(upbeat music)
Ah.
Ugh.
Ah.
Ugh, cheers.
Let's start this off with a cheers.
Change the juju.
Are you making guacamole?
Or how do you get rid of stress?
Not well.
Two hours.
Wham bam, thank you ma'am.
Arts and crafts are not my bag, baby.
Ugly.
Like, I freaked out doing a gingerbread.
I think you sabotaged me.
Hey, are you making guacamole?
If I didn't think I'd
be the laughingstock
of all the moms.
A me George Jetson type
thing, like beep boop beep.
Mom, I need a mom.
Yeah.
Beep boop beep.
I came back downstairs and there's a mom.
What is for dinner?
Did you make guacamole?
(laughing)
Beep boop beep beep beep.
I made guacamole.
Ciao ciao.
Guaculator.
Welcome to the Mr. and
Mrs. English podcast.
I'm Megan.
And I'm Sean.
We're here to talk about
the wild ride of raising kids
and growing careers,
keeping life together
in the middle of all the chaos.
So buckle up because we're all
in this crazy journey together.
Ah.
All right, cheers, this is cheers.
Cheers.
Start this off with the cheers.
We're gonna start this off, yeah, cheers.
And maybe this first
sip will change the juju.
(upbeat music)
Rarely do we sip at the same time,
but it is now later in the week.
This is way later in the
week than we usually do this.
But we're in the studio, which is good,
because we had some cancellations
tonight, which was nice.
Really nice.
But you and I didn't say
more than probably two words
the whole day because of work.
And then after work, which it is now,
well, I mean, kind
of, you've been working
way past banker hours at least.
Yeah, banker hours,
which we know is gorgeous.
And I was like, how's it coming, honey?
And you're like, beep,
beep, beep, beep, beep.
(laughing)
Not, yeah, it was not great.
So I was like, oh, glad I asked.
I know, I know, I know.
So do you wanna air
anything that's non-confidential?
Oh my gosh.
Just get it off your chest.
Do people just have
those days where it's like,
everybody needs everything right now,
and it's always an
emergency, but it's not an emergency.
And it's like, everyone's thing is just
the most important thing.
And you're like, I
got my own things to do.
And so then you're just left with
dealing with everyone else's stuff.
So it's just been one,
and it just kept piling on.
It was just like--
It's called, your fire
drills are having fire drills.
Yes, yeah.
We're not good.
You hear the ding of the
email or the I am come through
and you're just like--
You only wanna read it.
Yeah, you don't, you just read it.
That's right, yeah, yeah.
Well, it was about a year
ago, I was in a similar spot
before a change of course.
And I remember telling you,
it's not even a
dumpster fire at this point.
We're basically a dumpster
fire on a boat that is on fire,
that is in a bay that
is on fire with like,
remember like Game of
Thrones, how the water was on fire?
Oh, now yours is so sad.
Normally it's my mic that's sad,
but Megan's mic just took the dive.
All right, we're back, we
got technical difficulties,
we had to bring all
the grips and everything,
and it was a big, like 15 people
you guys don't see behind the scenes.
I know, they're really helpful though.
Hopped us off, thanks guys, hang out.
Yeah, uh-huh.
Great, I'm gonna do
this without you guys.
All of you really thanks.
I know, it's not.
Anyways.
You should have been an actor.
Yeah.
But that's what mine was, right?
It was just like, and the ship's going
down by the way too.
And we're not gonna make it to port.
So that was like this flaming ship
that's just sinking, coming into port,
that's not gonna make it.
You know, I can, Captain
Sparrow in the very first one.
He's standing on the
flag and it's just, yeah.
He hops off onto the dock the second,
like the last bit of
the mask goes underwater.
Yeah, and you hear the
bloop bloop as it goes down.
Well, thank you for that reminder,
because that put my day in perspective.
Mine was just, you know, a day, right?
Where you're like, "Ugh."
Well, I'm sorry, you've had a rough day.
You know, just tense all day.
Yeah, just tense.
Yeah, I did have a couple
difficult conversations.
You know, like, I felt argumentative.
I'm usually not an argumentative person,
but I was like, evaluating.
I don't know if anyone does this,
but evaluating in the
middle of a conversation,
like, am I just being confrontational?
Like, am I being difficult?
Like, am I just being too hard to get
along with right now?
Not a good spot to be at work, but.
It's funny, you say that to some degree,
because, I mean,
that's not your personality.
And I think that's
something you've grown into.
Yeah.
Right, because I mean,
within our relationship,
you know, airing some of our
behind the scenes type stuff,
I mean, there's been
times where I'm like,
"Hey, I need work, Megan," to show up.
Because I know, you know, you
say you tie on your big boy's
shoes and pull up your big
boy boots, whatever it is.
And sometimes when you're off of work,
you let that go.
And it's like, in our
personal lives, it's like,
I need you to bring that sense of urgency
and that sense of get her done.
Yeah, yeah.
And that's not my, yeah,
because that's not my normal mode.
