Mini-Ep 466: Time For A Second Act
Listeners send in their request for bath towel recs (they’re different from dish towels!), the importance of working on your executive function skills, and advice on changing careers without the side hustle.
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Transcript
This episode transcript is coming coon.
Doree Shafrir (00:10):
Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Doree Shafrir.
Elise Hu (00:16):
And I'm Elise Hu and we're just two friends who like to talk a lot about serums.
Doree Shafrir (00:21):
And this is a mini episode where we hear from you. We share your comments and your thoughts and we answer your questions to the best of our ability. But please remember, we are not experts. We're podcast hosts and we always encourage you to seek support first and foremost from a medical and/or mental health professional as needed.
Elise Hu (00:38):
That is right. And we are back after Doree, your parents visited last weekend.
Doree Shafrir (00:46):
They sure did. Tell
Elise Hu (00:46):
Me everything. How did it go?
Doree Shafrir (00:48):
Yeah, it was good. I mean, it was a lot. They stayed with us. So that's always like our house is not that big. We don't have a hue hideaway.
Elise Hu (01:00):
We don't have a backhouse. The backhouse. Just be fair, is they converted garage, but it is its own space. So
Doree Shafrir (01:09):
That
Elise Hu (01:09):
Is nice.
Doree Shafrir (01:10):
Yeah. But it was good. I think Henry enjoyed having them here. He was like, "Why didn't they stay for longer?" So that was nice. We didn't do anything like cuckoo, but it was nice. It was just nice to have them here.
Elise Hu (01:25):
I think it's so crazy that your parents fly all the way from Boston for like two days because, or is it three days, two nights, I guess?
Doree Shafrir (01:34):
They got here Thursday evening and they left yesterday afternoon. So three nights. Three days, three nights. Okay.
Elise Hu (01:43):
Because that flight is really long. It is quite long. It's a long flight. It feels like you're on the plane forever. And I'm reminded by this because on Friday night, our friend Matt was flying back from Boston, like a nonstop flight back from Boston, the ye old Delta flight that arrives around 7:00 PM here. And he was texting me throughout with just how brutal a time he was having on this flight. He's like, "Why won't it end? I feel like I'm in Europe. I should be in Europe after being on this flight for so long."
Doree Shafrir (02:22):
Well, the east to west flight is the longer leg. So for my parents, they get that leg out of the way in the beginning. So then going back, it's not as bad. Yes. But yeah, I mean, that east to west, it's quite long. It's over six hours usually.
Elise Hu (02:44):
And no snacks. And it's just rough. Transatlantic flights, they break up the flight, especially if it's six and a half or seven hours long, they break it up with like mini meals, but because it's still considered domestic, even though it's the same length from Boston to LA, it's all like meals for purchase. And so he was upset about that. And then he was stuck in a middle seat.
Doree Shafrir (03:09):
Oh boy.
Elise Hu (03:10):
Got into this dispute about the armrests. Because his point of view is, if I'm stuck in the middle seat, I should have armrests
Doree Shafrir (03:20):
Because- I agree with that.
Elise Hu (03:22):
But then the people to his left and right felt otherwise. Oh. And so he's stuck in this situation in which he was in these armrest one upsmanship because anytime they did remove their arm from the middle seat armrest, he would like go and try and claim it. And it was this big back and forth, at least with one of the guys on one of the sides. The other kind of acquiesced conceited the armor.
Doree Shafrir (03:52):
Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I agree with him. You are supposed to give the middle-
Elise Hu (04:00):
Yield. Right?
Doree Shafrir (04:01):
Yeah. You are supposed to do that. So I mean, he's in the right there. I agree with your friend. That is basic plane etiquette.
Elise Hu (04:14):
What etiquette is even remaining these days? It feels like there's all these things that we came up with thinking that, oh, that would be shameful to do in polite society that these days is just now considered okay or at least okay for segments of it. And so plain behavior is one where you see all sorts of egregious.
Doree Shafrir (04:36):
You see all sorts.
Elise Hu (04:37):
I mean- Like the shoes and socks off and the feet up on various surfaces. It's so gross. The
Doree Shafrir (04:44):
Bare feet. The bare feet is like ... I mean, come on people.
Elise Hu (04:51):
Anyway, so I know all this because Matt got off the flight and then met us out for dinner to celebrate Rob moving because it was Rob's big moving weekend and he came off the flight and was just wrecked. Like he rolled into the restaurant with his roller bag and was like, "Where have I just
Doree Shafrir (05:11):
Been?" Well, also you're tired because you're sort of still on East Coast time. So if it's like 7:00 PM here, it's like 10:00 PM there. You've just gotten off a flight. It's a lot.
