we would never do this, but there are people out there who we do find culturally significant enough, who we do feel connected to enough that if you were to say, “Hey, Britney is headlining Red Rocks for the next three nights,” you would be like, “Yeah, I’m going all three nights.”

Joy: All three nights.

Claire: And I’m wearing a different outfit every night.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: And I’m tailgating, and I’m bringing my snacks.

Joy: Because to me, that would be a once in a lifetime event. That would be a once in a lifetime event. Okay.

Claire: We’ve come full circle.

Joy: We are walking that back.

Claire: You did not tell us that Backstreet Boys came to town.

Joy: Yeah, and that Green Day is the best live show that I’ve seen. You know what, let’s see. Let me rank a few.

Claire: Because despite everything you just said, you do go to live music. You are on the higher end of people I know at least that go see music. And part of that is because you’re married to someone who is obsessed with music. And not only that, Scott has this talent – I mean, you guys know. We talk about Scott having this talent for gifts. Scott has a talent for tickets.

Joy: Yes, he does.

Claire: He will find the box seats or the front row orchestra seating.

Joy: He has miraculous luck.

Claire: Two hours before the concert is going to start for $80. You guys sat almost on the floor for Bruce Springsteen.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: And you got those tickets that day, didn’t you?

Joy: That day.

Claire: And they were under $100.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: Yeah, that doesn’t happen.

Joy: No. But I call it good karma. I’m like, “You always have good ticket karma.” Because he will give tickets away. If he has tickets to a show and he’s like, “I just don’t want to try to sell these,” he’ll give them away to somebody. He is very much this – I don’t know. I think it’s good juju because he is never trying to make a bunch of money off of tickets if he ends up not being able to go.

Claire: Right. He is not turning around and then reselling the same seats for $500.

Joy: Oh no. Yeah.

Claire: He totally sees it as… what’s the word I’m looking for?

Joy: He wants to give away an experience to someone else, and he doesn’t want to charge them for it.

Claire: Like, he’s the… what’s the word I’m looking for?

Joy: Altruistic?

Claire: Yeah. Like he is the purveyor of the secret tickets.

Joy: Yes.

Claire: In the same way that he is the purveyor of the super niche perfect gift idea. Scott is a curator.

Joy: He’s definitely a curator. That’s such a great talent. Because if there is a show that I want to go to – and the main secret, guys, which it’s not really a huge secret, is that he has all the ticket apps on his phone and he will scour them constantly. Because tickets drop last minute all the time. So you just have to be really persistent. You can’t just look once and be like, “Well, there’s no tickets available.” You have to look throughout the day. So he will do that on his breaks, when he’s on calls.

Claire: He gets tickets from people who are like, “Oh, we got four seats, and then our two friends weren’t able to come at the very last minute. Their babysitter got sick. Now, it’s 90 minutes before the show starts, and we just want people to use these tickets.”

Joy: Exactly, exactly. It’s really a gift. But if I’m ranking – I just have to get this out of my system of ranking shows. I want to hear if you have favorite shows that you’ve seen. The ones that stick out in my mind – well, just because it was really fun that my mom went with me, but we did see NKOTBSB. So we saw New Kids on the Block and Backstreet Boys. I want to say it was 2010, 2011, 2012, around there. In Arizona. So my friend Cindy, my mom, and I went and saw them. And that was real fun because Kevin – was it Kevin? I think it was AJ. AJ walked right by us, and we were so excited. That was a great show. But Green Day just lives in my mind as one of the most fun nights of my life. They just played at Lollapalooza, so we watched them live at Lollapalooza on Hulu. That was just so much fun. We were like dancing in the living room. They’re so good at what they do. They’re so good at doing live shows. They always bring people on stage. It’s just the energy is just phenomenal. And I will say any Arcade Fire concert that I’ve been to has been magical. I went to the Green Day concert with this guy that I used to date named Jerry who still goes to my CrossFit gym from when I was going to CrossFit. I ran into him the other day in our neighborhood. He still lives in our neighborhood. And I got to say, it’s always a jolt to see someone you dated, even if it’s 15-20 years later.

Claire: Also, you’ve seen him dozens of times.

Joy: All the time because he would go to my CrossFit gym.

Claire: It’s not like, “Oh my gosh, I haven’t seen him in years.”

Joy: No, it’s so funny. So the other day, I was taking JT to the vet. I walked out, and he was right there. I was like, “Oh hey, Jerry, how is it going?” But anyway.

Claire: Evie snuck in here and she’s telling me to, “Shh, be quiet” so Maxine doesn’t find her.

Joy: Oh, that’s so cute. [laughing] You guys, she is just hiding behind the door. She’s holding onto the doorknob. “Shh, be quiet.”

Claire: Why are you in here? Are you hiding?

Joy: She says, “Because.”

Claire: “Because, because.”

[Evie speaking inaudibly.]

Claire: No, leave that picture here please. You can be in here, but you have to be quiet okay. I said, “Evie, you can be in here, but you have to be quiet.” And she goes, “So Maxine doesn’t find me.”

Joy: Yes, that too.

Claire: Oh goodness.

Joy: So what are your favorite shows off the top of your head.

Claire: My very first concert was Christina Aguilera, and Destiny’s Child opened for her.

Joy: Oh no, you did not see Beyonce in the beginning days. That’s amazing.

Claire: So that one is really memorable. What was your first concert?

Joy: My first concert – don’t laugh you guys. My first concert was Amy Grant and Peter Cetera.

Claire: Oh, that is amazing. I feel like you’ve talked about that. Evie, I am on the phone. I am not going to be quiet. I am talking.

Evie: You have to be quiet.

Claire: I can’t be quiet.

Evie: You have to be quiet before Maxine finds me.

Claire: Maxine is not going to find me. I’m supposed to be in here.

Joy: [laughing]

Claire: Okay. So that was really memorable. I saw NSYNC. Pretty much all my early teenage concerts. I saw NSYNC, I think it must have been at the Bronco Stadium. And yeah, when I saw Green Day that was really good. I went to this concert in Red Rocks called “Punk Rocks on the Rock” when I was like 14. I should not have been at that concert.

Joy: There’s things that I’m like, “I should not have been at this show.” But my friend who had older siblings would always take us, and my parents were just like, “Okay, sure.” I think they took us to like a Duran Duran concert. Anyway, so.

Claire: I mean, my first CD and I was probably like 6 or 7 years old was Boyz II Men. I shouldn’t have had that CD.

Joy: No. Well my first record my aunt got me was “Like a Virgin.” I was 7. My mom was probably like, “Hmm, thanks Aunt Laura.”

Claire: What’s the worst concert you’ve ever been to?

Joy: Oh my God, the worst one was – okay, my friend and I went to see, I want to say it was Jason Mraz, which he was phenomenal. But I think Howie Day either opened for him or I don’t know. This was probably 2005 or 2006. So Jason Mraz was in the height of his Jason Mraz-ness. He did great. But then I think Howie Day did some follow up or opener. I can’t remember what the direction was, if he was before or after. But he shows up late, and he was so wasted that he just walks on stage, grabs a keyboard, and starts doing one of those slide things. Maybe it was one of those slide guitars, and he just did some random music for like 20 minutes. Everyone is like, you know, we really want to hear the song that’s really popular on the radio right now. Not some random stream of consciousness.

Claire: Not you just free styling.

Joy: Yes, and it was horrible.

Claire: We did not come here to hear Howie Day free style.

Joy: It was horrible. So we just left. But it was like, oh, poor Howie Day, he’s not doing too well. It was bad.

Claire: It was not a good day to be Howie Day. That’s really funny. I would say it wasn’t a bad concert per se. It was just really weird. I saw Flight of the Concords but at Red Rocks.

Joy: Yeah, you told me. It just wasn’t the venue for that.

Claire: It just wasn’t the venue. Their whole show was basically – if Flight of the Concords is not familiar to you, this is a show sort of this borderline sketch comedy –

Joy: Like The Lonely Island, guys.

Claire: I have never seen The Lonely Island.

Joy: Amy Sandberg, all those guys on SNL

Claire: It’s a very sort of SNL spinoff vibe of a show. It’s a New Zealand based show. The two main characters are these comedians, and part of it is that they sang these silly songs. So they ended up going on tour. But their whole show was set up as a skit. It would have been great if it had been a small venue and it sort of felt like you were at an open mic night sort of thing. Not at a giant world renowned almost stadium.

Joy: Yeah, because we saw Tenacious D with Jack Black.

Claire: Oh, that would be so fun.

Joy: In a small venue, and it was perfect. It was so fun.

Claire: You need that back-and-forth energy.

Joy: Yes. The first thing that they did – so they had the stage set up so that there was just this couch on the stage. It was empty obviously. They hadn’t come on stage yet. We’re thinking, oh cool, they’re just going to sit on a couch and hang out or whatever. And then the lights go out, and the lights come back on, and they are just both on the couch pretending like they are sleeping with blankets over them. And then they slowly rise and look at the audience like, “Where the “f” are we?” It was so funny. It was such a good show. I love Jack Black so much. He’s the best.

Claire: I do love Jack Black. That would be a really good one to see.

Joy: It was great.

Claire: Alright. So that’s probably enough reminiscing about live music.

Joy: This has been the music 101 show.

Claire: This has been the live music episode. So before we move on, let’s take a minute to talk about our favorite sponsor, Ned, the CBD products that we love so much. You can check them out at helloned.com/JOY or use discount code JOY for 15% off any order. I love their Daily Blend. I do the 750mg blend. They have lower concentrations, and I think they have one higher concentration. If you are still dabbling in CBD and still trying to figure out what is the correct concentration and dosage for you. For me, 750, it’s a little bit on the higher end, but then I feel like I have to take less of it, and then it starts working a little bit faster. But if you’re someone whose system is a little bit more sensitive, you might want something lower. If you’re somebody who is used to taking more stuff, maybe you want something a little bit higher. And then I love their Mello Magnesium drink powder. This is something that does not have CBD in it. It’s magnesium and a few botanicals and minerals. They really just help relax my system. I like to take it before bed. It really helps me chill out. Or if I’ve had a really hectic day, if something went wrong at work and I’ve had that feeling all day, I’ll even take it right before dinner and it helps me chill out as I go into the evening and helps me feel like I’m able to shed the skin of that day.

Joy: I’ve been starting your routine of taking the – not the brushing of the teeth after… or before? What do you do? You brush your teeth, and then you take your magnesium?

Claire: Magnesium is a little bit earlier, and then I brush my teeth –

Joy: Oh, it’s the CBD oil. That’s right.

Claire: I brush my teeth, and then CBD.

Joy: And then your CBD, got it. I’ve been doing just the Mello Magnesium at night, and that’s been lovely. I’m reading on their website right now of all the great things that are in Mello. We encourage you to check it out. They have so much transparency on their website of where their products come from. And if you did not hear the episode with one of the co-founders, Ret, you can go back and listen to that episode. We really get into the mission behind Ned. As you guys know if you’ve listened to this podcast over the years, we don’t like to promote products that we don’t use and love ourselves. So please support the podcast. Thank you so much, Ned, for supporting our podcast.

Claire: Alright, so this weekend I was on a hike with my friend Amanda – hi, Amanda.

Joy: Hi, Amanda.

Claire: And we started talking about Diane Sanfilippo newer podcast. I think there’s maybe two dozen or so episodes out there already. I think I’ve heard one or two episodes. We’ve been following Diane for a long time. I think we’re going to try to have her on the podcast here soon. But it just started this conversation with Amanda and I about this post-diet culture culture. Like people who have been advocates of diets in the past who are coming around and saying, “Wait a minute. Maybe I shouldn’t have been doing that.” Or it’s time for us to reexamine that and move away from it. And we were talking about the difference between being the person who says, “Hey, this is what’s out there. Here’s how you should notice that these thoughts are influenced by diet culture. Here is how you should notice these patterns are influenced by diet culture. And here’s all the stuff that we’ve been taking for granted, and it’s all diet culture, diet culture,” versus the people who are just sort of living their lives outside of diet culture and not calling it out as much.

Joy: Right.

Claire: I think this is something that we’ve talked a lot about when it comes to body image. Sometimes it’s even more powerful when you see somebody who has a post where they’re not looking as posed or polished as maybe most people would, and the caption is all about how they posted this photo anyway even though they don’t look amazing because it doesn’t matter what you look like, and you should take photos anyway. Versus the person who posts that photo and doesn’t call out, “Hey, you should post the photo anyway.” It’s just, “A day at the beach” without calling out, “I went to the beach, and I was nervous about putting on the bikini, but I did it anyway.” Kind of the difference between the person who is still in it by virtue of the fact that everything they do is still sort of, here is how I’m not participating in diet culture. And the person who is just sort of like, eh, I’ve moved on and here is my life.

Joy: It’s not even in your vocabulary. It’s not in your periphery. It’s nowhere to be seen. I think that’s a really important distinction. I know that people feel very differently. There will be a lot of comments when we talk about this. “But I really needed to lose blah blah blah, and I was so proud of it, and I actually really loved when people would comment on my weight.” And I think there’s no black and white to this conversation. With anything, it really depends. But I can’t help but think about the larger picture and influence that diet culture as on us. That’s where I go with it. Great for you if that is something that you can do in the “healthy mindset” of it all. But I just have what I feel is a personal responsibility to really shed light on how damaging diet culture is as a whole and that it will always be present, so we have to be even stronger talking against it and making people aware of how easy it can just slip into your life, how easy it is. That’s what is important to me. Not about every single person has to jump on the anti-diet train, but that is just my lens because it’s everywhere and I worry about people. I see the damage that it does to people, whether it be in my practice or in my personal life. I’m not speaking to everybody, I just want to make that clear. Because I know we’ll get an email of someone who has really worked really hard to lose an amount of weight for whatever reason that they wanted to, and that’s great if that’s something in your life that you have a personal relationship with that’s good for you. We’re not bashing that. I’m just saying, bigger picture.

Claire: Yeah. I think it is hard for me when people post things like, “Stop commenting on people’s bodies, for better or for worse. Just find something else to talk about.” And inevitably we’ll get a few messages saying, “But I want people to comment about my body. I put a lot of work into it, and I want people to notice.” Part of me wants to take a step back and say, but why do you want people to notice?

Joy: Yeah, it’s really interesting. This brings up – someone commented on my shoulders. I have not had a comment on my body in so long. This was an acquaintance in real life. It wasn’t on social media or anything. It kind of jolted me. I was very dismissive. I was trying to turn the conversation away because they kind of kept asking questions of like, “Well, how do you do that?” And I was like, “Well, it’s kind of genetics.” I was just really passive.

Claire: My skeleton just grew this way.

