It’s our 400th(!) Mini-Episode and there’s never a dull moment. Elise eats a pesto lunch with basil from her own garden, and Doree digs deep into Elise’s social calendar. Plus, they hear from listeners about celebrating milestones for your children, building intentional communities, and how to deal with nuchal acne. 

Mentioned in this Episode

• How to Be Fine podcast

• July’s F35 Pop Culture Recommendations

• Cln shampoo

• Like A Mother by Angela Garbes

• Essential Labor by Angela Garbes

• Just Ice Tea

• Click here to shop all of Forever35's ShopMyShelf recs.

To leave a voicemail or text for a future episode, reach them at 781-591-0390. You can also email the podcast at forever35podcast@gmail.com.

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Transcript

Doree:                Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Doree, ship Freer.

Elise:                   And I'm Elise Hugh. And we're just two friends who like to talk a lot about serums.

Doree:                This here is a mini episode. This is when we hear from you. We share your comments and your thoughts. We answer your questions to the best of our ability. We are not medical or mental health experts, so we might suggest that you talk to one of them if we feel we cannot respond to your question sufficiently.

Elise:                   Good disclaimer.

Doree:                Okay. Thank you so much.

Elise:                   Good job,

Doree:                Elise. How's it going?

Elise:                   Well, we just took a bit of a lunch break and we did. I am happy to report I'm not quite done with lunch, which is why I was running late to this taping because I made my own pesto.

                             Oh my gosh.

                             I made my own pesto. It's so easy. I just threw a bunch of stuff. Were we talking about this? I feel like this was on one of our suggestions, right?

Doree:                Yes, it was. A listener wrote in, was like, listener, make your own pesto, because it's really easy.

Elise:                   I'm just dipping it into my baguette or dipping my baguette into my pesto the other way around and it's so good, so fresh. I have so basil in my garden and I usually just waste it, so it's great.

Doree:                So it's all use basil.

Elise:                   My basil has been put to use in the service of pesto and it's excellent. So thank you listener for that

Doree:                Suggestion. I'm so happy for you. How bright? So fun.

Elise:                   Green. It is. Yeah, it's so fresh. Wow, it tastes so fresh. Oh, awesome.

Doree:                Chomp, chomp.

Elise:                   How are you doing? What did you have for lunch story?

Doree:                It's funny because I also had a basil forward lunch.

Elise:                   We didn't plan this either.

Doree:                No, we didn't, but mine did not come from my garden. Mine came from Trader Joe's, but it was fresh basil. I make this I, during corn season, I like to make this corn pasta. I think I might've talked about this on the podcast before, but there is a corn pasta recipe from the New York Times Cooking app page, whatever. Yes,

Elise:                   I subscribe. Yeah,

Doree:                That is so good. It's like shockingly good. There's no reason why it should be this good.

Elise:                   We'll link to it.

Doree:                We'll link to it. I think you will need a New York Times cooking subscription to see it. Maybe. Maybe I can do a gift link. I dunno. I'll figure it out. Anyway, it's so good and so easy and it has corn, scallions, Parmesan cheese, basil, and then you can add red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. It's delicious butter. There's a lot of butter in it

Elise:                   Usually. That makes things delicious.

Doree:                It's true. It's very true. So I've been making that a lot because everyone in my family loves it, myself included, and I deliberately made extra last night so that I could have some For lunch Today. For lunch, I was thinking strategy. Elise. Thank you.

Elise:                   I'm proud to report. I have finally finished my half of an at entire French baguette, and now I no longer need to turn this episode into a Mook bong in which I'm like eating

Doree:                While

Elise:                   You're watching.

Doree:                Okay,

Elise:                   Now I'm done

Doree:                Somehow.

Elise:                   Thanks.

Doree:                Everybody aren't as satisfying in audio. Darn. Well. You do appear to have some basil stuck in your teeth though.

Elise:                   Oh god.

Doree:                Still there? This is a whole, Nope. Still there? Yep, yep. It's just stuck there.

Elise:                   It's fresh from my garden. I'm just saving it for later. Okay, I got it. I think.