Elise Hu (05:24):
Yep. What a champ. What a champ.
Doree Shafrir (05:27):
I mean, my mom, my parents took a 3:20 PM flight home on yesterday, on Sunday, which landed at close to midnight in Boston. And my mom had to teach this morning at 8:00 in the morning. Wow.
Elise Hu (05:45):
Wow. Tight turnaround. I know that's the kind of stuff I don't do. I will not fly red eyes anymore. I don't want to do that to myself. It wrecks my day. I don't get a good night's sleep. So
Doree Shafrir (05:59):
Yeah, there's some- I don't like to take red eyes either. I mean, Matt is always annoyed. Whenever we go to the East Coast, he's always like, "It wastes the day." I'm like, "Well, I would waste the day anyway because I would be so tired." It's not like it's a day that I can just hang out. I'm exhausted. So I can't sleep. I also really can't sleep on planes and he can just conk out and so can my dad. So they're both like, "What's wrong with red eyes?" And I'm like, "You know what? Just shove it. Okay?"
Elise Hu (06:34):
Not for everyone.
Doree Shafrir (06:36):
Not
Elise Hu (06:36):
For everyone.
Doree Shafrir (06:37):
Yes. Elise, we got a text actually about our episode with Vanessa Gregoriatis that just aired. Oh,
Elise Hu (06:45):
Just for Monday already. Already some freedback.
Doree Shafrir (06:48):
Already, yes. And this listener says, "I found the guests have such a negative and Western centric attitude. Tons of people just have their parents live with them as they get older and can't take care of themselves on their own. And that's a super normal option that costs very little money if you have the space. Multi-generational households are extremely common and there are huge benefits to kids and grandparents. It is absolutely hard to take care of aging parents while taking care of young kids. And I don't mean to minimize it, but it just felt like a big hole in the episode.
Elise Hu (07:17):
Yeah. I remember asking her if she considered moving her mom in. Does your mom live with you or something like that? But I don't know if we left it in the episode or whether it was sort of just a quick no or something like that. But yeah, absolutely. It is an option and very common across the world if you should have the space. So yeah, that's a really important thing to remember.
Doree Shafrir (07:41):
In Vanessa's defense, she lives in New York City and a notoriously difficult place to have extra space. So I actually find this text to be a little bit of space privilege. Your space privilege is showing. If you have room in your house for grandparents, great, but a lot of people don't. A lot of people are struggling to have enough space for their own families, let alone move their parents in. And I think there's an extra complication with Vanessa's mom that she has dementia, and so she needs a caregiver with her at all times. So then you have another person in your house. So I hear this and I think we could have addressed multi-generational households, but I also think it's important to acknowledge the real privilege in having the space and the resources to move your parents into your home.
Elise Hu (08:35):
Yeah. I wonder what's more expensive because so many of these memory care facilities are like minimum, what, like $8,000 a month. And then you have to, on top of that, you have to pay for ... If you have them in your house, then you're having to pay for caregivers too. Rob's dad died of Parkinson's and was ailing with Parkinson's for more than a decade. And while he was able to stay at home, it came at a huge cost because they had 24 hour care, which means three people worked eight hour shifts inside of one day every day. So essentially living in their home in order to care for Rob's dad. And so ultimately it's sort of like, would it have been ... I don't know. I mean, I don't know. The cost of it is they're all enormous. And then how subsidies and insurance work for all that ends up playing a huge factor, just as
Doree Shafrir (09:32):
Vanessa said. I think if you have healthy parents, that's very different than having parents that need constant caregiving. It's also a big ask for people to move their parents in that need, like you said, 24 hour care.
Elise Hu (09:49):
Yeah.
Doree Shafrir (09:49):
So I think there are a lot of variables that don't make it as clear cut as like, "Well, just have a multi-generational household." Yeah.
Elise Hu (09:58):
Yep. Totally. But thank you. Yeah. It is important to remember and thank you.
Doree Shafrir (10:03):
Yeah, totally. Okay. We did get also one listener who said, at the risk of annoying that listener who got sick of dish rag wrecks, bathtub wrecks, please, ready to replace our mix of old mismatched ones for a nice set.
Elise Hu (10:20):
Okay.
Doree Shafrir (10:21):
Just off the top of my head.
