Show Notes
In this reflective year-end episode of Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice, hosts Patricia and Nicole look back on their achievements and lessons learned from 2024, sharing highlights like their marshmallow-making traditions and their social escapades, including the Wicked movie and a Ren Faire visit. They discuss the challenges and successes of maintaining their podcast and personal goals amid a busy year, while emphasizing the importance of accountability and self-compassion. As they look forward to 2025, they encourage listeners to cherish their wins and remain kind to themselves.
Mentioned on the show (includes affiliate links):
- Bookshop Affiliate Storefront (links below are affiliate)
- Gift our Patreon! patreon.com/eedapod/gift
- Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
- Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler
- Falling Back in Love with Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls by Kai Cheng Thom
- Patricia on The Storygraph
- Nicole on The Storygraph
Find the full show notes and official transcript on our website: eedapod.com
Become a patron! Patreon.com/eedapod
Follow the show on Instagram & find us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, & Spotify
Subscribe to the ongoing Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice Newsletter
Sound editing by Jen Zink
Transcript
Music: [Intro Music]
Patricia: Hey there, sugarplums! 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 now at least 10 percent peppermint and glitter. Nicole Elzie-Tuttle. We are recording this show on December 2nd, 2024.
Patricia: Would you like to explain the peppermint and glitter for our friends out there?
Nicole: Well, I mean, it’s not sugar and spice, so.
Patricia: I’m made of salt.
Both: [Laughing]
Nicole: We’ve started on our annual marshmallow making extravaganza.
Patricia: Yeah, so making marshmallows is something we started a couple of years ago, and we, we have the process down really well, although every year there’s a learning curve because we don’t write down exactly what we do.
But especially given that we are buying fewer gifts this year, so we’re giving more marshmallows, and It involves a lot of confectioner’s sugar. It involves a lot of glitter. Edible glitter.
Nicole: Edible glitter.
Patricia: Edible glitter. And it’s also, like
Nicole: Airborne.
Patricia: It’s air… I have glitter lung.
Nicole: Yeah, the glitter gets all in the air and all over everything.
Patricia: Yeah, so there was glitter on my pan I used for my eggs this morning. There’s just glitter everywhere here. But also, marshmallows, I think they’re fairly easy to make once you get it down. It just takes a lot of labor. It’s multiple hours, and then they have to sit overnight, and then it’s another couple hours on the back end, too.
Nicole: We’ve got a single recipe down to under an hour in the front end.
Patricia: Yeah, I think so. I mean, it’s true. It takes us so many because we make four pans at a time.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Because that’s the number of pans we have.
Nicole: And four pans ends up making 48 one and a half inch square marshmallows.
Patricia: One pan is 48 marshmallows.
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: So it’s 48 times 4, yeah.
Nicole: Yeah. Uh.
Patricia: No, don’t try to do the math.
Nicole: Okay.
Patricia: I see you thinking.
Nicole: [Laughing]
We make a lot of marshmallows right now and that means there’s a lot of confectioner’s sugar and glitter in the air.
Patricia: But it also, we have to taste test all of them.
Nicole: Well, yeah. And also half of them we make peppermint.
Patricia: Yes.
Nicole: Flavored.
Patricia: Half vanilla, half peppermint.
Nicole: Which is like the best flavored marshmallow so far.
Patricia: But we, of course, have to do quality control, so it also
Nicole: yeah
Patricia: means we’re just consuming a lot of straight sugar, which is delightful and I could smell colors.
Nicole: Well, that means we have to make more hot chocolate to float the marshmallows in to really understand their properties.
Patricia: Mmm
Nicole: This is Marshmallow Science Hour with Patricia and Nicole.
Patricia: [Laughing]
Well, one of my ideas, which we may or may not do, you can let us know if you want it, is maybe setting up a video and y’all can hang out with us while we make some marshmallows sometime.
Nicole: You have to be nice.
Patricia: You have to be nice. We’ll probably put it up on our Patreon or something like that. So we’ll keep you posted.
We also recently saw the Wicked movie on opening weekend.
Nicole: Wicked part one.
Patricia: Wicked part one. I cried through most of it.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Yeah, I’m glad I brought tissues. I’m glad no one in the theater sang.
