New Year 2022

Hello, thank you for listening to Chats with twoto dyslexics. I just want to make a quick disclaimer. , we recorded this episode on new year's day, I think, after new year's day, but we thought it was a good episode because we had some good things     that me Andrea talked about. So I hope you guys enjoy it and, , listen.

Okay. Thank you.

  📍 Hi, I'm Jeremiah and I'm Andrea. We are, your hosts of chats with two dyslexics, a podcast that aims to inform and entertain and empower. If you are a curious person who could use a weekly dose of positivity, then you've come to the right place.

 📍 Welcome. to Chats with two dyslexics? My name is Jeremiah and this is my co-host Andrea. Hi everybody.. Happy new year. We're still here. Yeah, we survive. COVID and all. Yeah. So Andrea, what'd you do over thewinter break ? , not a lot. I gained a lot of weight. I ate a lot of Italian cookies watched. , a lot of binge-watching of Outlander the series on, , a woman, a nurse that goes back in time into the Highlands in Scotland and, , got to see my three adult children.

And, , yeah, , not a lot was going on. And how about you? ,  during the winter break, I finished my, ,  English midterm, so that's good. , but during the winter break, I was  watching different,  , Christmas movies. , a lot of hallmark, me and my dad watched Spiderman two and three.

I haven't seen those yet. Yeah. It's  the old Spider Mans and they're showing the, , the other old Spider-Man movies, because they're going to make a new one with all three of them, because there's three differentSpider Mans.  With different people, different, , worlds, I guess.

I don't know. I can't explain  the Marvel universe, but, , they're gonna combine. Nice. Do you have a favorite holiday movie? , I think, I like the Grinch,  I love  Jim Carrey as the Grinch. That's like one of my favorites.He c reeps me out so much. I can't watch that. No. Yeah. Some of his other characters are  weird, but  the Grinch I really enjoy it , even the Dr. Seuss version, I can't watch the characters just creep me out. They always have a little Cindy Lou who I just can't. Well, my favorite one is a Christmas story. The one about the little boy that wants the red Ryder BB gun and his mom's like, you can't have that. You'll shoot your eye out.

Oh, you ever see that one? , I don't think so. I think I seen memes of it. Okay.  A lot different things. Don't like it. Oh, they don't know. I think it's great, but I kind of have a twisted sense of humor. Oh, I know another movie that , me and my family watch is  jingle all the way, , with  Arnold Schwarzenegger with Sinbad they are looking for the turbo man doll.

So it was very funny. They're both fighting to get the toy. Cause they both work a lot.  Sinbad's character was a mailman. Arnold Schwarzenegger character was, , a businessman. So they're working and  they didn't do their Christmas shopping. So it was very funny. I enjoyed that movie, we watched it  a lot.

another show we watched was freelancers, which is on VID angel app. It's about a group of people trying to  make videos  , they get  odd jobs.  I remember the first episode, they had a film for this person who wanted to be a student council president, and then they turned out this person was a bad person.

So they ran against him I thought, that was funny. And then I think the funniest episode that I saw was. They got a job to, , film for this chip company. And it realized it was a cult at the end. I though it was funny and yeah, they like escape. So I though it was very funny they get a lot of weird jobs , but that's kind of like, what life is, you kind of get  a lot of weird jobs you don't like, but you're kinda  trying to figure out, , Howto eat and how to  survive?

Cause that's what they're doing. They're trying to survive. So I think it's really a show I recommend people can watch and it's free too. So we'll have to put that in our show notes. Yeah, the app. Yeah. how did you celebrate the new years, Andrea? You know?It was really uneventful this year. , we, I think for a lot of reasons, we.

I don't know, we just didn't have the desire to go out and celebrate. Like a lot of our friends did, you know, I have this friend with a lot of energy and she's always either throwing these amazingly fun parties or  going to one and two years ago, we went to a party at her home and it was so much fun.

It was like a black and white theme. And we played all of these cool games like karaoke, and we pretended to be on a TV show. One time. They had a party where, , we did like the dating game and we all had to answer questions about each other. And, , my husband and I were the only couple there that wasn't married at the time.

And we actually won all the other couples had been married like 20, 30 years. , so yeah, we didn't do anything fun like that. We didn't even have champagne or cheese and crackers.  , growing up, my parents always did lobster and steak, like surf and  turf. And they had  sparkling grape juice for us kids.

