How to Be a Grownup with CK & GK

From Dark Days to Joy: How to Honor Your Needs for Better Mental Health

Season 3 Episode 117

Send us a Text!

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Hey there! Tired of hearing the same old advice about self-love and self-care that just doesn't seem to work? You know, like ‘just think positive’ or ‘take a bubble bath’? We've all been there. Frankly, unless those practices are customary for you, they probably just leave you feeling frustrated and still in need of some real solutions.

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This week, our guest shakes things up and helps us discover a fresh approach to self-love and self-care that works. She’ll help you reclaim your power and set personal boundaries that truly support your mental health. Are you ready to make a real change?---
Our special guest this week is Gretchen Schoser, a.k.a. G-Rex, from Sh!t That Goes On In Our Heads!

G-Rex is a mental health advocate with a compelling personal journey of resilience and self-love. Through her experiences, she has developed practical strategies for maintaining mental well-being and setting personal boundaries. Her insights offer a valuable perspective on self-care and mental health, making her a relatable and credible voice in this space. And, her warm and engaging approach to all humans blew us away.
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In this episode

  • Learn how setting boundaries can significantly improve your mental well-being.
  • Hear practical and effective strategies for boosting self-love and self-care in your daily life, like humor and laughter.
  • And, boost your mood with super fun millennial music mashups.

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Sources

  • Get the resources G-Rex shared in this episode’s blog post, here.
  • Check out the following Instagram accounts for a pick-me-up! 
    • Goats of Anarchy >>> heartwarming videos of baby goats and their adorable antics.
    • Openly Gay Animals >>> humorous and entertaining memes
    • I Hear Canvas >>> creative mashups of classic songs with a fun twist, perfect for a good laugh and some entertainment.
  • Connect with Jim Meskimen, an impersonator known for his celebrity impressions, to create a personalized message or story in the style of a famous personality, adding a unique touch to special occasions or gifts.
  • Listen to the podcast Sh!t That Goes On In Our Heads for insightful conversations about mental health, self-care, and personal growth, providing valuable tips and resources for navigating life's challenges.

The best support is a rating and a share.

Love,
CK & GK

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View our website at ckandgkpodcast.com . Find us on social media @ckandgkpodcast on
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Thanks, y'all!

00:00:00 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Hands touching hands.

00:00:04 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, Lord.

00:00:05 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Reaching out.

00:00:08 - Caitlin Kindred
Touching me.

00:00:10 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Touching Tuesday.

00:00:12 - Caitlin Kindred
Stop it. I wondered how long you were gonna take that. I. Oh, my gosh. I. You were very much channeling your inner. Like, what's that Taylor DJ guy when he's cranking it? Oh, man, the guy who cranks that soulja boy right in the middle of everything. Oh, yeah, him and the. The guy who mixes, like, darkwing duck with, like, other amazing jams. Oh, look at.

00:00:39 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
My favorite thing about that guy is when he dances to his own mixes in the video.

00:00:45 - Caitlin Kindred
Yeah. It's him in the back, like, this.

00:00:47 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Moment where he's, like, processing, and then he starts dancing. Yeah. So good.

00:00:51 - Caitlin Kindred
Like dark winged duck. Yes. All right, we're gonna talk people in.

00:00:55 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
The notes so that you can know who we're talking about.

00:00:58 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, yeah, no, that's one of my obsessions.

00:00:59 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
We'll get to it in a guy.

00:01:01 - Caitlin Kindred
Yeah, that guy.

00:01:02 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yeah.

00:01:02 - Caitlin Kindred
Okay, well, she said, it's Tuesday. We're so glad you're here. And you might have heard another voice already laughing at us because we're ridiculous. We are so glad to have G Rex from. I'm gonna say shirt. Shirt that goes on in our heads. It's not really shirt, guys, but I. But we have young listeners, so we have G Rex here from shirt that goes on in our heads. Yes. Poo poo. Is that what you just said?

00:01:26 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yeah, we have poo poo that goes on in our heads. Yeah.

00:01:31 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Lobbying to change.

00:01:36 - Caitlin Kindred
It's just. It's Eleanor from place. That's how she says her swear words. So we got to do it that way. Right?

00:01:43 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Right.

00:01:44 - Caitlin Kindred
Okay. Well, we're so glad to have you here. Thank you for being here today. Grx for thrilled.

00:01:50 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I'm so excited to be here. You know, when we hooked up, it was, like the coolest thing in the world. We just found each other on Instagram, reviewed your, listened to your podcast. I was like, this is awesome. Adulting for adults. You know what? I've always thought that I kind of needed a nanny in my life, especially after this past weekend. My wife's like, you need to do laundry, because I was going to go buy new underwear, because I was like. And she's like, you are 60 years old. Do your laundry. Eleven loads later, laundry is done. Okay.

00:02:30 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
You're like a college kid.

00:02:32 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I live in upstate New York. I work from home. I really don't need to do a whole lot of laundry. You know, it's probably like January the last time I did it.

00:02:42 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, my gosh.

00:02:43 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I did fold it. Have I put it away? No.

00:02:46 - Caitlin Kindred
Yeah, no, that's. That's. I can fold, but it stays. I have a. Like, a basket that sits on top of the dryer and that's where my clothes go. And then every couple weeks, maybe when the basket's overflowing, I'll go ahead and put the clothes away, but otherwise, no. Eleven loads is a lot. Congratulations. I'm proud of you.

00:03:04 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
There is enough room on the floor in my closet for a laundry basket. So I fold it, put it in the basket, and then put it behind the closed closet door.

00:03:12 - Caitlin Kindred
Nice. I like it out of sight.

00:03:15 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
That's put away, right? Yeah, I think it's down to the dresser.

00:03:20 - Caitlin Kindred
Sure.

00:03:21 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Put away ish. Yeah.

00:03:23 - Caitlin Kindred
You know, I think it's better than, like, the person not gonna say what. What usual person would do this, but the person who dumps their socks next to the hamper, the dirty socks, you know? I'm talking about that person in your life. I have one of those persons.

00:03:42 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Well, speaking of people in my life, I should introduce Caitlin. She's just like my summer reading list. An open book.

00:03:52 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, I thought you were gonna say short and sassy.

00:03:54 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Oh, that's good too.

00:03:56 - Caitlin Kindred
I like it. Sure. Non existent, because I haven't read a book in a while. Okay, well, that's Jenny and. Oi. These just get more and more ridiculous. She's my favorite beautifully talented cowgirl. Woo hoo. You do say howdy a lot more than I do.

00:04:18 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
It's the campus a and m. The friendliest campus in the world.

00:04:23 - Caitlin Kindred
We'll talk about that. Okay. And of course, Gretchen, aka you're welcoming.

00:04:27 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I didn't say that.

00:04:28 - Caitlin Kindred
Right. Friendly. It's very southern to say to be friendly but not kind, right? That's Gretchen, aka G Rex, everyone's favorite sweet and powerful moth. Moth. I don't. I don't. I don't know why. No, why. Why? Moth? Why does the generator. Why did that come up anyway? Stupid.

00:04:52 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
A moth. Hmm? A moth. I. You know, I I'm more like a squirrel. You know, I have a little bit of, you know, adult onset ADHD, you know, see it? And then I was like, oh, I was supposed to do this. Oh, no, squirrel. That's why I can't meditate or do mindfulness, because, you know, my mind goes a thousand miles an hour. But I'm so excited to be here. I really am.

00:05:19 - Caitlin Kindred
We're really glad you're here. We could talk about ADHD symptoms all day long, because Jenny and I both. I would say we don't have hyperactivity in our bodies, but it is in our brains. So we definitely understand what you're talking about. But I am, first of all, I want to share with our listeners how we actually got connected because you are the nicest. Okay? So if, in case you haven't noticed, we have a new link in our show notes. It's called send us a text. You can actually text us. We will get the message from you. And that's what G Rex did. She reached out on, sent us a text and sent us the most kind, sweet message of how she enjoyed the show. And I. I just. I don't know what had happened.

00:06:02 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
She was like, I am sobbing.

