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Johanna Almstea...: Hello everyone. It's time for a girl dinner. Happy new year. I am one of those people that likes to say happy new year for all of January, and I know that there are people who get very annoyed by it, but happy new year. We are going to do a little solo episode today just to welcome you back to season two of Eat My Words. We had an amazing first year, amazing first season, and we are super excited to welcome you back. And so I thought I would just come on and have a little chat with you guys. So for my girl dinner tonight, I have newly remembered that I love baked potatoes. I fucking love them. They are so good, and I haven't eaten them in years very often. And I just recently had them somewhere at a restaurant I think, and I was like, "Oh my God, these are so good."
And I was remembering how when I was in my 20s, that was dinner for me. A lot of the time is I would make a baked potato and I would put cheese and butter and salt and sometimes broccoli if I was feeling healthy, and that would be my dinner. So that's what my dinner's going to be tonight. I'm going to make a girl dinner. Although I did just see a recipe for a baked potato with caviar. That seems a little fancy for a girl dinner, so I'm just going to do my traditional good old baked potato, tons of butter, tons of salt, shredded white cheddar, super sharp white shedder cheese, steamed broccoli, and a big old dollop of, not even a dollop, it's more than a dollop, it is like a big many dollops of sour cream on top. So that's my girl dinner tonight and we are going to kick off season two, so let's dig in.
Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Eat My Words, and welcome to season two. I'm so excited to be here. I can't believe we've made it this far. We've made, I think 47, 48 episodes, and so we're so excited to kick off season two for 2026. I just wanted to come on and express my gratitude first and foremost to all of you for supporting this project, and for spreading the word. We are growing bit by bit and we're so excited about all the things to come for 2026. I'm not a big New Year's resolution person anymore. Now that I try not to grind, and also I have kids and a job, I already got so many things going on that I just, I don't really make resolutions. I do take some time to set some intentions, but more importantly, what I like to do is I make, and I saw this somewhere else, this is not my original idea at all, but of just making a more or less list for the year, so things I want more of and things I want less of.
And I thought it might be fun to share some of the things that are on my list. I don't know if I'm going to share all of them because some of them might be a little bit embarrassing. But I am going to share some because I think it's a really clear reflection of where I am, and where this podcast is. And I just thought it might be fun to talk through some of the things that I'm feeling a craving for this year. We just closed out a wild year for our family. We just had so much going on, and a wild year for this business, which has been amazing, but we moved back into our home. There's still a lot going on. You might, in some of these recordings, hear banging in the background because we're still not done, but we are here and we're home.
And so I feel like for real, I'm in a really turning a page in it to a new chapter because I'm literally living somewhere new again. New again, which is funny because it is my old house that has been renovated, so it is new again. So I thought it would be fun to just think through some of that. So a couple of things that I wanted to add to my life, and you guys tell me how you feel. I think it would be really fun if you guys could share some of your lists. What do you want more of? I want more opera in my life. I haven't been to the opera in years and I was watching a movie the other day, I can't even remember what it was, or a show. And they went to the opera and I was like, "God, I forgot how much I love the opera," so that's on my list.
More museum visits. I think we've talked about this a lot. Museums are a place of inspiration for me, and to a lot of our guests on this show. And I've had to rejigger my way of attending museums now that I'm a parent because I don't have long, leisurely, empty weekends anymore to do that. But I just actually took my kids to see the Ruth Asawa exhibit at the MoMA in New York, which was incredible. If you have not been, go. It's closing in February, so go see it. And it just reminded me of remaining curious. And I think part of what this podcast is and part of what my mission is to share our stories so that people stay curious, and that we all stay curious about our own lives and about the lives of others and the impact of art and creation on all of those. So that's that.
I want to play more games as a family. In fact, I rang in the new year playing games and eating baked potatoes and caviar. I made this kind of resolution last year and then shit went sideways. Honestly, guys, it was crazy and there was no time for anything. And again, it was a lot of building and a lot of unbuilding and shedding and rebuilding in life and in business and so many things, but I did not have a lot of time for games. And so I actually this year purchased many new games, and that was how I wanted to ring in the new year, was just at home with my family, with beautiful food. We went really fancy on some beautiful food and we played games and it was so, so, so fun. And I forgot how much you can learn about your kids and about your partner and about your parents when you play games. So that's one of my mores, I want more games in my life.
