The Sun Is Always Shining Somewhere
No matter what’s happening outside your window – day or night – the sun is always shining down…somewhere!
Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:03 Hi, Kathy.
Speaker 1 00:00:05 Hi Michelle. How you doing
Speaker 0 00:00:07 ? I’m good. It’s morning. We usually record on Friday afternoons, but I took a look at your schedule and realized you don’t have a lot of free time today, . So I booked this in, uh, first thing in the morning. Well, it’s not really first thing for me, but it is first thing for you. It’s really early for you. So yeah,
Speaker 1 00:00:22 This, the sun’s deciding what it wants to do today. So it’s like curtains and,
Speaker 0 00:00:29 Oh, that’s so funny because it’s alright. First of all, it, the sun has actually started to come out here now, but it was raining this morning here. Um, I’m in Rochester, New York. You are in Texas, but I never remember that they were your town. But what part is it? Central, north, South. What part of Texas is it? It’s,
Speaker 1 00:00:46 We’re almost Oklahoma. It’s north of both Dallas and Fort Worth. And then I’m kind of like up as people escape the state towards Oklahoma. They like we have to the last in and out before you escape Texas . It’s,
Speaker 0 00:01:03 That’s so funny. But no matter how much sun we all, we both get, it’s always gonna be hotter where you are than it is where I am for the most part. Always. I mean, yeah, we do get some, we do get some 90 plus days here, um, but in the summertime, but then if it’s 90 plus here it’s like 110 where you are. So it’s always a little warmer where you are. But um, but it was funny because right before we started to record, all of a sudden you were like bathed in this humongous amount of light that completely washed out, like the frame and everything else. And we started joking about the fact that like, it’s a good thing, the sunshine is awesome, Vitamin D, all that other good stuff, but not if it’s like baking you and washing you out on camera and like sunburns. And so like too much of a good thing is not necessarily a good thing. Right. So
Speaker 1 00:01:51 Very, very true. And I have, I have a puppy, I, my daughter got a puppy for, um, for her birthday in July. And this little guy is the cutest thing in the world and he’s really wonderful and snuggly and he’s kind of like a, he’s a doin, so he is kind of like a cat dog. Mm-hmm. . But my too much of a good thing right now is he’s found a toy . He’s decided he can’t chew on it over there anymore. It’s gotta be right here. So right
Speaker 0 00:02:18 Under your foot?
Speaker 1 00:02:19 Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:02:20 Oh, it’s, And
Speaker 1 00:02:21 Speaking of it’s the pizza toy. Oh,
Speaker 0 00:02:24 . Cause we’re also just talking about how I’ve had a lot of pizza this week. You, we were talking about. Okay. I’m a woman of a certain age. I I know Kathy, you’re somewhere around my age too, but, um, but, and my birthday’s next week by the way, but, um, yeah, so too much cheese as you get older can present a problem , which is mean it at that and it starts a lactose intolerant where, Oh, sugar. I gotta run real quick. No, it’s the, I may never go again. pizza taste. It’s so good. Yes. So
Speaker 1 00:03:02 Yeah. But again, too much of a good thing can sometimes be a bad thing. So it’s like
Speaker 0 00:03:08 I’ve reached point the age of the point of my life, the age of my life when I’ve reached a certain age where all of those JB league, Curtis, like commercials about special yogurt. Makes sense. .
Speaker 1 00:03:24 Oh my.
Speaker 0 00:03:25 Yeah. Yeah. Last we talked about last week we talked about compost. This week we talked about not being able to make compost, but whatever.
Speaker 1 00:03:34 Oh, this better not be like a consistent theme, otherwise we’re gonna have some issues. Just keep going.
Speaker 0 00:03:40 We
Speaker 1 00:03:41 Drag.
Speaker 0 00:03:43 This is the last, the last episode for at least a while where we’re talking about compos. But um, but it, overall it has been a very good week for me. How was your week?
Speaker 1 00:03:53 Uh, my week has been pretty good. We’ve had a few challenges, you know, uh, family stuff going on, all kinds of things going on, but, uh, yeah, it’s just, you know, the compost of life, right? And you just kind of roll with it. But, um, yeah, I just, I I’ve been having to kind of really focus on, on positivity and focus on what really matters and let go of a lot of things that could matter if I had nothing else going on. But there’s so much going on that it’s just like, I, I just, it’s kind of like a choose your battles thing, but it’s more like, as, as I go through that process, it’s just like this letting go of what if none of it really matters? What if the only thing that really matters is being just present with, with you right now? Like all of that other stuff isn’t here right now. I could worry about it. My mind could go there. My egoic. Oh no, we have to protect Kathy. Mine could go and worry about all of these things, but I’m here with you about
Speaker 0 00:04:59 Well, you know what,
Speaker 1 00:05:00
Speaker 0 00:05:01 Exactly. Well, you know, you, you make, you bring up a point that just like triggered a thought to me is that we have safe spaces in our life, right? So there are certain people where you can just let loose, have fun, laugh about the shit that goes on in your life, I’m sorry, the compost that goes on in your life and and you know that it’s okay in that moment cuz the person that you’re talking to is a safe person to talk to. And I feel that way about you. Um, there are, I have some of my deepest friendships in my life right now are with WordPress people and knowing that those people have my back, um, that those people are genuinely concerned about me. Uh, not just, you know, superficially concerned about, but like, Yeah. Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. Kind of concerned.