And it wasn't at work for a while either.
I mean, you've matured in your career,
and you've matured in
where you are with the company.
And I think that's
just something that comes
with the turf to some degree.
You either learn it or you get trampled.
Right, right.
And I've learned it
and it's a learned thing.
But it's not, no matter how
much I've learned to do it,
it doesn't ever make it comfortable or,
it's never natural.
I think that's the feeling, right?
It's like, it still feels foreign to me
and I have to focus on it.
So I'll probably just
like crash out tonight.
I'll just be so tired because I had to
focus on it so much.
It takes a lot of mental energy.
It does.
And I've been doing the same
thing the last two weeks too,
just mental energy where I
just said, I'm tired mentally.
Because I've been having to focus so much
and this and that.
And it's just so weird
how that will drain you
at a desktop.
You're not digging trenches all day long,
but you can come back mentally,
which is almost physically exhausted
from mental gymnastics.
Yes, yeah.
I mean, it was ironic.
I don't know if that's the right word,
but I was filling out something
and in this thing I was working on,
it was like, what are
the physical requirements
of the job?
And I was like, sitting at a desk?
I was like, there are not.
And I didn't even know what I would put.
Like, I literally could be immobile.
In fact, I was earlier this year,
immobile, still doing this job.
So, I'm like, what are
you trying to get at here?
Yeah, almost all they say now is like,
if you look at, I guess I
haven't looked at a lot of resumes
or job descriptions lately,
but the only thing I can
remember that always stood out
to me, especially at a professional job,
was like ability to lift 20 pounds.
Oh yes, yes.
Because maybe that's the
weight of your desk files
when you get fired.
I don't know.
I mean, I can't name one
time I lifted 20 pounds
the entire time I worked in finance
for almost a quarter century.
Right, right.
But yet, every year we have
the annual safety training
and it truly does, the
steps of plan your lift,
bend at the knees.
Wow, I've used this zero in my career.
Everybody's bringing their
back belts in on those days.
We got a proper squatting and lifting
is an important thing.
Super important in some
jobs, just not the one I hold.
Not so much.
In fact, I've been
doing so much computer work.
I know I complained
to you this last week.
This is so funny.
It's not that funny,
but don't build it up too much like that.
But I was doing so much
clicking on these programs
that wasn't carpal tunnel,
but my wrist and my
forearms were killing me.
I was switching off
hands to click and move
the mouse on these different screens to
get to this question
then proceed on to the next and the next.
My arms were on fire.
If you've ever, I'm trying to think,
I don't know what girls do.
That might be it's
because I've never been a girl.
But when I used to play basketball,
I would hang on a rim or if
you lift resistant weights,
there's times when you lift so much
that you're after the fact,
you get sore to the point
where you're weak from it.
Like, oh my gosh, I can't like lift
anything with my biceps
because I was so much.
100%.
That's how my forearms were.
Simply just kept
clicking on a computer screen.
And my neck, because I was
looking at that certain angle,
was like, so it's been tough.
I might need some time
off in the Caribbean.
I think you might.
A little spa there or
something like that.
Maybe.
We'll see.
More to come on that one maybe.
(laughing)
That's pretty funny because you,
who works out very regularly,
but apparently you need to do some like,
finger exercises or wrist exercises.
You might need to add
those to your gym routine.
Yeah.
Strengthen that.
Yeah.
I guess so.
Very weak.
Very weak forearms apparently.
Well, you know, this last weekend,
one of the big things for us
was you had to tackle the mum.
Oh my gosh.
I did tackle the mum.
Yeah.
You put on all your pads.
I did.
You got the black
marks between your eyes.
You got in a three point squat
and you tackled that stinking mum.
I got the mum, man.
You didn't do any of
that, but you got it done.
I did.
Yeah, with the exception,
I think I just have to put like that.
So it can hang around her neck.
But you thought, how long,
how, when you were going
into it, what did you think?
I thought it would be a multi-day thing.
Like if I could spend two,
three hours on it on the weekend
and then maybe it would
be a couple extra hours
through the week is what I had budgeted.
Right.
And I am happy to report two hours.
Wham bam, thank you ma'am.
Like it is done.
And I think it looks okay.
I think it looks great.
It's our first one.
When you Google them,
I mean, there's quite the scale of,
you know, there's a lot of different,
you can go well beyond what you did.
You could.
But I think yours was
well within the range
of very nice and very normal.
As tasteful and as nice
as these things can be,
I think it hits,
I think it is about as nice as one of
these things can be.
I mean, the reality is, is they're ugly.
Like.
That's right.
And it's not audacious.
She can walk around with it.
Yeah.
I think it checks all the boxes.
You did a great job on it.
Well, thank you.
Nicely done.
Cause I know, and this
was the funny part about it
because, and this is,
I wanna say this
tastefully to some degree,
but I have more of the creative.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Flare in the family.
Totally.
Not that you don't have great taste
and all that kind of stuff.
Arts and crafts are not my bag baby.
So I went into this being like,
okay, I gotta make them up, right?