Elise Hu (10:22):
So first of all, listeners, please call in with your bath towel faves, but maybe don't call in too much because then we're going to run into the same problem that we did with the dish towels. Or we could just edit them. We tend to try and play all of your messages and share all of your texts, but we could just try and call them down. I do have one wreck off the top of my head, and I have yet to splurge on a set because I want to be the kind of rich in which I can just buy a set of this for my entire house and for the backhouse. So for all the guests so that we have all the same bath towels in the house, such that it's not confusing like, "Oh, these go in this part of the house and these go in the other." The towel brand is called Onsen, like the Japanese spa Onsen.
(11:14)
Onsen towels and they are these waffle towels. They're incredibly absorbent. They come in different colors. I kind of want them in the oatmeal color, but I am not the kind of wealthy to be able to replace all of my towels for sets and sets of these Onsen towels. Let me see. Yes. A complete set is $159.90. Oh, okay. I have a five family or five member household plus guests frequently. So I don't know. I just can't afford it.
(11:53)
But if you can, the Oncent towels are my favorite bath towels and they're excellent and they'll probably last forever.
Doree Shafrir (12:00):
Okay. I have no recs because I hate our bath towels and also- So you're
Elise Hu (12:07):
Anti-influencing those, de- influencing those.
Doree Shafrir (12:11):
I am, but I would love to hear our listener's recommendations. All right. Before we take a break, just a reminder, you can call or text us with your bath towel or any other recommendations, comments or questions at 781-591-0390 and email us at forever35podcast@gmail.com. We also have our website, forever35podcast.com. We have links there to everything we mention on the show. We are on Instagram at Forever35 Podcast. Our newsletter is Forever35podcast.com/newsletter, and you can shop our favorite products at shopmy.us/forever35. Okay, let's take a break.
Elise Hu (12:46):
We'll be right back.
Doree Shafrir (12:55):
All right, we are back and we got a couple of voicemails about executive function.
Elise Hu (13:01):
Great.
Doree Shafrir (13:01):
Okay. A popular topic.
Listener Voicemail (13:04):
Hi, Doree and Elise. I am a speech language pathologist. I currently work in the school, but previously worked in a hospital and executive function is a passion of mine. I'm so happy. We are now talking about it in children because it's been a huge thing that has been overlooked, especially in our neurospicy population, as I like to call it. Doreee, I heard you bought luggage tags and I am so happy that you're starting to do this. It is life changing in terms of making lists. My recommendation is to be specific in your lists. So if you have your practice luggage tag versus your match luggage tag, that would be super helpful because otherwise what's going to happen is you're going to just ignore things that you might need for a match and only bring the things that you'd need for practice. And then when the time the match comes around, it might be ignored again.
(14:06)
So I would color code it and I would also just ignore the tag until it's the time. And the same thing for Henry or your daughters, which is just be specific with the list. And you can put it on a little ring that you can attach to it and then you can flip through easily or you can laminate some index cards and kind of do the same thing. I hope this helps. And I don't know if that was covered in your talk, so if this is redundant, I apologize, but I am so happy you're talking about this and I'm so happy that they're doing talks in schools about this. I really appreciate it. You guys are the best. I love this podcast and I love you. Keep up the wonderful work that you do. Thank you. Bye.
Doree Shafrir (14:54):
Aw. Yeah. So nice. I have to full disclosure. I have not yet put the luggage tags on, but I will. I promise.
Elise Hu (15:09):
But he's on it, right? Well, he's doing his checklists.
Doree Shafrir (15:12):
He's doing his checklists. He's still into the checklists.
Elise Hu (15:15):
And the luggage tags are for what you need to remember to pack inside your bags, right?
Doree Shafrir (15:21):
Yes, exactly. All right. We got another voicemail about executive function.
Listener Voicemail (15:29):
Hi there. My name's Nora. I have called a couple times with teaching related things, so I feel like I'm your educational correspondent, but I just wanted to validate and reinforce a couple of things I've heard on the podcast. Doree, I love that you're working on executive functioning skills, and I want to echo what Sue said about not stepping in to solve problems for your children. I teach at the high school level, and the lack of executive functioning skills and problem solving skills are two of the biggest issues we see in students, and they really have a huge effect on the way that those kids are able to navigate their academics, keep track of their assignments, like fulfill deadlines, get good grades, but also just seeing kids not having the independence to think on their own or problem solve on their own. It's like really concerning.
(16:31)
And I think that it's something that teachers struggle with and are worried about, and we're trying to teach them those things, but if we don't get to them until they're 13 or 14, it's a lot harder than if parents are doing that all along. So thank you to all the parents out there who are making efforts. I know it's really hard and from a teacher, I hope we can continue building up our young people. Thanks so much. Bye.
