Facing Fear and Finding Strength

• Updated on: 2023-07-04
• Read original article here

Did you know Michelle grew up afraid of ghosts? And Kathy loves good chocolate? Each episode is another little window into who each of us are.

Speaker 0 00:00:02 Happy Friday, Kathy. Speaker 1 00:00:04 Happy Friday. Michelle, how are you? Speaker 0 00:00:07 Oh, T G I F and all the good things. Speaker 1 00:00:10 , T G I F. Indeed. Is it still getting cold? Well of course it’s getting colder up there, but are you getting any kinda reprieve, any sunlight, any like changing of the colors that are keeping you happy that it’s fall? Speaker 0 00:00:21 It was, it was sunny Today I have my curtains open a little bit cuz otherwise that washes me with, um, with light during any, you know, meetings or whatever. But it was definitely sunny today. Um, but it was 32 degrees when I woke up this morning. So I did have to boost the thermostat a little bit cuz I did not want my feet to touch the floor. I don’t have carpets and it’s cold , Speaker 1 00:00:44 I cannot blame you there. It was cold and rainy all day. So I’m getting to wear my like, longer sleeve shirts for the first time since like April. So yeah. Yeah, I’m ready for winter here. It’s actually kinda nice. It’s like very Seattle outside and it’s actually kind of nice. Oh, nice. For Speaker 0 00:01:02 Change Makes it reminds you of other times and other places. Speaker 1 00:01:06 Yeah. Yeah. ATS school. Speaker 0 00:01:08 So I’m judging just by the top of what I can see on your shirt, I’m guessing. WP Engine at work camp. Yes. St. Louis work camp US 2019. Speaker 1 00:01:19 Yes. Speaker 0 00:01:20 Tigers Speaker 1 00:01:21 One of my, one of my favorite word camps of all time. That one and, well, there’s a bunch of ’em, but that one was so much fun. Speaker 0 00:01:28 It really was. And I actually follow City Museum on TikTok. Cause Speaker 1 00:01:33 Like do you Speaker 0 00:01:34 That’s City Museum. They, they show all the really cool things. Did you know that there’s a whole floor where people live? There’s like apartments. Speaker 1 00:01:40 What? Yes. They’re like, I had no idea. Speaker 0 00:01:44 They’re like apartments that you buy like in New York City style buy. Right. But they’re like 350 to $650,000. Speaker 1 00:01:53 Whoa. Because Speaker 0 00:01:53 They’re so Art Novo and all of the wackiness that goes with the rest of the city museum. So yeah, follow City Museum on TikTok. If you’re on TikTok, it’s super interesting to see all the different things that they have on there. The back stuff that they don’t, you don’t see when you just visit, you know? Speaker 1 00:02:07 Yeah. Yeah. Oh that’s so cool. I have to tell Ben, Ben and Hannah, when we do like the pre-show for the podcast for Hay Beat, we always end up talking about that word Camp cause of that museum. And they so cool. They, it was such a, an amazing experience. It was just unforgettable. So I hope we get to do something like that again in, uh, It’s Maryland next year, right? Speaker 0 00:02:31 Yeah, yeah. Maryland. It’s much closer flight for me, so I’m happy about that Speaker 1 00:02:36 . I bet, I bet. Speaker 0 00:02:39 on a plane or whatever, so Yeah, it’ll be good. Yeah. So, um, you looked like you were gonna say something before I interrupted you about City Museum though, on your t-shirt. Speaker 1 00:02:48 Oh no, I was just gonna ask you how your, how your week went, how was, uh, lots going on. Speaker 0 00:02:54 So, so anybody who’s listening, you’re gonna miss out on what I’m about to show people. But I bought, I invested Okay. Invested in my podcasting. Like I’ve been podcasting for what, like three years now and I finally like upgrading equipment and things like that. So I invested in Elga Key Lights and the Elga Stream deck so I can push a button. I watch this, watch what happens. Oh no, it’s not gonna do it. Watch. Come on. Oh, they, they disconnected all my lights usually show up. Oh Speaker 1 00:03:27 No. Speaker 0 00:03:28 Um, yeah, I just did something on it beforehand and it un they disconnected but I’ll show you real quick. Hold on. I have an app for it too. The, um, the lights, like literally it feels like it plunges me into darkness. Watch this Speaker 1 00:03:40 . Oh wow. Speaker 0 00:03:42 Is that a huge difference? These key lights? Speaker 1 00:03:44 That is, oh my