Joy: If you look at my dad, it’s probably not hard to tell where I get my body type. So all that to say is I am grateful that I’ve been so far removed. And I think that you and I have developed a safe place corner of the internet where that is just not talked about. And if you want to go to a corner of the internet where that exists, then that’s fine. Everyone has the will to do whatever you want. Clearly. I was struck by how impactful that comment was because it just isn’t in my life anymore, and I don’t talk about that stuff anymore, and I don’t really absorb it anymore. Do I see things that I’m like, I don’t want to go there? Yeah, I notice the contrast much stronger because when I see someone who is posting things that are like, “Eat this meal for this effect on your body” and “eat this type of diet for these abs,” whatever, it’s very much like, oh yeah, I used to kind of be in that world and now we’re stepping away from that. Or we have been. It was something where I was like, woah, I haven’t felt this weird cringy feeling in a long time.

Claire: Right. I think part of this is that within diet culture, so much of this is so normalized and has been for a long time. Especially if you’re somebody who is in their 30’s and 40’s, which I think the majority of our listeners are, it was something that was so pervasive as you were growing up that you didn’t give it a second thought because there wasn’t an alternative. If you grew up in mainstream culture, then these are the things that you grew up believing and you didn’t question them because that’s just how it was. You didn’t think to yourself – like we talked about the Victoria’s Secret documentary a few weeks ago. A lot of people have sent us this song that somebody wrote in that same time frame that’s like, “I know Victoria’s Secret. She was made up by a man.” But when you were growing up, you didn’t question that this person was the pinnacle of beauty. You don’t even think, “Oh, society is saying that.” You’re just like, this is what it is. You’re a teenager or you’re in your early 20’s, and this is what it is. The conversations didn’t exist then around even having the awareness to step outside of that and say, but why is it that way? It wasn’t even a question. It was just, this is what it is. Enter people would be like, “This isn’t realistic. These people are airbrushed in magazines.” But the airbrushed in magazines thing was where it stopped. It wasn’t like, this is a homogenous body viewpoint. It was just like, “Oh you know, real people don’t look like that. These people are airbrushed.” Not like, “Hey, we should stop and examine why this combination of characteristics is desirable.”

Joy: Right.

Claire: I think that is something that I take for granted, is having the awareness – back to someone who says, “But I want people to comment on my body.” And asking them, “Well, why do you want people to comment on your body?” What is it about your external – why are you looking for that particular flavor of validation? Why do you want people to see that you lost weight and praise you for that? Why is that worthy of praise? Sure, you’ve put in hard work. But what about that do you feel is worthy of external validation. Or not even worthy but is in need of external validation.

Joy: In need of external validation. I am going to just project and think – I’m making assumptions, just based off of our culture. Thinness is praised. Not historically, but in the past 20-30 years has been the “standard.” Everything is in air quotes. Therefore smaller equals better.

Claire: I get it from that lens. From a diet culture lens, I agree. And that’s what we’re saying. Is there a reason that is not rooted in the prioritization of thinness that you would want external validation for weight loss?

Joy: Right.

Claire: I don’t have an answer for that. Maybe there is something out there. To me, it’s hard to imagine that. I think a lot of people would say, “It’s because I put in a lot of work, and I want that work to be validated.” But then why can’t someone come up to you and say, “Hey, I’ve noticed you’ve been really working hard at eating this certain way. Good job on your hard work.” That’s not a comment about your body. It’s like, “Hey, that recipe looks really good. I’ve noticed you’ve put a lot of effort into trying new foods lately. It looks like you’re really working on eating more vegetables. That’s awesome that you’re doing that.” That to me is a recognition of you’re putting in hard work. Food planning or grocery shopping was always really stressful for you, and now you’re doing this food prep system, and your really good friend can be like, “I’ve noticed you’ve started doing that. It’s really helping you out. That’s so cool. I’m so glad that you found that.” That’s not a comment about your body.

Joy: I think this goes into some of the discussion that we had with Molly. I did this on the Girls Gone WOD feed. We had a conversation with Molly Bahr about intuitive eating, and that’s one way of looking at things but how it’s not black and white, that it’s not one thing or another thing. A lot of things can be true at the same time. But once we open the door to say, “Well, what if I want to eat healthy, and that’s feeding into diet culture?” Well, not really. I talk to a lot of people about this in counseling too. They have a really hard time separating – if I try to exercise and eat right, I’m feeding into diet culture. Not necessarily. It’s how you feel about yourself and the voices that are in your head around it. If you’re sitting there going, “I’ve got to hustle. I’ve got to grind every day because I have to be” fill in the blank diet culture statement.

Claire: Never miss a Monday. And you’re coming at it from, if I mess this up, that means that I am lazy. That means that I am equating those things with negativity about yourself. Versus, hey, I’m going to try really hard to get to the gym on Monday because I know that makes me feel better. I know that sets up my habits in a way that takes less effort. Same action, different motivation.

Joy: Yes. And different internal dialogue. And I think the internal dialogue is really key. So I think about that piece of it’s fine if you want to eat fruits and vegetables more often if you want to eat – I don’t want to say “healthier” choices. I don’t really understand that. But if you want to objectively look at food, sure, there’s foods that nourish your body differently. Okay. So those things that are just a neutral fact.

Claire: Right. If you want to prioritize a wide variety of choices and plants and non-processed foods. I mean, I think we’ve talked about this years ago with [INAUDIBLE 00:32:19.11] where in the same way that it’s all about motivation, we also need to be honest that you’re not getting the same nutrition from a donut that you are from a salad. Those are two wide variety extremes. But the problem is that we’ve assigned moral priority. Well then, that makes salad better than a donut. Well, it’s not better or worse. It’s just two different things. You would never sit there and be like, well, my pajamas – this is a bad example because I think you would say that your pajamas are better than a work suit. You would never say, hey, my blue leggings are better than my black leggings. They are just different.

Joy: They are just different.

Claire: And that is the neutral mindset that is a helpful steppingstone to get away from the constant diet culture buzz. But at the same time, we need to acknowledge there are some choices that are going to be more nourishing to your body than others objectively. So let’s not pretend that they’re not. But at the same time, let’s not make it something that it’s not in a moral sense.

Joy: Right. Let’s not demonize a donut. Let’s not demonize any food.

Claire: No one is saying donuts are healthy. But what we are saying is there’s nothing wrong with eating them.

Joy: They’re delicious!

Claire: That’s been the problem is it’s been very black and white. If this isn’t healthy, you shouldn’t eat it. No, no.

Joy: Right.

Claire: So then people say, well then, if the only things that can go in the “you can eat them” category are healthy things, then I’m going to try to justify why these unhealthy things are healthy. We’re saying just get rid of “I can only eat healthy things.” I can eat whatever I want. It doesn’t matter if it’s “healthy” or “unhealthy.” It doesn’t matter the micronutrient content or the fiber content or if this is a plant or a donut. But I’m maybe going to try to take that information from my body after I do eat it and think, okay, “How do I want to feel?” And I’m going to use some objective information about how I feel after I eat certain things, use that to inform my decisions about when I choose to eat what.

Joy: Yes. And I think the kicker, what you just said, is objective information. We can’t – I shouldn’t say we all – but most of us cannot, and I think we’re getting there collectively, hopefully, don’t know what it’s like to just be objective about food or our bodies. We cannot. We can’t. So we really need to work on that piece of just being super objective of looking at it for what it is. If you have a reaction when you see people posting food. Let’s take Emily Schuman for example who has the Cupcakes & Cashmere blog that lives my dream life in Los Angeles. She is always posting the most delicious treats, candies. I see people comment and they’re like, “How do you keep so thin by eating all this?” I just want to go through the screen and be like, why is that a problem? You don’t know her genetics. You don’t know her diet choices. And who cares?

Claire: Just, why does it matter?

Joy: Why does it matter? But people want to go there because then you’re equating a type of food to having more weight on your body, and that’s ridiculous. That’s ridiculous. So anyway, that’s just what diet culture has done to us. I think the original comment around this whole topic of Diane’s new podcast, which is great – it’s called Full Plate. I’ve only listened to a handful of episodes, but it’s a nice turn to see what she’s done over the years. I think a lot of us have kind of evolved and pushed up against the social media diet culture crap that’s constantly coming at us. But this is just a friendly reminder that if you’re following someone and these emotions are coming up of either negativity or diet culture, posting pictures of their bodies, before and afters. If it makes you feel bad about yourself, like, “Oh, I should do this” or “I should be doing that,” maybe give it an unfollow or mute it for a while. What is your opinion about posting pictures of bodies of before and afters?

Claire: I’m not for it. I think there is no way that I’ve ever seen that. There’s no motivation for that that I’ve ever heard that passes the body neutrality check. There is no way to compare side by side photos of yourself or anyone else that does not inherently lend itself to saying one is better than the other.

Joy: To prioritizing thinness.

Claire: The question that you need to ask yourself is what beauty standard is being upheld here. Something right now that makes me crazy is people who will enter body building competitions and say, “I just want to see what my body is capable of.”

Joy: Oh, I can’t. I can’t. “I’m doing an experiment.” “I just want to experiment.”

Claire: “I’m doing this to learn. I just want to see what my body is capable of.” You know what, if you want to go on that journey and keep it to yourself because you are curious about your personal body and what this experience will personally feel like to you, I’m not going to begrudge you. But when I see it with somebody who has tens or hundreds of thousands of followers and they’re posting about their entire process, and they’re posting the “progress” photos, they’re posting before and afters. There is this inherent visibility to that where maybe I’m just missing it, but rarely am I finding people saying, “Hey, I tried this. It was a horrible experience. It took my hormones months to recover.”

Joy: Yep.

Claire: “And I was grumpy.”

Joy: Just horrible.

Claire: “I was irritable for weeks.” I can imagine that’s how I would feel if I put my body in that position is mentally it would be very challenging. And we’ve talked about body building before. But that I feel like is the line I hear a lot lately is, “Well, I’m just trying to see what my body is capable of. I just want to push it to this limit and see what happens.”

Joy: Yeah, let me just try to starve myself for months on end and workout when I have no energy.

Claire: You have to be in a defect in order to look that way. So we can go down that rabbit hole for hours. But that to me is an area where I’m still seeing a lot. You can’t put those photos side by side and not expect people to view your competition body as something that you’re saying that this is the improved version.

Joy: Yeah, right.

Claire: And whether or not you personally believe that when you’re putting that out there, that’s what other people are seeing.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: There is a responsibility by people who post things. To say, “I’m just posting things. People can take it however they want.” To a degree, that’s true. You can’t control how people are going to react. But you have the responsibility to not post things that have… it’s one thing to post an opinion and somebody takes it the wrong way. And you’re like, “Well, I can’t control if you took that the wrong way.” If you’re posting a before and after picture, it does feel like your responsibility is to know that people are going to look at this and see the before and after. You’re going to look at the after and say, “This person is prioritizing that.” This person is inherently telling me that that is better than the before.

Joy: Yeah. There’s a lot of anti-fatness in there. There’s a lot. Prove me wrong. To quote JK, help me understand. That is one area that it’s hard for me to budge on that.

Claire: I hope JK doesn’t mind us using that all the time whenever we’re in a bad mood.

Joy: Help me understand. Just go to his podcast and listen to it because that is really good. That is just one area that I have a hard time budging because it does not make sense to me. It perpetuates this really horrible cycle of diet culture that we’re really trying to push against and make a difference. Now if someone has this influence in saying that this is what my body can do and you’re literally on a stage, people judging your body. What the actual [raspberry sound].

Claire: So I think before and afters take many forms. People are still posting them for a variety of things. But any time that you post a photo of your body next to another photo of your body – and this goes back to how we opened this conversation about people posting photos where they have visible rolls or cellulite, whatever, that in the past would have been really uncomfortable for them to post and they’re calling it out and saying, “I never would have used to post this photo, and now I’m learning how to be more comfortable with it or overlook it or just not see it” versus a person that just posts that photo and is like, “a day at the beach” and doesn’t even call it out. I think the opposite of that is still the before and after where it just invites you to pick apart every single piece of your body. That’s what I have to say about that.

Joy: That’s all we can wrap up in this episode. That’s going to be an ongoing discussion. Alright, let’s wrap up with a couple quick announcements and reminders. The teacher list is still in our highlights. You can go and support the Amazon wish lists for the teachers.

Claire: And I am going to be adding to that this week. I’ll post about it on our stories, if you’re a teacher. We’re recording Monday morning. I’ll probably post about it today or tomorrow and put those new stories up on Thursday after the episode comes out. So if you are a teacher who has missed the memo up until now and you want us to put up your Amazon wish list, email it to us at thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com. It needs to be an Amazon wish list. We don’t have the bandwidth to post people’s individual lists of items. It’s just easier to handle the wish list with the address. Make sure you have it completely set up. It’s not hard to do. If you don’t know, Google it. And email it to us. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us your name, what you teach, where you live. That just kind of helps people feel like they are a little bit more a part of your story. If you want to send a picture of your classroom, obviously without the kids in it, or a picture of yourself, feel free to do that. I’ll post those up. And then the older ones that we posted from a couple weeks ago are also in our Instagram highlights.

Joy: Great. Did we ever find a home for those pillow covers?

Claire: I don’t think so, no.

Joy: If you’re missing some pillow covers, please email us. And then I just want to say thank you to everyone who wrote about the colonoscopy advice. That was amazing advice. Thank you so much. As well as the dental products advice. I got a cavity last week. I always get cavities. I asked for advice for products that I can use, and I got some really good ones. So I will just keep posting those if you guys want to know the tips or how to prevent cavities, and I’ll let you know if it works. Alright, Pete and Kim broke up. Let’s just gloss over that. Blah, blah, blah.

Claire: Oh, Kim Kardashian. I was like, who? Pete and Kim?

Joy: [laughing]

Claire: Do we know them?

Joy: Yeah, Pete and Kim, you know.

Claire: Come on. I will share some of those colonoscopy tips. Maybe Joy after you get yours, you can be like, I tried this. I would do it differently next time. Alright guys, well thanks for joining us. You can find us on Instagram @joyandclaire_. You can find us online at joyanclaire.com. You can email us thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com. Don’t forget to support our sponsor, Ned. That’s helloned.com/JOY or use discount code JOY for 15% off your order. Don’t forget, they have a 30-day money back guarantee for first-time orders. So give it a try. You have nothing to lose. And support the products that support our podcast. Thank you, guys, so much for being here. We will talk to you next week.

Joy: Bye, guys.

Claire: Bye.

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107: Hot Minutes

December 30, 2021 by Joy Parrish Leave a Comment

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This is Joy & Claire Episode 107: Hot Minutes

Episode Date: December 30, 2021

Transcription Completed: January 14, 2022

Audio Length: 49:30 minutes

Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy.