Like, okay, that's fine.
I know.
And I totally, I mean,
we can look back
through our lifetimes where,
you know, I've done the sewing,
I've done the arts and crafts,
I've done, you know,
all that kind of stuff.
I mean, some perspective,
I freaked out doing a gingerbread house.
Oh my gosh.
It is one of the
highlights of our children's life.
I mean, this was misery.
Anyway, and it was terrible.
I figured out you lost your stuff.
I lost my stuff.
That thing was, well,
the thing collapsed.
It didn't even stay together.
It's like five minutes.
It collapsed.
I mean, it was a joke.
Oh my gosh.
The whole thing.
And I heated every minute of it.
And the kids knew it.
I mean, it was like the
worst experience for them.
Cause the previous
year I did it with them.
You always did it with them.
That's why I was
like, why am I doing this?
You guys know I'm terrible.
I don't know why I got
kicked out of it that year,
but I think he was
self-selected to not do it.
I think he just kind of
wanted to test the waters.
I think you sabotaged me.
You may have.
You totally did.
Anyway, so, you know,
so I was going into this
thing and I'm gonna make a mom,
which is fine.
Yeah.
And then I had
mentioned it at some point,
maybe on a soccer
sideline, maybe somewhere.
I had mentioned like, oh yeah, you know,
we're getting the mom, you know,
I'll probably have to do it.
And then I could see Megan,
I could see that you
were just kind of like,
I could see it, that was
like a pride thing a little bit.
Like a mom was like, no, no, no, no, no.
I think moms are
supposed to do the mom, right?
And you kind of bristled
up a little bit, you know,
from like a pride standpoint, like,
oh, I can't be the mom
that doesn't do the mom.
Right, because the moms do the mom.
Yeah, moms do the moms.
Right, like, and I was like,
I'll never be able to show my
face if I can't do this mom.
So I backed off.
I mean, I totally gave it to you
and you went, bought all this stuff.
You're on top of that.
You didn't procrastinate on that.
You didn't pile it anywhere.
You got right to it.
I mean, all of this is
antithetical to your usual, right?
It is.
Standard.
It's not your norm, right?
And you were all over it.
So that's why I want to make
a big deal of the fact that
you kind of got
slapped in the face, right?
With a metaphorical,
you know, can you do this?
Yeah, you stared in the
eyes and you nailed it.
So good job.
Thank you, thank you.
Now, the 15 year old was way less
impressed than you are.
Yeah, I mean, I think he
just expected it to be there.
I think that's a, you
know, that is a classic.
What are they, Generation What?
He's a millennial still, right?
No, he's Gen Z.
He's Gen Z.
He's a Gen Z.
So I think it's a classic,
like a meet George Jetson
type thing, like you type
something into the wall computer
and it spits it out.
So you're his wall computer.
He's like, beep, boop, beep.
Mom might need a mom.
And then he went upstairs
and probably played video games
for two hours.
And then beep, boop, beep.
He came back
downstairs and there's a mom.
And it wasn't like, oh
wow, mom, you did great.
I can't believe all the
hard work you did into this.
And like, look how
you measured everything
and everything is, you know, symmetrical.
Like, wow, mom, you did great.
Thanks for doing, and
you put the gold over that.
Like that's, you had to think about that.
Like, mom, I'm, thank
you so much for making this
a special thing for me and my girlfriend.
No, no, no, he was
like, beep, boop, beep.
Okay, I got the mom now, good.
I know you wanted that.
I know, I was like, are you kidding me?
Although--
Actually, I filmed it.
Oh yeah, we have a video.
We really should post it.
Here's what, you know what he said.
I remember exactly what he said
after you showed it to him.
Beep, boop, beep, you just spit it out.
The microwave drawer opens up.
Here's your mom, you know.
And then this is what he said.
Oh, I thought you were gonna say it.
He said, are you making guacamole?
When Megan was looking
for all this, like a hug,
and like, oh, I can't believe mom,
after the gingerbread
house fiasco and all that.
You really doubled
down and you got after it.
I just, tears were
streaming down his face
because you did this, you stepped up.
Stepped up, thank you.
Thank you for spending
time on the one afternoon
that you actually had available
and putting off all the other things
that you had to do
for making this for me.
Hey, are you making guacamole?
I was like, wow.
I got it on video, I got it on video
because I actually did think,
like, hey, this is a big moment.
Yeah, I know, I know.
She's presenting the mom that she made
for her son, his first homecoming,
for his first girlfriend,
not his first girlfriend,
but the first girl
he's taking to a dance.
Yeah, yeah.
And wow, that air came
out of that balloon fast.
Oh my gosh, it wasn't
even like you let it out.
I mean, he just popped the balloon.
Like, it was like decimated.
Oh my gosh, I was like this kid.
You're right, your George
Judson metaphor though is,
I think they think
laundry's that way too.
Yeah, everything we do is that way.
I'm gonna wear clothes and dirty them.
