Filling the Cup Differently: EEDA’s Next Chapter

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Episode artwork for Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice Podcast for the episode titled "Filling the Cup Differently: EEDA's Next Chapter”

Show Notes

In this episode of Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice, Patricia and Nicole ask, “How do you know something is finished? How do you know you’re done?” They talk about what is next for the EEDA podcast and newsletter, the ways that each will evolve, and why you should stay tuned to both.

Mentioned on the show:

Find the full show notes with all the books mentioned in this episode and official transcript on our website: https://eedapod.com/

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Sound editing by Jen Zink

Transcript

Music: [Intro Music] 

Patricia: Hey there, spellcasters. 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 know you are, but what am I? I’m Nicole Elzie-Tuttle. We’re recording this show on May 16th, 2026.

Patricia: Big announcement today, everyone. We are closing the chapter on this iteration of the EEDA podcast and EEDA newsletter. But there will still be a podcast and a newsletter. We’re gonna talk about that today.

Music: [Transition Music] 

Nicole: So this is our 66th episode. That’s, I think, counting some of the re-release ones we did. 

Patricia: Which only there were, like, three or four encores, so. 

Nicole: We’ve still done over 60 episodes. 

Patricia: Mm-hmm. 

Nicole: You’ve been doing the newsletter for over six years. 

Patricia: Yeah, since before the pandemic. S- like, before lockdown. 

Nicole: Yeah. So why now?

Patricia: You know, the best way I can describe it, like, there’s a few ways I’m gonna describe it during today’s show, but first of all, it feels done. Like, I sat down at the laptop to write the script for this episode, and also even recently the newsletter, and for the first time for both, I was just like, “wow, I feel like I’ve said all I need to say on this subject in this way.”

Nicole: I’m also gonna note, it is a lot of time and labor for both of us. We said we’d keep doing this as long as it’s fun, and don’t get me wrong, it is fun to record with you. But all the other stuff around it has become less fun. 

Patricia: Yeah. It’s depleting my cup more than it’s filling it. Like, the balance is off.

Nicole: Yeah. I think I feel that, too. So we’re gonna harness some of the lessons from Directional Living by Megan Hellerer, and kinda go with what feels right for right now. 

Patricia: Yeah. Yeah, and this feels right for right now. Another thing that inspired this change was actually going back and reading a couple of my own newsletters from last year.

I was doing that, as I normally do, to figure out what this week’s EEDA pod was going to be about, and there were two newsletters where I mentioned some profound things that my current therapist had said. One thing was about expectations and how sometimes we just keep doing things because of expectations, and not really because we want to or need to.

She said sometimes when we give and give and give, the imbalance can make it feel like we’re trapped. 

Nicole: Ugh, that is so good. Like, just in general. 

Patricia: Mm-hmm. 

Nicole: But yeah, I feel like, I guess, we’ve reached the point where that balance tipped into that imbalance. 

Patricia: Yeah. And another thing she said last year was, was that we’re often in cages of our own making, and we just need to open the door and let ourselves out.

Nicole: So this is us opening that door to come out of our cage and hope that we’ll be doing just fine? 

Patricia: Sure. 

This isn’t me or us quitting. I’m just kinda like, yeah, this is the end of this chapter. It’s reached the point of completion. 

Nicole: Yeah. This is definitely not quitting because things got hard. 

Patricia: Yeah. I don’t think anything got hard.

Like, the work didn’t change. Like, the steps in what we’re doing didn’t change. But like I also said, this has been taking a lot of bandwidth that I want to use for other things. And maybe other things that will fill my cup more, ideally. Not for other things necessarily capital P productivity. 

The other night I got a text from a person I would love to hang out with more, and they had extra tickets to that night’s Valkyries game, and I was just so busy with all the writing I needed to do for this podcast and the other things, and we also had a couple other things going on, that it was impossible for us to make it to that Valkyries game, and that bummed me out.

