Show Notes
This episode of Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice features hosts Patricia and Nicole discussing their adventures at the Oakland Museum of California White Elephant Sale where they scored vintage treasures. The main topic explores the concept of intentional choice as a tool for combating overwhelm and burnout. The episode wraps up with book recommendations!
Mentioned on the show:
- EEDA Pod Website
- Bookshop Affiliate Storefront (links below are affiliate)
- Become a patron! Patreon.com/eedapod
- Subscribe to the ongoing Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice Newsletter
- Our merch shop is open!
- Jen Zink’s GoFundMe
- Oakland Museum of California White Elephant Sale
- The Book of Blood and Roses by Annie Summerlee
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Find the full show notes with all the books mentioned in this episode and official transcript on our website: https://eedapod.com/
Follow the show on Instagram & find us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts!
Sound editing by Jen Zink
Transcript
Music: [Intro Music]
Patricia: Ciao amici! Welcome to Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice, the podcast for folks who would rather curl into the fetal position than lean in. I’m your host, Patricia Elzie-Tuttle.
Nicole: And I’m your dancing Moka pot, I’m Nicole Elzie-Tuttle. We are recording this show on February 7th, 2026.
Patricia: Reminder, this podcast is independently run and we are hoping to be supported by listeners. Downloading, sharing, and giving us reviews and ratings are free ways to show us support.
We have nine reviews on Apple Podcasts, and I would love to get to a baker’s dozen.
Nicole: And if you have a few bucks to donate to help support the show, our Patreon memberships start at $3 a month, and there are three tiers to choose from. And you know, Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. If you want to give your sweetie a gift, we make a great gift.
Patricia: Our Patreon is at patreon.com/eedapod, and it’s linked on our website as well as other ways to support. Our website is eedapod.com, we have a bookshop affiliate site. We have the newsletter. We have the merch shop. Deals, deals deals!
Nicole: The combination bookshop – newsletter – merch shop.
Patricia: Pizza Hut, taco Bell.
Oh my gosh. So last time we talked to everyone, we were going to the Oakland Museum of California White Elephant Sale. And now that we’re recording this, we have been twice.
Nicole: We have gone. We have seen the sale. We did not meet the white elephant.
Patricia: We did… I saw some elephants around though.
Nicole: There was some elephant swag.
Patricia: Yeah.
You know, the first day, the preview day, we got there at 6:40 AM. We borrowed some camp chairs from friends, so thank you so much. And there were probably a couple hundred people in line in front of us already.
Nicole: We did hear that one group of people was there at noon the day before to line up.
Patricia: They were from Hawai’i.
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: And they were also resellers.
Nicole: Yeah. So this was business for them.
Patricia: This was business for them, which there are definitely people like this is business for. And so we were there. We waited in line, we brought hot water in a thermos. And we were all bundled up. It was fine actually.
Nicole: Yeah, it wasn’t bad.
Patricia: It wasn’t bad.
And then we got in and we did not find what I was hoping for, which is a card catalog, but we did get a cheval mirror, which is a mirror that’s kind of like on a stand that swivels, for the hallway, like a vintage cheval mirror. And you got something pretty amazing in the furniture section too.
Nicole: Yes. I got like a display cabinet situation.
It’s like a column, it’s like a trapezoid shape.
Patricia: Mm-hmm.
Nicole: Uh.
Patricia: With a mirror in the back.
Nicole: It has a mirror in the back. So if you’re looking at, it looks like a, a hexagon.
Patricia: Yeah, hexagon.
Nicole: And it has a little cabinet on the bottom, and this is what made me fall in love with it. The little cabinet on the bottom, the front pane of it is actually glass.
It’s not just a wood front piece for the cabinet and the glass is like lead painted or something, I don’t know. But it’s painted to look like a stained glass spider web. And it is amazing.
Patricia: Yeah,
Nicole: I’m so excited for it. I do want, like, it has lighting that came with it, but it’s like vintage brown electrical cords and stuff that look like they’re probably 40 years old, so probably gonna take those out, put new lighting in it.
And my plan is to turn it into like a little greenhouse.
Patricia: Yeah. I’m very excited to see what you do with it.
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: Gosh, I got some stationary.
Nicole: Did get some stationary.