I'm not gonna do anything about it,
but beep, boop, beep, beep, beep.
Yeah.
I need my clean clothes.
It comes out, that's right.
That's why I
introducing them to things like
empty in the dishwasher.
Now they make their own
beds, some of that stuff,
and hopefully that doesn't sound spoiled,
and they've always done chores,
but making them do chores is like,
oh my gosh, somebody
has to actually do this.
Yeah.
It doesn't just happen.
It just doesn't happen.
Right, right.
Yeah, and I don't know,
for you, is that kind of a,
do we think it's more of a gender thing?
Cause like, I do feel like our daughter
assumes more responsibility
without us telling her than the boys.
Or is that just our boys?
Well, based on the
final part of that question,
I hope it's just a gender
thing and not just our boys.
I think we are trying,
and I aim to try to raise
gentlemen that are
responsible, that are kind,
that, you know, all that kind of stuff.
But I do think there
is some level of just
the X gene or the Y gene.
Yeah.
The combination thereof.
It just, it really is
stretching its limits
on cognitive ability, emotional maturity
through these years.
Response, I mean, anything
with an itty on the end of it
is difficult during these years.
And I'm not saying our,
and I don't think our
sons are any different.
They're great kids.
Yeah, yeah.
They're doing really well.
They're gonna do great in life.
Yeah, absolutely.
But I did find myself telling our oldest,
this last week, I think like, look bud.
(both laughing)
I'm not there yet.
I can't imagine living life
without you under my roof.
And this is after he
threw some attitude at me
that was like, whoa, okay,
like you've got an opinion here
and you don't like what I did.
Yep.
And that's okay.
I told him, I was like,
there's gonna come a time
when it is time for you
to move out of this house.
And the way that works is natural.
You're going to start
naturally moving away
from thinking I have all the answers,
thinking I'm Superman
to thinking I'm an idiot.
And that's okay.
I'm gonna be subbed
out under the sideline
and you're gonna sub in your friends.
Yep.
And that's okay.
But, and this was a
tough conversation to have
because we kind of like hit butt heads.
It was the first time
we've ever butt heads.
Butty heads, we didn't even do that.
I just listened to him to some degree.
And then I told him, I said, look buddy,
I am the type of dad that I'm not,
you're not gonna slap me in the face
with being just a little bit rude to me
and condescending to me
and not expect me to verbally have a
strong discussion back.
And what I said to
him was like, hit back,
but I don't want
anybody to ever interpret that
as physicality.
Right, right, exactly, exactly.
This is just like, we're
gonna have a discussion.
I'm not gonna say, I'm
not just gonna shrink down
or, you know, there's,
there are certain things
that I know when I grew
up that drove me crazy.
And one of them was
the fact that I just felt
like I never had a real conversation.
It was always, I was the crazy one
and the other people
were perfect and, you know,
that kind of stuff.
I don't wanna get too
deep into that obviously,
but I told him, I was like, hey, look,
we're gonna have
conversations, that's great.
Yes.
You can, I never want
you not to feel like
you can't tell me when
I'm doing something wrong
or you have issues with something
that has nothing to do with me.
I should always be able to come to me,
but let's just make sure we do it
on a respectful basis with one another.
And that's exactly right.
I've read something this week.
It's like, you are allowed, in fact,
encouraged to have an opinion,
but that does not give you the right,
this is a parent speaking to a child,
that does not give you the right
to be disrespectful or rude.
Like, there's a big difference
and that's exactly, I
think, what you were
talking to him about.
Yeah, and he wasn't,
because I could tell,
this was our very first
instance really with this,
to be honest with you,
and I could tell he was
trying to be measured with it.
Like, I could tell he
wasn't trying to be disrespectful
and by the end of the conversation,
which it's great,
that's the only good thing
about the fact that we have an hour drive
to soccer practice
every night of the week,
is that I'm still lucky enough,
and it almost brings a tear to my eye,
that they sit up front with us.
Yeah, yeah.
We've got a sprinter van
that everybody knows now
because we've done it on this.
They could sit back and watch TV.
Yeah, they could.
They could watch movies, they
could do whatever they want.
They could listen to music.
There's so much stuff
in there, it's awesome.
It's decked out back there.
But they choose to sit
up front with us still.
Exactly.
So, it can't be too far off the base,
and they wanna talk
because of that they talk.
And then they sleep half of the way,
but we talk during that time.
Yeah, yeah. Right?
And that's huge to me.
Me too.
And I know you have
great conversations on that.
Yeah.
On that, during those time frames too,
when we switch off,
because we have to
switch off and all that.
But that's what I was saying.
At the end of it, I could tell that
he was really kinda
mad about something else.
Yeah.
And I was taking the
brunt force of that emotion,
which, to circle this
back to your first question,
that's probably a guy thing,
or it's a learn thing,
because I do that in this house too.
There's times when I
know I'm having a tough day,
and I can't always leave it
when I walk out of my office,
or when I walk back in the garage door.
Right.
And sometimes I take it out.
I think that's pretty normal.