gosh, you’re gonna have to send me those because I do like, I have key lights, I just don’t know where they are. Like when we moved they were in like the husbands like all the equipment stuff. I’m more of the software person and then, you know, the guys in my family, my husband and my son, the hardware, they’re the hardware, you know, anything wrong with the car that’s like their deal and you know, something wrong with the car. I’m like New car . So I have Key somewhere, but I have no idea where they are. And of course you know that I’m pretty sure that brain cell was, uh, control. I’ll delete for my husband. So not an important one. So I have no idea. So I might have to, Speaker 0 00:04:25 I will, I will link you outwards but also Awesome. I had bought some, what were called key lights on Amazon last year for like 30 bucks, 40 bucks. So like that. And I was like, these gotta be just fine. Oh my gosh. They are like, I turned them on and I’m like, my eyes is so bright. Speaker 1 00:04:42 Oh no. Speaker 0 00:04:42 And it’s either bright or not right. So like those were terrible. They’re l a D lights but they’re just, the quality’s not there. But I also invested in Stream Deck and I was like, I don’t even know what to do with Stream deck. So like I can open Twitter with it, I can push a button and Twitter pops in. Um, I’m supposed to be able to turn on and off these lights, but for some reason when I added the, um, mute on mute for um, un but I’ll fix that. But this button hopefully you’ll to this I’m my, my speakers closer to my microphone. Okay. Speaker 1 00:05:23 That’s the best. Speaker 0 00:05:25 It’s well there sounds like an add on there. Speaker 1 00:05:28 Awesome. That sounds fun. Like Speaker 0 00:05:30 I wanna add the old Speaker 1 00:05:33 Ah, perfect. Oh my gosh. Speaker 0 00:05:37 Meetings. Nobody will know where it came from. I love it. . Speaker 1 00:05:39 It’s like gonna be Michelle’s morning zoo, right? Speaker 0 00:05:44 . So funny. Well, I also wanna tell you something funny that I I what I’m planning for Monday morning. Now this podcast won’t go out until late Sunday night, early Monday. So hopefully he won’t listen to it before then. But I’m co-hosting this weekend WordPress on Monday, which happens to be Halloween. So if you’re listening to this on Monday, happy Halloween. Um, Speaker 1 00:06:06 Yeah, Speaker 0 00:06:07 I’m pressing up as Nathan Wrigley on the Nathan Wrigley podcast. , Speaker 1 00:06:14 Nothing can be more Perfect. I am so gonna be there for that. That’s perfect. Speaker 0 00:06:21 Long gray wig that’ll pull into a ponytail and a grayish beard that I have the trim cause it’s too long. I look like right now in this whole thing cuz I haven’t ponytailed it anything. But, um, yeah, so I’ll put a picture of this, um, in the show notes. So when people see this, they can, they can click over and see the picture of me as Nathan Wrigley, but I’m not gonna put it on. We always meet 15, but people don’t know. We meet 15 minutes before the show starts on Monday mornings . And I’m not gonna have it on at that point. And then he actually puts on a loop for two minutes. Right. That like talks about, it’s like a commercial kind of thing. So I’m gonna mute my camera and quick put this costume on so that when he brings us all into the room there I’ll be, and I’m gonna, and I have to wear, I have to wear um, a WordPress, uh, business t-shirt cuz he always has on like a WordPress business t-shirt. So I’ll have my stellar WT shirt on, I’ll have the wig, I’ll have the beard and it’ll be all I could do. Not to just giggle until I pee myself. Speaker 1 00:07:23 . Oh my gosh. I cannot wait. I am So if you’re listening, you are so blessed to have like the inside scoop on this. You have to see this . So it’s definitely you listen to this woman Speaker 0 00:07:36 Up podcast tune in. It’s um, and because time change happens overseas a week before Hours does mm-hmm. it’s at 10 30 eastern in ro in, you know, on Monday. And it would be at one 30 is it? No, it’s still two 30. I’m sorry. One I can’t even do time. It’s at 10, 10 o’clock eastern, which is two o’clock, um, UTC time. So for British time. So, uh, yeah, so I, if anybody knows me, you know, that um, time zones are my arch nemesis. They are my kryptonite. So, um, yeah, so go online and look those up to make sure I messed you up at all. But