More art in my life. I feel like maybe some of the parents out there can relate to this, but especially if you are sports parents, which I am. I have two children who are very, very active in sports, which is amazing and awesome, but I feel like it doesn't leave a lot of room for art in our life because our weekends are taken up by tournaments and horse shows and games and practices and all that stuff, which again is amazing, and there's all these other things that are great about it.
And I think maybe also, because I was living in this house where I hadn't ever unpacked all my things, and so we were living artless for a little bit and it really made me remember how much I need it and how much we as a society need it. I think at this time in our lives, it's important that people keep creating great art, so just more art in my life. I'm going to hang those paintings on my walls that I have had in storage for many years. I'm going to go find art. I'm going to support art. So more art this year, which I think is fun.
This has been interesting because I'm moving back into my house, which I've actually lived in for many, many years, but we always knew we were going to renovate it. And so I hesitated to purchase forever pieces, but I'm now at this point in my life where I'm like, "I am not bringing anything into this house that is not gorgeous and perfect." I don't want crap in my house anymore. I don't want any crap in my life anymore. Maybe it's because I've spent the last two weeks opening boxes of crap that I've moved back and forth to two different houses, but I am just done with crap. So less crap in my life and more just quality, things that are going to last forever, things that I want to pass down to my children. I'm not buying any more silly, silly stuff. So that's kind of fun, that feels good. Feels good for my heart, feels good for the planet. We'll see.
Cooking and hosting at home, more cooking and hosting at home. I can't even tell you how happy it's made me to be back in my house in my new kitchen, which if you guys listen to this podcast regularly, you know that I really do believe my entire new life is starting, guys, as we speak, because I have a new kitchen, so get ready. Johanna 2.0 because my kitchen is here and it's so pretty. And it makes me so happy, and it reminds me just of how much I enjoy cooking and feeding people and eating and being around here and hosting and having people sit up at my counter while I'm preparing food so so much more of that in 2026. And I'm hoping that we're going to do, this will be fun. We're going to do some live episodes while I have my guests here and we record our podcast while I'm actually cooking and hosting them, which will be great. So more to come on that. Watch this space.
More calm and ease. So last year felt like a little bit of a manic year and I know that if you guys are working, if you are parents, if you are working parents, if you are a partner, if you are single, if you are taking care of somebody other than yourself, it's a lot, right? And it gets really, really busy and life can be overwhelming and start to feel what I call manic and out of breathy. And not that I think the world is going to slow down, but the pace of the world and the pace of social media and the pace of the internet and everything is going so, so fast that I put this on my list to just remind myself of just moments of calm.
I am trying really hard to build them into my day. I was actually inspired very much by... We just actually reran her episode, Mary Buri, who talked a lot about taking little moments of downtime throughout your day. And when she eats a meal alone, she doesn't do anything else. She just sits and eats and doesn't look at her phone and doesn't read a magazine and doesn't make a list and doesn't do all these things. And I just re-listened to her episode the other day and I was like, "I have to remember to do that."
But I've been really coveting these moments in my new kitchen very early in the morning, it's still dark out. Nobody else is up and I make my coffee and one of my doggies comes downstairs with me because he just wants to be up with me. He doesn't really want to do anything. He just wants to hang out with me. And I actually found this gift. I actually have one in my office and I had forgotten it. And then I found a wrapped gift in all of my stuff that I was unpacking. And I think I just bought this as a gift to have on hand, but I opened it and I remembered how beautiful it was.
I have to remember the brand, but it's this beautiful brass little cylinder that has a top on it. And then when you take off the top, there's a little space to put a candle in it and inside the cylinder are really lovely little skinny taper candles. And the whole idea is that it's like a tranquility moment so you just, you put your little candle in the cap, you flip the cap over and you put it on your counter and then you put your little candle in and you burn it. And I think it only burns for maybe a half an hour, about maybe. But I've been trying to do that every morning while I have my coffee, the lights are still dim. My little doggie sitting, not my little doggie, my big doggy is sitting down at my feet and I'm trying to just build those moments of quiet into my life, which doesn't feel quiet very often.