Elise Hu (16:59):
Lovely to hear. One area that I always struggle with, or it came up, I guess, over the weekend about when to step in is if your kid goes down in a sporting match of some sort and they're on the field, they're injured or potentially injured, like I'm always just like, "Am I supposed to do anything? Are they going to shake it off?" Because Luna had one incident yesterday or the day before, I don't know, she had back to back games and over the weekend where she was just down on her side in fetal position and then the game was continuing, but then the ref saw that she was down and she stopped it and I was sort of like, "Do I need to ... " And then the coach was like, "Shake it off, Luna, shake it off." But then I don't know, because they're just kind of like down.
(17:50)
So I was with my ex- husband, Maddie, and we were just like, "Well, she's probably going to get up right?" And so we just waited it out and she did. And the coach asked whether she wanted to be subbed. They ran onto the field and made sure she was okay. But yeah, in those immediate moments, you always wonder. In general, I agree that yes, obviously try and not hover over your kids. When you're worried they're injured is the point where I'm like, "When am I supposed to ... And would it be helpful if I got up?" Probably not. I thought if we get up and go and try and help her or try and get on the field or whatever, then she'll probably milk it. She'll probably seem more hurt than she actually is so ended up staying back, but that is something that I wrestle with.
Doree Shafrir (18:41):
Yeah. It's always like when Henry falls and I am sort of waiting, but then another parent or the coach seems very concerned and then I'm like, "Am I a monster that I'm not running out onto the field?" You know what I mean? And then I get there and Henry's like, "I'm fine." Right.
Elise Hu (19:00):
And most of the time they're fine. And if they're not fine, you find out, you'll find out pretty quick.
Doree Shafrir (19:09):
Yeah, totally.
Elise Hu (19:10):
Elise,
Doree Shafrir (19:10):
Do you want to read this next message?
Elise Hu (19:14):
Happy to. Hi, friends. It's me, your Kansas City friend, Ashley. Hello, Ashley. I need your recommendations and Doree, you might have the best recommendations, but Elise chime in. My sister-in-law is going to be starting IVF. What little care package can I send her? She doesn't even know what she doesn't know, and quite frankly, neither do I, having never been through this. I want to get her things to make her comfortable, ice packs for the area where she's going to be giving herself shots. But really, Doree, what were the things you used a lot that you didn't know about in the beginning that would have been helpful? While I'm hopeful this is the first and only time, I'm also not naive enough to believe that. So I want to set her up to have the best first experience to take her through this journey. Lots of love from the dumpster fire we call America, buts forever.
(20:04)
You're having to go way back in time.
Doree Shafrir (20:06):
I know. And honestly, I like to just have distractions. So if there's like a great book, cozy mystery maybe.
Elise Hu (20:25):
Speaking for herself,
Doree Shafrir (20:26):
Yes. Yeah, exactly. I think just anything you can send her that like lets her know that you're thinking of her. I don't know, like a cozy blanket or something. I can't really think of anything specific to doing IVF. I'm sure there's something, but I don't know. Maybe our listeners have some ideas.
Elise Hu (20:49):
One thing that always takes one thing off of a busy person or an ailing person or an IVF person's list is just dinner, right? Meals. And so I do, especially when I have friends who are like going through chemo or they are just home from the hospital from having a newborn, I try and just check in with them and see which night of the week they might want dinner and I'll just get food sent to them because it's just like one thing off your list that you don't have to think about, but everybody's got to eat, right? So if there are times, if you could just kind of get on a schedule where you want to do that regularly, I'm sure that would be very much appreciated. It's less of a gift in a care package, but it certainly is a way to show you care.
Doree Shafrir (21:40):
Yeah, for sure. I think that's a really nice thought, but just like being there for her and like letting her kind of drive the conversation, like letting her know that you're there for her. But I would say like not asking about results or just like how it's going. I always found those questions to be like, I'll tell you if it's going well and if I'm not saying anything, it's probably a good sign that it's not going well. So maybe don't ask. It's just like my general thought on that. Okay. We're going to take another short break and when we come back, we have another thought and question about burnout and then a skin related question.
Elise Hu (22:28):
Okay. We'll be right back.
Doree Shafrir (22:36):
All right. We are back and we have some questions about burnout. For folks burned out and needing career change or additional work, how do people who have worked in one field or niche change careers without an expensive new degree or a secret talent in a side hustle? Has anyone done it? Any HR people have tips on getting an interview with a resume that is clearly all in one field. Also, if you do need a break like the one caller mentioned, what do you do if your partner's not on board with you taking a break or even a pay cut to less stressful work?