we always treated by an hour before it anyway, so, but yeah, I cannot wait for him to see me as him with black glasses and all and uh, yeah, it’s just gonna be fun. Speaker 1 00:08:30 It’s gonna be fun. That is so great. That’s so fun. I’m so excited. That’s, it’s just that show is so much fun to watch anyway and just the people who show up and chat and share their perspectives on things, I learn so much all the time. Oh, me too. Nathan just has so much fun with everything, so it, and he’s such a good sport about stuff too. So it’s, um, I’ve had friends of mine come when I’ve been on and they come, come and they like troll me in the chat and I’m just thinking like, why are you doing this? I mean, it’s funny and everything, but it’s like lots of times inside jokes and Nathan’s like, I don’t quite get this like, you’re not supposed please. But he’s such a great, he’s just got such a great sense of humor and such a great sport about stuff. So I can’t wait. He’s gonna just Speaker 0 00:09:17 Laugh. He good guy. It’s Speaker 1 00:09:19 Gonna be so, so perfect. Speaker 0 00:09:21 It’s gonna be fun for sure. So yeah, so I might have spent a little bit of money on this week on lights and and stream decks and wigs and beards, . But it’s gonna be worth it cause so like different it . Speaker 1 00:09:36 That’s so perfect. Love Speaker 0 00:09:38 It. What was your, what was your most recent, I’ll tell you my other most recent, um, purchase in a minute, but I wanna ask you, what’s your most recent poor fund purchase? Like, you and I spend a lot of money on things that we need in our lives, right? And medical bills, but for ourselves and our loved, but what’s your most recent, like, I don’t wanna say frivolous because doing things for yourself shouldn’t be considered frivolous. It should be considered, you know, self care. But what’s the most recent fun purchase that you made just for you or for fun? Speaker 1 00:10:08 Oh geez, what have I bought for myself? That’s fun. Um, okay, so things that I’m like enjoying right now. Yeah. Chocolate. Yes. You know what, someone, someone at work sent me chocolate Speaker 0 00:10:22 . Nice. Speaker 1 00:10:23 And so then I go to the grocery store, It, it’s Hannah Hannah’s one of the people I work with on, um, Cadence and she sent me some chocolate. And uh, so now when I go into Whole Foods, like she and I like the, you know, the bougie fancy chocolate . She bought this and said it to me. Now I go into Whole Foods and it’s just like, oh look, it’s Hannah Chocolate. So I bought myself some Hannah chocolate, so remind myself like fancy chocolate and that kind of makes me happy. And then the other thing that I’ve bought that’s kind of frivolous too is I did the bottle list coffee thing and I’m loving it because I’ve just been like drinking the same coffee for like years. Like this, this small roaster in southern Oregon that I really, really like. And, but it, I just wanted to try some new things. Speaker 1 00:11:05 And so I’ve had like two bags sent and they’ve both been really, really good. Yeah. So I, I used your, your like little links so, but I’m really enjoying that. Yeah. And um, and the other thing that I’m really excited about is I just upgraded my machine to Ventura, uh, Macs Ventura and it has that continuity, contin continuity camera. And so you can use your phone as your webcam and then you can also like show stuff on your desk. And I haven’t gotten that all hooked up yet, but I’m, I’ve been playing with it. I just don’t have a way to put my phone up there yet. But I’m like super excited about that. So I’ve got a lot. That sounds cool. I’ve got toys. I’m blessed with all the toys and I have dogs that are fun and I like buying stuff for them cuz they’re like my tv, right? Speaker 0 00:11:52 Yeah. Toys and you know, and it’s the blue she talk about like, Hersheys just won’t cut it anymore. Just no, you gotta get the good stuff. I have, I’ve been dating a guy who never lets me run out of lint truffles. Speaker 1 00:12:06 Oh. Speaker 0 00:12:07 I’ve gained like 20 pounds since I met him a year ago. He’ll be like, How you doing on candy? And I lie now and go, Oh, I don’t lie. Exactly. I don’t say I’m, I don’t say I’m out of it, but I say I don’t need anymore yet because that is true. It doesn’t mean I have any, but I don’t need anymore yet. . Oh my, Speaker 1 00:12:29 