Nicole: Oh, that would have been, I’d have been so mad.
Patricia: Yeah, I don’t know if I would have been my best self if someone started singing.
Nicole: Yeah, because you could sing louder and better than them, I’m sure.
Patricia: Possibly, but also, like, no one paid like, tickets for this movie to hear me sing, no one paid to hear any of the audience sing, and I considered bringing a spray bottle.
Nicole: Now I just have this, like, vision in my head, though, of someone trying to sing along in the movie theater.
And you, singing louder and more in key, but also changing the words to, like, sit down and shut up.
Patricia: [Luaghing]
Yeah, I don’t know. But, we didn’t have to deal with that, because everyone was well behaved. A lot of us were too busy crying through the whole thing.
Nicole: Did we hold space for the lyrics to Defying Gravity?
Patricia: Well, we work in queer media. So yes.
Nicole: [Laughing]
Patricia: Anyway, onward.
We have a Patreon. If this is not your first episode listening, or first time listening to us, you know we have a Patreon.
It’s patreon.com/eedapod. You can gift a Patreon subscription to our show, which is patreon.com/eedapod/gift. But fun fact, any Patreon you want to gift to, just add backslash gift to the end of their Patreon URL, and you can gift any Patreon and support any creator. So I just wanted to put that out there, you know, you don’t always have to buy something physical.
Nicole: Yeah, you can Oprah Patreon subscriptions. Just you get a Patreon gift. You get a Patreon gift.
Patricia: [Laughing]
The other thing is we have a bookshop, you know, last show we talked about some of the best books we read in the year. And we link them all in our bookshop. Our bookshop is linked on our website, eedapod.com. It’s also always linked in our show notes.
So you can shop books there. Also, I heard that Bookshop is working on a way for us to buy ebooks through Bookshop so that you can support either us or independent bookstores or whoever has a Bookshop affiliate site. And that is really exciting. I don’t think it’s out yet. I imagine it’s going to be something more like an app that you use on a tablet because they definitely don’t want you buying, you know, a Kindle or supporting that other site that is not a bookstore.
So I think that is coming down the line. So I will definitely. I know we have some readers listening to this show, so we’ll definitely keep you posted once we hear more about that.
Nicole: Yeah, that sounds real exciting.
Also, if you want to give us a gift and make our season jolly and bright, you can share our podcast with someone who you think would love it.
And, or leave us a review on iTunes, or Spotify, or YouTube, or somewhere else that you get the show that allows for ratings.
Patricia: Yeah, since we last checked, we found we have two reviews that we haven’t seen.
Nicole: Two new reviews in Apple Podcasts.
Patricia: One from the amazing MarkAbulous, who definitely made me cry happy tears, and yes, this is someone I know. He’s a long time friend, but most of my happiest memories from college involve him.
We used to make music together, so, you know, it’s always, great to hear friends supporting, and new friends too, and people we don’t know yet. We also got a review from andrea.reyna, which was also an incredibly kind and heartfelt review. So, thank you both. We check as often as we can. We read each review, and it means so, so much to us.
And thank you for listening.
Nicole: Thank you for listening. Thank you for the review. Means a lot.
Patricia: I’m also, like, thinking about, you know, I still have a number of friends from college and childhood and stuff like that. And I hear people say, like, I have enough friends and I’m just like, couldn’t be me.
Nicole: No,
Patricia: [Laughing]
Nicole: come hang out with the show.
Be our friend.
Music: [Transitional Music] So, our last show of the year will drop on December 25th, so that is not only Christmas, but it is the first night of Hanukkah, and that will probably be a short show. So today’s episode is our last full length show of the year, so we’re going to take the opportunity to reflect on this past year, see some of our lessons learned and goals accomplished or not before flinging ourselves into 2025.
Nicole: Okay, so we had to actually sit down and go through our calendars to remind ourselves of what we did this last year. There were some things we definitely planned, and some things that went as planned, and other things that were unexpected and or derailed.
Or
I guess we should say we had to adjust.
Patricia: We had to adjust.
Nicole: We did have a rough and unexpected start with some family stuff, but we gave ourselves a start over when we celebrated Tết, the Vietnamese New Year, with some friends.