Currently, with everything we’re doing, especially with this show, it’s leaving no room for spontaneity, and that also means no room for spontaneous fun. 

Nicole: So what’s next? Are we shutting everything down? 

Patricia: Absolutely not. This podcast is going to evolve. It’s going to switch to a monthly-ish cadence, and the shape of it was actually previewed with one of our episodes last October where we read How to Win Friends and Influence People, and we chatted about the book, if there was anything actually helpful, especially coming from people who are queer and not dudes, and what some of the issues were about the book.

There are endless self-help books to choose from that we’re gonna do this for, and I can’t wait to dig in. 

Nicole: Yeah. I’m looking forward to some of these too. We are also keeping the Patreon. When we did the first EEDA Pod Book Squad episode, we announced the book ahead of time to our paid subscribers. We’re also going to continue the weekly accountability threads and plan to be more active in that space.

And that top tier is still the mail club, so, M-A-I-L snail mail club. 

Patricia: Yeah, not the 

Nicole: Snail mail club. 

Patricia: Snail mail club Yeah, you know, we have some ideas for maybe some shorter exclusive podcasts that can post on Patreon for paid subscribers and like I said, lots of ideas. And I’ve said this in past episodes too, lots of ideas that we don’t have time to get to because we’re doing the regular thing.

I also mentioned the Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice newsletter in its current iteration is ending. The newsletter archive will stay live and the paywall will stay active for essays that are already paywalled. I’m not all of a sudden just going to give away my years of work. The price will drop to a $3 subscription, and if you are a paying subscriber, you will already have received an email from me by the time you’re hearing this.

I will still post to that email list, so I definitely recommend subscribing either at a free level or if you want a continued donation at that $3 level, because still keeping this podcast alive, keeping the Patreon going, keeping the merch shop, keeping the newsletter active, all of that costs money, so we still always welcome donations.

And on that email list, I’m still going to post new projects whenever we have a podcast published. And I’m a librarian, I’m still gonna come across some really cool resources, and I’m gonna wanna share them with everyone. It’s just not going to be on a regular schedule. 

Nicole: We will also always have our bookshop affiliate site with all the books we recommend and talk about.

Patricia: I’m also keeping the merch shop open because I need to do something with all these ideas I have for really cool, fun, useful things I want to make available for sale. 

Nicole: And we’re toying with some other ideas, like maybe a wiki for all the resources you’ve shared in the EEDA newsletter over the years. 

Patricia: Yeah, I don’t even know how many resources it is at this point, just an obscene amount of resources.

You know, I’m really proud of us.

I tried looking up what is the average number of episodes that a podcast lasts or, or something like that, and there are some numbers being thrown around, like 90% don’t get past episode three, and of the remaining 90%, they don’t get past episode 20. But because I am who I am, I went to try to find the source of the information so I could cite my source, and everything links back to some guy on YouTube with, like, four million followers who’s the exact kind of person that our podcast has rallied against.

So I don’t know what the real numbers are, so don’t quote me on those, ’cause there’s no real source I could find that I could cite. But I like to think that 66 episodes is great, and I know over six years of a newsletter is great. I never had a blog go that long. 

Nicole: Yeah. I remember when we started. We talked a bit about what success would look like with this show.

I wasn’t able to find any documents or anything that we wrote specifics on, but I’m gonna at least choose to consider this show so far to be a success. We put something out into the world that we’re proud of, and we had a lot of fun doing it, and we have some really cool listeners and Patreon members.

Patricia: Yeah, we really do. And I will say there’s something that I’ve done at the beginning of every episode of this podcast that I’m surprised in all this time no one has pointed out. Every greeting I have used has been gender neutral. 

Some backstory: ever since I was a child, my mother hated when a server would come up to us and call us guys. So I have a deep history with not calling groups of people guys, unless I know everyone there identifies as a guy. And so for a long time I’ve tried to use, uh, gender neutral collective nouns. So yeah, every episode if you go back and listen, it’s it’s a different gender neutral collective noun for, for listeners.