Yeah.
I mean, just tonight when you asked me,
so, how's your day looking?
How's your night looking?
And my response, you
didn't need to hear that,
and I'm sorry.
I walked away.
I didn't wanna hear it.
I was like, I don't need that right now.
I thought about it too,
because that was interesting.
Because you and I are,
you're really good about asking,
like, how was your
day in listening to it?
And I'm not as good,
sometimes, especially
when I'm just so focused
on something else.
I think we talked about it last week,
or I talked about it last week,
where I'm like, I
literally have to cognitively
stop myself and be like,
we're proper next step, Sean.
Ask how her day was.
You know what I mean?
And that's usually after
I've unloaded on you probably.
Not to the point you did.
That was a sharp reaction.
It was a sharp reaction.
That's one out of a
million for you, honestly.
It's probably the first
time you ever answered
that way, honestly.
But you gotta be able to unload that.
And so I was thinking about it too.
I was like, I don't
want to hang her for that,
because you need to be
able to come to me with that.
Right.
Without feeling like you messed up.
You know what I mean?
I'm the one safe spot
you should have for that.
Yeah, you are.
And I really do try not to be that sharp,
but it is really hard in a moment when,
you know, there's just a lot
going on at that one moment,
and that was my id response or whatever.
Yeah, bad timing, and it
was 26 minutes past the time
we had already planned
on doing something else,
and it's like, you know,
I was probably a little bit
like, okay, clock is ticking.
You know, type thing too.
Yeah, I was just, you know, so.
But all that to say is
it is hard in that moment
to step out and be like, okay, I gotta.
And you're usually really good at that.
You're usually really good at that.
So I know, I mean, it
probably has a lot to do with it.
At the end of the day, you're like,
I am trying to unplug here,
and they just keep throwing stuff at me.
It's like, I am trying
to stand up from the desk,
and, you know, that's the one down side
of working from home.
Your work is literally at the house.
It's always there, yeah.
You're not like, guys, I gotta get home,
because I gotta get to soccer practice,
so you gotta actually leave,
and it's like, okay,
I've got 20 minutes left.
If you wanna call me in the car, great,
but I can't be on my computer.
Right, right.
Here, you can.
Yeah.
So I mean, take or
leave it, corporate America.
You actually get, I think, I think,
out of professionals
that are truly professional,
you get a lot more work out
of people working from home.
Completely.
Because I'm not driving to work.
I'm not at the water cooler with people
for 30 minutes a day,
you know what I mean?
And you have way better work
life balance when you do it.
Right.
Requiring people to go into the office,
that wasted work time of
driving to the office is just,
now that we've done it,
Oh my gosh.
It's the biggest waste of time.
It is, and in the
Metroplex, when traffic is bad,
almost anywhere, I think
traffic is bad at this point.
But yeah, because you're like,
that time can't be repurposed.
And I very quickly, as did you,
repurposed any type of drive time
into just extra work time.
Oh yeah, instead of working, you know,
nine hours at the office
and two hours commuting,
I'm working 11 hours from the house.
I mean, I'm sitting in my
office at 604 every morning,
working, you know,
and then I leave at 720
to take the kids to school, back at 754
to hug our daughter.
Tell her I love her,
and she gets on the bus.
And then I go back to work.
You go right back in.
Yeah, so I mean.
Oh you do, don't forget
the 30 seconds you take
to warm up your coffee again.
So here's what I was thinking.
I got to do something
today that used to be
my only stress outlet.
Yes.
I'll say it, but how do
you, on a day like today,
how do you get that stress out?
Because you're talking about differences
between guys and girls.
Like for me, that stress, when I stand up
and walk out of the
office, it doesn't just fall off.
It doesn't, you know what I mean?
Trying to think of like a waterfall.
That only has, you just
let a little bit of water out
and it goes over the
waterfall for a little while,
and then once that water
was shut off, it's done.
There's no more waterfall, right?
Right.
I feel like that's how you
handle some of your stress.
Like once you stand up
and walk away, okay, sure,
there's a little bit
more water coming down,
but once that final water
goes over the waterfall,
that's the last year of stress,
and you're able to move on from it.
For me, and maybe it's
just me or maybe it's men,
I don't know, but I don't shed that
waterfall as quickly.
It's, I can't, I don't shut
the water off all the way.
Maybe it's less, but that
waterfall will still trickle.
Yeah.
Maybe even to the next day.
Yeah.
How do you, so my
question is, how do you do that?
And then if you are
stressed out, like what is your,
how do you get rid of stress?
Not well.
I mean.
You don't have, or do
you not have a mechanism?
So. Because you should.
I should, and I did.
I used to like working out after work.
Yeah.
Until I hurt my knee, and
now I'm really struggling
to find, I mean, we
already wake up early,
and we go to bed late, and
there's not a whole lot of time.
So I do need to figure out
when to get that in there,
because there were times, and I was like,
and I know running on a
treadmill is not the best workout,
but for me, it was the
one thing that I could do,
because I put on my
earbuds, I get lost in music,
and I get 30 minutes of just me.