And we would always stay up and toasted in the new year. But, and my sister and her husband have kept that tradition going, but we didn't do anything. I'm embarrassed to say. I think we just sat around watching episodes of Outlander. So, yeah, this the past two years, you know, between my mom passing away suddenly and unexpectedly and his dad.

Yeah. Thank you. His dad passing, you know, we have to kind of rethink how we do all of our family traditions, because they always kind of centered around our parents and you know, my dad's still alive, but he's in Florida. so yeah, we have to rethink everything and come up with our own new traditions, which is kind of fun, but that takes time and energy and planning.

And, you know, a lot of my energy has been going into my new business and this podcast and, you know, my studies for the advanced dyslexia certification, , with, or, you know, the Orton-Gillingham. So, and of course having two elderly dogs takes up a good amount of time. My life kind of revolves around them.

It's like having two toddlers. No, you know, you got to put little coats on them when you go outside. Cause they're so old, their skin is thin and they tremble. And you know, sometimes they have accidents in the house and they're on like 10 different medications. And you know, one of them was in the hospital for two days over Christmas.

Well, he came home Christmas Eve cost us $2,500. It's just, you know, it's crazy. We could have probably had another college degree or another car for the amount of money we've spent. But next time, if we get a dog, it's going to be a therapy dog. So we can write off all the expenses on our income taxes. ,  I'm so sorry that you went through a lot.

Yeah, it was interesting. Hey, it builds character, right?  Okay, thanks for your empathy. Yeah. Cause that can be hard cause , you're kind of like, what do I do now? Because , they're not in your lives anymore. So, I really feel sorry for you. Thank you. And I know a lot of people with COVID lost a lot of loved ones and you know, or people have gone through divorce, like my good friend's going through a divorce and she didn't even want to get a tree.

And you know, the church, even though. , I'm not a practicing Catholic anymore.  The Catholic church has been a big part of my identity and my husband's as well. He's been singing in the church since he was nine years old and he's got a beautiful voice. And for the past two years, he hasn't been able to sing in the choir because of COVID.

So we always went to midnight mass and then our celebration of the birth of. Jesus focused around that mass. And that felt like Christmas, but it didn't feel like it without that this year. And in fact, we had my mom's funeral December 2nd, and the priest that did the mass had COVID. So, you know, we were worried that we were going to get it, , but we didn't.

 Then , one of the students  I tutor her uncle had it. So we were worried that I was going to get it. Some people that my husband works with. So it's just like that constant fear. Like the big party that we go to every year in Massachusetts was canceled because somebody's roommate got COVID and, you know, and it's just so random.

 My nephew, he's like a strapping bodybuilder. Both of them are, and he's a prison guard and he got it and it took him to his knees for three days. And then other people, I know it was just like a cold. Like they didn't even know they had it. So it's just so weird to me. You just don't know how it's going to impact, so it makes it hard to make definitive plans for the holiday, you know?

Did, did you, were you able to celebrate with your church? I believe,  they did like a new year's Eve,  service. We didn't watch it. I, I was not feeling well. So we got  our booster shots. I went to bed early. I'm sorry. Yeah, but I I'm better now. Which one did you get? The Pfizer or Moderna? I should know this, but make sure you don't lose that card.

No,  it's in a good place. I just don't remember the name. They all sound. There's this funny, , thing on tick-tock this guy, he pretends that, he's a different neighbor. he acts out the roles and he pretends onegot Pfizer and he grows a tail and one got Moderna and he gets , , a horn on his forehead and one got the Johnson and Johnson and he's  walking like a gorilla he's babbling like a fool.

You know, because we just don't know the long-term effects of these. And so that, one's really funny. I got to look up that guy's name because he's a funny one to follow.  . So how did you celebrate new year's? You said you went to bed early? Yeah, I went to bed early. ,During that  coming to  new year's Eve and  new year's day, .

Playing video games, like NASCAR NBA, two K 17,  games with my brother. So that's what I've been  been doing, because , , there wasn't really much to really do and  I wanted to  have fun and relax and just enjoy what I have. Yeah, and you're not into skiing and we didn't really have any snow this year.

 I wanted to go back to talking about, it's hard to create plans when things are kind of moving and things, being unpredictable, because  I usually like making new year's resolution or try to create goals, but  this year I'm kinda like, I don't know. I'm not really gonna create goals I need to complete because I feel like, I don't know, like you don't need like a year to.