Doree:                Yeah. Sorry.

Elise:                   Everybody else.

Doree:                Look, I'm jealous. Next time I see you, please bring me some basil. Thank you.

Elise:                   I sure will. Yeah. Somebody invited us to a party like a summer or get together on Saturday, and I was like, I'm bringing pesto. Amazing. Nobody asked for it, but that's what I'm bringing.

Doree:                I took my dog for an evening walk last night, which I don't always do sometimes. I'm just like, whatever. He's fine, and he is, he's fine. But last night I was in the mood for a walk and it was so nice out in the evening and my son was asleep and I was like, okay, I'm going to go for a walk. Matt was home. I didn't leave my child home alone asleep, and I was walking Bo and I heard, and it was a Monday night and I heard the sounds of what clearly was a little backyard.

Elise:                   Oh, your neighbors?

Doree:                Yeah, we had

Elise:                   A little party

Doree:                With a string. Lights were up and on in the backyard. It was dusky. It wasn't dark, but it was dusky and I could smell the grill and I was like, oh, a weeknight summer party. I forgot about those.

Elise:                   That's all. This is inspiration. It's inspo because I feel like I don't make use of my backyard enough. I have a great backyard and a giant deck, and then I only have one party a year. I really should just have a random weeknight dinner party or cocktail parties. We've talked about this on mini apps in the past, just about trying to make friends as an adult

Doree:                And

Elise:                   Still haven't quite gotten around to motivating to do it.

Doree:                Yeah, I was like, I wonder what the occasion for this party was. I really have a lot of thoughts about this gala party of Monday night. Yeah, because Monday night and it's, I don't know who lives in this house, it's not on my block. It's like a couple blocks away, but it looked like a nice house with a lovely seeming backyard behind. It was behind a high wall fence, so I couldn't really see what was happening, but I was like, did these people just text a bunch of their friends? And they were like, Hey, we're going to be grilling Monday night. Why don't you come by? Or was it a celebration? What was

Elise:                   Happening? I did think it was a little aggressive. I do find the beginning of the week to be really nights that I don't typically go out. I'll go out commonly on a Wednesday night or a Thursday night in terms of weeknights to go out. But Mondays,

Doree:                Yes, this is what I'm saying. I was a little like, oh, okay, okay. Neighbors, we just went back to work. Right. So I was like, maybe it was their birthday and they'd like to celebrate on their birthday, but it seemed there was a decent, seemed like there was a decent crowd. It sounded lively. I dunno,

Elise:                   Maybe that'll be the test of which friends of mine are really game to party if I have a series of Monday night cocktail parties and just see who the real ones are, who are the real ones out there among my crew. I do have some friends who will invite me to go out on Tuesdays and Tuesdays I'm ramping up, and then when I was in my twenties, I would have Booze Day Tuesdays and we would have a drinking club and go out and have cocktails and stuff on a Tuesday night in order to try and encourage each other to start our weekends super early.

Doree:                Wow.

Elise:                   It gets you into the socializing. And so we did that, but now that I'm in my forties, I'm not likely to go out on a Tuesday usually either. So Mondays and Tuesdays are still kind of home nights, and then I'll ramp it up later, back half.

Doree:                Wow. You are a social person.

Elise:                   I think I am. I think I really need it. I really enjoy being out and about. My youngest daughter likes me to be at home to put her down,

                             And

                             She goes to bed fairly early, so she goes to bed at 7 30, 7 40, and so I often try and do that. I can do the early Doree dinnertime, the five 30 dinner time, and then put her down and then do a second dinner later.

Doree:                Right, right. I hear that.

Elise:                   So that's how the schedule can kind of work

Doree:                Out. How many nights a week would you ideally go out?

Elise:                   I'm probably at it probably about four.

                             Okay.

                             Yeah. I typically don't go out more than six.

Doree:                I typically don't go out more than every night. I usually have one night I only go to one thing a night.

Elise:                   I just realized what that sounded like, but I average, my median is probably four.

Doree:                And what, sorry for all the questions, but I am just curious, what is the mix of things generally?