Patricia: And of course, a couple of books, some vintage tarot books, which are amazing. I’ll have to post those to to my Instagram. And then we went back again on the following Friday and we were still there pretty early at like 7, 7:30 maybe. And we were fourth and fifth in line this time.
And that was when we found the yogurt maker.
Oh, I forgot to mention we also got a five disc CD player!
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: Oh my gosh. When actually you went to the CD players first and you messaged me.
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: And there was a hundred disc CD player.
Nicole: I think it was like 199 or something.
Patricia: It was wild. And I was like, I’m not going to sit and flip through and like try to keep track of what CDs are where.
Nicole: Yeah, that was gonna be the problem. We’d have to like make a catalog for it then and like, I’m not gonna remember if the CD I wanna listen to is in slot 55 or slot 132. Like I don’t know.
Yeah. So we got a five disc changer, which is actually working out pretty well.
It works really well. It’s a Phillips. It looks like it probably would’ve cost like $200.
Patricia: And we got it for 30.
Nicole: We got it for $30.
Patricia: And it had the remote and it had the instruction booklet. It works beautifully. It’s sitting, we put our record player on top of it. And it is surprisingly exactly what I wanted.
I told you. I want a CD player with a disc changer, and I want it to be Phillips or Panasonic. And you were like, here you go.
Nicole: I was like, bet.
Um, and so now we’ve, we’ve pulled out your old leather book of CDs and
Patricia: Yeah, I still have all of my CDs.
Nicole: So like what you’ve been jamming out to, like nineties dance hits, volume three?
Patricia: La Bouche.
Which was uh, the second day we went there. I got a bunch of CDs for a dollar each.
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: Also, just like a ton of CDs.
Nicole: Yeah. They were great. They’ve been great. We’ve been listening to them. It’s so fun. You got Living Color.
Patricia: I got Living Color. I got Grace Jones. Like,
Nicole: yes
Patricia: I got La Bouche. I also got the entire five disc set from the Ken Burns jazz documentary.
So, and they also charged me like a dollar for that. It was wild.
Nicole: It’s great too, ’cause we got a five disc changer so we can just load it up with all five discs and let it go.
Patricia: Let it go. Yeah. Uh, yeah.
Great.
It was so much fun. It’s still going right now, by the way. I think the last kind of free for all weekend is February 28th and March 1st.
Nicole: So if you’re listening to this, you have an opportunity to get out there and hunt around yourself.
Patricia: Yeah. If you’re in the Bay Area
Nicole: or if not, come on in.
Patricia: Come on in. Not right now. Ugh. Tomorrow we’re taping this on the seventh.
Nicole: Yes
Patricia: today’s the seventh.
Nicole: That’s what I said.
Patricia: Is it tomorrow’s the Super Bowl?
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: Yeah.
So. Don’t, don’t come right now.
Nicole: Well, by the time they hear this, that’ll be over.
Patricia: You know what? That’s fair. Don’t time travel to right now.
The other thing we did you wanna share with the folks?
Nicole: Yes! We have started cleaning out the office. This is something we’ve talked about since we were going through Patricia’s mom’s boxes that were left and now we’ve started going through our own boxes in the library. Not the library, the office, the library.
Patricia: The library.
What?
Nicole: No, the office. And we’re getting rid of stuff.
Patricia: We are and we’re finding all kinds of stuff that like we used to love.
Nicole: We used to love. We forgot we had, which is wild.
Patricia: Yeah. That’s when you know you have too much stuff is when you are forgetting what you have.
Nicole: Yeah. We open a box and we’re like, oh yeah, this thing.
Patricia: I was like, oh yeah, this purse. Oh yeah, this like, yeah. It was just,
Nicole: oh, that’s where I left that hot topic belt from 2001.
Patricia: Ah, yes. All my Cheshire Cat stuff. And so,
Nicole: oh, what is this stuff from that Wizard Boy College School?
Patricia: Uh, yeah.
Nicole: Oh, let’s just get rid of that.
Patricia: Yeah. You know what? I’m gonna try to sell it.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Just as like a whole lot of stuff just on, you know, Facebook or something like that.
Nicole: There’s still people who love it.
Patricia: Yeah. And if they buy it from me, they’re not giving, giving money directly to that evil woman. So
Nicole: yeah. She who shall not be named.
Patricia: Yeah.
You know, I have a bunch of like figures and things from Pixar’s Inside Out.