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To make new year's resolutions to make goals every day you can improve on yourself. So I don't really, yeah. Goals kind of scare me. , if I have, I think it's the way how our society makes it. It's like, you need to do it. And then you see other people online  who looked like you are the same age and they're  doing so much more.

You only see  the good things and stuff. You don't really see them the hard work or maybe them  relapsing or. Maybe if they're trying to eat less, more food, like you see how skinny or muscular they are, but,   everyone's different. So  I think it's also just comparing and also just having the fear of failing.

Yeah. I have that big time.  I don't have fear of missing out, but I do have fear of failure and I don't want to let myself down. I can't tell you how many times I've had gym memberships that I've never used, but I paid for or paid for a personal trainer. And, you know, as somebody that has chronic health issues, , and chronic pain, it's really hard to keep to a commitment.

So it's easier to just take it one day. And even one hour at a time and just work with what I have. You know, my goal right now is to walk 8,000 steps a day. And,  that's the amount of time I can walk without having pain and being happy with that and just keep patting myself on the back, , and not beating myself up if it doesn't happen.

And I think, I think I also changed my relationship with food.  Over the holidays, I really ate a lotof sugar. And I think I'm trying to, now every time I have the urge to eat, say, okay, food is nourishment. So is this a smart choice? Is this going to make me feel good? Or is this going to just fill my stomach, like waffles with maple syrup?

And then I'll be hungry in an hour. So I'm like, no, I really should have like the brown rice and the spinach and the healthy chicken. And then it just making a mind shift, like that and for me is kind of what I'm focusing on little small mind shifts, as opposed to setting a goal like, oh, I'm going to lose 37 pounds, you know, by Christmas.

So yeah, I'm kinda with you on that. I'm not into setting goals and resolutions. I mean, yeah, well, we want to make improvements. We're not like, nah, we're going to like sit all day. We're not going to do anything, but we want to , not put pressure cause we already have enough pressure like that podcast course we took.

 Most people that we, that were in our cohort, , published in 30, 60 or 90 days. And you and I have been working on this since March, , and I can get really down on myself and say, oh my gosh, what's the matter with us. But you know what? We are different. , we can't compare ourselves to them and we have other responsibilities and obligations and.

Who knows what's going on in their lives. Maybe some of them don't have to work, , or have good health. But we did it. So I want to focus on, we just broke it down and we set small milestones, like, okay, we want to learn this. And we didn't put a time on it. We just let it happen.

And once we had that skill, then we moved onto the next skill. That's how I liked it. Yeah, I really liked it. , it wasfrustrating at times, but  we did it , 

. Me and my mom, we love to watch that Dale Jr.  Download  it's an hour on TV with commercials, but even longer because , they can't show the whole interview.

The podcast is they can talk about a lot different topics, but I think it's really cool because you get to , see the person who was there interviewing you get to see what they look like when they were younger driving the carts.. , 

 it's called  Dale Junior download. And he interviews everybody who's been a part of any, just racing , it doesn't even have to be recent.

I know they had an NFL player that he was cool friends with they have a lot of cool stories and a lot of people that you can  look at and be like, wow, okay. It took them a while for them to be great. So maybe I'm not so bad after all. So I want to make sure I put that in the podcast show notes.

. We watch a lot of documentaries together. And one of the shows we watched was, called Penelope Keith's hidden villages. Sounds like a very stuffy kind of European documentary.  It was on Amazon prime and, She goes around areas where some of our ancestors are from, and it's just beautiful country.

And she tells stories about things that happened in the past. So like while you were watching race car drivers, we were watching her tales about this guy that loved to race boats, and he would race up to 300 miles per hour, which is pretty crazy. And on his last runthe boat went up into the air and flipped and , blew up into flames and sunk, and they just recently brought him up.

 It sounds pretty awful, but, she gets into the history behind the areas, like what happened on this lake and what is it famous for? . So we did that.  We also watched a lot of,  I guess you don't call them documentaries, but they're like YouTube videos of people traveling in Ireland.

 That helps us come up with ideas of where we want to stay, and finds the things we want to do. So we did a lot of research on telescopes. because one of the areas we're going to stay in has what's called the dark sky and there are no lights.

So at night time you can see all kinds of amazing sights in the sky, especially with a telescope.   We get all geeked out about stuff like that. . So that's a goal or a wish or a dream that hopefully will happen this summer. Cause we eloped in Ireland and the past two years we were supposed to go back, but COVID kind of.