Claire: And this is Claire.

Joy: And this is Joy and Claire. Thanks for putting up with my voice last week, because that was really cute. I feel like everybody is sick though, so everybody has this.

Claire: I also just feel like everyone has COVID.

Joy: Everyone. I’m laughing, but I’m crying inside.

Claire: I’m laughing, but I’m crying.

Joy: I’m smiling, but I’m crying inside.

Claire: And I’m also kind of like, okay, if we’re all going to get COVID, at least we’re getting the least serious variant so far, I guess.

Joy: I guess.

Claire: Which technically speaking – I mean, this is a weird thing to say. But it’s in the virus’s best interest to be less serious. Because if you as a virus kill all your hosts, you’re not going to get very far. That’s why Ebola will never be a true pandemic because it’s too serious too quickly. There’s no time for it to spread.

Joy: Oh. Got it.

Claire: See what I mean? You as a carrier of the virus get too sick too quickly, and then you die. So there’s not time for you to spread.

Joy: Right.

Claire: Versus if you’re carrying COVID and you just have a sniffle for four weeks and you walk around and give it to everyone.

Joy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Claire: Right. I’m not saying… just speaking from the virus’s point of view.

Joy: The virus has spoken. Roll out, I’m kind of sick of it.

Claire: But also, I think at this point we’ve realized that people are not going to get vaccinated. We can have as many feelings as we want about that.

Joy: I have a lot of feelings about it.

Claire: We can get as many vaccines as we want, and it won’t change other people’s unwillingness to view public health as important enough to do that.

Joy: Yeah, I just have to interject really quick. It’s so funny how things pop out at people where, man, you can’t say anything without making someone mad. But I think one time I did a Q&A on Instagram stories. Someone asked some question, basically said like, “thoughts about being around the unvaccinated.” I answered the question being like, well, there’s the vaccinated and then there’s the unvaccinated. We’re not trying to be mean.

Claire: It’s not like “the great unwashed.”

Joy: And so someone wrote and was like, “Ugh, the unvaccinated. We’re just these horrible people.” No, that’s not what we’re saying at all. I’m the vaccinated. You’re the – there’s no difference. You either are or you’re not. It’s not personal.

Claire: This is one option or the other. No offense.

Joy: You could just say “the vaccinated” and say the same thing about me. Man, we just really are quick to get real angry.

Claire: Right. “The unvaccinated.” Like, “You can’t call me the unvaccinated.” Okay, I don’t know what else to call you. Individuals who refrain from being vaccinated for COVID-19. Person-first language, Joy. Okay, not to make fun of person-first language because it’s important.

Joy: Okay. Okay.

Claire: So, I do feel like I know more people right now who in the last 2-4 days have tested positive for COVID than any other point almost combined in the pandemic. I’m lucky that personally I have not known that many people – it’s happened here and there to friends and their kids. It’s thankfully always been relatively mild cases. Crops up every couple of weeks. “Oh, did you hear so-and-so tested positive?” But right now, I feel like every single person is like, “tested positive,” “tested positive,” “tested positive.” I don’t know. At this point, and I know we’ve all been saying this the whole time, it’s a matter of time before you get it. But right now it feels like it’s knocking on the door. I took Evie this morning to get a PCR test because she’s a snot faucet. Which also, it’s December. Kids get sick, and that’s the hardest thing right now. When will we get back to the point… will we ever get back to a point where having a runny nose, you aren’t wondering, oh my gosh, am I going to kill my grandpa with this runny nose?

Joy: Right. Exactly.

Claire: And that’s what’s hard. The data is pretty clear that most people who get COVID will not become hospitalized. But it’s still a crappy thing to get. You still feel sick. Feeling sick is not fun. You can still feel sick for 2+ weeks. Long haul COVID sounds horrible. We don’t know the long-term effects of COVID. People are like, “Well, we don’t know the long-term effects of vaccines.” Well, we really don’t know long-term effects of COVID. We also don’t know long-term effects of cell phone usage, being in houses with Wi-Fi.

Joy: I could get hit by a bus tomorrow, that’s how I live my life. You know what, guys? Can we just calm down? We are not promised tomorrow.

Claire: And for me, “We don’t know what the long-term effects are.” Do you have this much concern over the long-term effects of every choice you make that doesn’t impact other people? So anyways.

Joy: It’s a hard time to be alive. It’s truly unprecedented.

Claire: I’m feeling a lot of anxiety right now about COVID. I have not felt this way in a while. I feel like it’s been a hot minute… a pleasant hot minute… a cozy, warm hot minute since I –

Joy: Pleasant hot minute sounds like a really good movie.

Claire: That sounds either like a zombie land style comedy or definitely like a porn. A pleasant top minute. Since I was having daily worries about COVID. I haven’t logged on to check the case counter in a while. I definitely looked at it today.

Joy: Scott looks at it every single day. He reads the case count. He stays abreast of all the information. We decided to – I feel like every single person that I know, at least in my circle of friends, had to change their plans or something happened or someone got sick. We were going to go to Oklahoma City to see Scott’s family. I was still sick, and Scott’s family got sick. They got the cold. We all tested negative for COVID, but everyone was getting these colds. We’re like, why would we travel right now? So we just decided last minute. Luckily our tickets are refundable, whatever, whatever. At this point, I feel like any trip we plan, we’re like, just do refundable because plans are always changing and we have to be ready for that. We made the decision, A, we’re not going to put our immune systems through that because things are just crazy and we don’t want to get other people sick. I don’t want to put other people at risk. You just never know. I was talking to someone today in counseling, one of my clients. I was saying, collectively we’re all very tired of making decisions that normally would just be nothing. It’s kind of like that decision fatigue on steroids. Where normally you’re like, do I go on this trip, or do I not go on this trip? There’s all these moral dilemmas that are being thrown at us constantly. So if I decide to cancel my trip and my friend doesn’t cancel their trip, does that make me a better person? No. You have to make the decision that’s best for your family. But I think we’re starting to do the whole moral highness thing. Where it’s like, no one’s better than each other. We’re just trying to make it through the freaking day and not get COVID. At the end of the day, that’s what’s exhausting.

Claire: Not get it, and not give it to anyone. And just live our lives without feeling like we have to check the case counter. So I am really feeling stressed about that right now in a way that I haven’t felt in a while.

Joy: Are you just talking about you’re stressed about the pandemic?

Claire: Yeah. I’m starting to feel like, okay, in the summer we had this glimpse of life could come back, and then it got swept away by delta. And then it felt like, okay, well maybe now that kids can get vaccinated that will make a difference. And then comes omicron. Do you say “ah-micron” or “oh-micron.”

Joy: I say “ah-micron.” Because I was listening to The Daily, and I think they say “ah-micron.”

Claire: “Ah” like “ahh” –

Joy: Not “oh-micron,” “ah-micron.”

Claire: Okay, somebody who speaks Latin, please weigh in because I’ve heard it both ways. I started saying it “oh-micron” because there was a hot minute in college where I pledged a sorority. Literally, I didn’t even make it through the pledge class.

Joy: There’s a lot of hot minutes in this episode, I’m just going to say.

Claire: It’s a lot of hot minutes. Two so far. There was a brief period of my life [laughing]. And when we learned the Greek alphabet, my memory was of it being “oh-micron,” but I also feel like – anyway. So someone please weight in. Regardless, it was like, maybe now that the kids can get vaccinated, we’ll maybe turn a corner, and then here comes this new variant. And it just feels like, when are we going to get out of this loop? I think that there is still, and I think there has been, this assumption that people who agree with public health measures like vaccines and quarantining and all that, we are not frustrated or tired or questioning any of this. I am pro masks, pro social distancing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I am still sitting here being like, how the heck are we going to get out of this? When is the loop going to end? It feels like we’re just getting spun into another cycle, and I just want that to not… I want it to be over, and I don’t even know what over means.

Joy: I was thinking about that today.

Claire: I want my kids to be able to go do stuff and not worry about what’s going to happen when they get back. I want to be able to plan a trip and not have ten contingency plans.

Joy: Right, not think ahead, all these contingency plans.

Claire: To me, it being “over” is sort of what you were describing. I want to have to not just weight every single decision ten different directions before making it. I want to just be able to make a decision and move forward.

Joy: Right. Now, we are making decisions, but there’s 20 different decisions that are layered into it. Scott’s a huge sports fan. Watches football, watches basketball. So he’s following all these games, and he’s in a Fantasy Football league. He’s always talking to me about how all these players are dropping out every single week. Tons of them can’t play because they caught the virus. It’s just like, are we doing this again? Where sports are shutting down. And then I have tickets to see The Lion King at the Denver Performing Arts this coming weekend with my mom. Is that going to get cancelled? Because I’ve seen other shows getting cancelled because the cast is getting COVID. It’s like, alright, here we are again. But I do have to take a pause because I Googled it.

Google: “Ah-micron.”

Claire: “Ah-micron.”

Google: “Ah-micron.”

Claire: Thank you, Siri. Okay, well that’s what’s on the top of my mind right now.

Joy: It’s stressful. It’s just freaking stressful.

Claire: You guys didn’t take your trip. All of our Christmas festivities got cancelled because my nephew tested positive for COVID. Thankfully he’s doing fine. I will say, a lot of people I know who are testing positive are vaccinated and boosted. But my nephew was not fully, fully vaccinated. Like, he had gotten a second dose a couple of days before. And then his little sister who is not yet eligible to be vaccinated, they are the only two in their family who haven’t. Everyone else in the family who have been living with them and riding in cars with them haven’t gotten it. So clearly vaccines are still effective against it. It still just makes me feel like there’s no… I don’t know. There’s just no answer. Yeah, I took Evie to get tested today. We sat in the car for two hours in this endless car line. And while we were sitting there, the guy in the car behind me came up and tapped on my window and said, “Hey, your back tire is going flat.” I was like, oh my God. I can’t get out of this line. Even if I wanted to.

Joy: No. You’re like, I’m going to burn the rim down. I don’t care.

Claire: It wasn’t even like, “I sacrificed 90 minutes. I’m not leaving now.” It was like, where do I go?

Joy: Right. You can’t go anyway.

Claire: A driveway, basically, sized area behind a baseball field. There’s a train. I physically could have not gotten out of there, even if I wanted to. So I’m just sitting here thinking, I hope this leak is slow enough that I can sit here for probably another hour and then still make it home. Thankfully it did. I was able to drop my car off at the tire place on my way home. And then at one point – everyone there was so nice. The testing people came up and they’re like, “I’m so sorry. Did you know your tire is going flat?” I was like, “I know, and I just can’t do anything about it” and start crying. He’s like, “I’m so sorry. We’ll find you an air compressor. If you need something, we’ll call AAA.” He was so sweet. He’s like, “We’ll get you home, don’t worry.” I was like, “Okay.”

Joy: Those are the types of people that are angels on earth.

Claire: They are.

Joy: When you’re just like, I’ve had it, I don’t know what else to do.

Claire: And he is running around in his face shield dealing with all these people all day, and he was like, “Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out. We’ll call AAA if we need to.”

Joy: I also feel like when a woman cries especially, everyone is like, “We’re on it.”

Claire: And here I am with this two-year-old in the backseat who is clearly not having a good time either. My tire’s going flat, I’ve been sitting here all day.

Joy: Oh my gosh, that’s kind of an insult to injury situation.

Claire: It was one thousand percent an insult to injury. Especially because I felt like I went to get tested out of an incredible abundance of caution. Like I said, Evie could just have a runny nose and I wouldn’t think twice about it, but we were right there. Let me just do this real quick. And then “real quick” turned into an hour and a half. Anyway.

Joy: And I’m feeling for the people of New York where I’m looking at the lines for people to get tested is just insane. Running out of tests. That just feels, wow, we’re going through these waves. What I was thinking about recently is from the beginning of the pandemic – and I know a lot of the podcasts do a year in a review. And especially from the beginning of 2021 when we thought things were going to get better. And they haven’t really gotten that much better. But how at the beginning they did this podcast on The Daily where they revisited people who had to quit their jobs – or kind of left their jobs when the shutdown happened, and they decided not to return to their jobs because unemployment was paying more than they were making and they had these whole revelations about what they wanted to do with their lives. Because, hey, I was working really hard and not making a lot of money, and blah, blah, blah. So they kind of revisited some people that they interviewed initially right after the shutdown. And I just remember thinking the way that we talked about the pandemic when it first happened was, oh maybe in a few weeks this will be… I mean, but again, we’ve never been here before.

Claire: No.

Joy: No one that I know has been in a pandemic before. When has this happened? No.

Claire: Zero humans alive today.

Joy: Zero humans. Except for my father-in-law with polio.

Claire: Oh, right. Yes. I mean, I don’t want to spend this whole podcast talking about COVID. Because I am simultaneously sick of it and also can’t stop thinking about it. I think that’s also a global paradox.

Joy: I think everyone feels that way.

Claire: Totally.

Joy: And I think as long as we don’t – what I know to be true from our listeners. And I get it. Whenever we start to get angry and ranty, I know that people tend to tune out. And that’s fair. I think there’s enough of that going around. But I also just think we’re in it and we need to talk about it. So we have to be like, oh, well, our plans were cancelled, and that really sucks. And it just does. We’re tired. We’re tired of making decisions on top of decisions on top of decisions. When normally I could be like, yeah, let’s go to Hawaii in June. Now it’s like, I don’t know. I don’t know what the pandemic is going to look like. I don’t know if Hawaii is going to be open. Whatever. So I think it’s just in solidarity, we all feel you. And we’re still here. We’re still here.

Claire: And we’re still here. How was your Christmas?

Joy: It was, you know… ugh, I get kind of emotional about this. I love spending Christmas with Scott’s family. I really do. It just always reminds me of when Scott and I were first dating. I think we started dating Memorial Day of 2006. I went to Thanksgiving and Christmas I think that first year that we were dating, so we were fairly new. And I just remember loving the Christmas. Ever since then, I’ve been like, wow, I loved Christmas at his parent’s house. They go all out. They go all out with food. I may have told this story before, but I think it’s so cute. I think I was vegan before I started dating Scott, so they just didn’t know what to feed me. Whenever I went to Scott’s parents’ house, they would buy huge edible arrangements, which is just a big basket of fruit. That’s what they would buy for me. So it became this tradition every single year, Dan would buy me huge edible arrangements, and that’s what I would freaking eat the entire time I was at their house. It was really funny. I have a sweet spot in my heart for that, even though I’m not vegan anymore. It’s like farm country, and they’re all farmers. They’re like, we don’t know what to do with a vegan in our family. So that was really cute. I just have such a nostalgia for going home with Scott for the holidays that when we had to cancel our trip – and for good reason – it just made me really sad and lonely. We didn’t want to go to my parents’ house because we didn’t want to get them sick, just in case whatever I have is still lingering. So we spent it alone, and we ordered food from Linger which is great. Trying to support local businesses as much as possible. So that felt good, but it’s lonely when it’s just us two. It was really nice, and we try to keep busy, and we just hung out with the dogs and went to our neighbor’s house for a little bit, outside of course. But you know, it made me really appreciate – and we’ve had Christmases that we’ve spent just the two of us I think like once or twice out of the 13 years. So we’re always with some part of our family. But every time it happens where it’s just the two of us, while I appreciate my husband, it just feels kind of sad. It really made me miss my family. So we were on FaceTime with everybody. But it was nice.