Elise:                   Usually dinners, a lot of dinners, so dinners are common because I have friends who are visiting, well, we live in Los Angeles, and so it's a city where people are coming through all the time, and so tonight it's a Tuesday, a friend of mine is in town and wants to have her birthday dinner and then go out to karaoke, and so

Doree:                We out. Oh, wow. That's like a night out.

Elise:                   Yeah, and today is the day of her birthday, and so that's why we're doing it on a Tuesday.

Doree:                This was my theory about the thing last night. I was like, maybe it's the day of their birthday. Yes. Okay, sorry, go

Elise:                   On, please. Then Sunday night, my friend Steve was in town because he is on his way to Asia. He flew here from the east coast, had one night layover in Los Angeles and then is going to Tokyo. And so Sunday night went out to dinner, we walked around. Venice Beach caught a rocket launch, so SpaceX was launching. We walk out of dinner, we're like, oh man, that was a lot of pasta. We should go walk it off. And so,

Doree:                Oh my God.

Elise:                   Yeah, totally unexpected, unsuspecting. All of a sudden he's like, what is that flying into the sky? That light, that light, you see? And then there was this gathering of people with their phones out. I'm like, what is happening? They're like, it's a rocket. It's a rocket launch. So we caught a rocket launch. That's the thing, being out in the world.

Doree:                Yeah. You

Elise:                   Never know. You never know what you might walk up on.

Doree:                It's true.

Elise:                   And so yeah, those are two examples of people being from out of town who are coming through, and I really try and be a good friend and be there for my friends, especially because you don't know when the next time you're going to see them is, and so that happens more often than not, I don't think. There's definitely not a lot of clubbing when I'm going out. It's usually for more adult type things. Wednesday night I have a council on foreign relations gathering.

                             It's

                             Like a salon. We're talking about space policy. So it is very different from karaoke in

Doree:                KTown. Yes, yes, yes.

Elise:                   Yeah. And then I have really good friends who live locally, and so we try to get together and just go to a dive bar or something, and this is after my kids are down and we'll just go and have drinks and catch up. So it's usually pretty chill. Nothing that I have to dress up for or put on makeup for or anything like that. Right, right,

Doree:                Right. Okay, thanks. Thanks. Thanks for walking me through your social life.

Elise:                   Yeah, I mean we can cut this out. I'll tell you about the rocket launch. Oh, we're

Doree:                Leaving. Okay. It's all staying in. I'm just kidding. You can cut it whatever you want. No, it's funny. It's interesting to hear because as we were coming out of the pandemic and people were really ramping up their social lives, I started going out obviously so much more than I had been. And I think I mentioned this previously, but I feel like my introverted side really came out during the pandemic and it was much harder for me to ramp back up. Not to mention I also have a small child and who he really likes for me to be there at bedtime, and I don't have to, but I like doing bedtime with him and it's a cozy time for us, and so I want to be there for him. I started trying to limit myself to going out two nights a week. My husband is a real homebody, and also I don't want to, paying for babysitters is so expensive, so we hardly ever go out together.

Elise:                   At the same time.

Doree:                At the same time. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. But something got scheduled in a couple of weeks. I play in a monthly Mahjong game.

Elise:                   Oh, I didn't know you knew how to play Mahjong. I keep trying to learn and it seems over my head,

Doree:                I play American Mahjong, which is similar to Chinese Mahjong, but different, and

Elise:                   Not that I would know the difference anyway.

Doree:                You said you've gone to Chinese, Mahjong,

Elise:                   Mahjong Nights

Doree:                Knight. Yeah. You would be like, oh, this is different. Because American Mahjong uses a card. The hands in American Mahjong change every year. There's no set rules to America. There are set rules, but there's not set hands to American Mahjong. The hands change. So it's different in that regard. And there's different tiles in American Mahjong, like Chinese Mahjong doesn't use jokers. There's some differences.