Nicole: Yeah. Most of ’em were Anger.
Patricia: Most of ’em are Anger. Yeah. Although one of our friends who used to work at Pixar got me an Anger tiki mug, which that one I might hold on to.
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: Because that’s pretty great.
Nicole: That’s pretty great. Yeah.
Patricia: But the office clean out, you know what, going well, giving a lot of stuff away on um, like the buy nothing, um, group for our neighborhood.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: So that stuff is finding homes for people who will be happy to have the things. And I went through my fabric stash. I kept a few things, but most of it I gave away. And the woman’s like, yeah, I teach sewing to elementary school kids.
Great.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Effing great. Yeah. Please take it.
Nicole: Yeah, take it. Go teach those kids to sew. That’s great. And the office already feels brighter.
Patricia: Yeah. Yeah. We’ve consolidated. We’ve gotten rid of things.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Definitely.
Nicole: Feels good.
Music: [Transition Music]
Patricia: So sometimes when there is a lot going on, which I feel like there’s almost always a lot going on, I find myself being very reactive to what’s going on. Not like a reactive dog where I just like yell at everything, but more like work is really busy, so I work, work, work, and then I need to write either a newsletter or a podcast script or other writing projects, and then dinner needs to be made or ordered, and then family obligations. Oh, but then we have Pilates and, oh, I just need to share these resources on my Instagram, and I need to carry a whistle, and I’m just reacting or addressing the ever shifting priorities.
And it feels like a never ending whack-a-mole. And when I said that last night when we were going over the script, I’m like, do the kids know what whack-a-mole is?
Nicole: Yeah. I don’t know.
Patricia: Oh no.
Nicole: Do moles exist anymore?
Patricia: I think so.
Nicole: Yeah. They do. But do kids whack them? Not so sure about that anymore.
Patricia: Do do kids even whack moles these days?
Nicole: Oh no,
Patricia: I get you with that one?
Nicole: Yeah.
You know, we were talking about this, I think the term I associate this with more is responsive.
Patricia: Mm-hmm.
Nicole: Rather than reactive.
Patricia: Mm-hmm.
Nicole: And I think of it more like I’m only able to respond to the current situation. So, you know, I go through phases with this, particularly at my day job at work where I feel like I’m only able to like handle what is happening right now.
Like it’s just meetings and responding to emails and meetings and responding to emails, and I can’t get anything else worked on beyond that. Like I have, you know, my bigger to-do list with projects and things. I get this feeling.
Patricia: It feels a bit like being tossed about at sea with no engine or oars or rudder. Just a complete lack of control or say in the direction that my little boat is taking.
Nicole: Yeah, I get that and I struggle with it ’cause I really do try to find direction, but I do know that that’s like also a really like straight line to just feeling burnt out, like that lack of control.
Patricia: Mm-hmm.
Nicole: And I know for like you and I, one of the coping mechanisms seems to be just zoning out, looking at scrolling social media.
Patricia: Dissociation nation.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Yeah. It is my constant struggle. My Sisyphean boulder, but the Boulder is Instagram.
Nicole: The thing is like. That does not really do anything to help me feel better in these situations.
Patricia: Right, right. And so to that, I want to share a tool that I use in these moments when I remember it. That’s, that’s the hard part, is actually remembering I have this tool at my disposal. You know, there’s nothing special required, no third party apps, just the ability to remember this, and it’s me saying myself, I am choosing to do this thing right now.
For example, I am choosing to watch Instagram stories right now. If it sparks joy or cultivates rest or that’s what I wanna be doing, then I’m like, yeah, I’m gonna keep doing this. And so far it hardly ever does.
Like not a single time have I thought I’m choosing to scroll TikTok right now, and I’m actually excited about it. Each time my reaction is like, ugh, god, why am I choosing to scroll TikTok right now? And then I would do something else that hopefully I enjoy more or is more fulfilling.
Nicole: Conversely, you can say something like, I’m choosing not to do something I want to do right now.
For example, if I am just getting my doom scroll on. It could be something like, I am choosing not to read right now and just saying that out loud. I don’t like it. I don’t like it. It gives me the hot ick.
Patricia: Yeah. It really, I think, and that’s, that’s the point of it, to give you the ick, right?
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: And just the act of saying like, I’m choosing not to read right now.