That’s the bust. Yeah. Chocolate. Good chocolate. Yep. Gotta take care of yourself. Absolutely. And you know, it’s not like you’re gonna eat chocolate for like breakfast. Well maybe I’ve eaten chocolate for Speaker 0 00:12:42 Breakfast. , I was gonna say, excuse me, I’m a grownup. I can eat for breakfast if I what ma’am. Speaker 1 00:12:48 But you know, it’s just like a little here and there and I just break off a little piece and savor it and it’s, I always think it’s just like memorable stories that stick in your head. Every time I like put a little chocolate on my mouth and just savor it. I am instantly transported back to Charlie in the Chocolate factory and just how they describe how Charlie just would take the tiniest bite and savor everything that he could get out of it. And I like for the rest of my life, like since I was a kid, that’s like how I eat chocolate. I’ll take like the tiniest bite and just like get the most out of it. Speaker 0 00:13:27 I’m like 1, 2, 3, 4, now I’ve got it. Okay. I’m no, I do like to let it melt in my mouth until it’s gone because you really can savor all the different flavors. Especially like when the like truffles have stuff in him, right? So like, yeah. Salted caramel one where it’s like, ooh, now I taste the caramel. Now I taste the salt. Like, oh yeah, it’s good stuff. Speaker 1 00:13:47 Nice. Yeah. Speaker 0 00:13:50 To be sometimes, Speaker 1 00:13:54 But when you get the good stuff, Speaker 0 00:13:56 Other than the lights and things, which I consider investment in my career. Speaker 1 00:14:00 Yes. Speaker 0 00:14:01 Even if they do go Speaker 1 00:14:04 , Speaker 0 00:14:07 Never gonna get tired of that. I went, I purchased something this week. It’s actually on my, my neighbor saw it on my porch and she brought it in and put it on my couch for me. So it’s there for after, after this meeting, I’m gonna go open it up. I grew up in a town called Easton, Massachusetts and east of Massachusetts is, you know, Massachusetts, Salem, like all of that is all up there, all that witchcraft, all of the, you know that witchcraft ha hey the witch hangings and all that happened in Massachusetts, Well in the 17 hundreds somebody wrote the history of east of Massachusetts. And when I tell you that this book, it’s a bound book that’s about three inches thick, it is ridiculously thick. Right. It’s like this thick, It’s such a big book. Yeah. Speaker 0 00:14:51 And when I was in the third grade around Halloween time, our teacher started reading us stories, the folklore out of this book. So I was a very scared child and she scared me shitless. I’m not gonna lie. Like I was terrified. I was the only girl in the family. My brothers got to sleep together. I slept with the Bible on my bed cuz I was terrified that a witch or Dracula or a ghost or something was gonna come get me into sleep. I slept, I I would fall asleep, shallow breathing so that if a ghost came in my room, it would think I was already dead. I, when I tell you I was terrified, Oh Speaker 1 00:15:28 My gosh, I am Speaker 0 00:15:28 Not kidding about how terrified I was. Speaker 0 00:15:32 And this book had like stories of like the woman who was a witch but her husband didn’t know. And at night she’d turn into a cat and she’d go around the, the village and everything. And one day she came home before she’d turned back into herself and her husband saw, I mean I remember this for second grade, right? Or third grade, the, her husband saw her and beat, beat this cat with a broom to get it out of his house and knocked its eye out. And the next day his wife was missing her eye. Like, this is the stuff I told when I was like nine, 10 years old. I was terrified of this stuff. So I just bought that book. I found it on eBay and I was like, you know, I wanna read it as an adult. I’ll skip the boring stuff about like town meetings when they decided what the zoning laws were, and stuff like that. But there’s another story that like when Satan arrived in eastern Massachusetts, he jumped, he fell out of the sky and landed on this giant boulder and there’s four imprints in this boulder of his clothing. Hoofs. Well, do you know that that boulder was on school property and our teacher marched us right out there on a recess and Speaker 1 00:16:35 Showed it to us. No. Speaker 0 00:16:37 So Speaker 1 00:16:37 Yes. Oh my gosh. Speaker 