Claire: You’re like, I like this guy, but I see him every day.

Joy: Yeah, exactly. I put some Legos together. I got some more Legos sets. It was great. You guys had to stay home too, yeah?

Claire: Yeah. So my brother normally hosts Christmas Eve. And then someone from his wife’s family who also lives in Boulder will host something on Christmas Day evening. So we had just planned completely on being with them, and that obviously didn’t work out. So on Christmas Eve, we went over to my mom’s house, which we don’t… like, my mom lives a mile away. We see her a lot. So we don’t always do holidays with her on the day. And that’s been kind of the way it’s been for a long time because there are more siblings and cousins on my dad’s side than on my mom’s side. My parents obviously are divorced. We will kind of just catch up with my mom later. We went over there actually on Christmas Eve, which was nice and super low key. We were over there for a couple hours. We made a short rib pot pie with cheddar crust that was really good. Came home and went to bed. And then on Christmas morning, I’ve had this dream probably since the Christmas before I got pregnant with Miles. Brandon and I went to Breckenridge first thing Christmas morning and it was empty. It is never empty, let alone during a holiday. But on Christmas morning, people who come up for skiing, who take ski vacations, everyone wants to have a lazy morning. You wake up, do presents, you do your traditions. And not that many people just get up and immediately go skiing on Christmas morning. I have been waiting for my kids to be old enough for us to start doing that as a family. My dream is that we will get up, get directly in the car, have a breakfast burrito in the car, ski for a few hours, and go home and start Christmas at noon and do presents. So we didn’t quite do it like that exactly. We had a little bit of time at home. We opened a couple of little presents. We did our stockings and one or two presents and breakfast, and then got in the car. We went to our local hill called Eldora, which is like an hour away. I didn’t even put my ski boots on. Brandon took Miles on the bunny hill twice, and that was it. This was not as picturesque as it sounds. In order to even get in the car, I had to tell Miles – because Brandon had taken Miles skiing earlier in the week. He was climbing on a pile of snow in the parking lot, fell, hit his head, and got a concussion. Was literally disoriented, didn’t know where he was, didn’t know what had happened. A true concussion. Came home, was nauseous, and then ever since then has been kind of weepy. He’s definitely recovering from an actual head injury. But since the injury wasn’t from when he was skiing. He skis with a helmet obviously. And obviously right now, Brandon holds onto him the whole time. His risks during the skiing activity are quite low. We wanted to get him back out there because he starts ski lessons next week and we didn’t want him to think, “I’m going to go and get hurt.”

Joy: Yeah, like build up his confidence again.

Claire: Right, right. We wanted to build up his confidence again. But he was nervous. So I was like, “Listen. We are going to get in the car and drive up there. And if we get there and you don’t want to ski, we will turn around and come home.” So we get there and we parked and he was like, “I want to go home.” “Okay. Let’s just get out and go in the lodge and have a hot chocolate.”

Joy: Look at the snow and then…

Claire: Exactly. One step at a time. “We’re already here. Let’s just go and get some hot chocolate.” So we go and we spend like 45 minutes in the lodge. Which we haven’t even gone skiing yet. Have some hot chocolate.

Joy: And at this point, is it still pretty empty?

Claire: Yeah, at this point it is pretty empty. So we did finally get him onto skis for two runs. Evie was doing the toddler thing where she was screaming because her hands were cold, but she wouldn’t put on her gloves.

Joy: Totally.

Claire: Which is such a two-year-old thing. “Put your gloves on.” “No! My hands are cold!” I don’t know what to tell you. I have this piece of clothing that is specifically made to solve this problem, but no. The only thing that she wants less than warm hands is to warm up her hands. So yeah, and then we came home. Miles went up the magic carpet and came down the bunny hill twice, and we came home. It was so nice. I will say, I really want to give Brandon a lot of credit because he finally took my gifting advice, and he gave me all things that I wanted.

Joy: That’s amazing.

Claire: I am so proud of him. I got a new bread knife. I got a new water bottle that I’d really been wanting. He gave me a bike helmet. He gave me a piece of Aura Bora.

Joy: Perfect.

Claire: Stuff that I really like. Yeah, exactly. A candle that he knew I liked. He has been collecting it for months. Every time I mention something like, “Oh, that’s such a cool thing,” he would buy it.

Joy: That’s so great.

Claire: And I was like, see, wasn’t it nice to surprise me – even though these are specific things that I asked for, I was still surprised that you had thought about them. But you’re not surprising me with how novel the item is. You are surprising me with your thoughtfulness for remembering the exact thing that I wanted.

Joy: Exactly.

Claire: There’s a different take on the element of surprise that I think is more meaningful and more satisfying for me because it’s obviously what I want. So really happy about that. So it was really fun, and yay Brandon for finally –

Joy: Finally not going rogue and just staying in the lane. Listening to what you want.

Claire: Yeah. It shows some personal growth on Brandon’s behalf because I think he always used to think, well if I’m spending all this effort getting it for you, why wouldn’t you like it? And it’s not that I don’t appreciate the effort, but no matter how much effort you put into something, if it’s not something that I want, then I’m not probably going to end up wearing or using it.

Joy: Exactly. Yeah.

Claire: So he changed his approach, and it was very successful. So yay, Brandon.

Joy: Yay. Yay, gift giving.

Claire: And then coming up next, New Year’s.

Joy: Here we are.

Claire: Here we are, Joy. Finally we can talk about New Year’s resolutions. You’ve been bursting since like Halloween to talk about it.

Joy: But can I ask a really quick question? Okay, so a new year always makes me think of the year in review. Do you ever think about that? Do you reflect on the year at all of what lessons you learned?

Claire: I mean, I normally do, but this year I’m kind of ready to just run the other way.

Joy: Yeah. The only reason I ask is… maybe it’s a selfish reason that I want to talk about it. Maybe a lot of people felt this way, but 2020 was such a shit show that we were like, “Yes, 2021 is going to be amazing.” And it just turned out to be one of the hardest years of my life. So I think the lesson of 2022 is, you know what, I have zero expectations of whatever. The bar is low. Anything great that happens in 2022 is going to really be a cherry on top of the sundae. Because 2021 was just really, really hard. The thing that I keep wanting to bring up and I don’t know how to talk about it, so maybe we can just gloss over it, whatever, tell me what you think. But I’m still holding a grudge from the stuff that happened from leaving my job in May that I’ve been having these weird dreams about needing some type of closure, still having a grudge, somehow needing to let that go. And I don’t know how to do that.

Claire: So you want advice for how to let your grudge go?

Joy: Yeah. I’m asking you for advice.

Claire: Okay, let’s see. I’m really not a grudge holder. I mean, move on.

Joy and Claire: [laughing]

Joy: Just lift heavier. What did Mike say?

Claire: Just pull harder.

Joy: Just pull harder. Just let go.

Claire: Just let go. You want to go? Just let go.

Joy: I mean, it’s true.

Claire: What do you feel is holding you back from just being like, “Okay, I’m over it.”

Joy: I’m so mad. I’m just mad…

Claire: Do you ever see your anger getting resolved?

Joy: That’s true, no.

Claire: Are you searching for resolution?

Joy: Yeah, it’s probably never going to be resolved. I think when you feel like you’ve been wronged and betrayed – I’m going to say all these words. Truly people that I thought were my friends turned out not to be and betrayed me. And it’s all just me, me, me being hurt. Wanting to have some type of resolution or apology that’s never going to come. I think that’s just what I need to let go of. And the reason I bring it up today too is, man, it’s been 6+ months. I had a dream about it last night of asking people around me being like, want to write so-and-so a letter to really let them know – it’s just that whole thing of, it’s not going to solve anything. It’s not going to solve anything, Joy. I think that’s the lesson maybe. It’s okay to be hurt. It’s okay to have two feelings. It’s okay to be hurt by what happened because truly I felt super betrayed. It’s also okay to be like, alright, you kind of have to figure out how to move forward.

Claire: I also think there’s something about the way that we talk about difficult things and forgiveness and getting over something that makes us believe that something has to feel positive to neutral in order for us to move on from it.

Joy: That’s true.

Claire: You can still think that it was shitty. You never have to change your belief about that.

Joy: That’s very true.

Claire: That doesn’t mean that you can’t move on. You can be like, yeah, that was shitty that that happened. I can’t believe that happened.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: That really hurt.

Joy: Yeah. You know what I think of? It’s kind of like grief where grief is always going to hurt when you think about it, but it just transforms you. It’s a very different scenario of course, but grief, you don’t ever get over it. You just work through it, and it transforms you in a different way. I think that’s kind of how I look about it. It might say seriously over dramatic without giving the full details of what happened. And that really just doesn’t matter on a public platform. What matters is my feelings were really hurt. Really hurt. So grieving the loss of friends and people who I thought I could trust. And then being able to move on from that to be like, wow, my feelings were just really hurt. So maybe it’s not so much a grudge as it is feeling so bad that people really treated me to poorly, and my feelings are hurt.

Claire: Yeah. My advice as someone who doesn’t hold grudges – but it’s not like I’ve never had a hard time letting something in my past go – is to think of, like, can you identify something specific that is standing between you and feeling like you could move on? If not, then maybe you just need to be honest with yourself that you’re not going to get – or if you can identify and you know you aren’t going to get it – then make peace with that and maybe “moving on” or “letting it go” just feels like making the conscious decision to say, “I’m never going to get what I needed from this situation, and I can’t keep thinking about it.”

Joy: Yeah. Definitely as time has gone by, it’s not as strong of a feeling. But it’s definitely –

Claire: Right, it’s not as sharp.

Joy: Right. But I’m like, oh yeah, it’s so weird I had a dream about it last night. That’s so weird. It’s still there. So it’s not like this grand moment is going to happen when 2022 is here where I’m like, “Okay, I’m over it.” But I feel like because this all happened in 2021, and you guys know I like to think about life in calendar years and just being like, oh, 2021 was the year that all that crap went down with my previous place of employment. But I think you’re right. It’s just acknowledging that really hurt. And not to say I have to have this grand epiphany of fully letting it go. But just being like, yeah, my feelings were hurt. I can’t stop my life for that. Crap happens. Guess what? Crap happens in life. And what? Do I think I’m exempt from bad things happening to me? I don’t know. I have this weird expectation that I was going to leave this job on such a high note and a good feeling, and it was not that. I think that’s what really bugs me. If anyone else has advice…

Claire: I know, right. What is some advice if you out there are a grudge holder and you have had a lightbulb moment about how to get over grudges, please share with us. So we both had job changes in 2021. I feel like that was kind of the headline. We didn’t go anywhere.

Joy: Didn’t go anywhere. I had the best break of work of my life because I just got to chill out and get my priorities in line.

Claire: You healed your body.

Joy: Fueled my body.

Claire: Healed it.

Joy: Healed it. Yeah, I healed my body.

Claire: This time last year, you were not even a month out from your Graves’ Disease diagnosis. And now that feels like it was so long ago.

Joy: Yeah. Feels like it was so long ago. Healed my body, got all relaxed and priorities straight, and I have a new great job that I love. And you have a new job.

Claire: This year for me was a lot of waiting. A lot of biding my time and waiting for the right thing to come along and being luckily in a position where I could do that. And here I am. I have a fun new job. I’m going to be doing some fun things in 2022. I feel like 2022 for me is already shaping up to be a year where I just do a lot more. Oh. Unfortunately my hunting trip did get cancelled because of COVID. Which I feel like is the right move. It’s people from all over the country in close quarters. Like, we would all be sleeping in a bunkhouse together. So I’m bummed about that, but I’m hopeful that I will be able to do it in the fall. It gives me a little bit of time to learn more about hunting education. But I still have my surf trip that I’m really looking forward to. And I think it would take quite a lot for that to get cancelled because you have to show proof of vaccination for the trip. But who knows? May is a long time away. And I do feel like with my new job, honestly because it pays more – I know money isn’t everything, but at my last job, we weren’t quite living paycheck to paycheck, but it was close to that. Now I feel like with the additional income, I can be more quick to make decisions without having to worry, am I going to be setting myself up for a big financial fallout from this. Even though I do have the money in the account for it now, will I when the time comes still have that? It’s nice to feel like I can put myself out there a little bit more. Like getting a tattoo of a bear with a croissant on it on a whim. Or signing up for a big trip. So do you have an intention or a word for 2022? I know we always do that.

Joy: I don’t. Honestly, I feel like 2022 – this sounds really bad. But honestly, I’m not putting expectations on it. I had such high expectations for 2021 because of 2020 being such a crap show that 2022 I’m just like, alright, bring it on, whatever happens. I really just want to keep the pace that I established after the past six months where I’ve been really backing off and taking a step back from work. The pace of my new job is perfect. It’s exactly what I need right now. I love my team. I love the environment. I love the culture. So I think maintaining, and also trying to go with the flow. Because who knows what’s going to happen? It’s not to say I’m just setting the bar low and not living up to my potential. But I want to be a little bit more relaxed about whatever comes our way.

Claire: So my word or phrase for 2021 was “structure equals freedom.” That came from our episode with Casper ter Kuile we always talk about. If you still have never listened to that episode, I would highly recommend it. Where the concept really is we think that just having nothing but free time and choices and getting to choose moment to moment anything that we want to do is really the goal, and that’s what freedom is. But usually that turns into analysis paralysis, and the more structure you have – not saying that you have to be dogmatic about it, but if you have patterns in your life and rituals in your life, that actually can feel a lot more freeing because it sets you up to have a lot more agency around what to do with that structure. I think I’m going to stick with that. I feel like I did really well with that for the first four or five months of the year, and then I had some health stuff that happened at the beginning of the summer that just knocked me out. I’m feel like I’m finally resetting from all of that. I think I want to try that again. I really liked it the first half of last year, and then I feel like I had to just give it up when I stopped being able to control a lot about what I was able to do.