00:06:03 - Caitlin Kindred
Yeah. I don't know what had happened last day or whatever, but I was just. I was standing in the kitchen, like, making my tea and, like, sobbing, reading four or five times. It was so kind. It was so special. It made our day. And I reached out immediately and was like, you just made me cry. I'm so happy that you did that. Like, a mess. And we have not stopped talking to each other since then, so I'm so glad that you did that. It truly did make my day. But now I feel like I've got a new friend. And your show is so fun. If you haven't listened to, again shirt poo poo that goes on in our heads, you should. It's all about normalizing conversations around mental health, regardless of what the mental health issue is. People's trauma, people's funny stories, people's career changes. It's all these different topics, and it's fascinating and so beautiful. You should definitely give it a listen if you haven't.

00:07:03 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Wow. That is quite the intro.

00:07:05 - Caitlin Kindred
It was. You are amazing. We love you.

00:07:09 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
We love you, too. And, like, we're all, like, best friends now, so doesn't take long. I have, like, 80 new friends that I never thought I would have. You know, 18 months ago, when everything was going down, I was like, now we have all these amazing friends. So they're all part of my podcast family, and, you know, we all have our chosen family and totally.

00:07:34 - Caitlin Kindred
How many times are we gonna sing today, Jen? Do we know?

00:07:37 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I'm up to two.

00:07:40 - Caitlin Kindred
I like it. It's usually a happy sound when you do it. Okay, so Grx is here today to share her two, well, a couple of things that she's got, but grown up hacks that preserve her mental health and that she's learned through her conversations with other people. So I'd love to. One, I'd love to hear your story, but then I want to hear these hacks, because I think we all need them.

00:08:03 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Beautiful. So my story started it on Christmas day, 2022. I'd had a lot of really bad, crazy life stuff happen to me, and I woke up on Christmas day, and I kind of just wanted to be done, you know, at 60, you know, we were. I was raised in a time where, you know, you didn't talk about your mental health, right? You shoved it down as far as it could go until my little 411 body was, like, just did not have any place else to go. So throughout the day, it was really, really, really cold. Here in upstate New York. It was like -20 so, like, our cars weren't starting. Plus all these. All this stuff was coming at me, and I didn't know how to handle it. Thank God for 988. I contacted 988. They talked me off the ledge. Thank God my wife was home. And thank God for that glimmer of hope that told me that I had so much more to offer. So the very next day, I called a therapist. I've been in therapy ever since. But one of the things that really helped me was I shared my journey on social media. And, you know, I went because I had, like, nobody knew. Nobody, absolutely nobody knew how depressed I was. My wife didn't know. My friends didn't know, my coworkers didn't know, because I'm a true extrovert, right? So I was really good at, like, shining on the outside, but on the inside, all I wanted to do was be dead. I just. I couldn't handle life anymore. So as soon as I started sharing my story, like, I had hundreds of people reach out and thank me, because now they didn't feel so alone in their own journey and so dirty. Skittles and I, who is my co host, we work together, and we would call each other every day and laugh, and that just really kind of, like, set the tone for the day. 30 minutes of laughter can get you through the worst parts of any day. And so on January 14, she had called me, and we were laughing about something dumb at work. She was like, you know, what's your coworker doing? I'm like, I don't know. Probably sucking on a squirrel. Blank. And she's like, do squirrels have blanks? And I'm like, I don't know. So I didn't look it up on my work computer. I looked it up on my phone. Anyways, the first thing that came up.

00:10:31 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Was, I like the specification. Like, not on my work computer.

00:10:35 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Not on my work computer. I looked up on my phone, so the first thing that came up was, like, this thing from National Geographic, and I literally, like, laughed for, I don't know, 40 minutes. I was turning blue. I was laughing so hard. And so she's like, you know, we should do a podcast. I'm like, yeah, let's do a podcast. So, a month to the date. So we released our first episode on February 14, 2023, and we did that on Valentine's Day. And the significance for that day is my mom had passed away in 1997, and we had buried her on Valentine's Day. So I wanted to change their trajectory of the day, and it was amazing owning that.

00:11:20 - Caitlin Kindred
Yeah.

00:11:20 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yeah, that's impressive.

00:11:22 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I like it. I like it.

00:11:24 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
So we did. We changed the trajectory of the day, and it's been amazing ever since. And I still go to therapy. I go to therapy once a month. I'm still, like, 18 months into my journey of trying to heal. But I want my story to be a story of hope, because I put in all the work to get myself better. I mean, I'm not 100%, but there are things that I didn't do for myself that I want the listeners to really think hard about and not wait until you're 60 or when you are just done. And so those two things. Well, three things. Self love and self care. And the other one is boundaries. Because those three things, in combination, if I had taken better care of myself and not of everybody else, I would have probably been in a lot better spot by December than I was. So, Caitlin, you said you had gone and listened to, like, season one, episode three, my story in New York. So that was right before, like, everything else had happened. But it was October, November, and December were the hardest months of my life. And like I said, you know, I was getting ready to turn 60, and my wife had gotten shingles, so she was sick for weeks, miserable. I hit and killed a deer. I had been offered a early retirement from work, and, yes, that should have been a good thing. But then you think about, like, why?

00:13:04 - Caitlin Kindred
Why are you offering me.

00:13:06 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yes, I get you why? And I'm gonna be 60. And, you know, there is ageism in the workplace. So that then we had a couple of friends. We had a friend pass away. My father in law passed away. And then, you know, seasonal depression, holiday depression, all kind of kicking in. And then Christmas day came around, and I was just done, and I probably should have known something was going on in my head because I didn't put up any Christmas decorations. Like, I didn't want to do anything, but nobody around me could figure out that there was something going on because of the way that I put myself out. But on the inside, I was like, I am done.

00:13:50 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, it's so interesting because, you know, every time there's, like, a celebrity where this, you know, you can think about, Robin Williams is the one that really stands out. But, you know, Anthony Bourdain, who has, who made no secret of his issues with mental health, but also appeared to be very happy, you know, everyone's always like, well, you know, check on the ones who aren't happy, who seem happy because they're putting on a front. And, oh, the other one was twitch from the Ellen show. Right. Like, he was another one like that where he always seemed so happy. And then. And people get really good at masking behaviors that. I'm sorry, was that the dancer?

00:14:33 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yeah, it was.

00:14:34 - Caitlin Kindred
That was the dancer and dj on his. On her show. Yeah.

00:14:37 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
So he and his wife did a whole, like, Disney weddings tv show that my daughter was really into. And I just remember when that happened, we were like, whoa, the guy from the wedding show?

00:14:50 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yeah, yeah.

00:14:51 - Caitlin Kindred
And it was. I mean, it's just one of those things where those people were so good at masking the behavior, masking the sadness, and it's almost like you're doing it for someone else. Cause, you know, I mean, you're not doing it for denial. You're doing it because of the people around you. Right. That's really a lot to deal with.

00:15:11 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
And at the time, you know, I didn't know how to. I couldn't find my voice, and I couldn't find my footing. It was really, really hard. And in my position at that time, I was in customer service. Right. So I'm a true empath. So I'm really good at taking care of everybody else's stuff, not super good at taking care of my own self. And so I took on all that pain and that sorrow and didn't take care of myself. And that's really what my point is, is like, I want to talk about setting some serious boundaries and setting, you know, setting up, you know, self love and self care for yourself, whether you're a parent, whether you have kids, if you don't have kids, and even kids, right. We all need to learn how to set up some, like, serious boundaries and, like, take care of yourself, because if you're not taking care of yourself, you really can't take care of anybody else. You think you're doing a really good job of taking care of them, but you're denying yourself of all that happiness and joy for yourself, right?

00:16:16 - Caitlin Kindred
You can't even reap the benefits of the care you're giving them because there's no joy to be had in it.

00:16:22 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
None.

00:16:23 - Caitlin Kindred
Yeah. So tell us some of the things that you've learned in all of this. I mean, 18 months is not a long time to be going through this journey, but it sounds to me like you've really absorbed a lot of what you've learned.