Elise:                   Oh yeah, I have seen sets with jokers and we just take 'em out,

Doree:                Right. For

Elise:                   Chinese,

Doree:                Anyway, an overlapping group. I also play poker with an overlapping group of people. There's a few people in the Mahjong group who also play in this poker game, and the person scheduling it scheduled it for the night before Mahjong. And I was like, Ooh, two nights in a row. I was like, I dunno. I dunno if I can do that, that's going to be rough. So that's kind of where I at give it at a try.

Elise:                   Doree, yolo.

Doree:                I don't know. I mean, look,

Elise:                   Yolo,

Doree:                It has happened, but I do find when I go out more than three nights a week, I'm like, oh, this is too much. I feel like very

Elise:                   Tired. I think Rob feels that for sure. Rob feels that for sure. And he's like, is this because I'm old or because you have too many friends? He's not sure if it's his problem or maybe my problem because Interesting. I think it's so important to see my friends, like I said, and he's just like, I dunno. I mean I go a really long time without seeing my friends and I'm fine with it. Interesting. So we don't go out together all the times. I do. And sometimes it's a professional engagement anyway.

Doree:                Right. Well, this has been very interesting. I am curious to hear from listeners about their going out cadence. So please email us at Forever35 podcast@gmail.com. Call or text us at (781) 591-0390. Also a reminder that we have a website Forever35 podcast.com for links to everything we mention on the show. We're also on Instagram at Forever35 podcast where we post some fun clips from our guest interviews. So you can check those out. We have a newsletter at Forever podcast newsletter, and you can also shop our favorite products at shop. And let's take a little break.

Elise:                   We'll be right back. We'll,

Doree:                We are back, Elise, we got a text from a listener that I just want to offer. Okay. This listener wrote, just throwing it out there. I would love a monthly book club type of episode where Doree and Elise weigh in on a book that has been selected possibly by the listeners. I would be, especially in self-development themed books.

Elise:                   Oh, like the one I recommend everybody,

Doree:                4,000 Weeks. Yes. By

Elise:                   Oliver Berkman.

Doree:                Yes. Like the one you recommend everyone. So this is what

Elise:                   Interest story. I like this suggestion. I love reading. So do you write books and you read books? I do

Doree:                The same. You. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, we could do this. We could do this. We also are doing monthly book and pop culture recommendations on our Patreon. So the first of those is up, if you want to check that out. I think we made it free. We made it available to everyone just so you could kind of hear what it is.

                             So you can check that out. And Elise, and I'll discuss this proposal. If you're in favor of it, let us know if you think a Forever35 book club, whether or not it is themed around self-development books. I feel like the occasional self-development book I could be okay with, but I feel like a book club devoted to those starts to become a little bit, do you ever listen to buy the book Kristen Meiner and podcast? Yeah, the podcast. Yeah. I feel like it starts to become, and it's all self-help books, and they do the self-help. I think they don't do that podcast anymore. But yeah, I don't think I could do a book club only of self-help books. But the occasional one I think I could do. But I'm curious what listeners think if this is something they would be interested in, let us know.

Elise:                   Sounds like you're interested. Yeah, I can down to read fiction or anything. Yeah, it doesn't have, it doesn't have to be a nonfiction,

Doree:                Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. Okay. We got a voicemail that I'm going to play a little. I feel like I need to warn everyone that this voicemail is a little bit tough to hear, but we'll do our best.

Voicemail:          Okay. Elise and Doree, I'm so happy the mini episodes are back. Thank you. Well, school has ended. I'm in my family. Stop it. I have three young children

Doree:                In case people can understand that. She says school has ended and I'm in my feelings about it,

Voicemail:          Elementary school or preschool, and they all just have us here. Cute little teachers, cute little classroom. And I'm feeling really sad that it's over and there's more. I get that, but I'm feeling really sad about it for this week. So the reason I'm calling is to see if you or reader, listeners have any tips for creating any rituals around this or things that they do to commemorate the end of the year. And moving from that, I'm not really one of those onward and upward people. I'm like, no, stay little. Let's stay right where we are forever. So I'm struggling and love thanks.