This is just a little reminder for you to maybe find a little ritual, maybe find a little spot that is yours. Some people are better at this than I am. I've never been great at it. I've always lept out of bed and started the day at high speed, so I'm trying to not do that anymore and to be a little more intentional about my mornings and my time and my peace. So that's been really, really lovely.
I am also remembering that I need more poetry in my life. It's funny, my husband actually, I took the kids out for the day and I came home and he had found six of our huge boxes of books and so many of my books. I grew up with a family that were huge readers and writers. And I feel like being surrounded by books is like a security blanket for me. And he's like, "We have a lot of books."
I'm like, "I know. That's why we're getting a big bookshelf."
But I've just stumbled upon a pile of poetry books and found some Mary Oliver and a wonderful poet who was actually a really good friend of my mom's. Her name was Jane Flanders and I found one of her books. And again, I just was like, "I have to remember to read these." Take a minute and actually read these beautiful books that are in my house and sit down and read a poem for 30 seconds for two minutes, whatever it is. But I'm really going to work on building those moments of art and creativity and inspiration and quiet into my days so that it doesn't feel so extreme, right? Because I have this tendency to go, go, go, go, go, and then it's like, "And now I'm going to immerse myself on a trip to do art," but I'm going to try to layer them into my day on a more regular basis. And I'm hoping that by surrounding myself with these books that I will do that more often.
I'm also having fun curating the... We have a couple guestrooms in our house and I finally got the sheets on the guest room beds. We're not really ready to host yet because we don't have curtains, but I've had fun starting to curate the books that are in each of the guest rooms when I think about like, who's going to come stay in these and what might they want to read or what do I want them to read? And I'm going to plant things there. Anyway, I thought that's been fun. So it's not just about, I try to read almost every night before I go to bed, but I was thinking of this idea of grab and go poetry around in my life. So I'm working on more of that this year.
I'm working on more quiet, which is funny for a podcast host to say, but I do recommend more quiet in your life. Not at the expense of you listening to this, of course, but I have been trying to find... All of us can probably relate, particularly people who live in cities or have lots of children or work in very busy environments, this sort of noise all the time. There's actual noise and then there feel like there's visual noise in our phones and our beeps and messages and all the things, and so I'm really, really trying to find these moments of quiet, and I'm really trying hard to be disciplined about my phone. If I'm sitting at dinner with somebody, I'm trying not to look at it, trying not to be distracted by the 10,000 notifications. I've actually cleaned out my inbox with emails that you're subscribed to.
Again, as someone who's probably going to have an email, a subscription email soon, I get it. But I just felt like there was just so much noise in my life. I couldn't even open my laptop or open my phone without feeling like there was just being bombarded. So I just unsubscribed from a bunch of emails, mostly promotional emails, and I'm trying just really hard to turn the phone off, put it away, be present, find quiet. Even in my car, sometimes I'm like, "I'm just not going to put on any music. I'm not going to put on a podcast. I'm just going to be quiet."
Oh, and the other thing is more stretching, trying to just be in my body more without putting big workout goals around it or whatever, but just trying to be in my body more and ideally more massages, to be honest. So that's the most of my more list.
My less list is funny too because I do think it's a reflection of where I am and how I've been opening boxes and going through all of our things. And it's really shocking how you can accumulate so many things. So my first list item on my less list is stuff. I just want less stuff. I just feel like our lives are so filled with so much crap. And I know as parents, there's all this pressure to buy the T-shirt for the spirit day at school and buy the leprechaun thing for the St. Patrick's Day. And there's just so much pressure to like have crap in our lives and to give our children crap. And I just am going to try really, really hard to not bring any more stuff into my house.
You don't need the next sports equipment that's a little bit cooler than the one they already have or, it's just too much. And I've been making this rule about, and someone said this to me once like, "Just don't allow it into the house," right? Just don't allow it into the house. And I've been trying to like not participate in it for things like kids' birthday parties. I'm not going to give your kid a bunch of stuff. I'm going to hopefully provide a lovely experience and some kind words and some good food, but I'm not going to give you stuff. So I'm anti-stuff this year.