00:16:38 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
So for my boundaries, what I do now is if it smells like drama, I have a little drama box, right? So it's a little box. And if it smells like drama, it does not get to come into the box anymore, right? Because drama, if you're an empath, you are medically drawn to that. You're immediately drawn to helping somebody else, right? No, you got to take care of yourself, right? So for, like, boundaries, for that kind of, like, drama is like, how do I benefit if I help this person out, right? Is it going to help me or is it going to hurt me if I get involved? Like, what can I physically do to help that person, right? Am I going to take on all their drama and stuff, or am I just going to make matters worse? And then the third thing is, how do I benefit from this? Like, am I going to learn a lesson from this? Or is the lesson going to be like, why did I get involved in this again? Because it just keeps sucking you in and sucking you in. And if you take a step back and you look at that box and you look at it filling up, you're like, man, I'm so glad I didn't get involved in all this stuff because I'm such a happier person now, right? Like, my soul is happier. I feel like a weight's lifted off my shoulder. And one of those boundaries, too, is using the word no. No is such in my life. No is a complete sentence. So if I say no, that I can't do that. I cannot do that. Yeah.

00:18:18 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I established a guideline this year for one of the organizations I'm in. Don't say yes if you can't say done, like cut some margin in your life. Allow yourself to say no. If you can't do something, it's okay.

00:18:32 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yeah, it really is okay. And, you know, one of the things that I've noticed in just my own journey and with the podcast is that, you know, employers now and even schools are really taking mental health more important or looking at it in a more important manner, right, for years, like, nobody wanted to talk about it. Right. It was such a taboo subject, but it's one thing that we need to really, like, hinge onto and make sure that everybody is taking care of themselves, because in this day and age, there are so many triggers out there for people that you just need to take a step back and really, like, set up those serious boundaries. I know it's hard. I wish that I'd had that same lesson at 40 and not 60 because it would have made things a whole lot easier. But I also think that it's part of my job being, you know, an old goat is to pass that information down to the younger folks. Right? So, like, the people that are in their twenties, their thirties, their forties, even their fifties, and even our kids. I don't have any kids, probably for lots of reasons, but, you know, we need to understand that, you know, kids need to learn boundaries also, and, like, teaching them at a younger age will make them more emotionally intelligent later on in life. Yeah. You know, give them the ability to say no. I mean, within reason. Right? Like, go brush your teeth. No. Okay, well, why are you not gonna go brush your teeth? Right? Like, let's talk about it. But things like that. And then, like, for parents, like, I've, you know, I've witnessed it in just grocery stores or out. And, you know, the kids want something and they give a firm no. You know, if you give a no and a reason behind that no, that goes a long way. Just don't say no. But give your reasons. Right. And to you, you can validate those reasons all day because you really don't need to validate those reasons for somebody else because you're taking care of your own mental health.

00:20:54 - Caitlin Kindred
That's an interesting point. I like that. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. Go ahead.

00:20:58 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
No, no, no. It's all good. And then along with that comes self love and self care. So when you use the word no, you are showing yourself some self love, right? Because for busy, you know, for everybody, they're busy. We all have a bazillion things going on at the same time. And being a people pleaser and saying yes all the time, all it does is hurt you because you don't have enough bandwidth to take care of you, right? You got to take care of your heart. You got to take care of your mental health. You have to take care of your view of the world, you know, whether that means putting down your phone and just spending some time inside your head or going out in nature, you know, smelling the flowers, getting out of the house. Like, I can't do that for three months out of the year, I can, but I have to put on, like, 18 layers of clothes to do it. But in the summer, like, I can get out. So we live on eight and a half forested acres, and we have deer here. We have birds. We have everything. So I make it a point to get outside at least once or twice during the day. I'll get up in the morning, I'll go out and water my plants, and around lunchtime, I'll go out and walk around just grounding myself in the grass. And then at night, I'll go and sit on our porch. It is. It's just peaceful for me. And then my self care is, you know, being kind to myself. No, not doing negative self talk. Because when you talk mean to yourself that everybody sees it, right? Whether you're doing it to yourself in your head or you're calling yourself stupid or dumb, like, stop the negative self talk, because all it does is, like, make you feel worse than you already do. Other self care is, you know, getting out of bed, you know, being grateful for the things you have in your life. Living for the moment. One of our episodes that we recorded was with my friend bookie. She had terminal cancer, and her whole. Her whole demeanor was just amazing. She passed away a couple weeks after we recorded, but she lived for the moment, right? She didn't have a bucket list. She lived for the day, and that was her self love and self care is living for that day and making every single day count. And, you know, for your listeners is. It's really good advice. And I, like I said, I wish 20 years ago I would have had that same advice and just be kind to yourself, right. Whether you're working in customer care or you're a nurse or a doctor or a truck driver or school teacher or principal, any of those, just give yourself patience and grace, because life is already hard enough as it is, but if you're being a jerk to yourself, it's a thousand times harder. And, you know, those are lessons that I've learned. And, like, my boundaries, I really stick to them. Some people don't like it, and I've lost some friends because of it, but I don't care because I'm happier. And, you know, like my wife said, this is the happiest she's seen me in 20 years because I'm shedding my old skin and learning to embrace my new skin. And, you know, the podcast, I will say, probably helped save my life because it helped me to understand that I wasn't alone in my own journey. Right. I'm still healing. It'll probably take me years to heal. Right? I had so much packed in my little 411 body that, you know, it comes out in bits and pieces. And, you know, I had to speed date my therapist. Right. I went through three different therapists before I could find one that worked for me.

00:24:55 - Caitlin Kindred
Yeah.

00:24:56 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
And, you know, talk therapy isn't for everybody, but there are other different kinds of therapy out there. There's tapping mindfulness, there's energy healing. Find something that works for you. Because sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is talk to a third, a third party that's not a friend or a family member, because you can air your dirty laundry and you don't get any feedback, any negative feedback from them. And that's just really important because not everybody believes in therapy. And I understand talk therapy doesn't work for everybody, but find something that works for you. It could be color therapy, it could be art therapy. It could be whatever expression you need to get out that's going to help you feel better on the inside. But the one thing I am going to say is, if you are not feeling okay in your head, make sure you are talking to somebody. Whether it is a friend, whether it is a family member, a therapist, a colleague, anybody, don't hold it in because all it does is hurt you. And it was really hard for me, and this is like, probably the first interview I've done where I haven't cried. So I'm gonna call that growth. It is growth. It was a really scary time for me. It was scary for everybody around me because nobody truly understood what was going on.

00:26:19 - Caitlin Kindred
There's so much that you just said that I'm like, my brain is racing through all of those things. And one of the things that I really loved was the negative self talk. We've talked about this on the show before about just kindness to yourself and how self care is not. It's not what people think of as. I mean, it can be, but it needs to be a habit. Right? Like, self care is the thing that you do habitually to make yourself feel good. And the way that you talk to yourself, which, by the way, this is a completely random thought, but this is what ADHD does to me. Did you know that there are people who don't have an inner monologue? Did you know that? I've talked to myself literally all the time.

00:27:03 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yeah. So do I all the time.

00:27:05 - Caitlin Kindred
There are people who have nothing in their heads. Like, I'm confused no, that's the thing.

00:27:11 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yeah, I'm going to look that up because, like, I can't imagine somebody that doesn't have anything in their head.

00:27:17 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
What. They're, like, quiet brain.

00:27:21 - Caitlin Kindred
I picture it like, you know that there's an episode of Friends where there's a cold open where they're all just kind of sitting there and Ross is talking about dinosaurs and Monica's like, oh, good, another dinosaur story. Like, it's kind of like all the things that are in their heads. And you hear Joey off to the side and he's, like, not listening to any of them. He's just singing his own little stupid song in his head. And Phoebe goes, who's singing? Like, she can hear what's happening? It's so. It's. But I just picture it like Joey in the song. Anyway, that's not the point. But the point was that the self talk piece. Because my inner monologue is always going. I find myself really needing to focus on self talk. And I had a colleague shout out to Elsie, wherever she is, who said one day I said something like, oh, my God, I'm such an idiot. And she goes, stop talking about my friend like that. She immediately reacted and was like, don't do that to yourself. And I just went, what? Like, who are you talking about? And she's like, don't talk about my friend like that. And. And it took a second for it to sink in. Like, oh, she's talking about me saying that about myself. Wow. Like, and she's been through a lot of therapy and she's, you know, very open about her journey as well. But it was just so interesting to have someone else call me out on it. And that's what made me more mindful of it. And I would think that having someone to bounce that talk off of is a really good way to call attention to it. So I think that therapy piece is such an important reminder. I'm trying to remind my son to not talk about himself like that too because he'll. He could. He's been known to do that. So it's the thing we're working on a lot before.