Why would I be choosing not to read right now? I could be reading right now. And that kind of gives me a redirect. It’s a helpful reminder that we have the ability to choose more than we think we have.
And of course, there are all kinds of qualifiers. We’re definitely not going to sit here and do the tired, old self-help gimmick of saying like, you can choose to get a new job. You can choose to eat healthier food. Choose joy, and so on, because so often what is left out and what we try to be really mindful of is that advice is usually dripping with various types of privilege. Like there are so many things that you can’t just like flip a switch and choose and it happens.
Nicole: Just choose to have your personal chef prepare a healthier dinner and choose to have your housekeeper do laundry on Saturday instead, so you can choose to go out to
Patricia: brunch.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: I’m gonna choose to be taller.
Nicole: Mm, yes.
Let me know how that works out for you.
Patricia: I will. I will.
Nicole: I’m kind of interested in choosing to be shorter, so if we can figure that out.
Patricia: Yeah, sure.
Nicole: That’d be great.
There’s also, and I think this is something to keep in mind, there’s so much psychology around choice and the illusion of choice and the paradox of choice and the ability to choose things can be really complex sometimes.
Patricia: Yeah, he’s not paying me to say this, but there’s a podcast I listen to sometimes ’cause it’s so fascinating. It’s called Nudge and it’s about marketing psychology. And it is endlessly fascinating how, how marketing kind of affects our choice, um, in things. And even knowing that, even knowing all these tips and tricks and studies and knowing that there is so much around the psychology of choice. I still think we have the ability to choose more than we think we do, at least in the small moments in the day to day.
Knowing that I can choose helps remind me of my sense of agency, and I feel more in control and a bit less overwhelmed.
Nicole: Yeah, and I think in this also, it’s important to remember that what you choose to do doesn’t always have to be like productivity. You can just choose to rest. You can choose a hobby. You can choose to look out a window. You can choose to lay face down in a pile of pillows.
Patricia: Yeah, pillow forts are always an option.
Nicole: They are. Choose wisely.
What is this Indiana Jones?
Music: [Transition Music]
Nicole: Well, that’s that bit for today. Patricia, what do you want people to take away from this?
Patricia: I think just really remembering that phrase that “I’m choosing to do this.” It can be a magical spell to redirect your attention when you remember it.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Nicole, what do you want people to take away?
Nicole: I think you know the things you choose to do don’t have to be productivity.
They can still be things that bring you joy. And if that is like doom scrolling for a bit, if that actually brings you joy, then like go on.
Patricia: Scroll on.
Nicole: Scroll on my dude.
Patricia: Be excellent to each other.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Well, we have a little bit of time. What are you reading right now? Or have you read anything good lately that you wanna share with all of our listeners?
Nicole: Okay, so I did read a book recently that just had me absolutely enthralled
Patricia: mm-hmm.
Nicole: if you will. I will start off by saying that this is not literature. This is The Book of Blood and Roses by Annie Summerlee. This is dark academia, sapphic vampire and vampire hunter roommates situation and it was a lot of fun.
I totally like stayed up on the couch reading it till the lights turned out on me. Also, it is very open door, on the page. Sometimes in the library.
Patricia: Some explicit, so would you put it square, like squarely in romantasy?
Nicole: Yes, because there are definitely some fantastical elements to it. It also brings some things that were new to me in vampire lore. I don’t know if they’ve existed in other book worlds.
Patricia: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Nicole: Other vampire worlds. It did bring some new kind of lore elements, which helped with the whole situation.
Patricia: Situation. Your grin right now is amazing.
Nicole: It was,
Patricia: it is amazing.
Nicole: It, it really got me, it really got me.
Patricia: Well, I’m reading something completely different than that right now. I am, I’m almost done with it. And I’m listening to it on Audiobook. This is the first book in a while that I’ve listened to at just the one speed.
I haven’t turned up the speed because it is, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou and it’s read by Maya Angelou and it feels downright disrespectful for me to speed her up.
You know, this book was given to me, gosh, maybe when I was about 16 or something. You know, 30, 30 years ago by my bonus aunt and mentor, and I never got around to it. I never, I’m a mood reader and I just never got around to it. And I was like, you know what? I’m gonna read this book and I’m gonna read it right now. You know, I started on February 1st. I was like, you know, I have a bajillion black books in my queue. What have I been sitting on for a while?
