Happy New Year!

And that's what you really missed with Jenna.

And Kevin an iHeartRadio Podcast.

Welcome to you, and that's why you really missed New Year's edition.

Happy New Years.

Wow.

And if you're in Brazil or speak Portuguese, re Liz.

I don't know.

Am Brazilian?

Now wow, Happy New Year, Kevin.

Happy New Year, Jenna.

We are almost there.

We are almost out of twenty twenty three, and we were in twenty twenty four.

I okay, Well, first of all, happy here everyone.

We're excited that you're here with us if you're listening in twenty twenty three, or happy New Year to you if you're listening to this in twenty twenty four.

You guys are the best, and we are so grateful for.

You every week, every week, joining us, tuning in, writing in.

We're just very grateful.

This will technically be our third calendar year that we have. We've been doing the show. We started in late twenty twenty two, we did all of twenty twenty three, and now twenty twenty four. We're continuing this train. Thanks to all of you who listen every single week, multiple times a week. Tell your friends, tell your fan you know, let us know.

What you want to hear from us next year? Who anybody else you want to hear on the podcast? Anybody from guests really fans music guests.

In addition to you wanting Diana, we.

Know, we know, we've heard you, Kevin. Yes, are you excited for twenty twenty four? How do you feel about leaving twenty twenty three?

I feel great about leaving. Twenty twenty three was not my favorite.

No.

I was sick a lot. If you follow me on like Twitter or anything, you know, I'm always complaining about being sick. I think at twenty twenty four I will have to have a couple procedures to hopefully prevent me from getting so sick this much. It was just really like debilitating, and I felt defeated for a lot of the year because you're like, I can't function because either have a science infection or strip throat.

Feel like guess who has strip? Are Youah?

Yeah? And when you have things with your sinuss, it messes with your concentration and with your head and everything is just you feel like your head's going to burst. So it's hard to be motivated and do a lot when you're that sick.

You know, I can't even imagine. I deep empathy for you.

I'm over it. Yeah, So here's twenty twenty four. Are you excited for twenty twenty four?

I can't wait to get the hell out of twenty twenty three. It was a really hard year. It was a really hardier like the universe was testing me this year testing. We had really great times obviously, Like Emma's here, so everything is.

She's happy, she's healthy. We're happy, we're healthy. But David and knee surgery at the.

Beginning of twenty twenty three, like January fourth, his knee went down and we were out for he was out of commission for months. And then my family had some health issues and things like that that are hopefully clear up in twenty twenty four, and then we lost.

Bear this year. It's just been a really weird year for us.

So I'm just hoping that twenty twenty four is a little bit better.

Yeah. I don't have high expectations. I'm just like, okay, enough of that. Let's just I don't know, get through it, don't I don't want to be disappointed or I think maybe I'm just expecting it to be a little rougher. So maybe my expectations, you know will not be I will be let down this time. Yeah, no, because I was very excited for twenty twenty three. I felt the same way exactly.

I feel the same I.

Felt naive, bamboozled.

Did you have any well, I know you read a lot of books. How many books did you read in twenty twenty three?

Thirty? Kevin? Yeah, what, well, I don't have a child, book I have? You know, I was sick a lot and what else?

Even if I didn't have a kid, I wouldn't read thirty books. So it was an accomplishment.

There's a lot of great like book influencers. I followed that read over a hundred.

I will say I got back into reading in the second half of the year. I still didn't read.

I think maybe I read three books, but.

I really like I really like why a thrillers or thrillers, and like I found a couple of really read books and I'm still and now I feel like I'm finding a lot and like Reese's Book Club.

Also, it is really great about categorizing different books, and so I have this little list in my Amazon car right now.

So I'm excited to get back to reading as well, but that's amazing.

You need to read tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. That sounds great. It's you got it, I have it. I still got to give it back to you.

I know.

Well you did give it back to me and then I forgot it, and so you got to give it back to me again.

Yes, I'm excited for it though.

Demon Copperhead was a great book. Crying in h Mart was incredible. Oh yeah, have you read it.