I've also been trying to be very mindful of bringing, similarly, but just plastic into my house. This has been a journey for me because again, I have kids, we're busy, plastic is convenient, but I'm trying really, really, really hard to minimize the amount of plastic that even comes into my house. So it's definitely a little bit more thoughtful at the grocery store and at the pharmacy or whatever, but I've been trying really hard to only buy things that are in glass bottles. Again, I'm not saying I'm saving the world, but I'm just trying to minimize the amount of plastic in my life. Buying things I don't need, less of that, right? It's all related because if I didn't buy the things I didn't need, then I wouldn't have so much stuff, right?
So I just think this is the year, again, I have this beautiful house that has been newly gutted and renovated and I just don't want stuff that I don't need in it anymore. So it's really been incredibly cathartic to go through this process of cleaning out my stuff and cleaning out my family stuff. I've actually had my parents, my dad who passed away and my mom who we had to move out of our house, I have had their stuff in my house for many, many years that I wasn't really able to go through, and so I am now going through all of that. And man, do I recommend it? Just go through your shit and get rid of it. If you can, keep the stuff that matters. I mean, I have found some amazing stuff through this process, including, which I'm going to probably do a whole episode about, but including letters and documentation of my family coming over on the Mayflower, which is so crazy.
So there is value in stuff, there is historical value and sentimental value for sure, and I'm not saying throw that stuff out, but I am saying I think you can all, everyone can do with a little less stuff in their lives, which leads me to the next thing because I have found during this process that stuff gives me anxiety. It really gets me anxious to have clutter and stuff everywhere. And so I'm trying to have less of that in my life. And so the stuff part is part and parcel of that whole issue is less anxiety, less stuff. Less stuff, less anxiety. I don't want to have anxiety in my life.
Less takeout food. So I know I've talked about this a million times on this podcast, but we were living in this rental house for the last almost year and the kitchen sucked and it was not easy to cook in, and so we just got in this rote of takeout and it's just, I don't know, it made me sad. Listen, I love a good takeout sushi, whatever, there's plenty of opportunities for takeout, but we got into it so much so that I was like, "I cannot eat another thing out of a takeout container." So happy to be home and cooking really simple meals. I'm not going crazy. I'm not cooking gourmet meals every night. We are not cooking, my husband does a lot of cooking too, so I'm not saying I do that every night. I certainly do not. But I'm trying to minimize the amount of takeout and just find what's in my cabinet and figure out a meal and not worry about it so much. So I'm working on that.
Oh, less over scheduling. So parents, if you're out there, listen up. So I think we are in the middle of an epidemic. We are in the middle of a parenting epidemic, we're in the middle of a childhood epidemic, we are in the middle of a humanity epidemic. The over scheduling thing has gone haywire and I know there's people out there. I know you feel me, I know you hear me. I'm just as guilty as the last one, so don't think I'm pointing fingers at all, but I really, really, really want to try very hard to pull back on the over scheduling of myself and my family and my kids and to build in real downtime.
I guess maybe it's scheduling downtime, so you're still scheduling it, but just taking more downtime and not feeling this... I certainly feel this pressure. It's like, my kids are involved in sports and then you hear about another clinic that their friends are doing and you should do that clinic. And oh God, if they don't do that clinic or they're not going to get the spot on the team. And it's like, okay, there's going to be a million. There's going to be so many.
And I feel like I'm really missing just that time being at home with our family that's unstructured, where people are not on their screens, where we're playing games, hence back to my other point about playing games and where we're just being and being bored and finding projects and just allowing ourselves to have that space and that freedom to get a little bored and to not be scheduled at the wazoo, which leads me to my next thing, which is this manic energy.
Those who know me and know that is part of who I am, that I go hard and I go fast and I go long and it's a lot and I try to do a lot in a day and I try to do more in the day and I try to do whatever. And I often have this feeling where it's like... Just talking about it on my breath is catching and I am not sure that that's really healthy for me. I'm really productive. I do a lot of things, but I'm not sure that that's the best way to live my life.