Elise Hu (23:13):
All good questions. All good questions without easy answers because they tend to be so individualized. I was actually just talking to Rob last night. We were out at dinner and he was saying like, "I'm ready for my second act." Because we were talking about like, he had moved all his things in and so much, because he's been a creative his entire life, like writing screenplays and writing commercials and working at advertising agencies and on television shows, there was just so much physical media that came with him. So there were hard drives and hard drives of his old work. And I think for any creative person, you do have a lot of the things that you created, especially if you created them 20 years ago, you have like actual physical evidence of everything you created. I've been digitizing VHS, mini DV cam, beta cam and CDs for weeks.
(24:07)
I've been on this project because of how much television I've produced and then subsequently radio. And that made him think actually like, "I need a second act, but how do you have a second act?" He's like, "I'd love to come up with some sort of snack." Because he had heard that the person who came up with Celsius, you know the energy drink that's everywhere, came up with Celsius like four years ago or something, like very recently. Oh wow. And then which got me thinking to my boss at one of my bosses, I have many bosses, one of my bosses at A Kids Co, which owns the parenting podcast I host, and she was a contestant on Shark Tank. She made this snack called Pipcorn. Oh wow. Yeah, Pipcorn. They originally sold it at like the Union Square Farmers Market and went from selling it at the farmer's market to getting like Barbara on Shark Tank.
(25:04)
I only know who Barbara is because Issa, my middle daughter watches a lot of Shark Tank. Barbara invested in them from their Shark Tank pitch and then it became Oprah's favorite snack and now she's like doing great. That's
Doree Shafrir (25:17):
Crazy.
Elise Hu (25:17):
How do you do that thing? And I don't know. I'm sure there's like a million business books about this to try and break it down into steps, but so much of this is just luck and timing and backing. So those are the questions, like how do people who have worked in one field change careers without an expensive new degree or a secret talent? Has anyone done it? And then if you need a break and your partner is not on board with you taking a break or even a pay cut, how do you handle? Big questions.
Doree Shafrir (25:53):
Big questions.
Elise Hu (25:55):
No easy answers.
Doree Shafrir (25:57):
All right. Final question. How do we feel about exosomes and growth factors infiltrating our anti-aging serums? They're everywhere right now. Scam, magic bullet I've been looking for, insight and expert consultation welcome. Love the pod. Your new picks on the website look great. Well,
Elise Hu (26:16):
Thank you. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Forever35podcast.com. I don't know enough about this. I'm not like a chemist and I feel like the people who could answer this are the glow job girls who are really into formulations, but I do think this is a great question for this list that we are saving for-
Doree Shafrir (26:38):
For a dermatologist.
Elise Hu (26:39):
For a dermatologist because there's a lot of questions that come in for Rachel Goodwin that should probably go to a dermatologist rather than Rachel Goodwin rather than a makeup artist. And so this one could work really well there too. But do you have any feelings about exosomes and growth factors?
Doree Shafrir (26:56):
All I know is kind of like what I've been seeing. I've been seeing chatter on Reddit, but it's like hard to say if these are real people. Do you know what I mean? Oh,
Elise Hu (27:06):
Yeah.
Doree Shafrir (27:07):
I don't know if these are just like big exosome commenting on Reddit so that I think that they work. But someone did post in one of the subreddits that I follow, skincare addiction about some new treatment she had done in Korea that uses growth factor in exosomes. And she was like, "This is real.This actually works." Now, I don't know if it's a kind of thing where it's only going to work if you do the medical grade treatment in the office. You know what I mean?
Elise Hu (27:40):
Right. That's how I feel about PDRN because they put PDRN in everything now.
Doree Shafrir (27:45):
I think, yeah, maybe that was one of the things she was talking about. Anyway, just the thing that I buy with growth factor, I don't know if that ... I haven't done it. I haven't used it enough to know. I will say that when I did PRP for hair growth, they do have you put exosomes on ... Like they have you put exosomes on your scalp afterwards, but I don't know if that really does anything. I don't know. The answer is I don't know. Jury is out. If you have professional thoughts on this, expert thoughts, let us know and we will also do some investigating.
Elise Hu (28:23):
Oh, and I'm happy to try it out in Korea next time I go to Korea. Totally. Totally down to be a guinea pig. Great.
Doree Shafrir (28:30):
Yes. All right. Okay. That's it for today. It is it for today. Thanks everybody. Elise, great to see you and we'll talk to you soon.
Elise Hu (28:40):
Okay. Bye. Bye.