Jenna, No, not yet.

It's just going to make you want to eat and cry.

My two favorite things.

Oh the way she talks about food. Yes, I know. Oh. So I started listening to audiobooks this year for the first time, and so a handful of these are audiobooks, and I realized the thing that makes me most motivated to go to the gym is an audiobook. I'm sure some people are listening to all this music that gets them like super hyped up, but an audiobook gets me going. And so there I was so interesting, not crying in h Smart, crying in the gym, listening to Crying and Hmart.

I did the same thing with Following Our Stars back in the day. I read on and finished the book on No had to stop.

No, Jenna had to stop.

I get it.

Though. I'm a podcast listener. I'm a big podcast listener. Anywhere I go in the car, I'm not listening to music, I'm.

Listening to podcasts.

So fair, I get it.

I get it.

If you need book wrecks, I'm always here. I can I read them, so you don't have to. Because there was a couple that I read was like nope, will you stop?

Will you finish it? Or will you stop?

Oh? I used to finish it?

Wow.

Like for example, there was one I read this year that won the Pulitzer a couple of years ago, and so I was like, okay, and I it was not good. I'm very confused, but I also do I tried to read some classics this year because I'm really.

Bad at it and I couldn't tell you.

And like things that won like awards, I try to read as well to see if you know, trust was very good. That one this year in Memoriam was very good.

Well, this turned into the New Year's Book podcast.

That's all I want. I can talk about books for hours. Literally, I've gotten so many trips and made friends talking about books. So ah, I love it.

I hate this question. Do you have resolutions?

I don't ever, but you know what I might this year? What in terms of necessarily a resolution? But maybe my resolution is to set goals for myself. Oh that's good or like timeliness. I don't really do that and like I'm just we're creative and we just let things flow. I think I need a little structure.

So a lot of artists do, I get it.

And so I think maybe for me, I will try to set some goals this year.

Huh.

I don't know for resolution is the right word, but.

I know I don't like that it's a goal, right, we're setting goals for our year or a vision board.

Do you have like a theme for your year?

Give me an example?

Okay, so like like last year it was like for me it was a consistency.

M I think my theme for.

This year it could be structure, right.

I think it is structure. I think the other thing is that I've learned this year. Maybe we can talk about lessons we've learned this year. This past year, I traveled a lot, and I think because there was a strike, so I was, you know, taking it as a reason

It's good you did it in twenty twenty three.

I've traveled a lot, so it's okay.

Last year was like a lot of no, like saying no more. I'm being really mindful of like saying yes to events and things to go to, and because I think in twenty twenty two It's like I wanted to do a lot before the baby came, and then like I said yes to a lot, and like we were renovating the house, and like things just got to be too much, and then last year was like saying no more and I said allah no, and then like I'm just trying to now find a balance.

Maybe it's balance.

I don't know.

I don't know.

That doesn't quite feel right either, but I'll figure it out.

It's all right. It doesn't have to be tonight, you know, you can or it can start at any point during the year.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll get it. Are you ever home for New Years?

I try not to be. I think America has. I think we go really gung ho for Christmas, and then I don't think we really have a New Year's tradition, Like New York has a New Year's tradition, right, but I don't think the rest of the US does. Where and I've talked about this before, where like the one holiday tradition I've formed as an adult was going to Brazil every year and it hasn't happened in a while,

I'm all about. Okay, I've never been about traditions. It's never been very traditional.

But this year, obviously, with like Christmas and Hanakah and all of these things for them, I've started to create new traditions. Right, So, the one US tradition that I find interesting because the rest are just crap to me. We're more important in your twenties. You're getting your kiss, you're doing a champagne toast, you're you know.

Watching the ball drop. The twelve Grapes is a tradition that I found that actually like transcends multiple cultures, right, And in the US you do twelve grapes for.

Signifying one grape for each month of the year, as like a cocktail or New Year's Eve, like garnish or something. And I don't even know actually where that came from, but I like, just like the idea of doing something fun. So I think I'll do the grape tradition this year and neat twelve grapes.