Joy: Yeah. I have a silly one that I thought of the other day. For whatever reason, I had a selfie with a really close up of my skin. And after all the talk that we had a couple weeks ago – which by the way, thank you to everyone who sent us their amazing photos of Botox or lip fillers that look natural. You look fantastic. So thank you for proving us wrong. Because we are just seeing the ones that are done poorly or their face just looks like it’s really puffy, bloated, and/or frozen. And I don’t like it. I don’t like it. I don’t like that look. Okay. So it’s done really well. So I was looking at this photo and I was like, oh man. Maybe it’s the wintertime. We’re not in the sun a lot. But I was like, I need to get more facials. I just need to get more facials. And I don’t do stuff like that for myself because I have this weird thing. It’s that whole thing of it’s self-indulgent. Whatever. I make up excuses because there’s better things to do with my money, whatever, whatever. But that’s a very silly New Year’s resolution that I want to do more facials for myself. Because that would just make me feel good. Not to be getting rid of wrinkles, but it feels good. I always love getting facials. I don’t love getting massages. Which you would think that’s a weird thing to not like massages. I prefer facials over massages.

Claire: I love facials. I hate massages because I don’t like being touched by strangers. But I do love facials. I should say – I’ve had one. It was earlier this year, and I would like to do it more. Actually I had two. I had one a couple weeks before my wedding. That was a social experience. But I had this great one at Alchemy, which they have an Alchemy in Denver.

Joy: Oh my God, that’s where I’m going. They have one in Boulder. I’m getting the resurfacing one with the Dermaplane.

Claire: That’s what I got! It’s so good.

Joy: Yes!

Claire: You’re going to love it. It’s so nice. They might try to upsell you into this face oil. Buy it.

Joy: Oh really?

Claire: That’s my face oil that I love.

Joy: Okay.

Claire: That’s how it came to be.

Joy: You’re like, “Buy it!” I thought you were going to say, “Don’t buy it.”

Claire: At the end, they’re like, “And this is our regenerating tea tree face oil.” You’ll be like, “Claire told me about this. I need to buy it.” I’m going to influence my influencer friend. I’m influencing you. Get the face oil.

Joy: Oh, that’s so great.

Claire: Yeah, it’s so good. If you guys live in the Denver or Boulder area, go to Alchemy and get the resurfacing facial. First, they do a little microdermabrasion where scrape off your skin and suck it up with this tiny little vacuum. It’s so satisfying. And then they Dermaplane you. It’s lovely.

Joy: Yeah. Didn’t I get you Dermaplane for your birthday a while ago?

Claire: Yeah, but I’ve never gotten the whole facial.

Joy: Oh. Did you get Dermaplane though?

Claire: Yeah.

Joy: And then you got the resurfacing facial?

Claire: Resurfacing facial. And you walk out like a lizard that’s just shedded.

Joy: I can’t wait.

Claire: This would be gross, but they should call it the molting facial because you definitely feel like you just molted your skin.

Joy: I can’t wait. So I’m going this week. I just need to have that feeling. I need to have the feeling of someone just taking off a layer of skin.

Claire: You need to molt.

Joy: I do. It’s time. It’s totally time. Oh, can I give an update on Cadet?

Claire: Yeah.

Joy: Yeah, I think I posted a couple weeks ago that we got her first report card. It was so cute. Basically, they give you a monthly report saying how she’s doing. She’s doing great. Everything that was on the report was pretty standard as far as things I already know that she does. But I was surprised that they checked the box that said “prey drive,” which means she’s chasing after things. She never did that when she was with me. I’m going to give her another month to see if she’s getting the squirrels out because she’s in a new place. But then they sent us these awesome little Christmas cards with her training class. So I posted that on our Instagram if you want to go look at that picture of her. It’s the first photo that we’ve seen of her since we dropped her off. It made me miss her so much. I kept zooming into the photo to see her face to be like, is she happy? Is she having a good time? Joy, she’s a dog. She’s having a great time. She’s with all her friends. And I was zooming into her little belly because I used to rub her belly. It was so great. It was really cute that they did that right before Christmas.

Claire: Yeah.

Joy: So I was really excited. And I have an update for Be the Match. I just heard today that I’ll be donating the bone marrow.

Claire: You will? You didn’t even tell me this.

Joy: I just found out! I just found out. I just found out. I literally just found out like five minutes ago.

Claire: Now I know how it feels when Brandon finds out personal things about me on my podcast. He’s like, “So I heard on your podcast that you’re really unhappy?” And I’m like, yeah, I probably should have told you that. Go on, go on.

Joy: I’m donating bone marrow in about five weeks. I don’t want to give the exact date. I try to make it kind of private. But I’m very excited because that means my patient’s doing well. I shouldn’t say “my patient.” The recipient. My patient sounds like – I don’t own her. The recipient. I guess the prayers have worked. She’s well enough that the transplant can happen in five weeks-ish. So more news on that, but I believe I will be flying out for that at a different location. If things haven’t changed, but more to come. They just contacted me, like, “Hey, can you do this date?” Her treatment team is asking if this date will work. I was like, “Oh my gosh, yes.”

Claire: That’s such a relief.

Joy: I know. I was so worried about her. My mom even asked me today. She was like, “Have you heard from Be the Match to see if they have rescheduled the donation date?” I was like, “No, I’m just really worried about her and hope she’s well enough to get this transplant.” So that’s a good sign. That’s a good sign, so I’m really excited. More to come on that.

Claire: That is exciting.

Joy: Do we have any good resolutions that people wrote in? I know you did that post yesterday about –

Claire: Yeah, so I asked people if they had their own words or resolutions that they had already made. A lot of them are similar. I think a lot of people are feeling the same way. I think coming out of 2020, we all were ready to hit a reset button and that reset button never came. So I think people are really feeling, okay, well, if we’re going to have to make our own reset button, then so be it. A lot of people, their word was consistency, discipline. I saw a lot more of that than we have in the past. Words that I think are coming from that place of, I’m sick of feeling untethered, so I’m just going to create that feeling for myself. Are you looking at the post?

Joy: Mmhmm.

Claire: Do you see any other patterns?

Joy: One that I like is to learn Spanish. We had a team of workers working on our house for the past three weeks, and I was so mad at myself that I didn’t – because most of them spoke Spanish and only spoke Spanish. I was kicking myself, like why don’t I speak Spanish. It made me so mad. I took French when I was in high school because I wanted to be different from everyone else because everyone took Spanish. And now I think that was not a good choice of me trying to be against the grain. And granted, I learned a lot of French, I lived in France. I do not regret it. But practically speaking, I’m not speaking a lot of French and there’s not a lot of opportunities to speak French around here. But there’s always plenty of opportunities to speak Spanish. So I started listening to this learn Spanish podcast. If anyone out there has really good resources of how to learn Spanish on your own, please send them to me. But someone wrote one of their goals is to learn and practice Spanish every day. So that reminded me that’s something that I really want to do. Someone said be present, be mindful, disciplined, donating blood for the first time. Swim one time per week to mix up workouts. I think that’s great. The mantra I’ve been doing lately for workouts and movement is less is more. Because diet culture mentality will always be like, “you should have done more” or “you should have done this.” Lately I’m just like, less is more, Joy. 20 minutes? Great. You did some movement. That’s awesome.

Claire: I posted something on my personal Instagram last week. I had taken a break for a week from working out because the two weeks leading up to Christmas had been really, really crazy at work. I was like, “Work got busy, so I took the week off.” Someone was like, “Thank you for normalizing that you can drop your workouts when other things are busy.” There was totally a time in my life when I would have said, “I worked out anyway,” and I’m so done with being that person.

Joy: No. No.

Claire: I think that’s what we see so much is people who are like, “I could have skipped my workout today because my meetings went over and my dinner was burned, someone threw a brick through my window. No, I didn’t.”

Joy: [laughing] Someone threw a brick through my window.

Claire: “I could have skipped my workout because of all these things, but I didn’t. I got it done. #hustle”

Joy: No excuses.

Claire: I’m not that person anymore #dontgetitdone

Joy: #sitonthecouch #chillax

Claire: Chill the f*** out.

Joy: Amen.

Claire: Working out is not the –

Joy: No. And if there’s anything I’ve learned – here’s the thing. I’ve learned some things in my years. The one thing that I’ve learned, and I always quote my naturopathic doctor because she’s amazing, is if you are already stressed out and you’re exercising to be like #norestdays, you’re freaking screwing yourself. It’s a lot of undoing in the brain because you have that #norestdays still playing in our head. It’s just not true. It’s just not true. I’ve never had a day where I’ve been like, “I’m not going to work out today” or “I don’t feel like working out this week” where all of the sudden my life was upended because of it. Everything’s always fine. And you’re fine. I just hate that ticker tape that’s the drill sergeant of “you should work out.” Guys, rest more in 2022. Maybe drink a glass of water. Maybe just take some deep breaths. Calm your nervous system. And don’t be so hard on yourself.

Claire: I also feel like maybe we should have an entire podcast about what I’m about to bring up. Maybe we should do it with Laura Ligos. Which is that you can make “healthy” choices. You can eat vegetables and drink water, workout in a non-disordered way.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: We have gotten to the point where we feel like that word “restricting” immediately sends up red flags. But yeah, some amount of restarting is normal and natural and needed. And some amount of prioritizing is normal and natural and needed. And some amount of pushing yourself to get something done every once in a while is normal and natural and needed. It’s not all or nothing, and it’s not like if I don’t feel like I 100% want to make this choice, then that means it’s toxic and disordered. No. It’s an in between. It’s a grey area.

Joy: It’s a grey area. Yeah, we talked about this last week with Vanessa Rissetto, which is one of the registered dieticians that we’ve had on the show, who is awesome. Highly recommend that you listen to the show. She reminds me a lot of Laura Ligos. Her mindset is very much the same and the way they talk about nutrition is the same and how we can’t get caught up in – you can still have goals to eat healthy. Highly recommend listening to that because she covers that too. We can eat healthy without it being falling into the diet culture trap.

Claire: Well you guys, that’s it for 2021, I think. That’s a wrap.

Joy: We did another year of podcasting.

Claire: Another year.

Joy: Without missing a week. I don’t think we missed one week.

Claire: No, and in fact for most of the year, you did two episodes a week.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: Sometimes even three.

Joy: Sometimes even three with On Your Marks, Get Set, Bake! But TBD what will happen in 2022. We’ll see if we can maintain that pace.

Claire: I will say, I finally watched the holiday On Your Marks, Get Set, Bakes!

Joy: I did too!

Claire: Well maybe we should do a holiday –

Joy: Oh my God. Oh my God. We may have to do an extra episode because Scott and I were just browsing. I think it was on Peacock, and there’s a new baking show that’s kind of a rip-off of The Great British Bake Off, but it’s with Maya Rudolph and Andy Samberg.

Claire: What?

Joy: Yes. And they did a show called Baking It. It’s Maya Rudolpb and Andy Samberg. They host a baking competition inspired by the holiday season. It looks so much like The Great British Bake Off, but they win like $50,000 in prizes and whatever. I think there’s five or six episodes. It’s only one season, but it looks amazing. It looks like so much fun. And especially because it’s Andy Sandberg and Maya Rudolph.

Claire: Maya Rudolph is my favorite actor.

Joy: We may have to do a little edition of the baking series because that looks like so much fun.

Claire: I was definitely watching the holiday one and thinking I have a lot to say. For example, how did Jamie ever make it on the show at all?

Joy: I know. How?

Claire: What is he even doing there?

Joy: I feel so bad for saying that, but it’s like, how?

Claire: No. At one point Prue was like literally all the other bakers would have to just not show up tomorrow.

Joy: [laughing]

Claire: How was he ever on the show? And why did they bring him back? Clearly, I have feelings about it, and we’ve got to do another episode of On Your Marks, Get Set, Bake! So keep an eye out for that because I just decided that we’re doing one.

Joy: [laughing]

Claire: Alright guys, have a great New Year’s.

Joy: Happy New Year! Thanks for hanging with us for another 365 days.

Claire: That’s crazy.

Joy: 52 episodes.

Claire: Yep. Talk to you next week.

Joy: Love you guys.

Claire: Bye.

Joy: Bye.

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105: Gift Giving, Lip Fillers, and New Beginnings

December 16, 2021 by Joy Parrish Leave a Comment

Don’t go rogue on gift giving! We both have new jobs that are going very well. And our thoughts on botox and lip fillers.

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email: thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com

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This is Joy & Claire Episode 105: Gift Giving, Lip Fillers, and New Beginnings

Episode Date: December 16, 2021

Transcription Completed: December 29, 2021

Audio Length: 52:50 minutes

Joy: Hey guys, this is Joy.

Claire: Good morning, it’s Claire.

Joy: Good morning, good morning. It is so early.

Claire: Do we sound early?

Joy: I sound a little bit sniffly. I’ve got the sniffles.

Claire: I do normally wake up this early, but not to podcast. It’s not that early, guys. It’s like 7:30.

Joy: It’s early on a Sunday to be podcasting.

Claire: It’s early to use your voice. We need to do some vocal warmups.

Joy: Red leather, yellow leather. That’s really hard to do quickly.

Claire: Red leather, yellow leather. I mean, it is and it’s not.

Joy: Rubber. Baby. Can’t do it.

Claire: Rubber, baby, buggy, bumper. I saw this meme. The caption was like, “I’m losing it.” And the exchange was a Zoom thing. Somebody’s like, “Can you talk real quick?” And the person responded, “Well, not like auctioneer fast, but I can talk pretty quickly if I need to.” I was like, I’m going to say that next time. I feel like I could talk auctioneer fast.

Joy: You absolutely could. You know, Scott’s dad did that when they were kids.

Claire: Really?

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: That’s a fun fact.

Joy: It’s a very fun fact. He’s a real fast talker just in general, so I could totally see it happening.

Claire: People will occasionally comment like, “I thought I had my podcast on 1.5x, and I then I realized Claire just talks really fast.”

Joy: I can’t listen to podcasts 1.5, but I can do audio books.

Claire: I’ve never even tried.

Joy: Really? Podcasts are a little bit weird to me to do fast, but I feel like audio books there’s a cadence that all of the sudden I’ll be like, oh this is too slow for me. There’s also something very satisfying about finishing a book faster than it says it’s going to take you.

Claire: Yeah, like when you arrive at your destination before Google estimated.

Joy: Totally. Totally. Are you the type of person when someone says, “Do you have five minutes?” – what is your reaction? First of all, with friendship different. But work, work relationships? “Have you got five minutes?”

Claire: I’m going to turn the tables on you because I am that person.

Joy: Oh no. I don’t like that person.