Like, you know, like
whatever music is going on,
and that's enough to break it.
Yeah. For me.
Yeah.
But now I struggle,
like, because I don't,
I try, like, you
know, I talk to the kids,
or music does it a lot,
you know, like, by driving,
I definitely have to like listen to music
that fits my mood, stuff like that.
Because one thing that
stuck with me that actually
makes me a little sad, I think,
and I'm sure people
that watch this maybe,
I almost don't want to introduce this,
but I kind of do,
because I think about it a lot,
and like, how come we can't do that?
Why in this world, when
we're trying to live it
as best as we can, why can't we do it?
But you made the
comment that, what was it?
Three or four things, but
you can't do them all, right?
Career, family, working out, and friends,
I think are the four things, right?
And you can only have
really three of those.
Max. Max.
And be successful at them, right?
So that means you gotta give up career,
which is not an option,
because we have to pay,
everybody's gotta pay bills.
Two, you have to make a living.
Two, friends.
Everybody likes to have friends,
social outlet is fantastic,
and these are the toughest
times to have friends, too,
especially now that
everybody's in their sports
and all that kind of stuff, it's so hard.
So hard.
Honestly, we have a ton of friends,
but we don't have any time
to hang out with any of them.
Right, yeah.
We used to invite
people over to the house,
and we used to go to
other people's houses.
I keep thinking, oh, do we ruin those
relationships or not?
I don't think we did, we just don't have,
there's no time to do that now.
And they don't have the time either.
And they don't either.
That's the chaos train that we talk about
for this podcast.
Three is family, that's an absolute.
That goes above all.
So career and family, you have to have.
Family first, career second, friends,
that's one that you
might be able to cut back on
a little bit, and
then working out, right?
Which, for a lot of
people, their self-image
is wrapped up in working
out, and how they look,
and all that kind of
stuff, and to look the way,
everybody wants you to look.
I mean, God, you gotta
work out for five hours a day.
You can't have a job and look like that.
No.
Right?
And I get, genetics
work and do a lot of this,
so I get it.
As you get older, and I'm
learning that right now,
as you get older, it's even harder.
But that always
sticks with me, like, gosh,
I can't have all three, why can't I have,
I want all four, I mean.
Why can't I?
And right now, you're
having trouble juggling
with two of them.
Two of them, mm-hmm.
It's a struggle.
But today, you got to do
your number one stress reliever.
My number one stress reliever, and I did.
I went out to the
backyard, and I shot hoops.
Played basketball for 34 minutes.
And it was great.
I mean, that is my one free space.
When I was a kid, with
all the troubles we had,
I'd go to the front yard,
and I could shoot for hours
and hours and hours and hours and hours.
There's never a time I
didn't want to do it.
Put on gloves when it was snowing,
and I'd play in the
snow, I'd play in the rain.
I mean, that was my psychiatrist.
I said that for the longest time.
That was my psychiatrist.
And that's where you
get out all that anxiety,
competitive angst, you know?
And that's the hardest thing,
I've talked about it a
little bit on this show, you know?
Is this the hardest thing for me?
I don't know how other males handle it.
Because I'm not the most
test-tossed, her own laden male.
I don't have a lot of
manliness I got to get out
all the time, and, you know what I mean?
There's no Tim the Tool
Man Taylor inside of me.
(laughing)
You know what I mean?
But there is a level of, like,
for me, some of those
frustrations build up,
and it's like, sports and competitiveness
is how you let that
out, you know what I mean?
Back in the day, you know, and I'd get,
we'd lose a game or something like that,
or you hit somebody in a basketball game,
or you pun a ball or something.
Who knows, you yell at
somebody, you run it,
you mean, there's physicality?
That's how you got rid of it.
You know, and I haven't played,
I mean, basketball's not
a part of my life anymore.
It hasn't been for 18 years.
Right.
You know what I mean?
So going out there,
doing it today was fantastic.
So it's just, it is nice,
it was nice to get out there
and just hear the balance
of the ball, to hear the net.
You know, that muscle memory, you know?
You know, you're even
strapping on the shoes.
Well, we've got a big weekend up for us
and any married couple,
they know their weekend,
it's our anniversary.
It is, it is 18 years.
18 years, 18 years.
That is crazy.
Isn't it?
Because like 18 years
feels like a long time,
but I don't feel like
that was 18 years ago.
It's just not been 18 years.
Like our marriage is a full grown adult.
Actually, we're at the, oh my gosh,
our marriage has gone to high school
and it's on its way to college.
Yeah.
Wow.
That, if that doesn't make you feel old.
(laughing) I know, right?
Everything these days
just makes you feel old.
You know what I mean?
Our older generation that
watches this knows that.
I mean, they get to know it
and they've been through
another 25 years of it.
Yeah.
That is crazy, but 18
years sounds, I don't know.
I mean, when it's two years,
it sounds like a long time.