Yeah you should. I think like in Brazil, we jump over every year seven waves and like shout out like a word that you want to like health, wealth, happiness, love, whatever you want it to be, or like an attention or something. As you like jump over each wave as you're all in like white clothing, we all hold each other's hands and do it.

I love that.

Yeah, I love that.

Okay, so I looked it up. It's to ensure good luck. I don't know that there's more to it than that, but I.

Also think that's what it's. Whatever you put behind it, isn't it like it's I.

Did a really fun tradition on Thanksgiving. It's like flying wish paper. So it's an ancient Chinese tradition and basically it's these wish papers.

They're really thin.

It's like a really thin piece of paper and you write three things you wish for on them, and then you roll it up into like a little like well like kind of tube and you set it down and then you light it on fire and then at like halfway down at burns.

It flies into.

The air, shoots into the air, and then it floats down and burns. And we did it this year, and we did Emmon did one, and we each did one, and we wrent around the table and wrote down our little wishes. And I thought that was really fun. So if you guys are looking for some new traditions for New Year's or for whenever, you can do this around a great dinner table.

It's really fun to do and be safe with fire.

But Emma kept seeing it, and she doesn't have a lot of words yet, but she would say, wow, every time I went up in the air, it was just so great.

It was really really great.

That's so yeah. My contribution, like yours is that's my contribution to I don't know why I still get invited back to this house for New Years. It was after midnight. We were on like the beach looking at the fireworks go off. We when people have had a little bit to drink. This was like years ago, a decade ago, where I used to then round the younger people, like let's go skinny dipping in the ocean, and so that's

That's so funny.

Wow, Yeah, it was great. But obviously that's my contribution to the well. I guess the US does fireworks everywhere it is fireworks.

And there's like a countdown or it's like we did. We were in Portugal.

We were in Porto for New Year's a couple of years ago for a pre pandemic, and there's like a square in Porto and like hundreds of people come and gather kind of like a timesquere.

Vibe.

But it was really cool to see like a wholy totally different culture and country to be doing like doing something similar that felt like communal and we like because we really didn't have a lot of New Year's plans. We knew that they celebrate that, you know, everybody celebrates it, but.

Like, you know.

What, we were going to do so much, a really nice dinner, and then we're like, we could just walk around and find a bar or something.

And no, it was crazy that.

The hotel was like, you want to book something because it's really wild. It's like going to New York City being like, I don't know, we'll find something, you know, But it was really really cool to see and to witness.

Yeah, I think it's really special to be able to participate in the other people's yeah, celebrations like that. Why don't I keep calling you Thanksgiving?

I really have no brain left, you know, the holidays really to get out of this year. I did everything. I did it all. You really did We did it all.

I also think there's some sort of similarity between like when you're going into I think it's what the whole resolution thing, like when you reflect on the year, you're thankful for, you know, the things that have X, Y and Z for your year and looking forward to what's coming. And so I feel like while you're making resolutions is also a good time of thanks, which I think is similar to thanksgiving.

Part of I think, Yeah.

I'm thankful for you, Jenna.

Oh, I'm thankful for you, Kevin. We're thankful for all of you guys. Thank you for joining us, and happy happy New Year. Have a safe and healthy new Year, and we will see you in twenty twenty four.

Can you believe it, Jenna? Before do you remember I used to sneak off to Brazil for New Year's and then I would land it in La night or morning of, right the morning of, and go straight to the set to be there by like saving in time, and I'd be like peeling and sunburn and have a beard, and it would sit down there and makeup trailer and they would have to just like car of a new person out.

That's usually what happens.

Well, now we're doing a podcast and we don't have to do worry about that schedule.

Oh well, enjoy the rest of your Brazil.

Trip, Kevin.

Thank you. Enjoy your New Year's everyone making new traditions, eat your.

Great greats, and that's what you really missed.

See you next year. Thanks for listening and follow us on Instagram at and that's what you really miss pod. Make sure to write us a review and leave us five stars. See you next time.