And I'm really trying to think about the second half of my life and how I want to be. And I don't think that's the energy I want to bring to it, so I'm working on that, less of that, which also includes the next item, which is less of the grind. We talk a lot about the grind on this podcast. So many of our guests are women who have grinded, ground? Who we are continuing to grind through their lives, they're badasses, they're achievers, they're smart, they're powerful, they're doers, they're producers, they're change makers. And all of that is incredible and amazing.
And I guess my hope for all of us who fall into that category is putting some ease into it and putting some joy back into it. I think that some of that success and some of that drive and some of that ambition can often be overridden or overrides the good parts of life. And so I am wishing that for myself is a little less grind and a little more ease in the days. And I'm wishing that for all of you to just remind yourself to, as we used to say back in the 80s, take a chill pill, but just take a minute, do the things, still have the dreams, do the projects, achieve what you want to achieve, but maybe with 5% more ease in it and 5% less grind.
The other thing that I've been very conscious of is just waste. I think maybe because I've been going through so much stuff and there's so much physical stuff. And then this idea of us eating takeout and these takeout containers in my kitchen and I don't know, this idea of waste. I just am feeling like I want to really, for 2026, pay attention to being really mindful about waste, food waste makes me crazy, textile waste, plastic waste, all this stuff. Again, we live in a modern world, we live with Amazon deliveries 97 times a day, I get it. None of us are perfect. We're not going to all be the perfect environmentalist or whatever, but I think if we just take a minute and stop with the waste, wasted energy, wasted time, wasted stress, wasted food, wasted clothing, all that stuff. Just think about it a little bit and try to have less of it.
That's what I'm doing. I guess you don't have to. I'm just doing it. The other one is I'm going to try to yell less, guys. I've turned into a yeller in my old age. Never was really a yeller, but woof. I feel like maybe sometimes once you break the seal of becoming a yeller, then it's hard to go back, but I'm going to try this year to go back. I have found that in moments of frustration, I'm not really a yeller in work at all. I'm a yeller in parenting, in family life, and so I don't think it's great. I read some article about basically having a parent who yells is like super traumatic and horrible and messes up your children forever, so I'm going to try not to do that anymore. I'm not going to do anymore, but I'm going to try to lessen it.
Again, this is the list. It's just less. It's just less, maybe 5% less yelling. And the last is less noise. So I'm going to create less noise and hopefully I am going to find moments of less noise in my life. Again, I think that's like visual noise, that's physical noise, that's food noise, that's digital noise, all of it. I think it's just like try to find these moments of quiet and serenity, serenity now, serenity and just giving myself a little bit of quiet. Yeah, less noise.
So that's my list. Take from it what you will. You can throw that list in the garbage if it means nothing to you. If you are feeling inspired by one or any of them, take it with you and just try to integrate it into your life a little bit, maybe not every day, even, just a little bit sometimes, but we are so, so, so excited to continue this journey with all of you into 2026.
We are so excited about future in real life events, future merchandise, future brand partnerships. We have so many things that are cooking and we can't wait to share them all with you. We are thrilled that we have come this far and we have so much plan for the year. And again, we could not do it without you. Our audience, our beloved audience, our friends, our supporters, our inspiration. Frankly, you guys inspire us every day, so maybe share with us your lists or a couple of the things that you want more of or less of in 2026. I hope that you're going to want more of Eat My Words. In your moments when you're not seeking quiet, you can seek out moments of Eat My Words. How's that?
We are grateful. We are excited. We are calm and thrilled to be a part of this community with all of you, and we think 2026 has a lot of really good things in store for all of us, so we're going to go with that. Thank you, thank you, thank you as always for tuning in. If you have found this episode helpful, please share it with your friends, please share it with your coworkers, please share it with your family, your sisters, your moms, your brothers, all the things and think about the things you want more of in your life and less of in your life. And hopefully we can help guide you through that a little bit this year. We will see you next time. We have amazing guests coming up this season. We want to hear from you. We want to be in communication with you and we will catch you on the next one. This podcast has been created and directed by me, Johanna Almstead. Our producer is Sophy Drouin. Our audio editor is Isabel Robertson, and our brand manager is Mila Bouchna.