Elise:                   I love those ages, the preschool ages, and there's no sort of self-consciousness yet when kids are that age. And so they're just most fully themselves. I think they're most purely who they are. And yeah, I miss it. So that makes me feel nostalgic, listener. Thank you for the message. So her question for advice was how to commemorate it, or is that right? What is a good ritual for this transition? Is there anything that you did? Doree, as Henry was finishing preschool,

Doree:                I think because there were already so many rituals around the graduation itself, I didn't really come up with our own. Maybe I should have, but

Elise:                   I'll share something that I do each year when my kids have a birthday, and then I'll share something that Rob does because he has two boys of his own. We're both divorced and so have been together for many years. But he had two boys and I have three girls. And for me, I don't reliably do this every year, but I try to on my girl's birthdays, write them an email about themselves on their birthday. So I'll write like two Luna on your seventh birthday and I'll write it from me in that moment on her seventh birthday, what she was into this year, how she's grown this year, what I find so special, what she's nurturing in herself, her curiosities, her interests, her favorite songs and television shows. And just observe her in that moment because it changes every year. And so I've gone back and I've seen some of the letters that I've written all in my outbox. I write them to these email addresses that they can't check. I just started Gmail addresses for them. But I go back and it's amazing how much happens in a year and how much they've changed and how much they've grown. And it's very touching and poignant to look back on them and reread them. And so one day, whenever they open these emails in boxes, they will be full of spam and some letters from their mom on their birthday.

Doree:                I love that.

Elise:                   And so that's one thing that I do

Doree:                To try and capture. I started doing that when Henry was a baby and then I stopped, I should just start it again.

Elise:                   It's not too late. It's not too late. I mean, he's only five. You can just start it, do one today for five, and then do one on his next birthday. And then something that Rob has done is, or he did when his kids were small, he is a screenwriter and director, and so he had the notion to do this and I didn't, but he sits down his kids for interviews. Oh

Doree:                My gosh. So

Elise:                   He'll sit down and he has interviews of his little boys when they were one and when they were two and when they were three. And he asks them questions about their interests and their worlds. That's

Doree:                So cool.

Elise:                   So you can go back and watch these interviews and it's not too much, it's not hard. It's not like you're going to run out of space in the digital cloud. So I don't know why I never did that before. I'll capture little video snippets and we usually roll tape when they're blowing out their birthday candles.

Doree:                But

Elise:                   This is really meaningful. You can hear how their voices have changed and how they talked, and obviously their outsides changed, but you can hear their thinking in their voices. And so it's really lovely. It's very cool. And I've yet to do that. I think I did one with my youngest daughter after he showed his collection to me, and I learned of this idea, but I do need to be more methodical about

Doree:                It. Oh my gosh, I really want to do that. Great

Elise:                   Question.

Doree:                Thank you so much for the question, Elise. Thank you for the suggestions. I want to do all of these. Okay. Alright. This is a traditional old Forever35 question that we got. This was a text that a listener sent us. Hi door. And welcome Elise, I hope you can help. My son has al acne on the back of his head and the things are dermatologist has suggested are not working like special shampoos and creams and he has been on antibiotics for months. I wonder if there are skincare prods that we should try. And they did include a photo. The photo was pretty intense. I'm not going to lie, but they have a lot of acne kind

Elise:                   Al. It's like the back of your neck, right?

Doree:                Yes, exactly. But at the

Elise:                   Base of your head.

Doree:                Yeah, it's where their hair is. It's not on their neck, but that's exactly where it is.

Elise:                   Yeah, I remember that. Because there's a screening at 12 weeks when you're pregnant. It's like NCLE or something exam. Oh

Doree:                Yeah. This was an interesting question for me when I was getting some, it wasn't nuchal, but I was getting some folliculitis on my head a few years ago and I realized that it was correlated to not washing my hair enough because I was doing that thing where I was trying to train my hair to not have to be washed that much. And then I was like, oh, I'm getting zits on my scalp because I'm not cleaning it enough. So I don't know how frequently your child showers, but that might be one thing. The other, a few other.

Elise:                   But cleaning specifically that part. Right. The base of

Doree:                Your hair. Right.