And sometimes, you know, they get a little wacky, but still gender neutral. Calling people tater tots is gender neutral. 

Nicole: There are other lots of little tidbits like that sprinkled throughout the entire production. One of my favorites is, like, this even comes down to the choice of font in the YouTube video versions of this show, and always having an accurate transcription available when the show posts.

Patricia: Yeah. That is very important to me. We also try to implement the communication skills that we promote here. If you go back, now that you know some, many, most, and you go back to listen to our older episodes, you’ll hear us using that all the time. You’ll hear us using I statements. 

Nicole: There are so many things we hope to be able to do now, like continuing to play in the off- clean the office, not play in the office.

Patricia: Play in the office? 

Nicole: No. Offices aren’t for playing. Right now it’s for cleaning. 

Patricia: Right now it’s for cleaning. 

Nicole: But also we do hope to be able to quote unquote play in the garden, ’cause it’s gonna… We’re very ambitious with the garden this year. 

Patricia: Sure are. 

I’m looking at ways to get back into singing, whether it’s with a choir, masked of course, whether it’s lessons again.

I also wanna actually sit at the keyboard and start learning songs. I wanna hop back on that snail mail train more fully. I also foresee many zines in the near future, and maybe some of those will be available in the merch shop. Oh, and I really want to get back to writing over on Optimistic Hoarder. And of course we’ll link that in the show notes.

And also, I’m still totally doing my thing over at Book Riot. 

Nicole: And exercise. This is something we literally have not had time to do because the EEDA podcast and newsletter took up four week nights a week, and sometimes even Saturday mornings. 

Patricia: Yeah. It was literally like work our day jobs for eight hours at least, maybe eat, have a stretch, and then work on the podcast or newsletter. 

Nicole: Yeah

Patricia: for four nights a week. 

Nicole: Mm-hmm. 

Patricia: That’s a lot for something that isn’t our jobs. 

So this isn’t a so long or farewell, it’s an evolution. The chapter’s ending, but the story is still going, and we hope you continue to join us. We appreciate you all so much. 

Nicole: And still invite others along for the ride. 

Patricia: Yeah, we’re still driving.

Music: [Transition Music] 

Nicole: Okay, Patricia, not a lot of yapping so far, but as usual, what do you want others to take away from this episode? 

Patricia: You know, just because you’re doing a thing doesn’t mean you need to do the thing forever, and I feel like it’s taken me over 40 years to learn this, but yeah, you could let yourself out of that cage of your own making.

Nicole, what do you want people to take away? 

Nicole: I didn’t explicitly say this in the main part of the show, but success isn’t just about making money. It can also be about how that thing filled your cup. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Well, because it’s our show and we can still do anything we want, what are you reading right now, or have you read anything really good lately?

Nicole: I finally got around to reading This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. I know you talk… I think you mentioned this a couple episodes back about reading it. I had to put it on my TBR, in my hold list in the library. It finally came through, and I devoured it, and I loved it.

I don’t know the last time I’ve read something like that. 

Patricia: Yeah, there’s nothing I can really compare to that book. It’s 

Nicole: Yeah 

Patricia: unique. It’s a unique one. 

Nicole: And I don’t know, I just really love how it really digs into how much we change each other through our love for each other. 

Patricia: Yeah. Well put. 

Nicole: And, like, what that means, and what it means to love each other and, like, the different ways we kind of get under each other’s skin, become part of each other.

Patricia: Mm-hmm. 

Nicole: I don’t know. It’s just so good. 

Patricia: Yeah. It’s really good. I’m so glad you finally read that. 

For me, of course I’m just devouring books left and right. And I actually picked out a few that I finished recently that are kind of an example of how I read diversely or just, like, a wide range. And so I finally finished The Year’s Best Sports Writing 2025, edited by Hanif Abdurraqib.