0 00:16:39 So I have always tried to overcome fear by like just putting myself right out there. Right. So yeah, I used to be afraid of death, not dying, just being around death. Right. And so I vol in college, I volunteered at a hospice so that I could actually be around death and overcome that fear. So I’m gonna read that damn book . I’m gonna get through those stories. I live alone. It’s dark at night. I’m still gonna read the book. Um, but yeah, that was my like frivolous purchase recently it’s spent $27 Yeah. To get this book. It’s sitting on my, in my living room. It’s like, that’s my weekend project. I’m gonna read that damn book Speaker 1 00:17:12 Right before Halloween. You’re brave, right Queen? Speaker 0 00:17:15 It has to. I mean if I’m read it after Halloween, where’s this kinda lit? Actually have the witch’s hat. I put witch’s hat on, read it and I’m just gonna throw all caution to wind. Speaker 1 00:17:25 Speaker 0 00:17:27 Somem in cats are around the Speaker 1 00:17:29 Dale is thin. Speaker 0 00:17:30 . I have a black cat too. I’m just saying maybe I am the witch. I dunno. worse. Speaker 1 00:17:38 . Oh my gosh. Wow. Wow. Yeah. So I like what you’re doing there, facing fear in the face and just saying, you know what? I am more than this. Yeah. Not gonna, not gonna let you be affected by it. I love it. Yeah. It’s, it’s hard to do. It’s hard to do. And I love that you’re doing it. Speaker 0 00:18:01 It’s, there are things in our life that we truly should fear. Like we shouldn’t stand in the middle of the road and hope the cars don’t hit us. That’s a dumb thing. Right? We shouldn’t walk through a pit of vipers and hope that we don’t get bitten. Like those are, those are, I’m never gonna do those things . Like I’m not gonna walk on hot coals. I’m not gonna walk across Legos. I mean, I’m not doing the things that are actually, you know, harmful or painful or, um, potentially fatal. There are certain things in our lives that we should be afraid of, but there are other things that we should be able to look at, look in the eye and say, that has no power over me anymore. And so, yeah. And you and I have been, as we’ve talked before, we’ve been through hell of a lot in our lifetimes and especially in the last year. And like, there’s very little that actually scares me anymore. So that’s a good time to read this book. Speaker 1 00:18:48 . Yeah. Sounds good. Yeah. The, so somebody, um, I can’t remember who, but they said what you want is on the other side of your fear. Oh, okay. Like everything that you want, you know, there’s something that’s holding you back from achieving whatever it is that you want. There’s, there’s certain things that I would like to, you know, bucket list types of things that I would like to do. Um, I’m not quite sure how those things are gonna happen, but there’s definitely like this fear of, um, I don’t know, judgment or like, it’s gonna fall flat if I try, you know, or whatever it is. But people stop themselves. There’s so much more that we can do in our lives and we stop ourselves. I thought myself at least because I did say that because of fear. Speaker 0 00:19:32 Yeah, for sure. It’s Speaker 1 00:19:34 So, I like, I love the example of you just going after it, going after that thing that when you’re a kid, Speaker 0 00:19:43 What I’m hoping is it’s not the most boring book in the like ever. And the teacher only read the three most interesting pages out of this thousand page book, . We shall see. Speaker 1 00:19:51 That could be, See now, when I was, when I was a kid, I was deathly afraid of the movie invasion of the body, s snatchers. Like I was super little when it was out and I was horrified and scared. And still to this day I see Donald Sutherland doing the thing and I’m just like, Yeah, okay, that’s scary. And I showed, I told my kids like how it was like petrified. I was like at my friend’s house and I had to walk home and I was like, and I was petrified. And they watched the movie and they’re like, you’re scared of this. Like, just like I was, it was different then , Speaker 0 00:20:24 That was me and the am horror and I never even watched it. Yeah. It was just the commercials. I’ve still never seen that movie. It was the commercials that put me over the edge. Speaker 1 00:20:32 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I saw it like it was on