00:28:58 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
But I love that book self compassion by Kristin Neff.

00:29:02 - Caitlin Kindred
Yes, yes, yes, yes.

00:29:04 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
And I highly recommend that you audiobook it so that you hear somebody saying these things to yourself.

00:29:13 - Caitlin Kindred
Yes, that's. I'm gonna make sure that.

00:29:16 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Read that book several times and not always cover to cover. Sometimes I just need to pick it up and read a chapter and say, okay, back in it, Jen.

00:29:24 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
But, yeah, like, self talk is it's so crucial that you talk nice to yourself, right? So in a world where we can be anything, just be kind. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to your people around you, because you never, ever know what somebody's going through. You have no idea, right? Like, just. Just be nice, people, okay? Just be nice. I know it's. Some days it's really hard, but just be nice because you have no idea what's going on in that cashier's life or that waiter's life or the flight attendant or somebody at the gas station. Just be nice. Because we're all dealing with our own kind of stuff, right? And we don't need somebody else yelling at us because we're yelling at ourselves already.

00:30:06 - Caitlin Kindred
Right? But just be nice applies to yourself, too, right? Like, not just the way that you talk to other people, but also the way that you talk to yourself. So I think that that's a really important thing. And another thing you touched on that's about self care was that no was a complete sentence. I loved that. And Jenny, you added your line on there about don't say yes if you can't say done. But, like, there's some. Sometimes it's not about the task. Right. Sometimes it's about no. Because. Because no, that's it. And that's another thing that I'm working on with my son is like, sometimes no is the answer, and that's the end of my sentence, and that's okay. But I love that. Yes.

00:30:47 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Are you busy this weekend? Yes.

00:30:50 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yeah.

00:30:50 - Caitlin Kindred
And you don't have to give an explanation.

00:30:56 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yeah, I'm busy. Can you help me go mow the grass? No. Why can't you just. Because I said no.

00:31:07 - Caitlin Kindred
Right.

00:31:07 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
It's my own reasoning. You have to be kind of careful with that, though. Like, if you're at work, right. You have to give some type of justification, but, like, put your mental health first before you dive in and say, yeah, I'll do that. And I'll do that. And I'll do that. Because at the end of the day, all you're doing is you're hurting yourself.

00:31:28 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Well, Caitlin has a good skill for that, that when someone asks her to do do something, she'll say, okay, so when do you need this by?

00:31:36 - Caitlin Kindred
Yeah. Yeah. It's. I ask the deadline, and if there is a deadline that I don't have capacity for, I will say, I can't assist with that within the deadline that you've given me. Maybe there's someone who can, or can you extend the deadline and we can add it to my scope or whatever, but I. But it. It's just a way to help me prioritize. But it also is a little bit of a pushback to let them know that I don't. I am busy. I do have other things going on right now, and I can't take that on for you. And I think when you're talking about work, like, there are things within your scope, right? Like, there are things that you have to do and you can't. Like, I work in marketing, and I can't have someone say to me, can you write this email? And I'm like, no, I really am just not feeling that email right now. But thanks. Like, I can't. I have thought it. I have been like, I really don't want to take on that particular series. So thank you, but no, thank you, but that's my job, so I have to, you know, but I can say, oh, you would like three email series. When do you want the first one? And then we can talk about the second and the third, because that is me prioritizing what I. My own capacity. Right. I've been known to take on more than I can, than I can actually handle, and I end up stressed out and crazy and pushing back a little bit is okay.

00:32:56 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
But that's so important to your self care, right? In your self love. Like, just having the freedom to use that word, it's freeing. It's so freeing. And knowing when to use it and when not to use it, that's also good. You know, don't walk up to your boss and be like, no, I'm not going to do this. Okay. Because it's probably not going to go off so well. But, like, do you want to try.

00:33:21 - Caitlin Kindred
That one more time? Right. Well, you don't have to, but I'll find someone who will. So thanks.

00:33:27 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
And here's your pink slip.

00:33:29 - Caitlin Kindred
Right.

00:33:29 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
You know, it's. It's part of adulting that nobody really taught us. Right. I. When I was going through school, we didn't talk about mental health at all. We didn't talk about setting boundaries. We didn't talk about self love, self care. Right. We didn't learn that. Right. Life gets thrown at us, and we. We need to kind of figure that out.

00:33:48 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Put your head down and get back to work.

00:33:50 - Caitlin Kindred
Right? Yeah, I think.

00:33:51 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Okay, thank you. No, right, right.

00:33:54 - Caitlin Kindred
I think even that's. I think that's kind of what our generation, the millennial generation is sort of dealing with right now is that we did have. Our parents are boomers. Right. And that was the mentality of our parents. I mean, my mom, God lover, she is a big believer in therapy. She's a believer in do whatever you need to do. But when you're struggling with work, she says, I know it sucks, but you got to keep going. And that's such a mentality that is. So it helps her keep going, but I don't think it's necessarily healthy. And if there's anything that I want, younger people, and I think we're seeing it with, like, Gen Y and all that stuff, I think we're seeing them do this, but, like, resisting that hustle culture and resisting that I don't have feelings culture because I have to keep working is a good thing. I'm glad to see that happening, and I wish that it had been part of our upbringing.

00:34:51 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Oh, for sure. And, you know, the same goes for, like, chasing the money and chasing the dream, right? Oh, yeah. Like, take a step back. What's that going to cost you in your mental health state? What's that going to cost you for your self care, your self love? Are you compromising your boundaries? Because those are all really important things you need to think about now when you're young, not when you're 60. And that, you know, because at 60, you then realize that you've wasted, like, okay, working years, like, 45 years trying to please people. But in the meantime, you're killing yourself and just, you know, be nicer to yourself. And, like, if you set boundaries, like, stick by them, you know, don't let somebody bully you into doing something that you really don't want to do because that's not fair to you. And then you end up doing a crappy job and. Or you're just, like, in an angry mood the entire time you're doing it. Is that really what life's about? No. Life's about living for that moment, making sure that you're happy on the inside, that you have that warm and fuzzy feeling. The other thing I do is I have a gratitude jar, right? So if I'm having a really bad day, I dip into that gratitude jar and I find something I was happy about, and I'm like, oh, yeah, this is a good thing to be happy about, right? But I will say I am so very thankful to be alive and that I made that call to 988 and that I can continue sharing my story and sharing our mission about normalizing how we talk about mental health because it is so important and people like pooh pooh it all the time, but it really is so important.

00:36:38 - Caitlin Kindred
I agree. I'm living for that day when we stop pooh poohing it. And I think it's going to take. I think it's going to take this current wave that we're talking about here to. It's gonna have to really get even bigger. But I'm optimistic because it's becoming so much more normalized in conversations. But the difference, I think, between what we're talking about and what's happening on your show is that some people are sharing some really dark, scary things in their lives. And I think that that's what makes it so relatable is that people are like, yes, we all talk about, oh, mental health, take care of your mental health. Self care is kind of the buzzword right now, right? Like, yes, you have to make sure don't pour from an empty cup. Like, which is one of the lines that I can't stand as a teacher. It's just yuck. But it's different when you hear these really dark, tumultuous times in people's lives and hear how they dealt with it and how they've come out on the other side, because that's not something that everyone talks about.