I admit, I cheat and celebrate many New Years. I’m constantly giving myself a fresh start. One of them is growing up in the Bay Area, where Lunar New Year, and specifically Chinese New Year, has always been a part of my consciousness.
I have family who live in the neighborhood right next to Chinatown in the city, and so I’m so used to just being in the city around January and seeing the Chinese New Year decorations going up. Like, that was just always part of my life. So I’m like, yeah, it’s New Year. Like, yes, January 1st is New Year and also then Lunar New Year.
And if I’m feeling I need another fresh start, Astrological New Year starts on the Spring Equinox. So I’m like, yeah, sure. New Year. It’s all made up. It’s all
It’s all made up by some old European dudes.
Patricia: Well, not necessarily European.
Nicole: Well the, the standard calendar.
Patricia: The old standard calendar, yeah.
Nicole: Yeah, you don’t have to abide by that.
You can start the year whenever you want.
Patricia: Yeah, every month. New month.
Nicole: I do recommend not starting it on a Tuesday, though, if you can avoid it.
Patricia: Oh my god.
Nicole: Yeah, we’re still doing that.
Patricia: I’m like, what does New Year’s start on? Wednesday this year?
Nicole: Yeah, it starts on Wednesday. 2025 starts…
Patricia: Is a Wednesday fine with you?
Nicole: Eh, it’s, it’s, it’s a round day of the week. It’s okay.
Patricia: It’s a round. Oh my gosh.
Nicole: So one thing we did do this year is we were more social. We went to a friend’s wedding. We even had people over and cooked for them. And I want to be clear, we were more social and did things while still trying to be as COVID safe as we can. Anytime we are out of the home in public, we still wear masks indoors everywhere.
This included at our friend’s wedding.
Patricia: This included at our friend’s wedding, we actually, I reached out to my friend because dinner was being served and I said, hey, is there going to be outdoor seating for dinner at your wedding or should we plan on like, eating beforehand and, and then like hanging out indoors with everyone with our masks on.
And she was really grateful to hear that. And there were a number of people who wanted some outdoor seating, so she made it happen.
Nicole: Yeah. And this is, this is because we count indoor restaurants as indoors in public, and we just don’t eat indoors in restaurants if it can at all be avoided.
Patricia: Right. And it’s really about harm reduction, which I feel like I have, like, a lot of knowledge about harm reduction, but maybe we should talk about it in a future episode.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Um, and really figuring out how much risk we want to take.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: So eating indoors is a no for us. Uh, being indoors without a mask is a no for us, but eating outdoors is fine. And if we’re in a crowded place and it’s outdoors, like a festival or something, sometimes we’ll put a mask on too, depending on how crowded it is.
Nicole: Yeah, some other things we do, do to manage this is when we have friends over and everyone is unmasked. If we can, we can get, we try to get everyone to test beforehand and typically after. I know we at least test after, but we will open all the windows. We have air filters in just about every room. And, like, our living room’s a big, open, living, dining, kitchen space, so we have multiple air filters in there to try to keep the air as clean as possible, or as fresh as possible, with the windows open.
Patricia: Yeah, and then we also did a lot of like we said, outdoor hangs with friends, too. We did our annual cherry picking.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Which I’m going to do until my legs don’t work anymore. I will cherry pick until I drop.
Nicole: Yeah, because cherries fresh off the tree and sun warmed are amazing.
Patricia: And we also made some new friends this year, too, which was really cool, and I’m looking forward to hanging out with new folks, too.
Nicole: Yeah, new friends are great.
We went to the Ren Faire this year, which was another outdoor activity.
Patricia: Which was another outdoor activity. We had learned at the wedding in May that some of our friend group had never been to a Ren Faire. So we’re like, you know what? We’re making the Ren Faire happen.
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: We also took a photography class.
Which was great. And I found I really liked us taking classes together.
Nicole: It was a lot of fun.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: We’ve done a couple others in the past. You mentioned, uh, we did a mozzarella making class one time.
Patricia: Yeah, you bought that for my birthday one year.
Nicole: That was so much fun.
Patricia: But yeah, I don’t know. I think there’s something particularly lovely about learning with you.
Nicole: I make it fun.