Elise:                   Okay. I feel like we forget it. Yes. That might be a part of our bodies is that we're not scrubbing.

Doree:                Yes. So I also really like the Brio Geo Scalp Revival shampoo. It's a charcoal and coconut oil micro exfoliating shampoo. If you haven't tried that, that might be something to try. I wonder also if I dunno, just really go ahead.

Elise:                   This is a totally different it. It's a parallel, but I was just hearing the woman who owns my waxing place, they also do facials. It's a spa. Jody. She was talking about how people will, we wash our faces very well, we cleanse very well. But then depending on the motion of your sort of cleansing, you will sometimes end up pushing a bunch of nasty SIBO and stuff into your hairline

                             Because

                             You're kind of washing away from your face. And then so acne conform right there at the hairline because when you're cleaning, you're really focusing on the surface of your face and not where it meets your hair growth. And this situation, this nucle area is also similar to that where you might be cleaning your neck, but it could be actually wedging.

Doree:                Oh, that's interesting.

Elise:                   Or oils into the base of your head where your hair is growing. So I could totally see that. And she talks about how when you're washing your face, the motion should be down and away from the hairline so that if you're going in circular motions to wash away from your hairline. And so it could be one of those situations. But acne is so connected to so many other hormonal functions that this feels like one of those things where it's like we aren't doctors. Yes. But we can offer some products.

Doree:                Yes.

Elise:                   Or

Doree:                Approaches

Elise:                   That work.

Doree:                I am concerned though that the products recommended by this listener's dermatologists did not work. That is kind of, I dunno, that's a little concerning. Keep us posted. And listeners, if you have gone through this and you have found a solution, please let us know. Oh, the other thing that I tried, I forgot about this. The other thing that I tried when I was trying to deal with this was a shampoo called clean shampoo, but it's C-L-N-C-L-N shampoo.

Elise:                   No vowels.

Doree:                No vowels.

Elise:                   Must be clean.

Doree:                It must be clean. It's from clean dermatologics use on scalps and beards prone to itching, folliculitis and dandruff. So this also was helpful so you could try, it looks like they have a sport wash also. Interesting. Maybe that would work too for compromised skin, prone to body acne, folliculitis, and odor. So it might be worth checking out those products as well. Alright, we're going to take another quick break and we'll, okay, we are back with a very interesting question that I feel like Elise, you will have a really good response to this question because I feel like this is something you do really. Should I read it something you do really well? Sure.

Elise:                   I haven't seen this yet. Okay. Hi Doree and Elise, thank you for continuing to offer an incredible community for listeners around the world. I am writing as I would love to hear your advice on a topic that has been on my mind for quite some time. How did you both go about creating intentional communities in new cities, especially when you do not have family in the city you're living in? My husband and I are planning on moving to Chicago where we don't have family but do have a great but small network of friends. My family has been quite concerned and upset about this decision since they would love for us to move to the city that they live in, especially because they are concerned we won't have anyone to help when we eventually have children and all that. How do I help my family see that it is possible to live in different cities and still have a wholesome, fulfilling and enriching life? For context, my husband and I have both lived away from home for most of our adult lives except for four years during the pandemic when we decided to move to my home city in 2019. Thanks a bunch.

                             Relationships are hard, so relationships with your family are hard and then cultivating new relationships are hard. So it's tricky. And I think about one of my scariest moves, which was moving internationally, moving from the United States, Washington where I had such a great community because so many of my friends from various parts of my life wound up in Washington DC because it tends to be a place where a lot of people who work in media or government end up converging. And I was moving away from Washington DC to Seoul, South Korea where I had never even had a layover at the airport.

                             And so it was hard, I would say the first year or so just getting my bearings in addition to trying to find friends. So before I moved to Seoul, one thing that I did seek out were either friends of friends who already live there so that I could kind of have some guides or ask for advice and ask questions like yours about how to find community. And I think my initial group of friends were all through introductions. They were sort of two to three degrees of separation from me in that they were like, oh, my friend Blake used to have a roommate who now lives in Seoul or a PR guy, a publicist who I often worked with as a tech reporter. He was like, oh, you need to know my soul counterpart over at Samsung or whichever company it was. And so I used weaker ties as they call them, to be my first entrees into a new city. And that then led to finding the people that I would see more regularly. What about you, Doree?