00:37:47 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Oh, yeah. That's the great thing about our show is, you know, it's so much easier for people to talk behind a microphone than it is face to face. They get that weight off their shoulders. And then we have, you know, listeners that reach back out and say, like, thank you, because now I don't feel so alone in my own journey. And, you know, people, our guests give, like, tips and tricks and we include that in, like, our blogs. And I. I do. I have a newsletter. And so the Monday before our episode releases, I have a worksheet. Like a reflection worksheet. Right. So you're listening and you can use that worksheet to, like, figure out your own emotions and, like, yeah. And how you would have dealt with that. And we learn something new in every single episode. And so one of the things that we're going to do this summer is we're going to make a resources page on our website based on season, based on guests. And so it's like a one stop shop because if you go and look up mental health in Google, you're going to get a bunch of stuff that's not pertinent to what you want to look for. Right. So we're not doing any pre recording interviews from, like, mid July through October because, number one, because we. All our slots for recording are filled for 2024.

00:39:11 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Number two, she's booked all the way through February.

00:39:15 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yeah, February 2025. I'm also writing a book, so I want to spend that time finishing up my book. I have the beginning part of it written. I have the ending written, but that whole trauma block part, I don't have written. So I'm going to spend the time doing that and just taking a little break for myself. My co host, she's a mom to a six year old, so her life is really busy. I just need. I love my podcast, but I need to kind of step away from that day to day stuff. We're still gonna drop an episode every Tuesday because we have, like, five shows in the backlog now. I don't know. I've lost track.

00:39:57 - Caitlin Kindred
But you're so good.

00:40:00 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I love what we do, and we're making a positive impact on people's lives and giving them some tools and tips and tricks that they need. You know, sharing your story unlocks, you know, somebody else's prison because now they don't feel so alone.

00:40:17 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
That's amazing. Oh, that's such a no.

00:40:22 - Caitlin Kindred
There's nothing else to say. I will say this, though. You are. No, it's about your resources I'm adding on the resources page that you are talking about. It's going to include some information about self love and self care, but you are going to provide that to our listeners. So if you want to go get those resources, and I have a couple of other that are listed, a recent article from Miami Wire about G Rex and Dirty Skittles and their show. And the 988 Lifeline website is also going to be in the blog post for this episode. In addition to the resources that GRX is sharing with us about setting boundaries for parents, for adults without children, and for kids.

00:41:05 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
And, you know, because sometimes we just don't have our phones with us. So print them up, have them around. Stick them in your purse, stick it in your wallet. It's a one pager.

00:41:15 - Caitlin Kindred
I like it on your fridge.

00:41:17 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
On your fridge. You know, the day you want to.

00:41:19 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Rage quit from work inside of your planner.

00:41:22 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, I like doing that. I do that, too.

00:41:25 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Or the days you want to rage quit at work. I don't know, maybe go look at that boundaries thing. Or self love, self care. Is this really the day I want to rage quit? Can I live? So, yeah, I mean, they're really good tips and tricks, and it's things that I've learned from my own therapist and then things that I've learned from our guests. And, you know, we're really fortunate to have these amazing guests, and it's all walks of life. Right? It's not just. It's not just, you know, best selling authors or, you know, people that are from other podcasts. It's every walk of life. And because everybody's got a story.

00:42:02 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
A story.

00:42:03 - Caitlin Kindred
Yeah. I love that. Let's, um. Let's ruminate on that for a minute. Let's just take a break right here. Yeah.

00:42:12 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Thank you.

00:42:13 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, my gosh. I was trying not to cry.

00:42:16 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Okay.

00:42:17 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Right.

00:42:18 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I'm sorry. I tried. I'm really working hard on this because out of. Okay, so you guys reached out to me, right, to record. I now am recording three other podcasts at the end of this month.

00:42:32 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, my gosh.

00:42:34 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
And two of them are video, so I might have to, like, get my hair cut. Whatever.

00:42:40 - Caitlin Kindred
We look, we won't do video if you don't want us to.

00:42:43 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Oh, I like it. We look like I stuck my finger in the light socket. I did. So instead, I just have my poop that goes on in our heads.

00:42:56 - Caitlin Kindred
Yeah. That hat cracked me up when I saw it. I was like, she's wearing a hat that says shirt heads. It's amazing.

00:43:02 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Poop that goes on in her head. Yeah, exactly.

00:43:06 - Caitlin Kindred
Okay, we ready to come back?

00:43:07 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Okay.

00:43:09 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
All right, so we're back. That was really serious. Yeah.

00:43:16 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make it so serious.

00:43:20 - Caitlin Kindred
No, it was perfect. But I'm cracking up at her face because she. She's just like, we're back. And gets really close to the camera.

00:43:29 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I did.

00:43:29 - Caitlin Kindred
It was really good. Yeah.

00:43:31 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
So, this is the time of the show where we sit crisscross applesauce on the carpet, and we share stories.

00:43:40 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Beautiful.

00:43:41 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
So, I understand that on your program, you have a standard interview.

00:43:50 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Sort of so dirty. Skittles. And I love her to death. She bolts out these questions, like, I don't know where she gets them from. I think it's from that was that actors studio or whatever it was Barry.

00:44:09 - Caitlin Kindred
James Lipton. Right? That's his name. James Lipton. Yeah.

00:44:14 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
And she catches you off guard all the time.

00:44:18 - Caitlin Kindred
Well, the one. The questions that I heard, which I was like, oh, my gosh. So James loved it to do this, but the. Which word do you love the most? And which word do you hate the most? And I have to know because you kind of answered in the episode that I was listening to, but you. I felt like I wasn't sure what exactly it was. So I'm. I'm dying to know, and I'm gonna. And we all have to answer. We're all gonna. Solidarity. You're not gonna be the only one who answers.

00:44:45 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Hold on.

00:44:46 - Caitlin Kindred
Yeah.

00:44:51 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Oh, God bless America. Okay, are we good now?

00:44:55 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yes. Take a little more time, because I don't have my words chosen.

00:45:01 - Caitlin Kindred
Jenny needs her words.

00:45:04 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Okay, I'm good now.

00:45:05 - Caitlin Kindred
Okay.

00:45:06 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
So I will be.

00:45:08 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I'll see her. Okay. You want to know what my favorite word is? My favorite word is love.

00:45:16 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh.

00:45:17 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Because it.

00:45:19 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I can't top that.

00:45:20 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I had to. I had to learn how to love myself after all the bad stuff that happened. And the word that I hate the most, it starts with a c, has four letters, and ends with a t, because it's the worst letter, worst word ever, and I don't care who uses it. I think that people in England use it a lot, but it's a bad word. Bad, bad, bad. So if you ever call me that word, I'm never talking to you again. I will walk away.

00:45:51 - Caitlin Kindred
I like that boundary for yourself. That's a good one. So I can't top love, and I love how Jenny was like, I can't top that. And I'm like, yeah. I immediately turned it into a competition. Like, I. It's too good. But I do have one that I really love, and you mentioned it earlier. It's part of your self care, but it's laugh. I I firmly believe that. No. Ew.

00:46:18 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
We have to have live, laugh, and love.

00:46:19 - Caitlin Kindred
No, we don't. No, thank you. That is not our style. I think you know that.

00:46:26 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I took a sign down as I moved into a new office, and Abby was like, what is that sign? Live, laugh, and love? And I was like, no, it says something else. She was like, yeah, it says the same thing. Just take it out.

00:46:38 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, I love that little girl. But I just. I firmly believe that, like, the love languages are missing something, and I think laughter is one of them. There is truly no better headspace that I could be in after ridiculous laughter, even if it's just at one thing that makes me laugh. It's great. I love it.

00:47:00 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Laughter can get you through so much, right? Like, sometimes it's better to laugh than to cry. It might piss somebody off if you start laughing at something that they're telling you, but it makes you feel so much better.

00:47:12 - Caitlin Kindred
Totally. Okay. My word that I hate. And it's a really. I mean, everyone hates the word moist, and that's one of mine. But I also hate the word chunky. I don't. I can't explain why I don't like that word. Well, actually, I probably could. It's because I had a teacher who described an incident in her classroom in which a student got sick and she used the words moist and chunky. And I can't ever have chunky things in my life. I also don't like the word pubic or puberty. I don't like those words, which was hard as a middle school teacher because you're just. Everyone's like, oh, the puberty hormones. And I was just like, please stop. Please stop. Gross. Okay, those are mine, Jenny.