Patricia: You make learning fun.
Both: [Laughing]
Nicole: We started an herb garden this year.
Patricia: We did.
The basil, hit and miss. The rosemary…
Nicole: I did make you make pesto, one year. Well, at least once.
Patricia: Yeah, I did. Yeah, I did make pesto once.
Uh, the rosemary, thriving.
Nicole: Oh, the rosemary’s so excited.
I think we need a better place for the, the basil, maybe. I think it gets too hot right there.
Patricia: It might get too hot right there.
The thyme, also thriving.
Nicole: I’m in love with the way your thyme looks. It looks like a tiny tree.
Patricia: It does.
The mint, chaotic.
Nicole: That’s what mint does.
Patricia: But that’s what mint does.
Nicole: Yeah.
Some of the sages have done all right.
Patricia: Yeah, they have, actually.
Nicole: I’m hoping we can, again, maybe find a better spot for them. I think they need more sun. And maybe they’ll grow more next year if they survive the winter.
Patricia: Yeah, but we’re learning, and it’s cool.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: We got to see some musicals this year, which, that always fills my cup. We got to see the tryouts of Galileo, A New Rock Musical.
Nicole: [Laughing]
Patricia: We got to see Company, which is a show that’s really important to me, but it’s gender swapped and the lead was a black woman, which I never thought I would see in my life.
Nicole: I can’t imagine Bobby
Patricia: Any other way?
Nicole: Not being a Black woman now?
Patricia: Well, now I’m going to have to show you, they did kind of an all star, almost concert version of it, where Neil Patrick Harris was Bobby.
Nicole: Oh, that’s not Bobby.
Patricia: [Laugh]
I also brought you to see Wicked the stage play a month before we saw the movie.
Nicole: Yes, which now I have two different voices in my head that are not Idina Menzel and
Patricia: Kristen Chenoweth.
Nicole: Yeah, Kristen Chenoweth.
Patricia: And we also went to the ballet.
Nicole: You went to the ballet. I think I like fell into some bizarre time travel abyss situation where we entered a theater and sat down and I walked away very confused.
Patricia: I mean, same, but I think it was good for me. I think it was good for me to sit down at something where I was like, wow, I am completely out of my element.
Nicole: Yeah, no, it felt, it was a very bizarre experience.
Patricia: I feel like it built character.
Nicole: Oh yeah, no, I’m not mad about going, I’m just, I still, like, am reeling from that.
Patricia: So, I think one of the big lessons we learned this year is that we don’t have the kind of life or spell slots that can make good use of a CSA, which is the Community Supported Agriculture box that we purchased for, like, a spring summer this year.
Some of the fruits and vegetables were amazing, delightful, loved them. But we are just not people who will sit and plan a whole week’s worth of different meals.
Nicole: Y’all, this is such a struggle in our home, and we’ve tried this before. We even subscribed to a website for a while that, like, you could enter some of the ingredients you have and it would help pick out meals.
Patricia: And it’d spit out a grocery list.
Nicole: And it’d spit out a grocery list for what you also needed. And you could pick recipes on there and save them and stuff. The amount of effort it takes to plan, like, five different dinners in a week. We just can’t do it.
Patricia: No, and I think this year, I think I reached the point of acceptance.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Like, just not meal plan girlies. Just not. Like, we do better if I make a big pot of beans or some kind of bean dish on a Sunday that lasts multiple days.
Nicole: Yeah, some sort of soup or something.
Patricia: Yeah, like we’ll eat the same dinner multiple days in a row.
Nicole: I’m perfectly fine with that. We have different things for lunch.
It’s not like we’re eating it the same, like, every meal.
Patricia: Three meals a day.
Yeah, yeah.
Even if we were, whatever. But yeah, I think it’s, it’s a pattern that I know I’m not alone in is you try really hard to do this aspirational thing. Whether it’s meal plan, whether it’s being a morning person, uh, right? And then you just beat yourself up over not doing that thing that you think you should be doing.
And I think it’s, it’s okay to finally just like, stop fighting. I’m, I’m not a meal plan person.
Nicole: No.