Canceled that, so the plane tickets are paid for, we just, and you can stay in a house on the ocean for, I think like 800 euros a week. You couldn't even stay on  Cape Cod for, , a night for that much money.  It's definitely more affordable than, , most people would think 

so that's, that's pretty much it for our vacation.

 I haven't even thought about vacation. , I need to figure out how to get through now. I know, but it's good to plan though, It gives you something  to look forward to that's my husband's motto and I'm not good at planning. , so he, especially things that I have never done before.

 He knows how to. Book the best flight for the best rate. He knows how to navigate airports and rent cars. And I, as a single mom with three kids, I never took a vacation ever. So I never had that luxury of taking and he, he is very adventurous and he always traveled. Not necessarily internationally, but he would just get in his car and drive and go check out different historical sites or drive up certain mountains

and so he's brought that into my life. He's Kindles a fire in me. There really is an adventurous side to me in there. In fact, One of the things I got him for Christmas was a map, a national geographic map. And it says the adventures of Brendan and Andrea, and then there's little pushpins that you could put in every place you traveled to.

Yeah. I know someone that has something like that. He has  different color pins, like the places that he's been to and places that he wants to go on, everyone in the office does it. They put their own pins and where they want to go. Oh, So I haven't even done it. I got to ask him if he'll let me do it.

Yeah, that would be so cool ? I don't really think about traveling. So I'll have to look at places cause I would rather just  travel to my bed. To the fridge.

That's my vacation. . Well, you are college, you're using up a lot of brain power. So I can imagine there's not a lot of energy left. , for planning , trips. So you got plenty of time to do that. If I were to win the lotto, I would buy one of the coolest mounts and telescopes and I would just become an astrophotographer and I would go camp out in all these cool places and just make little Tik TOK videos with some cool music, with all my videos of images that I captured in outer space

of course we'd still do this podcast. Yeah. I was like, don'tforget me now. Well, you can come with me. You could have your own telescope. Yeah. If I won the  Lotto I'll probably buy a McDonald's and maybe  try to be a part owner of Cheerios. So those are the  two foods I eat. , I love Cheerios. Yeah. .

I have the plain ones and the honey nut Cheerios. I buy the mega box ones. , that's the only thing I really eat.  Yeah. I eat other things, but that's  my favorite thing if I'm not really that hungry and my husband too, like if we're just too tired to make dinner, we're like, all right, let's just have a bowl of cereal.

Yeah. Or waffles. Yeah. You got to do what you got to do. Although I have been trying to plan meals.  We get, Butcher Box and, I love Butcher box, because you get certain cuts of meat and I can plan ahead and meal plan. This week we had shrimp brown, rice and peas,  chicken and asparagus and baked potato sweet potato tonight.

We're having scallops with. Fresh greens that are grown in Connecticut.  We're trying to eat healthier and, and meal planning is a lot easier with things like,Butcher Box, or we used to do the,  hello, fresh and, oh, I forget the other one that we did, but, we loved it because the menus have pictures, which is really good for people like us with add or people with dyslexia.

 You can just look at the pictures and it's so much less stressful to, to cook. Yeah, but some of the recipes,  they were quick and, fast, but some of the recipes didn't kind of fit in with our dietary goals. So  we  put that on hold. , anyhow, I think we said everything that we needed to say,

, I'm going to be having a neuro-psych Eval, which I probably should have just set up an educationaleval, but insurance doesn't cover that. I want to look at some of my learning strengths and challenges.  Maybe one of our upcoming episodes, I can talk about what that testing process was like for anybody that's considering goingthrough it..

I imagine in school, you went through it. So you could probably talk about it to, yeah. As a child, I had to really, really think back about  that was a while ago, but I remember it, it was just a long though. Yes. Yeah. She told me I am going to be tired and frustrated cause she's going to make me do a lot of things that are hard.

, I already know there are certain things I'm not good at this. We'll just confirm it and give me some strategies. Strategies  that I could share with other people out there that might be struggling  with , some of the same things, and then help people,  that's part of why we're doing this podcast, right.

 📍 To help people figure out who they are and what they're good at and, and, , pursue that area so they can be successful. And that improves self-esteem and , ultimately that's  our goal. . Yeah, thanks for spending some time with me today.  ,



right. We'll see you next time. Listeners. Happy new year.

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