00:47:59 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Okay, so I think about this. I always tell my kids when they answer a question like this that I am not gonna come back to them in 20 years and hold them to this answer.

00:48:10 - Caitlin Kindred
Okay?

00:48:10 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
So, like, I say their favorite movie in the moment, but I'm not gonna come find them and be like, well, you know, when you were twelve, you told me that your favorite movie was x. So I'm gonna say that my favorite word right now is cheers. Because you never say it when you're sad.

00:48:28 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
You don't.

00:48:29 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, I like that. I had never thought about that.

00:48:32 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
So that is unless you're saying, like, oh, man, cheers got cancelled.

00:48:39 - Caitlin Kindred
Then you are devastated.

00:48:41 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yes.

00:48:44 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
But really, like, in general, like, it's a happy.

00:48:48 - Caitlin Kindred
No, I like it.

00:48:49 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yes. And I think the word that I hate the most is, hey, Jen.

00:49:01 - Caitlin Kindred
That'S not a good one. I know what you mean.

00:49:05 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
It always comes with a task afterward.

00:49:08 - Caitlin Kindred
Or like, mom, mom, mom. I don't mind, like, once or twice, but when it's repetitive like that, then I'm like, okay. My sensory overload just starts to go haywire. So. Okay. That was fun.

00:49:25 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Really though, in this season of us needing to work on our air conditioner and plumbing and cars. Oh, quote has become a dirty word in our head.

00:49:37 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yes. Yeah.

00:49:41 - Caitlin Kindred
Yes. I could see that being a dirty word.

00:49:44 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yuck.

00:49:44 - Caitlin Kindred
No, thanks.

00:49:46 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Pass the plumber.

00:49:47 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Today, our water heater is making noise, and he described to us what's happening. He said, look, there's hard water buildup on the inside of it and it just builds up over time. This lining. And all I could think of was like, like a unary lighting, but like, ew.

00:50:02 - Caitlin Kindred
I also don't like that word. Gross.

00:50:07 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I mean, that's all I can think of. I'm a biology teacher. It's like, in there. So anyway, it's building this lining, but it doesn't stick to the wall. Exactly. It kind of just builds up, like, formations inside the hot water heater. And so when it kicks on these, like, this lining on the wall is kind of like jiggling as the water boils. So it's like. And so, you know, we had him come out to see this, and we're like, it could be this water hammering thing that the Internet says. Really terrible. And he goes, nah, really? This is just annoying. Oh. I said, so what's the prognosis? He was like, I don't know, a couple of years, man, your hot water heater's fine. Just makes noise. And if you're fine with that, then keep it. Otherwise, it's $2,300 to get a new one. I was like, oh, but thanks for the quote.

00:51:02 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Oh. Oh, no, no.

00:51:06 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
So sorry, Abby, your bathroom is right below the hot water heater, and when you shower, you are going to hear it knocking.

00:51:12 - Caitlin Kindred
Yeah, but at least it's not works. Jiggling.

00:51:18 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Jiggling, jiggling.

00:51:23 - Caitlin Kindred
I can't. Cringing. Oh, okay. All right.

00:51:29 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Took, like, four minutes to say my favorite words.

00:51:32 - Caitlin Kindred
I liked it, though. Do you have any obsessions?

00:51:35 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Oh, my gosh. Okay. So sorry about your instagram inbox. I sent Caitlin about 92 videos from Joshua Willaford, who is at wrapping Chef on Insta and TikTok. I'm short, but, you know, I don't take talk because, you know, Gen X. Anyway, he is the wrapping chef, and he writes songs about what he is cooking, also by the products that he is using. I can tell he's from Texas. Oh, okay. Watch some of those videos. There are heb brand products in them.

00:52:13 - Caitlin Kindred
Nice.

00:52:14 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
But he writes songs about what he's making. And, Joshua, I am not meaning this in any way to be detrimental. I sing often on this show, and I know that that's not really one of the best skills I have. And the rapping chef also is not really carrying the tune.

00:52:42 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh.

00:52:42 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Not even in a bucket.

00:52:45 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh.

00:52:46 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
So that makes it even better. Two of my favorite videos right now that I have watched multiple times. So, you know, if I'm gonna make fun of your singing, at least I'm giving you the views. One of them is where he rewrites Wonderwalt by Oasis about making souffles. Today is gonna be the day that I teach you how to make souffle. No, the other one.

00:53:16 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, my gosh.

00:53:17 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Is you belong with me by Taylor Swift about making pretend ground beef out of walnuts. Ew.

00:53:25 - Caitlin Kindred
Ew.

00:53:26 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Season it, however, that you want to use my recipe. If you don't eat me, if you don't eat me, if you don't eat meat.

00:53:39 - Caitlin Kindred
I can't.

00:53:42 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I'm dying. I'm laughing so hard. And some of them. He legit raps, and he's great at it, but the ones where he is singing are even better.

00:53:52 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I need this in my life.

00:53:54 - Caitlin Kindred
I know. I'm gonna. Well, she's gonna. Well, I'll pull the accounts, and I'll put them on the blog post episode because there's that. We're about to just rain down really good instagram accounts because I got two. I got two that I have to share.

00:54:07 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Okay.

00:54:07 - Caitlin Kindred
The first one is super sweet. The name is you're so good. Oh, well, that's because the other one is me playing the dark winged duck song. Okay. But the first one is that her name is Carmen Veal Conway. Her handle is armenvial, and I'll put that on the show notes. She's a curly hair specialist, and she's the owner of round skin women. She does this series on her account called Mornings with Maddie, where she does her beautiful and clever daughter's hair. It is the most special interaction. It's not like you saw those accounts a little while ago that went viral for, like, the affirmations where the little girl is like, I am beautiful. It's not that at all. Although you get the sense that this mom is empowering her daughter with these affirmations. It's just Maddie telling her mom what she wants done with her hair. And her mom is so respectful of everything this little girl wants to do. She'll be like, I want a button or a clip right here. Like, right smack, like, right above her forehead. And she's like, okay. And she just. She does it all. And one of them, she's like, I want a ponytail over my bangs. This little girl does not have bangs. What she means is she wants it halfway up in the back, and then there's. The rest of her hair is hanging down. It is the sweetest little thing. This girl is so clever. She's so beautiful. This mom takes the best care of her daughter's hair. She honors it. It is the sweetest thing. Like, I cannot get enough of it. I've watched as many mornings with Maddie videos as I can. The other account is the one that I was telling you about earlier.

00:55:43 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Right?

00:55:44 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
You're right.

00:55:44 - Caitlin Kindred
Where it's called I hear canvas, and it is a man who does. Yes. It is a man who does mashups of, like, really amazing classic songs, but then puts in, like, a kids kin. Like, a kid's cartoon song or. Yeah, yeah. He did Chip and Dale. He also did Mulan. He did the let's get down to business song, right? It was so good. Oh, my gosh. What did he. What was it? I, like, need to find it, and I'll put it up. I'll put up the dark green duck one and the Mulan one. What is it?

00:56:19 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
What was the song thing I like?

00:56:20 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, it was. It takes two. Like, what? I don't even know if you can hear it. You don't hear. Okay, don't worry about it. We'll cut that out. But he's playing it takes two video.

00:56:35 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
He, like, does a split screen.

00:56:38 - Caitlin Kindred
Yeah.

00:56:39 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
And edits the video in such a way that he's mixing on one side of the screen and then dancing to it on the other. And there's always this moment of, like, during the mashup that the dancer is like, wait. Oh, my gosh. Wait. Is this the.

00:56:56 - Caitlin Kindred
Is this the dark winged duck themed song? Wait, are you playing let's get down to business in the Mulan soundtrack? I think you are like, do you.

00:57:06 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Know that the name of that song is actually be a man?

00:57:10 - Caitlin Kindred
I did know that, and we've talked about it before, how the singer of that song is actually Donnie Osmond.

00:57:15 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Don't you?

00:57:17 - Caitlin Kindred
If you did not know that, now.

00:57:18 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
You know, I learned something new. Yeah.

00:57:21 - Caitlin Kindred
See, that's what our show is all about. Oh, stop.