Patricia: No. And so, instead of spending energy like, being down on myself for not being that, like, we’ll just move on and lean into what I do like to do.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: I think the other lesson we learned, it feels like a lesson we need to, like, learn every year.
Nicole: We need to, like, make a sign or something.
Patricia: We need something. Maybe we’ll write it in our next planner.
We do better with accountability. Or a class, or otherwise a scheduled thing, when it comes down to whatever it is we’re doing.
Nicole: We need something with external accountability for some of these activities.
We, we’re not good if it just relies on each other to be accountable for say, like, regularly going for a walk.
Patricia: No, we run a real loose ship here, for some things.
Nicole: For some things.
Patricia: For some things.
Nicole: Like, we, we are consistent with podcasting and stuff.
Patricia: Absolutely.
Nicole: But some things, we’re just really, we’re not very firm with each other.
If someone’s like, I just do not feel like leaving the house today, we’re like, okay.
Patricia: Okay.
Nicole: All right. I love you and support you.
Patricia: [Laughing]
So, let’s look back at some of our goals this year, and I think it was a mix. I want to start off with, like, I’m proud of what we did this year. I’m proud of what we do every year, but I’m proud of what we did this year. A lot of things shifted due to work or the political climate, and so, you know, as we said, sometimes your goals in January aren’t the same as they are in April or July or October or what have you.
Also, full disclosure, maintaining this podcast took more spell slots than I anticipated. I am very spoiled with my Book Riot podcasts, where I don’t do as much.
Nicole: Yeah, and you, I think both of us, because you do the bulk of the script writing ahead of time, and I make sure we have a transcript available,
Patricia: yeah
Nicole: and the subtitles to go on the YouTube videos, and everything.
Patricia: Yeah, and then I do the artwork and the posting everywhere and the uploading and the scheduling.
Nicole: And maintaining the website.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: Yeah, no, you do a lot of work for this show.
Patricia: So do you with the transcript.
Nicole: I mean, yeah, a single episode can take like four hours.
Patricia: Yeah, and I think that is more time than we anticipated.
Nicole: mm hmm
Patricia: We love it. We’re not going anywhere, but it’s also one of those things that’s like, yeah, I’m not going to get to some of these goals this year because podcasting is priority.
Nicole: Yeah.
One thing that I know we were very excited about at the beginning of the year, it was I think our first major goal that we like, just, yes, checked off the list, was we got our noses pierced.
Patricia: Good job us.
Nicole: It was, that was an easy one and done.
Patricia: Yeah, I think, if anything, like, I recommend an easy win.
Nicole: Oh, it was such an easy win, and we did it in, like, February?
Patricia: Yep.
Nicole: So it was, like, second month of the year, checking stuff off our, like, goals list for the year.
Patricia: Hitting it out of the park.
Nicole: Yeah, it was great.
Patricia: So I had some cooking goals, which was like I wanted to keep making beans, which I kind of fell off the bean wagon that I got back on because again, our schedule in this podcast, I kind of needed to figure out the way in which things fit together in our schedule.
We did make pasta a few times.
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: I look forward to more of that.
Nicole: So do I.
Patricia: I also wanted to really get good at making pizza from scratch, which I did not. But I realize what the problem is, which is the dough I want to make, you have to make 24 hours in advance and whenever I would think of making pizza, it would be the day that I would want to make it.
And so it involved, again, more meal planning than I was interested in doing. So I think we’re going to look for a different dough recipe.
Nicole: Yeah, I think there’s one in the bread machine book that we should look at. Since we have that bread machine, it may be something that you can like throw together and it’ll do it for us and then like in a couple hours we have the dough ready to make pizza with.
Patricia: Maybe, we’ll look.
Nicole: We did start out really strong this year with the snail mail. And then about a third of the way through for me, things just went sideways. Primarily to like, for me, it was a lot of work. Um, my work really shifted and I started going into the office more and it took up more of my life and spell slots than I was hoping for.
And I know there are some other things in our life as well that just
Patricia: yeah
Nicole: took up some of our spell slots.
Patricia: Absolutely.
Nicole: I also had really high hopes of, like, dialing in this kind of crafty snail mail experience, and that hasn’t happened yet either. We talked a little bit about this. I think part of it has to do with, like, I kind of have an end vision in mind, but I haven’t done the intermediate steps to help me get there, and those
Patricia: yeah
Nicole: don’t seem as satisfying, so I’m hesitant to work on them.