The essays in this collection are amazing. I’m gonna send this book to, probably to my father, and then I’m gonna have him send it back, and then I’m gonna send it to another friend. Like, I, I need so many people to read this book because, you know, there’s, there’s an essay about riding a bike, but it’s not really about riding a bike.

There’s an essay about running, but it’s not really an essay about running. There are essays about sports that I absolutely do not care about, like Ultimate Frisbee, and yet I was so deeply invested in this essay on Ultimate Frisbee. There are essays that made me tear up. There are essays that made me laugh out loud. There are essays that made me rethink what I thought I knew about sports and community, and it’s ju- ugh, it’s such a good book. Obviously, we’ll link it in our bookshop. We’ll link it in the show notes. 

Another book I read recently, Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life by Alex Mayyasi and the hosts of NPR’s Planet Money podcast, which is a podcast I listen to sometimes because I contain multitudes.

I also recently read On Witness and Respair: Essays by Jesmyn Ward. I actually talked about it on this week’s All the Books podcast, and it was a hard read. She lost her partner in the early days of COVID before lockdown. She and her family survived Hurricane Katrina, and she talks about that in detail, like the experience in detail.

She talks about how a drunk driver murdered her brother. Just a deeply emotional read. And my intro to Jesmyn Ward, I actually hadn’t read any of her stuff before. But then immediately after that, I was like, “Okay, I need, I need something lighter.” 

And so I read Bromantasy by Máire Roche, out May 26th. Not the Mary Roach who writes the science nonfiction books. Different, different Máire Roche spelled differently. Bromantasy, queer, cozy fantasy. Laughed out loud multiple times, if not every page. Some of the jokes are so cheap, but they’re so well-placed and they’re so unexpected that you can’t help but laugh. And I really loved that book 

Nicole: I might end up reading that Hanif Abdurraqib edited sports writing book.

Everything you talk about from that where it’s like, “It’s about this, but it’s not about this”- 

Patricia: Mm-hmm 

Nicole: that’s so much of like all of his essays and everything too. I love his writing. 

Patricia: Mm-hmm. 

Nicole: And I’m always waiting for the next of his books to come out. So if these are essays that he’s chosen as an editor, I feel like they’re gonna be just as good.

Patricia: You know what? You better call dibs on it before I send it away. 

Nicole: I can probably get it from the library or something. 

Patricia: It’ll have to be on e-book. 

Nicole: Oh. 

Patricia: It’s not on audio. 

Nicole: That’s okay. I need a new e-book. 

Patricia: Well, there you go. 

Nicole: Or book book to read before bed, so. 

Okay. As we’re bringing this chapter to a close, what has been filling your cup lately?

Patricia: We mentioned the garden earlier. 

Nicole: Mm-hmm. 

Patricia: And I’m so excited, and I’m, I’m getting a little verklempt. The house I grew up in, and I’m sure I’ve talked about this before, grew up in my grandparents’ house, and my grandfather had an extensive fruit and vegetable garden. I grew up eating fresh fruit and veg literally grown in the backyard.

And I had cousins who would travel up during tomato season from Arizona to make sure they got to taste my grandfather’s tomatoes during tomato season. And so this year, we used to have a little patio in front of the house. We don’t have access to the backyard in the house we live in. It’s a whole thing.

But there’s a little patio that we had an herb garden on. I questioned the stability of the patio. Also, there was definitely something living under there, so we had someone remove the patio, and the ground underneath is all cemented and weird. But you know what? I think we’ve, we’ve thrived within limits, and we set up a cool little front patio garden, still with herbs.

We’re also trying to grow a squash, which is one of my favorite kinds of squash, which is the patty pan squash. We’re trying to grow my favorite cucumbers, which are Armenian cucumbers, which my grandfather also grew. I grew up eating Armenian cucumbers, and me and my cousins would fight over them. Like it’s a whole thing.

