The kids’ new school does not do any kind of holiday program, which is bizarre. I’m so used to kids practicing Christmas carols and having to get together white shirts and red sweaters and things. I have to admit I’m kind of bummed. The only thing I can guess is after covid shutdowns the teachers rebelled and said they’re not doing it anymore. I can’t blame them. I’m sure coordinating all that is a huge pain in the ass.
Since I *think* the H has finally grasped the concept of not buying the kids mountains of toys they’ll never use, I think we’re on board to have a small Christmas list this year. He wisely traded the kids’ unused Switch for a second used VR, since that’s pretty much the only thing they use now and not fighting over the one we have would be great. I think we’ll just get a few small things and then that’s it. I think this is a good plan. I impulse bought a Lego chess set which I’m kind of regretting now.
My life has become completely consumed by my podcast work, and I’m not mad at it, except that it’s made me largely forget about any event organizing I should be doing (hiring teachers and musicians, updating the website, advertising - every week these things are in my calendar and every week I push them forward to the next week), and I’ve also pretty much stopped exercising entirely, and it shows. I made a promise to myself to get back to walking at least three times a week starting Monday. The weather is cool, I can always go after picking up kids from school, I have no excuse. BUT I just feel like I’m in this flurry of activity to get as much content going as possible; I’ve announced the podcast’s existence in the two relevant FB groups, so now the pressure is on to consistently produce shows. And I think I can continue to do this through December. However…last night I went back through the threads in which people had expressed interest in being on the show, and realized I’m through about half of them. There is, in fact, a finite number of people who would want to do this; it’s a tiny religion, most people who left don’t feel a need to talk about it because they didn’t have a bad experience, many people aren’t interested in being on podcasts, and those who are just may not be able to find the time. So I have a lot of factors against me. I knew most likely this podcast could only be a “limited series” of twenty or so episodes, but I kind of hoped I could continue for a bit longer. If I run out of people to talk to I can certainly re-edit the current long episodes into more digestible “highlight” versions of a half hour or less; that’ll keep me busy. And I’d still like to explore putting shorts on TikTok in an attempt to get more visibility (my listeners/viewership is still very low). But as of right now, recording, editing, and uploading these long videos takes entire days of my time, often 8-10 hours, which is a lot, and causes me to neglect other things. Still, I think it’s important enough that I feel compelled to push forward.
Our band didn’t get hired for Knott’s this year, but we still have four other gigs in the next two weeks, most of which involve long, late night drives (Santa Barbara, San Diego, Irvine). We are on for Germany in February which means I’m going to miss Bobby’s send off to Catalina for his 6th grade trip, which sucks. But I think 2024 is the return of international travel for us, and I’m thrilled.
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