But, I think maybe I’ll, maybe I’ll build myself like a skill tree situation or something.
Patricia: Ooh!
I wanted to be better at writing reviews and by better I mean actually doing them. I don’t know if I was better at it. I did write some reviews. I have a long backlog of reviews to do like the place that like does your shoes or like the person, the tailor that we’ve been going to and stuff like that.
So, but I did get better at giving compliments. Which not just thinking someone is wearing a cute outfit, but actually telling them, like, I like your outfit or I like your shirt or whatever. But this also involves sometimes replying to the newsletters I subscribe to and telling the writer that I liked that issue or I found something in it really helpful.
And sometimes it’s also just replying to people’s Instagram stories with more than just a heart. Like, actually telling them, thank you for sharing this, or this is hilarious, or something like that. And really trying to give feedback. You know, everyone, especially creatives, especially with the online landscape, we’re just all kind of putting stuff out there and not knowing how it lands.
So I’m really trying to give people positive feedback.
Nicole: Maybe that’s something I put on my list next year.
Patricia: It’s that, uh, enthusiastic encouragement.
Nicole: Oof. I’m, I’m better with the dubious advice.
One thing we did not do well this year, or, or the year before, or even the year before that, was the decluttering.
Patricia: Yeah, just not good at that.
Nicole: I think this is another one of those things that’s like, you know, taking classes, doing more movement. We don’t have any external accountability for it, so that’s like the least fun sounding thing to do around here.
Patricia: Yeah, I think we’re at the point with certain areas of the house, though, where I’m just like sick of my own nonsense, so
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: I’m optimistic looking forward.
Nicole: We, uh, one thing we did do, we had it on our list to take some nice photos together. We did do that, but not how we planned. Our plan was more in the realm of like, romantic photos together, something to maybe hand out in place of our wedding pictures or something like that, to kind of update those.
We didn’t do that, but we did take some fun pictures together. They were just more headshot, business oriented podcast.
Patricia: They were still fun though.
Nicole: Oh, it was a lot of fun.
Patricia: And I already updated our, uh, EEDAPOD website.
Nicole: Yeah, with one of the pictures. It was a lot of fun. The pictures were great. The photographer was excellent, but I don’t know.
I still want to take some fun, like, romancey pictures with you,
Patricia: But speaking of the podcast, we have maintained the podcast and also my newsletter is coming up on its five years.
Nicole: Wow.
Patricia: Over 260 issues.
Nicole: That’s definitely enough for like a solid book.
Patricia: Oh, probably.
Nicole: Yeah.
We also used the planner together. We did good at maintaining the planner.
There were a couple weeks here and there that I forgot. But I was able to pick back up with it. And, like, I saw the areas that were really helpful that I fell off of, and other areas that were really helpful that we maintained. And we’re definitely carrying that through to next year. We already have next year’s planners.
Patricia: Yeah.
One of the things I wanted to do last year was read Octavia E. Butler’s works, and I didn’t read everything, but I read Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, and maybe next year we’ll pick out another series.
Nicole: And you did get a lot of other essays and stuff.
Patricia: I know. I know. I want to get more to that next year.
Nicole: I did manage to revisit Falling Back in Love with Being Human by Kai Cheng Thom. It’s a short book. I revisited it on audio, and this is a book that I think I need to, when I revisit it, like in the future and stuff, I need to do with the paper version, because it needs to be done in small chunks. It’s not a book for just like plowing through. It’s a book to take your time with and chew on it.
We also did good at book tracking. I know I did. I got all my books in.
Patricia: Absolutely.
We should, I know we’ve mentioned our StoryGraph accounts, but we should link them in the show notes.
Nicole: Yeah, I know you got, we got some bookish fans out there that would probably enjoy that.
I also did good at pressing flowers this year. You got me a flower press for the winter holidays last year, and I’ve pressed a fair bit of flowers. I’m looking now, there’s a bunch that are actually still in the press from summer that I probably should pull out and put away because those are also part of my plans for my snail mail projects.