Doree:                Yeah, I mean when I first moved to LA I was single. I knew people in LA but none of my super, super close friends lived here. And I definitely leaned on weak ties. I remember I had a housewarming party maybe a month after I moved and I just invited everyone I remotely knew in Los Angeles and when they were like, can I bring this friend? I was like, yes. And stuff like that I think is

Elise:                   Having a party.

Doree:                That's a great one. Having a party. I think that kind of stuff is super, super helpful. Yeah, I mean look, I will also say as now someone with a child who does not live close to their family, it is hard in some ways for sure. I see friends whose families live here and it's just assuming they have a good relationship.

Elise:                   I'm always envious. Yeah,

Doree:                I'm always envious assuming they have a good relationship with their parents. And of course those relationships are also complicated, but they'll be like, oh, we're going away for the weekend. My parents are watching the kids. It's just stuff like that where you're like, oh yeah, that would be a lot easier.

Elise:                   That's a possibility for you. Yeah.

Doree:                So I'm not saying

Elise:                   This to, I've never lived in the same city as my

Doree:                Family. Yeah. I'm not saying this to discourage you from moving, but it is a thing. But I would, to Elisa's point you say you have a great but small network of friends, I think your circle will expand to your friends of friends and I would also pursue your hobbies and interests and meet people that way. I've definitely met a lot of people playing tennis. So those are also things that you can do. And then also when you do have a kid, if you say that you're playing on having a kid, so that's why I say this, not like of course you're going to have a kid that will introduce you to a whole new universe of people who also have children and there will probably be other people in similar situations who also don't have family in Chicago and you guys will be like your own little village. Angela Garbus book, what is the title again? I forget.

Elise:                   Like a mother?

Doree:                No, her other one, essential Labor Mothering A Social Change. She has some really interesting stuff in there about how she kind of leaned on her village during the pandemic because, and I thought that was really interesting the way she kind of created and she created her own little village and it was a really important part of her time during the pandemic. And afterwards obviously

Elise:                   I was going to say I never feel my friendships deepen more palpably than when I ask for help. And so you are going to be new to Chicago and you already have a small but mighty network of

                             Friends.

                             And so I would be unafraid to ask them for advice, ask them for guidance, and just ask them for help. People are willing to help, they want to help. And for so many helping is a love language and also we are wired to connect and wired to belong. And I think that in modern life we can be atomized so easily and then these little families or couples end up feeling very precarious units if you're just standing on your own and not leaning on each other. And so during this transition is a great time to take your existing friends and deep that deepen those relationships by asking for help and letting them help you receive the help.

Doree:                This is something that Angela also talks about in her book that asking for help was something that deepened her friendships. I would love to hear from other listeners about this as well. Okay, one last email. Hi ladies. My husband overheard the pod and he pointed out that just ice tea is clearly meant to be read as justice tea. If you look at the packaging, what it clearly looks like, justice wordplay, he also pointed out that clearly the creator of this tea has a theme going on. Honest tea is clearly a play on honesty and so just iced tea, justice tea, you get the idea. Holy cow. Anyway, just had to note this Is your mind blown? This was mind blowing to me.

Elise:                   Yes, yes. This was wild and thank you. So one of these previous episodes we were talking about how my vice is not coffee, it's iced tea and I like just iced tea. Actually the label has just in one line, ice in one line and tea in one line. So it wasn't immediately obvious to me that it was supposed to be justice, but now that I'm thinking about the precursor, which was honesty, right, it all makes more sense. It all makes more sense. Thank you listeners, husband, thanks for listening along. Sometimes spouses you can be so helpful. Alright,

Doree:                Thanks everyone.

Elise:                   So fun. Thanks.

Doree:                Bye. Bye.

 *Transcripts are AI generated.