When people are celebrating 50,
it doesn't sound like long at all.
Right.
It's like, how does
time just move that fast?
Yeah.
18 years?
I mean. 18 years.
So it's on Sunday, which
means it's one day off.
Were we married on a Friday night?
We were married on a Friday.
So it's two days off, the actual one.
Yep.
So we're still, but you
were already in Minnesota
and I was back because.
For sure.
I was still in Las Vegas
because Backstory here,
not a story, but the back,
whatever it is, Backstory here.
Yeah, the Backstory.
So the Backstory here
is, we owned a company
that was in Vegas and
so I was still in Vegas.
Why you came out to get ready.
Yep.
In fact, the biggest negative to that
was the fact that you got to come out
and do all the tastings
and I didn't get to taste.
So I had the tastings
like six months before.
I know and I didn't
get to go out for that.
All the hors d'oeuvres and all the food
that we were gonna have at the reception.
I didn't get to taste any of it.
I know.
I stayed in Vegas.
None of, I'm trying to remember.
Single guy in Vegas,
what did I get up to?
I'm just kidding.
I worked.
You worked.
Yeah.
I know what you did.
Yeah, yeah.
And it wasn't fallacious,
it was truly just working.
Driving the garbage
truck around that we owned
was not super sexy.
Not super sexy.
Check out the Instagram,
I can show you one of our garbage trucks.
That's true.
Although, wasn't it the
week of our wedding that--
Pete.
Petey.
Yeah, Pete was our,
see if we do name cars.
Yeah, Pete was the
garbage truck, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Anyway, sorry I interrupted.
But wasn't it the week of our wedding
that somebody hit--
Gertie.
Gertie, yeah.
So we named all the worked vehicles.
Really when we were younger,
all the worked vehicles at least were,
yeah, that was one of the work bands.
And I got rear-ended.
Yeah, it was a hit and run, right?
It was a hit and run, yeah,
but that's when I
apparently had a memory,
you know, a good memory,
because the guy that hit
me, I remember, was a Jeep,
and I looked at his license plate,
and I remember his license plate,
I wrote it down and I gave it to the cop,
and that worked its way
out through the system.
But yeah, totally, I called you up,
it was like four days before our wedding,
and I'm like, I just
got in a car accident.
Yes, and I was like, no, you didn't.
I remember where I was
sitting at my parents' house,
going, no, you didn't.
They amputated both my legs and an arm,
I hope you still love me.
Yes, we're getting married in four days.
You love me for my personality, right?
And that beautiful face.
Yeah, yeah, and yeah, sorry,
and I was burned to a crisp.
I'd be glad of that,
but there were people
that have been through that, I'm sure.
It's true, I would say.
I'm not trying to make a lie to that.
But yeah, that was
something that was stressful,
I think, four days before we got married.
Yeah, uh-huh, because I
remember not believing you.
Which, that's not my usual,
like when you tell me
something, I'm like, okay.
You know, I don't ever question it,
this one, I'm like,
you're lying, stop, stop,
this isn't funny.
Yeah.
Oh man, those were not the days, but
those were the days.
Oh my gosh, I had
forgotten about the car accident
with Gurney.
Yeah, yeah.
Good night.
So that would have been
almost exactly 18 years
from today, because it was like four days
before we got married,
so we're pretty darn close
to that exact time frame.
Yep.
Where we sit today,
as we, as we were born.
Gosh, it was our
wedding, I still look back
on that entire
weekend, it's just magical.
It was just amazing, all of it.
Yeah, you just hope that
everybody can look back,
on their wedding and think that, right?
And man, it was an awesome
day, awesome couple of days,
but that day, I mean, it
was just so us, even now.
Agreed, it was so true to us.
Who we are.
I totally agree.
Right.
We always just.
Right, and if you were there, I think,
and if you still know us
now, I think you could agree
that that was just all Shawn and Megan.
Yeah, yeah.
From beginning to
end, through and through.
I mean, just the
ambiance of it, the feel of it,
the, you know, every part
of it to me was just purely.
I remember sitting in
our office in Las Vegas,
making the intros for our wedding party.
And oh my gosh, I just
remember dying, laughing.
We're like, oh, we can't say that, or oh,
we should, you know.
Yeah, can we say that, can we?
We should.
We should, you know?
It was so much fun.
Yeah, yeah.
All of it.
Yeah, it was fantastic.
I think a lot of
people had fun there too.
I hope so.
The only sad thing about it,
and then we'll let you guys go here,
but the only sad thing
about our wedding, I think,
is the fact that it
was pre-cellular phones.
We got married before the
iPhones were out, right?
Well before, yeah.
Like we literally had, I think we put
those disposable cameras on the tables
for people to take pictures,
so we could get just
like a couple extra pictures
from the wedding, you know?
And so it's different than now.
Now you'd have a thousand pictures.
But you know, we had a photographer.
Of course.
And the photographer got
what the photographer got,
250, 300, they got
whatever they got, 300 pictures,
and whatever they didn't
get, they didn't get, you know?