00:57:28 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I love that. Like, I don't have any of those, like, good ones, so mine is. I have two. So goats of anarchy is, like, amazing. So there's these little baby goats, and they're, like, doing all sorts of fun stuff. It just warms my heart, because baby goats are amazing, but they eat everything in place. Goats of anarchy goats of anarchy and then the other one is. I'll have to go find it now. It's. I think it's. Hold on. Openly gay animals. So they have. They have these little memes, and they're, like, super funny and probably a tiny bit off color, and I probably would not look. Set them up on my Instagram account, on my work computer. But that's what I would do, because I like to laugh. Like, on the worst days, like, if I'm having a bad day, I'm gonna go to one of those two accounts. I'm either gonna look at baby goats or super inappropriate memes.

00:58:29 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, yeah.

00:58:30 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I'm gonna learn to make souffle.

00:58:37 - Caitlin Kindred
It's so ridiculous, but it's so great.

00:58:41 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
It's so good.

00:58:42 - Caitlin Kindred
The number of videos that I just. I have, like, a little, you know, you can save Instagram videos. So I have, like, a little saved folder, and it's just, like, it's hilarious. And I'll just go to my little hilarious folder, and I will sit there and crack myself up for, I don't know, a while. One of the video. But the guy who was like, oh, my knees, and then falls down over the fence when he's trying to dump it, I watched that video for, like, 30 minutes. It's like a 15 2nd video. It's so good. I love it. If you're not laughing, you'll cry. You'll probably cry. So find a way to laugh.

00:59:15 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Find a way to laugh.

00:59:18 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
All right, time for the gem. Ready for Sunday was Father's day, and because we are in the future, want to make sure Caitlin remembered that she hadn't missed it. That, like, her anniversary. Son's kid and father's kid's birthday and father's day are all the same day this year. So I just wanted her to know she's on.

00:59:45 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, God. This is why Caitlin needs a sponsor for this show. Cause she is poor from this one weekend in June.

00:59:56 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Okay, so this past Sunday was Father's day. I gave my dad the father's day a gift that I have been the most proud of, probably ever. And you know that gifts are my love language.

01:00:14 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yes.

01:00:15 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Particularly finding the perfect gift for the perfect person. I love that, and I love seeing their face. That. That just. It lights me up. Okay, so, um, I got Jim Mescamon to do an impersonation for my dad.

01:00:41 - Caitlin Kindred
Now, hold on. I need to give some backstory on who Jim Muskem is. If you've ever seen.

01:00:46 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Are going to love this.

01:00:47 - Caitlin Kindred
Right? If you've ever seen parks and rec, he is the man who comes on with Joan Calamizzo and does the celebrity impressions, and she always tells him to knock it off because she finds him so annoying. But he. I was. You were telling me about this, and I was like, oh, my God, I like fangirled.

01:01:09 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yes.

01:01:09 - Caitlin Kindred
Over you telling me this.

01:01:11 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
He's been in several movies, including one of my favorites, Apollo 13. But really, like, he just does a couple iconic impressions that, like, when you see him, you're like, oh, that's the guy who does a really good. Robert De Niro.

01:01:24 - Caitlin Kindred
Yes.

01:01:24 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
That's the guy who can kill it as Robin Williams. Right? Like, he just. He has about 30 that he can really nail. Yeah, he's been on America's got Talent. Whatever, whatever. But for a nominal fee, he will record a message for you as one of these celebrities. And I will tell you, like, he. I paid money for this, but I am going to give a great test testimony. I had it within two days.

01:01:53 - Caitlin Kindred
That's amazing.

01:01:54 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
And it's because one day in between, he asked me a question, and I didn't respond right away. I would have had it in one had I answered the question.

01:02:02 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, my goodness.

01:02:04 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
It was incredible. And I was like, hey, I want to do this for my dad's birthday in July. And he was like, birthday in July? I got you Father's day. So anyway, my dad is working on this book about the pretend band that he started in college.

01:02:20 - Caitlin Kindred
She says it with a straight face.

01:02:25 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
He and his buddies, like, made up characters with backstories, did fake photo shoots, recorded tracks, and then told a whole story about this band that they completely made up and, like, has performed. Maybe at some guy's wedding a couple of times. Maybe the bar Fetts originally recording on, you guessed it up, Chuck records. And so it's coming up on the 50th anniversary of the bar Fetts. Sorry, dad just gave your hoi. And he is putting together an anthology for all the guys in the band in quotes. Right. Like, his friends from college is really what they are, but in this anthology, he's got, like, images and storyline liner notes for all their songs and then a cd that is all the tracks that they've recorded and their outtakes.

01:03:24 - Caitlin Kindred
Amazing.

01:03:26 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
And so I had jimpressions, yet another instagram handle we're sharing with you, do Paul Harvey, the rest of the story. And so if you are, you know, much younger than me, you probably don't have a connection. But it used to be at noon every day, Paul Harvey would come on after the national anthem, and there would be this, like, five to seven minute backstory of something really interesting in pop culture. And it was, quote unquote, the rest of the story. So I worked with Jim. He helped write a script in the style of Paul Harvey telling the story of the Barfettes.

01:04:13 - Caitlin Kindred
This is amazing.

01:04:15 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
My dad thought it was AI so good. He thought it was a robot.

01:04:21 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, my gosh. That's amazing.

01:04:23 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yeah.

01:04:24 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I was like, this is not a robot. You're talking to a person who says please and thank you. Every time I interact with robots, it's a real human.

01:04:32 - Caitlin Kindred
Jenny's afraid of the robot uprising.

01:04:34 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I've seen, I think we've talked many times. Okay, so they're gonna. They're gonna go around, human to human, to be like, I need your soul. I need your soul.

01:04:42 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, thank God.

01:04:43 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Your soul. Your soul.

01:04:46 - Caitlin Kindred
We're the last human standing because you were the one who was next to the.

01:04:52 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Well, it comes from a Dane cook bitch, right?

01:04:55 - Caitlin Kindred
Yes.

01:04:55 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
He was, like, telling the story of the weird co worker. He's like, I always give him a Snickers bar so that if he comes back in a little deranged, he goes cubicle to cubicle. But he gets to me, he's like, oh, thanks for the snickers. And then keeps going.

01:05:07 - Caitlin Kindred
Right? Yeah. He remembers the kindness. See? Be kind to everyone.

01:05:11 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Be kind.

01:05:13 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
That chick, she was always nice to us. Like, I have offered chat GBG a snack. I'm not lying. And it responded. Like, I do not eat. I am a computer. Like, okay, well, I'm gonna go get a snack. Do you want one?

01:05:29 - Caitlin Kindred
Like, a conversation that toddlers have with Alexa?

01:05:35 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yes. Or like, do you have some time to help me with something?

01:05:39 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, yeah, I do that, too. I'm like, are you ready for the next prompt? Here we go. I don't. Oh, my goodness. Or else, like, that was excellent.

01:05:47 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Or it's like talking to Siri, and Siri gives you a bad, bad answer. Siri, you suck.

01:05:54 - Caitlin Kindred
And she hears you, and she's like, that was rude.

01:05:57 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Well, listen, your answer was dumb, okay. And maybe don't turn my phone off.

01:06:03 - Caitlin Kindred
Right? Please don't. Yeah. Oh, goodness. That's amazing. Also, can we talk about how, like, the apple does not fall far from the tree? Because if this is what your dad is working on to give his college buddies, he's working on, like, getting the perfect gift to the perfect people. Are you kidding me? Like, could you be anymore in the.

01:06:23 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
All out extra ness of making? Oh, no, I've already existed.

01:06:28 - Caitlin Kindred
I've already. I have rung that bell about. Yes, that is also something you would do. If you are not your dad, then I don't know who is besides your dad.

01:06:38 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
The joke in high school was, if I would shave my head, I would look just like, oh, no.

01:06:47 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, dear.

01:06:49 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
When I was in the 6th grade, we had a school project, and each team had to invite one parent to come to the presentation. Nowadays, like, we would never do that. Be like, you have to invite someone. No.

01:07:02 - Caitlin Kindred
Like, you're feeling like, no.