Claire: I know. I am that person. I have been working from home at this point for so long – we all have, right? Especially by Thursday, Friday, I’m just so freaking sick of typing. And I was the person – in the office, I am the person who will just come over to your cubicle unannounced constantly. I am the stopper byer, one thousand percent. That is the equivalent in Zoom world of stopping by. “Hey, can I call you real quick?” Because I just always prefer to be like, let me give you a little backstory. Here’s this question I have. Versus spending ten freaking minutes typing all that out.

Joy: That’s true, that’s true. I guess I shouldn’t generalize because there’s definitely people that I worked with that I didn’t care at all because I like them. But if it’s people that I know say five minutes, but what they mean is an hour. That’s where I get weird. Because I’m like, no I don’t have five minutes because you’re going to take an hour.

Claire: I know somebody that I used to work with that they would IM me and be like, “Do you have a couple minutes to just debrief something?” And what that meant was, you’re going to be on with me for the next 90 minutes while I just vent. It’s like, okay. There’s a time and place for that once in a while. But it became kind of a regular thing.

Joy: Yeah, that’s that person. She would call me and say, “Do you have a minute?” This was at a previous place of employment. “Do you have a minute?” And I knew. She’s going to hold me hostage on the phone for an hour. It got to a point where I actually confronted her and said, “Look, I am willing to problem solve with you. But I can’t just sit here and listen to you vent and bitch about the company for an hour. I just can’t do it.” And she’s like, “Okay,” and she kept doing it. After that, I was like, I can’t talk to you. Once I set a boundary and you cross it, done. Bye.

Claire: I have this really sweet gal that I work with you is very – how do I put this? She’s the type of person that if you were to IM her and be like, “Hey, can you talk real quick?” She would immediately be like, “Oh my God, I’m getting fired. Something’s wrong.”

Joy: Yeah, that’s very triggering.

Claire: That signals the getting sent to the principal’s office feeling.

Joy: Totally.

Claire: So I had to tell her right off the bat.- as soon as I figured that out about her, I was like, listen. I’m going to do this, and I’m going to tee you up to be like, “Hey, can we talk for a minute? It’s just about this email. I have a question about whatever.” So that she doesn’t panic. But the first time I did it, she was like, “Is everything okay?” I was like, oh, I see that this is causing you a lot of stress. I’ll kind of set the expectation a little bit for people that I know that it freaks them out.

Joy: Which I think is good. I think that’s good because a lot of us carry baggage from previous places of employment. I think it has to do with age and experience and whatever. But I think right now, I’m obviously starting a new job. I’m two weeks in. And I find myself going, okay, this is a new environment. You don’t have to have a knee-jerk reaction when your boss emails you. This is not the past toxic environment anymore. I kind of have to talk myself through it of things to let go of and how I want to show up differently. If I am fearful of something instead of just making up stories in my head, being like, “I want to check things out” and being totally, totally open versus getting stressed out over it.

Claire: I actually got a new boss this week.

Joy: Oh, already?

Claire: The marketing department that I’m in, they have been on this hiring – they’re adding a ton of new roles. My role is not new. My role was a back fill. But throughout this year, they’ve added six or seven roles to the department, which is a lot. One of the roles is a director position, versus the lead. Which there previously was the lead, which most people would probably refer to as the VP of marketing. And there was a group of senior managers, but there was no director in between. That was fine when the team was smaller, but now that the team has grown, they wanted to add someone in between. So I got a new boss. It’s just very interesting to have just started, so barely know the dynamic of the person that I interviewed with. But then also to feel like, wait a minute, I didn’t interview with you.

Joy: You don’t know me.

Claire: Thankfully, I really like this person so far. And we were talking about something. We’re having this team-building activity this week where we’re all going to one of those experience kitchens where you all get together as a big group and cook a big dinner.

Joy: Oh, how cute is that?

Claire: Like a cooking lesson. It’s very my vibe, right?

Joy: So fun.

Claire: So fun. We were on a team meeting on Thursday, and somebody asked, “What are we making?” And the girl who was in charge of putting it together read out the menu. One of the things was a butternut squash galette. And someone was like, “What’s a galette?” And someone else was like, “It’s a type of pasta.” I was like, “No, no, it’s like a freeform pie. Crust on the bottom, and you kind of fold the edges.” Everyone was like, “Okay, wow.” I’m like, don’t ask the question if you’re going to make fun of me for knowing what a galette is first of all.

Joy: I know, I know, I know.

Claire: Guys, this is a pie question I happen to know the answer to, okay. If it had been a type of pasta, I wouldn’t have known. No one would know. But my new boss was like, “Oh, I knew that.” I was like, oh, we’re going to get along. A couple hours later, we were talking about something and he made a reference to something about bakeries. He was like, “Yeah, I was watching this YouTube show about this Bavarian pretzel bakery.” And I was like, oh, we’re going to be friends. [laughing]

Joy: You’re like, “We’re going to have a lot to talk about. Do you watch The Great British Baking Show?”

Claire: Oh, there have been several people so far at my job that I’m like, “Do you watch Bake Off?” And they’re like, “Oh, I love Bake Off!” And I’m like, “Cool, I have a Bake Off podcast you might want to listen to.” And they’re like, “You do?!” I am usually hesitant to tell people about the podcast because we talk about really personal stuff.

Joy: I know. I never share about it at work, but I’ll tell you a story in a minute when you’re done.

Claire: But I do tell people about the Bake Off podcast.

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: Because it doesn’t feel as personal. That one feels like a funny hobby that I have.

Joy: Totally. Totally, totally. Yeah. No, that’s really funny. It’s the whole new work situation. My new boss too. I guess it’s like the honeymoon phase with the job, like I’ve said before. I’m not going to sit here and say that any job is perfect, but I can already tell the vibe with this person. I’m like, oh my gosh, you’re night and day from my old boss. Just the whole company’s vibe is night and day from my previous place of employment. My nervousness to try to – I’m always that person that wants to get to know people at work. I definitely am not an introvert at work. I try to get in and participate, let’s say. I don’t want to become friends with everybody. I have really weird boundaries about that. I don’t really believe in becoming friends with people at work. Like good friends where you hang out outside of work. I’ve just never seen it work very well. Majority of the time, it ends up getting weird, especially if you go into a management role. But there’s been very few times where I’ve maintained a good friendship outside of work. Maybe that says more about me. I don’t know. Anyway, so I’m trying to participate in these meetings because I’m wanting to get to know everybody. They were talking about this creative hobby that one of my other coworkers has. My boss was like, “it’s so cool that I get to learn about everybody’s creative hobbies. I love learning that about you guys.” She’s like, “Is anyone else creative?’ And I was like, “Well, not in that way.” And she’s like, “Well, in what way?” And I was like, damn it. Why did I speak up?

Claire: Now I have to follow this up with a thing. What did you say?

Joy: I was like, “Well, I’ve been doing podcasts for the last eight years.” And then I kind of made a joke. I’m like, “Yeah, we were doing it before it was cool.” And then I’m like, dang it, why did I mention that? Now everyone’s going to wonder what I podcast about, and I didn’t want to follow up questions. I was like, Joy, foot in mouth, shut up, stop sharing. Luckily, no one asked a follow up question like, “Oh, what’s your podcast?” Just Joy, no, cut, stop. It was kind of like you’re trying to participate because no one else was participating. I will be that person. If Zoom gets really quiet and the boss asks the question and no one answers, I always feel really bad. So I’m always the one to speak up if there’s silence. My nervous chatter turned against me. I just hope nobody follows up and tries to look at what we do. That’s too soon. It’s too soon to know what we’re talking about.

Claire: I feel like when I started, they asked me for a little short bio of myself for the employee newsletter that goes out every week. I was like, what do I say my hobbies are?

Joy: Right, I think you told Jess and I. You don’t want to say podcast.

Claire: I don’t want to say my hobbies are podcasting and CrossFit because the people are going to think I’m Joe Rogan.

Joy: Exactly. Exactly.

Claire: No, no, no, no.

Joy: These two things are very – they come with a stigma. They come with a stigma.

Claire: For example, right now there is this – I don’t know if “marketing memes” are a category, but there is this marketing mem going around about personas. Like marketing personas. Everybody knows what that is, right? When you go through an exercise to figure out who the target market is for your brand or your product or whatever, and you typically write out age – like demographic exercise. So there’s this marketing meme, if you will, going around that is a picture of Prince Philip and a picture of Ozzy Osbourne. They’re the same age. They’re from the same town. They both live in a castle. They’re both multimillionaires. They are in the exact same demographic. And it’s like, “Be careful what you say about demographics.”

Joy: Yeah, yeah.

Claire: I want to say that about podcasting. There’s me in this column of podcasting and CrossFit. And then there’s like Ben Bergeron. [laughing]

Joy: Oh my gosh.

Claire: Wildly different category. So I ended up not mentioning either of those things. I put one of my hobbies as drinking coffee. I ran out of hobbies so quickly.

Joy: Baking, drinking coffee.

Claire: I did put baking.

Joy: Hiking.

Claire: What else do I do? But on a regular basis. And everyone at this company puts hiking. You almost can’t work there unless you like to hike.

Joy: “What’s your favorite spots?” And then all the follow up questions and you’re like, “I maybe go once in a …”

Claire: And every single person is like, “Oh, I like hiking and mountain biking and skiing” and blah, blah, blah. So I put those things. But that doesn’t set you apart at this job.

Joy: No. But it’s funny how I get all shy about some of the hobbies. Podcasting, but I have to have a disclaimer. There’s some badge of honor about being like, “But we did it before it was cool.”

Claire: Right. But then that makes you sound even douchier.

Joy: Totally douchey. Where it’s like, “She’s got a hang-up about podcasting.”

Claire: We just got to own it.

Joy: Oh God. I totally was that geek that was trying too hard to be the cool person. Super chill. Breezy. Remember that episode from Friends that’s like, “I’m breezy.” And he’s like, “You can’t say you’re breezy. It just negates the breezy.” [laughing]

Claire: Okay, we also want to talk about a quick exchange that happened right before we hit record that we just glossed right over. We were talking about Joy’s –

Joy: A little sniffly.

Claire: Joy’s sniffly. And right before we hit record, Joy had JT in the room. She records in a spare bedroom in her house that’s been turned into a recording studio. And she’s like, “Oh, one second. I just heard Scott get up. I’m going to put JT out of the room so he can go hang out with Scott.” She opened the door, and Scott’s first words were, “You sound terrible!”

Joy: I said like one word. I was like, “I’m recording.”

Claire: And he goes, “You sound terrible. Oh no.” He immediately was like, “Oh, are you sick? You feel bad?” Joy’s like, “I don’t feel bad.”

Joy: I’m good, I’m good.

Claire: “You need to go to the doctor. I’m serious.” She’s like, “I don’t need to go to the doctor. I’ve got to record. Get out of here.

Joy: I’m like, “We are recording right now.” I’m shutting the door as I’m speaking.

Claire: I cannot go to the doctor in this moment. Thank you. Let’s discuss this later.

Joy: So the backstory is – okay, you can probably tell I’m a little bit nasally. I’ve got a bug, if you will. But Scott has been really sick for the last two weeks. Around Thanksgiving, I probably mentioned this, that he did not go to Thanksgiving with us because he was so sick. He tested for COVID, tested negative. It was probably a bronchitis type of thing. But it really hung on forever. Coughing, he was in bed. Probably in all of our years being married, I have not seen him that sick. There’s a part of me that’s like, I hate to do this, but I do get a little bit of man flu syndrome where it’s like, do you really feel that bad? So he is just fresh off of these two weeks comparing what he felt and thinking he gave it to me. Let’s knock on wood. I don’t think I have what he had. I think it’s probably either a lingering something, like maybe I caught a little bit of what he had or maybe I caught something at the grocery store. Who knows? I’ve been masking and hand sanitizing, but whatever. It’s flu season. I’m vaccinated. I’ve been booster. I had the flu shot. I feel like I’m pretty good. But also, crap happens. I think this is probably something that’s a minor cold. He’s like, “You should go to the doctor now.” Because he fears that if I wait, it’s just going to get worse and worse and worse. Maybe he’s right. But I just was like, this is the difference between men and women.

Claire: I agree with you that this is the difference between men and women in some ways. But also, I think the wild outlier behavior that he’s exhibiting is the willingness to go to the doctor.

Joy: That’s true.

Claire: The majority of men are like – the stereotype says that they want to just suffer. That they feel sick but won’t go to the doctor. You’re like, “Go to the doctor.” They’re like, “It’s fine.” And you’re like, “It’s not fine. Make a choice. Go to the doctor or lock it up.”

Joy: Bless his heart, I think he’s got a little bit of the hypochondria where any little thing he’ll start making it a big deal. He’s really good about going to the doctor, thank goodness. Because as we know, that one time Brandon had – what was it? Dengue fever or something?

Claire: Dengue fever.

Joy: [laughing] One of these days.

Claire: I’m never going to live that down. It was one time.

Joy: One time.

Claire: “She made out with a hot dog. That was one time.”

Joy: Yeah.

Claire: He had dengue fever and I made fun of him. That was one time.

Joy: One time.

Claire: If you guys don’t know this story. Back – this would have been, what? 2013? Brandon went on this medical volunteer trip to Guatemala. They stayed in this village. At the time, he was an EMT. He kind of just came with them and checked vitals. Whatever. It was a great trip. He came home, and he had already missed the first week of school. This is when he was getting his prereqs done for nursing school. I was like, you have to go to school. You’re in Organic Chemistry. You can’t just miss two weeks of O-Chem. And he was like, “I feel so sick.” I was like, “You’re not sick. You’re fine.” He legitimately had such a bad fever. He woke up in a puddle of sweat. He was very sick, and I just had no sympathy for him. Just get up and go to school. I was like, “You probably have an ear infection.”

Joy: Right.

Claire: Go get on some antibiotics and suck it up. And then it turned out that he had dengue fever. So to this day – that was 7, 8 years ago. If I ever make fun of him for being sick, he’s like, “Remember that time I had dengue fever and you made fun of me?”

Joy: He’s always going to use that, yeah.

Claire: I’m like, come on.

Joy: That’s my fear is one of these days – my whole mantra the whole time he was sick – I was bringing him tea, bringing him food, bringing him whatever he needed. Because there were times when I was like, oh my God, are you really this sick? But you know what? It’s not harming anybody. You have to live your life. He went to the doctor. He went to the urgent care once because he was worried that it was going to turn into pneumonia. To be fair, I was worried it was going to turn into pneumonia because that’s how much it was lingering. After a good week and a half of having a horrible cough, I was like, yeah, you can go to the doctor. But anyway, that’s a really funny exchange because I literally yesterday just started having a sore throat, a little bit of sniffles. And today this morning, he’s like, “You sound horrible. Go to the doctor.” I was like, can I just record? It’s fine. I’m going to push mute a lot. I’m going to cough. I’m going to blow my nose.