Uh, I could probably charge my fam- like if we start growing these cucumbers, I could probably charge people in my family for them We set up a little hanging basket for strawberries, so we’ll see how those go and if the birds get to them first. I’m gonna try potatoes. And then not on the patio, but in the front yard, Nicole has a whole tomato squadron in the works.

And so yeah, I’m very excited. I’m very… It’s filling my cup so much. 

Nicole: Good. That’s part of the reason I do it. 

Patricia: And, and I scored 10 of the more expensive tomato cages off of Facebook Marketplace for 20 bucks. 

Nicole: That was a good find. 

Patricia: These tomato cages are normally, like, 14.99 each. Like, we saved over $100. 

Nicole: Yeah, great. I love it. 

Patricia: Nicole, what’s filling your cup right now? 

Nicole: [Sigh] Last night we went to the San Francisco stop of the Florence + the Machine Everybody Scream tour. This was my first time seeing Florence live, as was yours. 

Patricia: Yes. 

Nicole: And just wow. 

Patricia: Well, and you’ve been a Florence fan for 

Nicole: Oh my gosh … 

Patricia: forever. 

Nicole: I, yeah, I think I listened to her first album, Lungs, for years.

I would just constantly return to that album, and really kinda came back around, like, right after lockdown when she released her previous album. Really came back around and started really falling in love with her music again. And so when I saw she was on tour again, I was like, “We have to go.” And so I’ve been playing music for you for a couple months now to get 

Patricia: Yeah

Nicole: you in line or prepared. And I think you were also a bit shocked at how good it was. 

Patricia: You know, I don’t know if I was shocked. You see videos of her perform 

Nicole: Mm-hmm 

Patricia: through the tiny computer you keep in your pocket, and nothing prepares you for being… Even though we were at the Chase Center, even though we were at a massive arena, nothing prepares you for hearing her live in person.

Just phenomenal voice. 

Nicole: Yeah, yeah. She’s got a fantastic voice. She sang for two hours. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: Two hours. It was amazing. So I left last night feeling like my cup held more than it should have been able to. Like, it, I don’t know, it became 

Patricia: Like 

Nicole: a TARDIS

Patricia: I was going to say, like, it not only filled your cup, it actually made your cup bigger.

Nicole: And then after slept on it, woke up this morning, like my cup is returned to normal size and everything it held onto has overflowed. And while my cup is still full because it was actually bigger last night, it feels less full. 

Patricia: Mm-hmm. 

Nicole: And that’s where I’m at right now. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Yeah, it was definitely one of those experiences.

It’s like, I don’t want this to end, but we all need to sleep. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Yeah. And she probably needs to sleep too after that. 

Patricia: Yeah. That was amazing. 

Nicole: It was really good. It was so good. I’m gonna be riding that for, for a while. 

Patricia: Well, that’s our show. We’d like to thank our awesome audio editor, Jen Zink. You can find her at loopdilou.com.

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, @eedapod, and email us at eedapod at gmail com.

Patricia: Note: it’s not going to be the ongoing Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice newsletter, but it will be the ongoing email list, so you can still find it at the same place. 

Nicole: We would also be very appreciative of anyone who would subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts that allow for ratings.

It still really helps everyone find the whole back catalog of all of this. 

Patricia: Yeah. And the future EEDAPod Book Squad episodes. The ratings always help. 

Nicole: Yes. 

Patricia: Thank you so much. 

We would also appreciate anyone who can join us on Patreon. Support there is going to help us pay for keeping the show live, keeping the newsletter active, especially without ads. You can find us at patreon.com/eedapod. 

In the meantime, we hope you find ways to be kind to yourself. Thank you so, so much for continuing with us on this ride. Drink some water and read a book. We’ll be talking to you sometime soon. 

Nicole: And if you subscribe to our Patreon, you might know what book we’re gonna be reading next.

And I think I need a nap. 

Patricia: Yeah. I also… I need to sleep for a long time.