First of all, so many things. I did not know that this book was the first, in like a seven book kind of memoir series and that she wrote it in, it was published in like 68 or 69, and Maya Angelou was a friend with James Baldwin, who was also kind of her mentor and he challenged her to write an autobiography that was also literature.
Maya Angelou, fellow aries queen sounds a bit like me. I cannot resist a dare. I cannot resist a challenge. Like it got me into a lot of trouble as a child. And she was like, oh, a challenge, bet. So then she wrote, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.
It’s mostly her from about age three, of course, ’cause you don’t really remember when you were one. Age three to about 16 ish. There are definitely some hard things. There is sexual assault in there of a child, her. And it was, I think I’m surprised because I wasn’t expected it to be so funny.
Nicole: Mm.
Patricia: There are, were part, there are parts where I’ve laughed out loud and she’s captured childhood so well.
She was born in 1928. You know, and they moved to San Francisco like in the forties, and really you just, it’s like, wow kids are kids no matter the time, no matter the place. She talks about being in Stamps, Arkansas with her grandmother and when she was like a little, little kid. And just like so riotously funny in some of it, and I am really, really loving it.
I do think it would’ve been interesting to read as a teen, and I’m so happy that I’m getting to it now.
Highly, highly recommend this book that probably everyone else has read already.
Nicole: I have not, but you’ve, the way you’re talking about it, I am gonna put it on my TBR. See if I
can get a copy.
Patricia: And also like if you listen to audio books and like, I know you do, but if any of our listeners do like hearing her read it, Ugh.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Magical experience.
Nicole: I’m in.
Well, Patricia, what’s been filling your cup lately?
Patricia: We have been planning some travel. I’m gonna be real vague about it ’cause the Internet’s a weird place, but that’s been filling my cup.
Nicole: Yeah?
Patricia: Gonna get to see family. Gonna get to see friends. Some of the travel is in like other parts of California, which my therapist, I see my therapist virtually and we’re actually traveling to where she is, and so I’m going to meet my therapist in person, which is kind of cool ’cause I really like her, she’s real great. And yeah, that’s what’s filling my cup is just like, it’s so important to have things to look forward to.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: So Nicole, what’s filling your cup?
Nicole: Honestly getting started on cleaning the office, I’m so excited and it’s taking a little bit of my effort to not just like rush through it, like pull out boxes, find what’s in it, discover new things, like I know we have to process things and move them along.
I just wanna like. I’m so in right now.
Patricia: Yeah. It feels a bit like an archeology dig, but it’s our own stuff.
Nicole: And it’s stuff that we loved. It’s not like I’m not gonna love it again.
Patricia: Yeah. And some, and some of the stuff is just like, oh, this is no longer me, but I did love this thing.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: And then some of the stuff is like, oh wow, I forgot about this. I’m gonna use this right now.
Nicole: There was at least one thing we pulled out that was like, oh, that’s where that is.
Patricia: At least one thing. Yeah.
Well, that’s our show for today. We’d like to thank our awesome audio editor, Jen Zink. You can find her at loopdilou.com, and we’ll leave a link to that in our show notes.
Nicole: You can find the full show notes and transcript at eedapod.com. That’s E-E-D-A-P-O-D dot com. There you can also find a link to our Patreon, our Bookshop link, and a link to the ongoing, Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice newsletter. You can also find us on Instagram and Bluesky at eedapod and email us at eedapod at gmail dot com.
Patricia: We are nothing if not consistent.
Nicole: And if you need an easy win to help pull you out of something you don’t wanna be doing, you can choose to subscribe to and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts that allow for ratings. It really does go far in helping other people find us.
Patricia: And also, hey, shout out to the person who always watches our videos on YouTube and like listens to the show on YouTube and comments on almost, like everything. I appreciate, like we both appreciate you.
Nicole: Yeah!
Patricia: Love seeing your comments.
And we would also appreciate anyone who can subscribe to us on Patreon. Support is going to help us keep this show going, especially without ads. You can find us at patreon.com/eedapod.
In the meantime, we hope you find ways to be kind to yourself, drink some water and read a book. We’ll be talking to you soon.
Nicole: So, uh, you can’t resist a dare?
Patricia: Stop. Stop it.
Nicole: I dare you to smooch me.
Patricia: Oh my gosh.