Claire: It’s going to be fine.

Joy: We’re going to get through this.

Claire: We’re going to get through this.

Joy: How are you doing on Christmas shopping? You done? Because I love a countdown. We’re on the third week of December. I’m going to Oklahoma next week to see his parents.

Claire: Most shipping deadlines are at the end of this week. Hot tip, the majority of retailers, ground shipping or guaranteed 3-day shipping ends by the end of this week for most places. So if you don’t want to have to pay even ore for shipping. So yeah, I’m pretty much done. There’s probably one more thing I want to give Brandon. I need to get my mom something. I feel like moms are the hardest to shop for. And my dad, my dad’s so hard to shop for.

Joy: Your dad is?

Claire: He’s just very – and I get it, because I am also like this. Where he is very picky. I’m pretty picky when it comes to gifts. Don’t give me something just to give me something. If you don’t have a reason to think that this is something that I actually want and will like, then just ask me. Don’t go out on a limb.

Joy: Don’t’ go rogue.

Claire: Don’t go rogue. Don’t go rogue. We always talk about this.

Joy: Brandon always goes rogue.

Claire: He always goes rogue. My perfect example is one year he bought me this sweatshirt that was a zip up hoodie sweatshirt. He’s like, “I noticed you don’t have any zip up hoodie sweatshirts, so I got you one.” Well, the reason I don’t have any is I don’t like zip up hoodie sweatshirts. I like pullover crew neck sweatshirts. Don’t go rogue. If you notice I only have one type of something, it’s not because I haven’t had an opportunity to buy the other type. It’s because I don’t want the other type. And he sees it the opposite, that if you have all one type of something obviously it’s because you would like a different type to branch out. I don’t want to branch out. Let the record show, I don’t want to branch out. I like what I like. My dad is very much like that. But he is way more to the extreme. I feel like I like what I like and don’t branch out. If you do branch out, I’m not going to get mad about it.

Joy: Right, you’ll appreciate it.

Claire: I might with Brandon. I’ll be annoyed because he should know this by now. But the majority of people in my life, I don’t expect them to know that about me.

Joy: Right.

Claire: Except now that you do because you listen to this podcast.

Joy: Don’t go rogue.

Claire: Mugs and cookbooks, guys. You can’t go wrong. But my dad, the phrase that I would say about my dad is it’s not the thought that counts with John Hay.

Joy: So what types of things have you?

Claire: I pretty much just get him golf balls.

Joy: Okay.

Claire: Every gift for every holiday since I was like four years old, I just get him a pack of Titlist golf balls.

Joy: Which is great.

Claire: You always need more golf balls. So I don’t know, that’s probably what I’ll get him.

Joy: With my dad, it’s always guerrilla tape and work glove. It’s all he wants. He wants guerrilla tape and work gloves. Very specific work gloves. Don’t go rogue on them. He likes what he likes. But there was a couple things I got for my parents this year. I actually think he’s going to like this. I may have mentioned this last week. I went on an Amazon wish list that was Oprah’s curated Amazon wish list. There were some really good gifts on there. There was a beanie with a light on it. My dad loves a flashlight, and he likes warmth. So he’s going to love this beanie. He’s always looking for something. He’s always got flashlights.

Claire: He’s always rustling in the corner somewhere.

Joy: Yeah, and he’s up early. He’s going into the garage early. He needs a flashlight so he doesn’t slip on the ice. This is perfect. He doesn’t have to carry something. But anyway, those types of things, I’m like, this is perfect for him because I know he would actually use this. But yeah, it’s hard to do. Would you ever buy your mom or Brandon something like tickets to the Meow Wolf or tickets to Van Gogh? An event, like something that you go to and experience.

Claire: I would do that for Brandon, probably not so much for my mom. My mom is also like – she and I share this problem of we have theories about the types of things we should like, but we never actually buy them for ourselves. Like nice shoes or something. I have one pair of nice shoes. I look at other nice shoes all the time. Or like bags, things like that. I talk myself out of it. I get that from her, talking myself out of buying. Which is fine in some ways. Yeah, I have lived my life perfectly fine with my one pair of nice shoes and my one bag. Or I look at nice shirts for work and then I talk myself out of them because I have enough nice shirts for work. That might be true. And also it makes it so that if I ever get into a situation where I actually need something new, I have analysis paralysis about it. And so she’s like that. So sometimes I’ll get her something that I know that –

Joy: That she has talked herself out of. That’s good. I can appreciate not being a bag person. I’ve never been a fancy bag person. Or purses or whatever. I use the same Lululemon festival purse that I’ve had for – I mean, I think I bought three of them in different colors because I love them so much. But I just can’t – I think when Scott and I were first dating, this was when he introduced me that he is a gift giver. One of the first gifts he gave me was an awesome pair of Nikes. Of course. And then another gift he gave me was this awesome, awesome beautiful purse that I still have. But it was just too big. I’m not a purse person. I don’t like carrying purses on your arm. I like a crossbody. I find it fascinating the people that get really obsessed with like Coach purses – you know what I mean? That to me is a very fascinating hobby, to be into purses. I would never invest that much money into purses.

Claire: Oh my gosh, it’s unbelievable. You know the crazy goop list? They have these $50,000 safari excursions.

Joy: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was going to be like, like vagina weights? Yeah.

Claire: All the goop lists are crazy. This really extravagant one where they list all the most elaborate gifts you could ever give, and they’re like a gold-plated submarine. You’re like, why would I want a gold-plated submarine? But someone out there wants a gold-plated submarine. So. One of the things on that was a $5,000 Air Jordan workshop where you make your own.

Joy: That’s pretty amazing. That’s pretty amazing.

Claire: I don’t feel like Scott is a DIY type of guy.

Joy: No.

Claire: But I could imagine someone who’s so into sneakers being like really into that idea.

Joy: There’s definitely shoes where you can pick your own colors, and he’s done that before.

Claire: Customize them.

Joy: Customize them. He’s definitely done that before. Maybe he would.

Claire: I feel like it would be very specific person that would want to actually build their own from the ground up.

Joy: I think he would want to be in the room with the people and the artists that designed the shoes, that have all the lines of shoes. He would want to be in the room just watching. He went to Seattle this past week for a couple concerts. He went to the Pearl Jam museum. You guys. I’ve never seen so many pictures of Pearl Jam paraphernalia through my phone. He was so excited. He was so excited. It was really cute. If you don’t know, Scott is #1 Pearl Jam fan. He’s like, “All the jackets that Eddie Vedder wears are so small. He’s a tiny guy.” I was like, is he really? You just see Eddie Vedder larger than life. By the way, if you want a good listen, I love that Audible does this. Audible has done some amazing artist series. I think it’s only on Audible. Which I can post the link to our Audible account, which we rarely use, but you can use that link if you want a free listen. It’s called “I Am Mine” by Eddie Vedder. Basically they have this whole artist series where they go through a lot of their process or maybe how they started, talking about the songs that they’ve written, and that one was really good. So shout out to Eddie.

Claire: Shout out to Eddie Vedder.

Joy: [laughing] Shout out to Eddie Vedder. But as far as the Christmas shopping goes, there’s definitely things that I could buy one more thing, but I’m drawing a line. No, you’re done.

Claire: Yeah, that’s fair.

Joy: There’s always more you can buy, and you feel like you have to overdo it.

Claire: I feel like that with my kids. There’s always one more thing. We’re really lucky. Brandon’s family gets the kids so many presents. They get so much stuff. Last year, we literally spent like two years opening presents.

Joy: Two years?

Claire: Two hours, two hours opening present. This is way too much. So I told myself this year, we personally are only getting the kids three or four things because Brandon’s family really gets them so much stuff. Which I’m really grateful for, and I was like I don’t need to overdo this. But it’s so tempting. Like the other day I sent Brandon to Target for like paper towels, which I had preordered and paid for. I was like, “Pick them up at Customer Service. Do not pass go. Walk in. Go to Customer Service. Pick up the paper towels. Leave.” And he calls me like 20 minutes later and he’s like, “Hey, I’m at Target. I’m just looking at this microscope. I’m thinking maybe for Miles?” I’m like, “We have enough presents for Miles! Get out of there.”

Joy: This was a mission. You had very specific instructions. Do not look at the toys.

Claire: Do not look at the toys.

Joy: Oh my gosh. But it’s really hard. Like I was going on the Target app. I was trying to shop for my sister-in-law last week. I got on the Target app, and all of the sudden I see they did this line of clothing and toys and houseware with Lego. I was just like, oh my gosh. They had this really adorable puffer jacket. You could take off the sleeves. It was very much convertible. You could take off the bottom half, so it could be a long jacket, or it could be a vest. And they had this cute pocket on the front. I was like, I do not need any more puffers. I do not need any more jackets. I’m fine. But I wanted it so bad. This is how it happens. By the way, this is what I’ve been subscribing to. JK from The Muscle Feed, who’s been on the Girls Gone WOD podcast a few times. He had this great suggestion. I think we talked about this offline. We talked so much about how we love a certain thing that we’ll buy multiple shirts or whatever. The things that you like, you just keep buying the same thing. He’s like, “I don’t need any more graphic tees. So whenever I see one, I’ll look at it and if I want to buy it right now, I’m just like, ‘Nope.’ And I put that same amount of money that it costs into my savings, and I label it ‘graphic tee that I didn’t need’ type of thing.” That’s actually brilliant. You see how much money that you’re saving. Truly, it’s not about limiting. Hey, if you want something, great. Buy it. But there’s a certain level of, I don’t need any more sweatshirts or running shoes or whatever. And then you just put that into savings. I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately. So I’m going to put that puffer jacket, I’m going to put that money into savings, and we’re going to be fine.

Claire: My whole family just got new puffer jackets. Those are the last thing we needed new of. Every single person already has multiple of these, and now we have more. I can’t stop myself when it comes to puffy jackets. I just can’t.

Joy: When you live in Colorado. But here’s the other thing – you know I love fashion. You know I love makeup. You know I love all of it. And I live in a city and a state that you just don’t have a lot of opportunity – let me just say, at my age. I’m not going out. I work from home now. So I really just need to be presentable from the waist up. I feel like that is something that I’ve been thinking a lot about. Where you spend your money and blah blah blah. I just think about how something like that $5,000 Jordan designer thing. Or if you see something on the news about some type of memorabilia that sold for $20,000. I’m like, oh my gosh, that is just crazy. You have a piece of memorabilia that, sure, it’s something that they look at that as an investment. But I can’t wrap my head around spending that much money.

Claire: It’s still an item. Like, it’s a thing.

Joy: Yeah, it’s a thing. That’s where I get really caught up. Because I’m like, this is where I can never be a billionaire because I just get way too caught up in, “Oh, a private jet costs a million dollars?” Even if I had billions. Yeah, it’s whatever.

Claire: Well, first of all, when it comes to never getting dressed up. I kind of wonder in this day and age, where is a location where you get – I think anywhere you go at this point, any city in America where you need to get dressed up. Maybe there are some places where it’s a little let weird. That’s the thing. In Denver, you could show up dressed up to any restaurant, and it wouldn’t be weird. It’s just very uncommon. So maybe we just need to do that more. We need to be like, you know what, we’re getting dressed up tonight and we’re going out because I want to buy something dressy.

Joy: Which is fun, and I’m all for that. But people in Los Angeles I bet would beg to differ. Like Scottsdale. I always think of Scottsdale because every time I go there, I’m like, oh my gosh I can’t hang.

Claire: Really?

Joy: Oh yeah.

Claire: Tell me more about this Scottsdale. Because Maxine’s boyfriend lives in Scottsdale, and I just imagine it being golf courses.

Joy: Well, it is. But it’s a very wealthy part of Phoenix metro area. I don’t know. Without going into a lane of offending a lot of people, I think I would just say there’s a certain group of people – there’s very much a competition of appearances. Maybe I’m just transferring this to the group I grew up with in high school.

Claire: I can see what you’re saying, if there’s a cliquiness.

Joy: There’s a cliquiness. The appearance is very, very important. Let’s just put it that way. The appearance is very, very important. So when you go out, that is very apparent. It’s very prevalent in that city.

Claire: And I guess when I think about dressing up, I think about a cocktail type of attire type of dress up. Not a separate branch of casual where your casual wear is just really nice. I can’t imagine a world where – I was thinking about this last night. Miles had this Ninjas Night Out at karate. It was kind of like a lock-in where you drop your kid off for like five hours, and they just kind of babysit them for you. I had on effectively pajamas when I was dropping him off. It was the middle of the day. It was five o’clock. And I was thinking to myself, I’m so glad that I’m not the type of person that thinks I can’t go run errands in my leggings and my socks. I have my ski socks and my sandals on and my leggings. And my ski socks are kind of crumpled up at the bottom because I don’t want to pull them up over my leggings. And I have that big – Joy, for my birthday, got me this big, fleecy yellow sweatshirt that is very cozy and also looks like this big, fleecy, yellow thing. It’s yellow and fleece. You wear it and it’s like –

Joy: It’s a big bear hug.

Claire: But it’s bright yellow. There’s no getting around that you’re wearing this like… like it could not be more casual when it’s going with everything else.

Joy: Right, right.

Claire: It’s sort of the sweatshirt equivalent of a bathrobe.

Joy: But so cozy. This is clearly my comfort clothes. Like right now, I’m wearing –

Claire: You are also wearing the sweatshirt equivalent of a bathrobe.

Joy: Yeah, I definitely have a sweatshirt bathrobe on.

Claire: And I just had this moment of, oh man, I’m so glad I don’t care about getting dressed up to go to the grocery store or drop my kid off at karate or whatever.

Joy: Anyway. Here’s the thing. You do you, right? I guess we all – but I think when I think about the things that I want to buy and spend money on… whenever we go shopping and Scott will pick out this awesome ragged bone dress and be like, “This is awesome.” Where would I wear that? Where on earth? I wish I had a place to wear that. Maybe we should go out more. Anyway. People in Dallas are going to write in and be like, oh let me tell you a thing or two. [laughing]

Claire: Please tell us. If you have moved to a town and unwittingly showed off to drop your kid off at karate wearing leggings and ski socks and everyone around you had their outfits on and you were like, “Oh no,” please tell us if this happened to you. Because I can imagine.

Joy: I really want to know.

Claire: If I lived anywhere other than Boulder County, I think I’d have culture shock. Because Boulder is particularly very casual. You can show up at any establishment at any time in leggings and ski socks and someone else in there is also going to be wearing leggings and ski socks. You could show up in July in leggings and ski socks. Literally, I don’t think I’ve gone anywhere where at least one person wasn’t wearing socks and sandals. It’s like the Boulder thing. It’s horrible by the way, but you can’t resist it. It’s just so convenient.