Patricia: Yeah, I had some grand plans for learning to crochet and sitting back down at the piano and getting more movement in my life and I didn’t.
[Giggle]
But I’m rethinking my tactics and I’m thinking specifically about what I said we learned this year, which is we do better with accountability or a class or definitely if something is scheduled.
And so I’m already looking at crochet classes for after the new year.
Nicole: Yeah, I’ll do that with you.
Oh, gosh, but can we, like, get a couple extra days in the weekend for all these classes and things we want to do? Can we talk to the calendar people? Who’s the manager of the calendar?
Patricia: You want to talk to the calendar’s manager?
Nicole: Yes. Who designed the year? I want to talk to them.
Patricia: Uh, Gregory?
Nicole: Oh.
Patricia: Sorry.
Nicole: Some old… do I have to learn Latin to do that?
Patricia: Yes.
Nicole: Oh, no.
Patricia: Gotta bump up your Duolingo.
Nicole: [Sigh]
Patricia: I had a very specific plan about making Instagram Reels this year, and I didn’t follow that plan, but I have made more Reels than in the past, and I also finally caved and joined TikTok, so I’m on there too.
Nicole: I like watching your stuff.
Patricia: Thanks.
Nicole: I’m a big fan. You do great.
Patricia: Thanks. Thank you.
I also did step up my activism a bit this year with a couple of projects.
And I’m looking forward to doing more of that in, in the coming year. And really trying to focus on where I can again, build community and help people and really share our resources.
Nicole: I think that’s going to be a bigger focus for me this year also.
Patricia: We are not going to talk about our next year’s goals today, so we’ll talk about them during our first episode after the new year.
I want to start 2025 really gently and smoothly.
Nicole: Oh, God, I am, I’m not ready to think about that yet.
Patricia: So, for my takeaway today, if you take the time to look back over your 2024 goals, remember to be gentle with yourself. If something didn’t happen, maybe, sit with that and think about why it didn’t happen, and maybe think about what you learned about it, or if it’s something that you’re just gonna have to delegate to the floor.
Delegate to Oscar.
Nicole: Delegate it to Oscar.
I would love for you to take away with the idea that any success should be counted with a win when reflecting back on your goals. Really make sure you pay attention to the things you did achieve, not just the things that turned out to maybe be not as important.
Focus on your wins, too.
Music: [Transitional Music]
Nicole: Okay, Patricia. We’re coming down to the end of the year. What, in recent time, has been filling your cup?
Patricia: Definitely the Wicked film. My little theater kid heart just is so full.
Nicole: Even though you didn’t get to spray bottle anyone?
Patricia: Even though I didn’t get a spray bottle anyone. That’s I don’t think the spray bottling that’s not my theater kid heart that’s my little chaotic demon heart.
Nicole: That’s true.
Patricia: But but I hear there are going to be wicked sing alongs at the theater. So, you know, we’ll see.
And the other thing that is filling my cup was getting to see a bit of family last week and spending time and always laughing. That was really fulfilling.
How about you, Nicole? What’s filling your cup?
Nicole: I think right now making the marshmallows is, even though I’m going to get glitter lung.
Patricia: Glitter lung.
Both: [Laughing]
Nicole: And loaded up on sugar. It’s doing something away from computers, away from screens. When we get good at things like this, we kind of develop a little dance in the kitchen together, the way we move around each other, and I really like doing things with you in tandem like this. So I think doing that all together has been really filling my cup, even though I get very tired.
Patricia: Yeah, that too. We’re like making candy to the point of exhaustion. But no, I like it, and I also love doing our kitchen dance, and I also enjoy, yeah, you can’t really be on screens when you make marshmallows it takes all your attention.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: So, that’s our show for today. 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 at eedapod and email us at eedapod@gmail.com.
Patricia: We are nothing if not consistent.
Nicole: We would also appreciate it so much if you would subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts that allow ratings. It goes really far in helping other people find us.
Also, special thanks to Apple users, Mark.Abulous and andrea.reyna for their written reviews on Apple podcasts.
Patricia: 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: We did it!
Patricia: We did it!
Nicole: A year of full episodes.
Patricia: Wow.
Nicole: Good job, us.
Patricia: Good job, us.