And that was my one downside is that,
you know, like our first dance,
we actually took dance lessons.
And I am not a dancer,
so I'm sorry for anybody
that had to watch that.
But Megan being a dancer,
I thought it was important,
you know, that we put
a real dance out there.
I didn't want to do the
two step, you know, for you.
So we took dance lessons and you know,
maybe it's a good thing it
doesn't exist in real life
because we look back and be
like, oh, Shawn, that was--
We were, yeah.
Ooh.
(laughs) But now it exists in our mind that,
you know, that was a special thing.
Yeah, exactly.
And in our minds, we were amazing.
I would not say that.
I would never say that.
I would not say, you
were great, I'm sure.
I--
I'm sure you were fantastic.
There's probably more of
the Tin Man or the Scarecrow
or somewhere in between.
Cowardly Lion, all three of them.
(laughs)
No, no.
I think it was, we have
enough pictures to know
that it was just fine.
Yeah.
So, but you're right.
Like you think about all of the candid
and like just everyone else's perspective
that you would have
from a wedding nowadays.
Yeah.
And I know some
people did send my videos--
We don't have any video.
No.
Not one video.
We only have pictures
because people couldn't video.
And some people did,
like they would send,
and in fact, actually one of
my favorite pictures of us,
I think, was taken by
my cousin, you know,
and it was sent to my
parents and then back to us and,
you know, so yeah.
It's pretty cool.
Yeah, so we got that
coming up this weekend.
We got a couple soccer
games coming up this weekend.
Yeah.
That's really, that's really it for now.
We are officially into fall
and I feel like it is flying.
Yeah.
Like once you get to October,
it just, the rest of
the year, just races.
Yeah, yeah.
Our kids are putting
together their Christmas list.
Anyone else's children put
together a Christmas list
before it's officially fall?
I think, we got our first Christmas
is like two months ago though.
I know, it had pictures of Santa on it.
They're so great too.
One year we got a
PowerPoint with Amazon links
to where they were,
they give us the budget,
how much they cost.
Yeah, it was amazing.
Yeah.
(laughing)
We're like,
We're like, "How much do
you think we actually spend?"
You need to narrow
this down a little bit.
Oh my gosh, too funny.
So we got a lot of stuff coming up.
Yeah, Halloween stuff's
coming out pretty soon here.
Next week is October.
October.
We gotta get all that stuff out.
That's fun.
You gotta start pulling
stuff down from the attic.
Bring out the gargoyles.
Yep, yep, yep, yep.
Good fun.
And then the second that comes down,
all the Christmas stuff goes up.
Yep, that means I
gotta start doing leaves,
getting these out of
the pool, out of the yard.
A lot of stuff comes with fall.
But it is the best time of year.
Best time of the year.
Not quite the most
wonderful time of the year, but.
Well, that's what we
didn't say the most wonderful.
(laughing)
Great time of year.
Because there is a time that'll come,
and it is the most.
The most. Okay.
Yeah, I'll start
sounding like a 1950s singer.
That's when that song came out, though.
That's why it sounded like it.
I know, I thought it was
very owed to the original.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I've got a great 50s voice, I think.
Well, I bet you would.
You've heard me do it all the time.
You always are like, "I
don't know how you would sound."
I sing all the time, and you're like,
"I've never heard you sing."
Even now, you just said, "No, you don't."
I sing all the time.
All right, anyways, all right.
We need to come up with our three,
we're getting so long.
Our word.
Our one word.
Okay, I have a dumb word, but okay.
Okay.
All right.
We only took like two and a half minutes
to figure that out.
We're on it.
Yeah.
One, two, three.
Can't get in.
Mine's just a little foreshadowing.
That's all I can say about mine.
Can't even repeat it.
I can't, don't even repeat it, no?
In fact, I might bleep it out.
Shit.
All right, accomplish.
Is that all to do with the mom?
No, I feel like we got quite a bit of,
I feel like things
have been accomplished.
Yeah.
Like, across the board.
But yes, the mom was a big part of it,
but I do feel like
there's been things that,
check things off the to-do list.
I feel like you had a big
accomplishment last week at work.
I just hit my mouth on the mic.
I feel like accomplishment
was the word of the week.
Yeah, it's good.
That's a great word.
If you summed up your last week with the
word accomplishment,
it's gonna be a good week,
despite how you felt an hour ago.
That's gotta be good.
And I agree, we're
checking a lot of boxes right now,
which is really good.
Yeah.
Because we're, I don't
know, it's been a year, right?
Everybody's been talking about it,
that we've just been
trying new things out.
We're growing upstream.
Feels like we're still
fighting a good fight.
And checking some boxes for
accomplishment, which is great.
Yeah, accomplishment, and suspicion.
All right, one last question for you.
Yeah.
I'm gonna put the pressure on you here.
What is for dinner?
Did you make guacamole?
(laughing)
For the record, after I made the bomb,
I made guacamole.
I think that's good.
Ciao, ciao.
Guac-a-lator.