Joy: It’s so convenient. Yeah, it’s so convenient.

Claire: Yeah, but if I moved anywhere else, I think I would have culture shock about it.

Joy: I would like to hear about it. Where you live, whether or not you feel pressured to do something with yourself before you walk out the door. And I’m not saying I don’t do anything. I’m just saying I don’t go out of my way. Even right now, it’s really funny because now that I work from home and I really only have to do a little bit of doing up my face and my shirt. I’m like, oh I’m always in sweatpants now. Is this a bad thing? Is this a bad thing? I have to tell a quick sad story that’s not sad at all. It’s just kind of funny and ironic. Over the past month, I’ve had really bad allergies in my eyes, and I think it’s a reaction to makeup. I’m like, this is the universe playing a cruel joke that I can’t wear makeup right now. It has been really, really bad to where even when I wear mascara, my eyes would get really red, my eyelids would get really red, around my eyes. It would just be this severe allergic reaction. Yeah, apparently this is the same thing where you can just develop an allergy over time. All of the sudden, your body can be like, “We don’t like this.” I’m like, my body doesn’t like makeup anymore? This is so sad. So I haven’t been wearing a lot of makeup because of that. But luckily, I found a few products that are helping.

Claire: Okay. I had a similar experience, and I think it had to do more with my contacts than anything and starting at a screen all day. First of all, fun fact, your body can develop and allergy to contact lenses.

Joy: Oh my God.

Claire: Over the course of your life, if you are someone who has been wearing contacts – like me. I’ve been wearing contacts since I was in third grade. But basically what happens is your body comes so, so, so, so, so sensitive to the types of crap that inevitably builds up in your contacts that even if you have the type of contacts where you throw them away every single day and put new ones in every single morning, your eyes can become oversensitive to the bacteria that just naturally occurs in your eye but builds up on your contact lenses throughout the day. So there are people out there who over time just get to the point where they physically can’t wear contacts anymore because their eyes reject them. I thought I was getting to that point like two years ago.

Joy: Oh really?

Claire: I ended up changing contact brands and having to go through five different brands to find one that didn’t do that. I also had a similar experience with mascara recently. I was asking on my personal Instagram for mascara recommendations for people who have sensitive eyes. The one that I tried that I’m really liking, it’s Tarte is the brand. It’s called like “surfer lashes” or something. I really like it, and it does not irritate my eyes as much as before. I was using a L’Oréal one. I tried the really classic Maybelline one, the pink and the green cap. I tried a lash scope, whatever that one was that Julie Bauer recommended like five years ago and I never update my –

Joy: Yeah, your mascara usually expires and you don’t use it.

Claire: No, not that I don’t buy a new one. Once I find on that I like, I’m just like, “I’m going to use this for the rest of my life.”

Joy: Oh, got it.

Claire: She recommended that to us like five years ago. And I was like, oh I actually really like this one. So I just kept buying it. Yeah, that one was bad. So if you are the type of person, if you have really watery eyes or you have contacts and you feel like you can’t wear mascara with your contacts and keep looking at a screen all day, try the Tarte mascara. I have found success with it. What did you find that worked?

Joy: Well I, first of all, I had to put – I mean, it was so bad. It was so itchy that I had to put eczema cream on my eyelids. Which, I know.

Claire: Oh my gosh, ow.

Joy: Yeah, it was really, really painful. But I got a very – I can’t remember the brand, but I can share it if people are interested. I got it at Target. I had to be very careful because obviously you don’t want that to get in your eye. But I was just like, I’m desperate. And then I got this awesome. Aveno nighttime moisturizer that has changed my life. So once I got my eyes a little calmed down, I tried a little bit of The Honest Beauty from Jessica Alba yesterday, and that has not caused a reaction so far. However, I only put it on my top lashes and barely put any on. Just to be like, I want to try this out. I mean, are the mascara companies trying to kill us? I feel like there are so many mascaras that I use – I’ve used two different ones in the past month just to see if it was… but apparently, I have to get a hypoallergenic mascara now. And I’m really worried about putting on eye makeup. Like, I can’t put on eye makeup right now. Which is really sad.

Claire: I also feel like maybe this is just our body’s way of telling us this is a really sensitive part of your body. Don’t keep putting crap on here all the time.

Joy: Yeah, exactly.

Claire: I would also like to say, I tried the Beauty Counter mascara, and it created the same reaction. So whatever it is. You know when people are like, “It’s because there are all these crappy ingredients in normal mascara. You have to try Beauty Counter.” Apparently, those ingredients were not the culprit. I also think that there is something that’s so odd about feeling like I want to wear makeup so badly that I will go through the process of my body rejecting it to find the one that works.

Joy: Yeah, it’s so weird.

Claire: Also, a lot of people recommended to me when I was putting that post about mascara that I just get my eyelashes tinted. Which I have done, and it does not create the desired effect.

Joy: No.

Claire: I need the volume.

Joy: Yeah, I’ve had my lashes tinted before, and I feel like it’s barely like a whisper of mascara.

Claire: Right. I have dark eyelashes. That’s not the problem. I need the volume that mascara brings.

Joy: The lengthening and the volume.

Claire: I also have gotten eyelash extensions and I loved them. But they were first of all, very expensive. And second of all, who has two hours every 3-4 weeks to lay there and have them do your individual little eyelashes? Not this girl.

Joy: No, no, no. No.

Claire: No, no, no.

Joy: Anyway. I was going to give a quick Sex and the City review of the new episodes, but maybe we’ll wait for next time.

Claire: I mean, how many episodes?

Joy: There’s only two episodes out right now.

Claire: What’s your initial impression?

Joy: My initial impression is, I appreciate the effort and I appreciate the nostalgia, but I’m just really feeling old watching it. Because this was a show that most of us, if you are in your 40’s or maybe your 30’s, if you watched it, it’s probably women in their late 30’s and older who really connected with this show. I was in my mid to late-20’s when I really got into it. It was just one of those things where you feel like you’re just so parallel to your lives and can relate to them. And now it’s just kind of like – I don’t want to say it’s sad to watch it. But I get a little sad watching it where you’re trying to make “fetch” happen type of thing. I just, I don’t know how I feel about it yet. I could talk hours about what they’ve done to Miranda’s character. This woke, white woman that’s really awkward, and it’s bizarre. I’m not going to give a spoiler, but if you can get past it, the first episode I was like this is the most boring episode ever.

Claire: But there’s only two episodes, and you need to get past the first one?

Joy: So far.

Claire: Okay. I was like, this feels like…

Joy: They’re releasing more, but only two have come out so far.

Claire: I feel very strongly about shows where people are like, “You just have to get past the first season.” I’m like, I don’t want to just have to get past the first season. I want to enjoy the whole thing.

Joy: I want to enjoy the whole thing, yeah. I almost was like, I want to watch it just because I want to watch the clothes. And I do like Jessica… Sarah Jessica Parker. Joy… Sarah Jessica Parker.

Claire: I was like, Jessica who?

Joy: I always want to see what she’s doing because she’s just great.

Claire: Right. It is sort of a moment of – that was the whole show.

Joy: Fashion, and yes. And the characters really were amazing. So then I went down a rabbit hole of watching old episodes, which I spent an entire day doing that. But Charlotte clearly has had some Botox so her face doesn’t move, and that makes me feel weird. I feel the same way about Jennifer Aniston by the way. When I watch Morning Show, I’m like, your face doesn’t move.

Claire: Your face is supposed to move.

Joy: And it drives me crazy.

Claire: I feel like there are some women like that where you can tell they’ve gotten a facelift when they didn’t really need a facelift, so they’re upper lip is sort of smooshed across their face.

Joy: Yes. And it looks kind of insane. I want to know what Britney had done. Britney has the same thing.

Claire: It’s a facelift.

Joy: Is it? I don’t know how to explain it. And they all look the same.

Claire: Okay, grab the extra skin on the backside of your jawbone and pull it up under your ears and tell me that that isn’t what is happening to your lips.

Joy: Yeah. I just…

Claire: Maybe not on Britney. Maybe it’s a combination of Botox and lip filler. I think in some instances also a facelift.

Joy: Someone tell us which celebrity that has maybe done it, but I have not actually seen a celebrity that looks good.

Claire: Or counter point, you have seen it and you haven’t noticed.

Joy: That’s the thing. I want to know – Lady Gaga had some work done. I think she looked great, but she still has that lip thing that doesn’t move.

Claire: The lip thing in a trend right now. It’s a trend to have big, unmoving lips.

Joy: It doesn’t look good, you guys. It doesn’t look good to get lip filler and then all of the sudden your lips are like this.

Joy and Claire: Like this.

Claire: I feel like we talk about this a lot because now I’m feeling like we say “and you pucker your lips like this” a lot, and I can’t imagine what other context.

Joy: You look like Sebastian.

Claire: You look like Sebastian.

Joy: [laughing] I just want to know – there’s this girl I work with. She has very large lips. She has a lot of lip filler. And that’s her choice. But it’s to the point where I’m like, how do you…

Claire: I wish you could see Claire’s face. I’m not making fun. Objectively, I don’t think anyone looks better. I think they look great as they are. You know what? I have seen before and afters of celebrities who’ve had nose jobs, and I think, oh, that’s a cute nose. But I never think –

Claire: You never think, oh yes, your upper lip should be that big.

Joy: Right. Exactly.

Claire: Or, oh yes, your face should not move.

Joy: Exactly. Like Kim Kardashian – you see all the Kardashians beforehand and they’ve had so much work done. But they’re beautiful to begin with.

Claire: And that’s not even a realistic – if you basically start from scratch and rebuild your face –

Joy: Rebuild your face, right. They have all rebuilt their entire bodies. They’re robots. But when I look at them when they were kids – or at least teenagers when you could see what they actually look like. They’re cute. Okay sure, now their noses are slimmer or whatever. But I’ve yet to see someone who’s had lip injections where I can’t stop staring at their lips because their lips don’t move. They look like they got stung by bees, and their lips are swollen.

Claire: And maybe if you’re someone out there and you’re like, hey, I get lips done and no one has ever noticed…

Joy: They’re just not telling you.

Claire: I will say – for example, I definitely know of some people, friends that I have who I know get lip filler but you would never know.

Joy: Okay. Really?

Claire: Yes. And I also think, to bring up Julie Bauer again, when she first started getting – and I don’t want to comment on Julie. She’s our friend. But I will say, she is someone who when she did her first blog post about lip filler, I was like, oh my gosh. I never would have thought that she was getting lip filler. I appreciate that she is very open about the injections that she gets and is realistic and is like, hey, my face looks like this because I get work done. And I love that about her that she’s very open about that. So that other people aren’t like, “If I start eating Paleo, I will have perfectly smooth skin.” No, there’s more to it than this. I remember specifically the first time she was like, “Yeah, I’ve been getting lip filler,” I was like, oh, I never would have known. So there are people out there that I think can accomplish it. But I also think right now there is a trend where it is the look. The look is to look like you’ve had lip filler.

Joy: Right. That’s interesting, yeah.

Claire: The look isn’t a natural look that you’re going for. The look that people want is, oh I want the bee sting look.

Joy: Yeah. Maybe… hmm… good for you, not for me.

Claire: Good for you, not for me. I agree with that.

Joy: Good for you, not for me. I think I just also appreciate –

Claire: You also have really big lips, I would say.

Joy: Yeah, I know.

Claire: You have big lip privilege.

Joy: But I don’t have big boobs, and I’ve never been like – I considered it…

Claire: Okay, you considered it. Every small chested girl out there has considered it. I had fake boobs for like five years. Hated it, got them taken out. In my 20’s, in case you didn’t know that about me. Now you do. But I have really thin lips. Particularly my upper lip is really thin. And I’ve definitely thought about it. What if I do just a little bit? I’ve done this in the mirror before where I lifted up my lip a little bit.

Joy: Yeah. But just –

Claire: But is it worth the risk of going too far?

Joy: Yeah. I don’t know.

Claire: And it’s so expensive.

Joy: It’s so expensive.

Claire: It’s like $500. I wish you guys could see what I’m doing. Don’t we all? We stand in front of our mirror and we hold up our skin and wonder what it would look like. Or we look at the filter on Instagram stories and are like, oh that’s what I would look like with a nose job.

Joy: Yeah. Now they have a filter where they give you lip injections.

Claire: Yeah, actually that filter has made me be like, maybe I should get lip injections. I look good.

Joy: That filter has probably caused a lot of people to get lip injections.

Claire: Yeah. You know what, you do you.

Joy: You do you.

Claire: If you want that lip, go get it.

Joy: I think when I see that – going back to the Sex and the City episode, it’s distracting to me. Because I know what they looked like before. So I can’t help but stare at what happened to your face. No one’s getting out of this life alive. And no one’s getting out without aging.

Claire: I always think about that quote that’s like, “Growing old is a privilege not afforded to many,”

Joy: So true.

Claire: Yeah, we aren’t all going to have the privilege of growing old.

Joy: So true.

Claire: Embrace it. And also, don’t overthink it. If you want to go get an injection in your face, by all means.

Joy: That’s fine. Yeah.

Claire: Joy is going to sit over here with her big lips and judge us all.

Joy: I really will.

Claire: For needing to get work done and we’re going to have big lips. Joy is just genetics. She’s going to be sitting over here wearing her bold lipstick while the rest of us look like we’re drawing on our faces with Crayola marker. If I wear bold lipstick, it looks like I’m a picture that a kid drew to outline their mouth.

Joy: [laughing] You do not.

Claire: [laughing]

Joy: You do not. [laughing]

Claire: It’s a line.

Joy: you do not look like that. You do not. Oh my gosh, okay.

Claire: Let’s wrap it up. Alright, guys. Well you can find us, if you want to have even more Joy and Claire in your life, find us on Instagram @joyandclaire_. You can go to joyandclaire.com. We have all our episodes there. We have our gift idea you can check out if you’re looking for some last-minute gifts. A lot of our episodes are transcribed on our website, if for some reason you just want to read through them. They’re not transcribed in real time. They get transcribed a few weeks later by our awesome transcriptionist, transcriber Caroline who lives in Thailand and is wonderful and transcribes all our episodes. You can email us at thisisjoyandclaire@gmail.com. Tell us about your really realistic lip filler.

Joy: Send us some pictures of how realistic your face work has been.

Claire: Joy, get off your lip high horse. Some of us need a little bit of help.

Joy: Put me in my place.

Claire: Yes, please. And that’s it for this week. Have a great weekend.

Joy: Love you guys.

Claire: Bye.

Joy: Bye.

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