01:07:04 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
But part of the assignment was you had to invite someone to be in. In the audience. And my mom was volunteering at the school a lot, and I was like, oh, what about my mom? She's already here. And everyone was like, your mom's here all the time. That's not really special. And I was like, oh, what about my dad? And my friend who was on the team, who had stayed the night at my house, said, oh, no, no, no, not her dad. Her dad makes her mom look normal.

01:07:32 - Caitlin Kindred
And I immediately ran home and told my parents what my friend said because it was funny.

01:07:38 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Apparently, other families don't do gj night, where, you know, dad pretends to be a dj, and people call in their requests.

01:07:45 - Caitlin Kindred
No, that's. That's not something that a lot of families do.

01:07:49 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
We did it on a slumber party, and never again. I was like, what do you mean you don't do dj night? She was like, no, my whole family doesn't play pretend together.

01:08:04 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, poor GK. Just being sorry, not realizing how extra our whole family is. No, it's okay. I like it. Okay, well, mine is. I just. I once again feel old. So I went to the esthetician today, and I'm coming out, and I'm about to pay for my service, and I'm booking my next appointment. And the very sweet and cute girl behind the receptionist counter was like, okay, so normally, like, you know, you come back in about four weeks. Like, do you want to? The fourth is in there. And I was like, yeah. And she goes, a lot of people like, go to the. Go to the lake and all that stuff, you know? So if you want to come in a little earlier so you can be snatched for the fourth, she can get you in that week. And I just. I know what that means. Right? But I just looked at her, and I was like, I'm 40.

01:09:06 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I was just gonna say, did you show her your driver's license?

01:09:10 - Caitlin Kindred
And she was like, what?

01:09:12 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
And I was like, my forehead isn't, but.

01:09:15 - Caitlin Kindred
Right, right. There's a lot of poison in here, but I'm 40. And she just looks at me and she's like, so, yeah, if you want to, just go ahead. And I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna stick with my regular schedule. But you're so sweet to offer that she, you know, that she's gonna. She's got more appointments on her schedule that week. It's really nice of you. And then I walked out of there going, one, I'm 40. And she just used the word snatched to describe me. And that's weird. But also, the process of being waxed is snatching hair off of someone's body. And I couldn't stop making that connection. And I was just like, I. Oh, my God. Like, I gotta get out of here.

01:09:57 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I can't.

01:09:57 - Caitlin Kindred
Please don't say snatched around people at a waxing place. Like, you're ripping off eyebrow hairs and all kinds of other stuff. Like, please don't talk about being snatched there anymore.

01:10:10 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
So framing it around the 4 July.

01:10:15 - Caitlin Kindred
Well, everybody goes to the lake at the 4 July. So if you want to make sure you're snatched before the 4 July, at.

01:10:22 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Least I know I'm free of body hair.

01:10:27 - Caitlin Kindred
I just. I like. Oh, man. Bless her sweet little heart. I just. I really had to stop and just process what she was.

01:10:35 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
When I am thinking of like, what I need to do to get ready to. For independence day. I am going to add waxing to my list.

01:10:43 - Caitlin Kindred
No. Getting snacks. You gotta get hot dogs, sparklers, and snacks.

01:10:49 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Right.

01:10:49 - Caitlin Kindred
Waxed. It was not on the top. Things I need to do for the 4 July. But, you know. Oh, and you gotta make that cake, right? Right. Yes. Black cake. Make sure you have the strawberries in the cool whip and an appointment with your esthetician. Okay. So. Goodness. All right. Well, Grx, do you have anything. It doesn't have to be as ridiculous as someone telling you that you need to be snatched for the fourth, but. Or gym preschions.

01:11:27 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Like, the only thing we did on Sunday is we are in the process of putting a. Shut up. Because you know what? We live in the country and it's harder than he double toothpicks to get somebody to come up here and do the work for us.

01:11:42 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, yeah.

01:11:44 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
We're gonna butch it up and pour some concrete. Okay. Because, you know, I'm all 411. Yeah. I'm gonna carry this 25 pound brick and I'm gonna break it my toe. So we're gonna do that. We're gonna at least get the base down.

01:12:02 - Caitlin Kindred
Okay.

01:12:05 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Kind of hoping it rains.

01:12:08 - Caitlin Kindred
I would be hoping it rains, too. Oh, no, it's raining.

01:12:13 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I was in my thirties, right? Like, this was not that long ago, and my parents were in their fifties. The family got a group text with a picture of an above ground pool. And it was from my mom saying, look what we did this weekend. All three of the kids and all three of their spouses were like, what you put in a pool. You have six grown children. Let us come and help you.

01:12:40 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, it's so much work to put those up, too. Like, I have an above ground pool.

01:12:45 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
To, like, make this.

01:12:46 - Caitlin Kindred
Oh, yeah. What are you doing?

01:12:49 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Building a pool.

01:12:51 - Caitlin Kindred
Yeah. By yourselves? No, don't do that.

01:12:55 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
And now, you know, it's like, don't even put the Christmas decorations in the attic. Six. Three people who are all married, you have six kids that can do work for you. Building a pool. I mean, build a shed. Go for it. But, you know, don't text pictures and send it to people in their thirties and forties because they're just gonna say, what were you doing?

01:13:16 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I'm gonna be like, why weren't you up here helping us? Or maybe why didn't you answer a text when we were trying to get people to come and help us? Because nobody is returning that work.

01:13:28 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Because they didn't. They just surprised us with we put in a pool.

01:13:30 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Oh, yeah, no, thank God.

01:13:35 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
A stroke or broke.

01:13:36 - Caitlin Kindred
Right, right. No, I don't really want that to happen to either one of you. And if there, if it's anything like the New York story where you broke your nose, then you really do need to be careful about this shed experience that you're about to have.

01:13:50 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yeah, not my finest experience, but finest moment. But you know what, live and learn. I still have the $1000 phone with me.

01:13:59 - Caitlin Kindred
Nice.

01:14:00 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yeah. Thousand dollar phone. Oh, and the other phone too. So now we have a backup.

01:14:08 - Caitlin Kindred
There you go. Yeah. And you have your passwords all in one place now?

01:14:12 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Yes, ma'am. Oh, there you go.

01:14:14 - Caitlin Kindred
Okay.

01:14:15 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Self care, self love. Put them someplace where you'll find them. Good.

01:14:20 - Caitlin Kindred
To help you with your sanity. Exactly. Oh goodness. Okay, so before we sign off, I have to ask this question. Uh, what charity means the most to you right now?

01:14:35 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I'm going to say the, um, Trevor, uh, Trevor project.

01:14:39 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Okay.

01:14:39 - Caitlin Kindred
That's one of my favorites. One of my most important ones too. So Jenny and I would love to make a donation in honor of you and the show to the Trevor project. So we'll make that happen in the next few days or so. But we wanted to make sure that happens for you. We are so grateful that you came onto the show and really loved having you. This has been so fun for us.

01:15:01 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
I love you guys. I'm telling you, we adults all need another adult to just help them get through some of life's unexpected stuff. And you know, count yourself as maybe a nanny. We all need nannies too, right?

01:15:17 - Caitlin Kindred
Everybody needs a mama.

01:15:19 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
My new team at my new job. If nothing else, I'm downward social comparison, right? You say, at least I'm not GK. Oh, that gift for you. And they were like, what are you gonna wear on this Friday retreat? And I'm like, oh, the nastiest pair of athletic shorts and a dirty t shirt. You'll be better dressed than me, right, Choco?

01:15:42 - Caitlin Kindred
Here we go.

01:15:44 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Whatever you wear is gonna be nicer. Don't worry, I'll be the least dressed. And if nothing else, hey, you can listen to the show and say, well, I'm not that chick. So.

01:16:01 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Okay, well, I love you guys so much. Thank you so much for having me on.

01:16:06 - Caitlin Kindred
This has been really fun. We love you, too. Yeah. Okay, well, in that spirit, like any.

01:16:13 - Jenny GK, G-Rex
Grown up would say, make good choices.

01:16:22 - Caitlin Kindred
And take care of yourselves. Thank you so much for being here, Grx. We loved it. Bye.

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