Speaker 0 00:05:47 Um, who really reach out and say, Hey, I know you’ve been going through a lot this year. Are you okay? Are you doing all right? Is there anything I can do to help you? Um, like I just posted yesterday, I have had a headache for five days, which is too much of a headache, right? And like sometimes I post like that kind of stuff on Twitter cuz my Twitter account is me. It’s being, me being real. I will retweet business stuff too. I will talk about WordPress stuff, but sometimes it’s just like, I’ve had a headache for five days. I’m on vacation next week and I can’t wait to not, you know, to be someplace where this isn’t was isn’t really bothering me. And like people commented like, Oh, that’s that’s too long, Michelle. You deserve a break from screens, you know, and stuff like that.
Speaker 0 00:06:26 And it just made me feel good that there’s, there’s people who really care. There’s all kinds of drama in WordPress, right? Like, we know the last couple weeks have just been chalked full of drama. And, and I, you know, some of it is, is it’s dramatic, but it’s rightfully so, right? So just because, and I’m not talking petty stuff, like usually when we say WP drama it’s like petty stuff. We’ve been dealing with a lot of heavy issues in WordPress in the last few weeks and it can really weigh you down. But also it should be a safe space for us to be able to get together and have conversations and talk about the things that really matter. I actually posted yesterday, it’s been a really amazing year and it’s been the shittiest year of my life this year. Yeah. And then I was like, Oh, it was Charles Dickens. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times, right? Because both can be true at the same time. Yes.
Speaker 1 00:07:15 Yes. Totally. Yeah. Someone told me, you know, I mean obviously my life has completely upended over the last year and someone told me, You’re gonna look back at these times and you’re going to feel good about them. And I was like, Yeah, yeah. You just didn’t deal with what I ended like you, what do you say? But honestly, you know, the challenges that show up in our lives draw something out of us, right? When we have a challenge, like what stuff that we’re dealing with and what we’re dealing with as a community as a whole, when we have those kinds of challenges and we show up present in them, it draws more of us out, right? Mm-hmm. , we, we can’t just kind of go blithely and, you know, small talk into some of these types of conversations. We have to show up. We have to make decisions.
Speaker 1 00:08:06 Where do you stand? How are you going to make this better? How are you gonna make this better for yourself? And how are you gonna make it better for others? And so it draws more of our humanity out and it makes us stronger, it makes us more authentic and it forges deeper connections. And that’s what we’re here to do. We’re here, you know, to democratize publishing, but for what end to make stronger communications in society, in humanity as a whole, so that all of humanity is uplifted. And so these challenges, I think are part of the journey that’s pulling more of us out. And sure, there’s gonna be a lot of people who are just like, Can’t handle it. I’m done. You know, the Carmens of the world, you guys are going,
Speaker 0 00:08:50 They’re
Speaker 1 00:08:51 Done.
Speaker 0 00:08:51 And
Speaker 1 00:08:52 That’s, you can come back and play with those later, Carmen mm-hmm. . But right now, you know, we’re just gonna, the good people are showing up and you’re seeing that, you know, I’m feeling it at least with a lot of the community.
Speaker 0 00:09:05 Me too. And, you know, not to disparage the carbons of the world sometimes for your own self preservation at that particular point in your life, you do have to take a break, right? And say, you know, I’m taking my cheesy poops and I’m going home kind of thing. But yeah. And that’s not to disparage anybody that, that has to self preserve and holds space for themselves that way because sometimes things are too raw, sometimes things are too emotional, sometimes things are just too overwhelming. And from a point, from a place of mental health, you have to do what you have to do to protect yourself. But the wonderful thing, as you said is you could always come back, right? If you have to take a break from right, the community to take a break from speaking, you have to take a break from organizing, from meetups, whatever it is, it’s always a safe place to come back without anybody going, Ugh, you don’t belong here anymore. . It’s not that kind of community. So
Speaker 1 00:09:53 Yeah, car can always come back and Kenny’s always gonna survive. So we’re, we’re all in this together. So
Speaker 0 00:09:59 They killed Kenny. No, they didn’t. He’ll be back next week.
Speaker 1 00:10:02 . He’s always back, right? So yeah, it’s, um, yeah, this community has been one of the, I mean, I just had a conversation yesterday with someone I haven’t talked to in years, but it was like, we went so deep on some conversations and some topics that were really important and it, it had me spinning for the rest of the day and just in terms of like a good vibe and then the rest of my conversation. And it was so good that that happened because I had some really hard news last night and it was just like being able to have that deep conversation kind of like settled me so that when I had to go into like harder stuff with like deaths in the family type of thing, um mm-hmm. it, I, it settled me so that I could deal with it. So yeah, this community is really, really, really special and yeah,
Speaker 0 00:10:49 I agree 100%. And on that note, we hope that you all have a great start to your week. Uh, we are always recording this on Friday, so we’re heading into a weekend. We are always on a high because it’s the end of the day, the end of the week. Um, but even if we recorded this Monday morning, we might be a little tired, a little bleary eyed because, you know, Mondays. But, um, but we like to think that we like to bring some positivity to your week and hopefully motivate you in some way. And, and that’s, that’s what we’re here for. So Kathy, I hope you have a wonderful weekend and a great week ahead. Next week I’m on vacation and it’s my birthday, so I know I will.
Speaker 1 00:11:25 Happy early birthday. Thank
Speaker 0 00:11:27 You. Thank you. Excited about that. But, um, we’ll, uh, you know, we’ll, we’ll endeavor, we’ll be here. Again. We don’t know what time we’re recording next week cuz who knows what calendars look like. But we won’t miss a week, I promise, because this is super important to both of us. So carry on. Bye
Speaker 1 00:11:44 Bye.