like repeat or something and my, my uncle had on t because I’d never went to the movie theater to see it. It was like on TV or something. But it still petrified me. Speaker 0 00:20:45 Well when we moved from, from Massachusetts to New York, which is where I live now, the first house we lived here wa was a 200 year old house. And my parents didn’t tell me until we no longer lived there. And I was a much older person that the back step to the back door was a, was a gravestone turned upside down. And that was just, cause if I had seen a gravestone walking into my own house, Speaker 1 00:21:11 No, no. Came over Speaker 0 00:21:15 Our local, Speaker 1 00:21:15 Can someone else adopt me? Like get me outta here. Oh my God is crazy. Speaker 0 00:21:21 The local psychiatric ward at our hospital here is called Our Wing. And so like, I would’ve been in our wing if I had known that because I was already afraid to live in an old house. Like, to know that there was a gravestone right at my back door would’ve put me over the edge, as they say. So Speaker 1 00:21:36 Yeah, Speaker 0 00:21:37 I’m, I’m better now. I’m much better now . So watch my Twitter this weekend. I’ll be, um, tweeting out pictures and stuff from this book. Speaker 1 00:21:46 Exciting. I’m very excited. Yeah. Speaker 0 00:21:49 Well, next week I wanna talk about the first week of Twitter under the muskrat. We’ll , we’ll see how that goes. Speaker 1 00:22:00 Oh my gosh, that’s a scary, Yeah, it’s, it’s, yeah, I’ve looked at a couple of things and I’m just like, okay, well I guess we’ll see what happens. It’ss definitely, but I, I don’t know. I’m not gonna get too like worried about it. I, I don’t know. Just lots of drama. Speaker 0 00:22:18 Yeah, Speaker 1 00:22:19 Always drama. . So much drama. Speaker 0 00:22:21 Well, I saw something on Twitter for the first time today that I’ve ever seen. So I was talking to you before about how people will tag me and things that they don’t follow me, I don’t follow them, but they’ll tag me to try to look, make it look like there’s some level of, um, endorsement there. Speaker 1 00:22:35 Right. Speaker 0 00:22:36 I didn’t retweet at this time, but I did reply and say, why am I tagged in this? This is really shitty marketing and no one should ever use a company with this level of market, this kind of marketing and Twitter before I, and I hit tweet or reply or whatever and Twitter pops up this thing that says people don’t usually like this kind of a response. Are you sure you want to tweet it? And I’ve never seen that before and I was like, interesting and Right. I wanna tweet it. Sorry, I swore. But yes I did. I tweeted it and I was like damn proud of it. So Speaker 1 00:23:09 . Yeah, Speaker 0 00:23:11 So Speaker 1 00:23:11 We’ll, Speaker 0 00:23:12 So Speaker 1 00:23:13 If there’s gonna be any kinda chilling effect. Cause well he keeps saying that he’s doing this because of free speech and everything, so we’ll see how Speaker 0 00:23:21 Yeah. Speaker 1 00:23:22 Is if it’s for the, for me and not for the, or whatever’s going on, I’ll be very interesting to see. But you know, I don’t know, there’s so many different social networks these days. It’s like, I don’t think anybody’s got like the corner on a conversation. So now that there’s so many of them, it’s like, yeah, all right, all right, y’all can provide the best experience. Speaker 0 00:23:44 But I said to one friend that day, as long as the block and mute features still work, I don’t care. . Yeah. If those go away, forget it. But Speaker 1 00:23:54 It’s always funny to me when I come, come through the scroll and it, I’ll have a friend who says, you are an idiot. And right above it, this is a tweet from somebody you’ve muted. And I don’t even look, I’m just like, I have good friends. Speaker 0 00:24:07 Yes, exactly. Exactly. Too funny. One more time. There we go. Speaker 1 00:24:14 Perfect. Woo. Speaker 0 00:24:18 Well everybody, we hope that our spooky, funny, scary stories carry me through another week. Um, stay motivated. I don’t know if we’re motivating or we’re just silly, but I like it either way. And Cathy, I wouldn’t wanna be in this anybody other than you. So thanks for keeping me motivated. Speaker 1 00:24:33 Yeah, thanks for keeping me motivated too. And everybody enjoy your chocolate. Speaker 0 00:24:36 Absolutely. Bye Speaker 1 00:24:40 Bye.