Misspelling with Tory Spelling and iHeartRadio podcast.
So we are back home. We had been evacuated and had headed up north.
For the last week. We stayed up there, which is mind boggling. We were actually in came Rio and we head back this weekend so that the kids could start back normal routines, trying to give them normalcy during this time. On Sunday to our home in the valley, and all of a sudden.
It's like, okay, we're back.
Everyone's safe, fires are under control. You know, I know we've all been hooked to our watch duty app. It looked like that was starting to you know, Okay, we could not focus on that as much.
We could go back to well.
It definitely wasn't TikTok this week past weekend. But you know which, I'm not mad at. I'm not a TikTok girl. Sorry, I'm just saying it. Uh my seven year old is sick today and he's here watching me do a podcast because I life goes on.
I have to work and he has to do it here with me. Will I do this? But he just gave me side eye when I said I'm not.
A TikTok girl because you're a TikTok dude, what are you YouTube?
YouTube or bust. He's a YouTube guy.
Anyway, So you know, go back to look in at our Instagram or for as creatives out there.
Pentrist is nice and distracting.
I got to tell you, if you needs something to get your mind off of all the crazy shit that is going on everywhere, go to Pinterest. I encourage it. Start a board, start pulling creative stuff. You can find stuff for dinner. You could find clothing references. You can even design a home that you're not even going to build, but just a home just.
To distract yourself.
I find when I need like a mindless thing to do, not mindless, but just like take focus off, I go to Pinterest my aging myself here.
I know it's not the coolest thing to do, but really really good. Anyway. So we get home. We finally which.
The owners of the airbnb that were so kind to us in Camerao. They had a cleaning crew come as would any guests leave, and we were frantically trying to pack in get out to go back from getting out the first time.
Yeah, and.
Funny enough, in that thirty minutes when I got the kids out when we had to evacuate originally from la it wasn't comfortable. Most kids couldn't breathe. There were fairs crawling up pants. But you know what, we fitted in like the best game of tetris you've ever played.
And we got out of there because we had.
To this time. It was kind of on our own time a little bit. We went to pack the car back up, it didn't all fit, didn't all fit, and I was like, well, what's different here? And I couldn't figure it out. I mean, we'd been there a week, We're a normal family. We had, you know, brought in some groceries. We were taking some of our groceries back, so we didn't want to have to leave them there, and we wanted to be able to use them for
the next week for school and meal prep. But I don't know, it seemed like a lot more than that. So the car is fully packed, I mean fully packed, and I can't get the kids in.
So and we did.
We you know, we left without a lot of our clothes and stuff. So we had bought a few you know, we were right near the outlets, so everything's on very well priced and they need some new clothes for school anyway, So we did get a few clothes while we were there for the week. My one son came and he had no shoes, so we had to get him shoes and anyway. But yeah, so the car is fully packed, it's ready to go back to LA and the.
Dogs are packed in the back.
Our other big dog, he's in the car, Cats in the car, ferret smelling to high Heaven, Ferrets in the car.
Check check check.
Oh shit, I can't get my five kids in the car, okay, And they had a friend sleepover while we were there, so I had six kids to get in the car, and an hour before that, I felt very encouraged. I was like, because because our friend, he said, should call my dad and tell him to come pick me up. I was like, no, We're all just gonna squish back in. We're gonna get home and Dad can pick you up at our house when we get back to LA. Now didn't happen, so I literally had to. I hated doing this.
It felt like bougie, but I didn't know what else to do. It was like either drive an hour and a half two hours back with the dogs and all the stuff, drop that off, put it away, make sure it's secure and the animals are secure, and then.
Drive back and get the kids.
And during this time I just don't I'm in the mindset of I don't want my care it's too far away from me.
So I called an uber. I called an uber and the kids rode in luxury.
Back to our home in Calabasas, and my oldest son, Liam went with me and he said, no, Mom, I'm not going to let you go alone.
I said, thank you.
So it was me, Liam, three dogs, a cat, and a very stinky ferret. Uh and yeah. Halfway back, Liam says to me, we were making good time. Liam says to me, it's it's smelling really bad. I said, well, it's coda. She's a ferret. It's not her fault. They just smell fact. And he said, no, something else smells worse. And then loan, behold our cat in his carrier on
my son's lap had pooped. And I said, well, hey, we still have Remember those T shirts that I said put over your mouth we're going to go through the fires on the freeway when we evacuated.
Those T shirts are still in here. Every single piece of things we have in here. Put that T shirt around your mouth nose and sit tight. So anyway, we get back home.
We get back home, we pull in. The uber is just pulled in. All the other kids look in very good moods. They're hyper, they're smiling, they're happy, they're running. They want to get back to their rooms and their home. They haven't seen, you know, want to see what home looks like. And Liam and I are like.
Oh god, the stench.
But we get all the animals out, and the kids are just going nuts. They're like so happy to be back in their home and that their home is in one piece and everything is fine. So I'm still outside and packing stuff. I've not gone into the home yet. And I get into the home. So I walked through our front door, and you guys, I'm not an alarmist, Like I can pretty much go through any situation and still be like, okay, still going what's next.
I walked in and I gasped.
I literally gasped, and I didn't want to panic the kids, but I looked around and I was like, oh my god. I had heard about this while we were gone out of town, evacuated. Someone has broken into our home and has burglarized our home.
There have been looters here. Look at the state of the house. There was shit everywhere.
I mean, it looked like people had come in and just trashed our house.
And then.
Upon closer inspection, I realized, oh shit, oh, this is just the way I live. Yeah, And that's when it really dawned on me that when all of this settles down, I know it's just stuff. And I've seen the devastation, the loss friends, families, people displace, people that have lost everything, and when you're lucky enough that you still have your home and you still have your things, it really put into perspective that it's like, God, I have so much stuff.
I'm so blessed to have so much stuff, but I need to get rid of that stuff and it needs to It's who was it who was uh, oh my gosh, what was her name that did the book that did the where you literally talk to your things. You're like, thank you for serving your purpose and this was great, But now I'm letting you go and moving on. Marie Condo,
Marie Condo, very wise human. So yeah, I'm really ready to do that, especially this all on the heels of me doing my hoarding episode where I'm like, I really just haven't had the time, but I'm ready to let go of stuff. And then everybody around us in LA losing their stuff and needing stuff, and especially being back in town now we can help donate all our stuff that we can get out and give it to the people who have lost stuff. So I'm happy to excite
and excited to start doing that. But then walking in and not recognizing your own home that you haven't been in a week because you've been in this nice airbnb that's all clean. And as I've said before, it's a time issue. Because I kept this airbnb clean. I took care of it every day. I cleaned the counters, I put things away. There was nothing left on the kitchen counter. No,
everything had a place. Granted it was we have a smaller house and not a lot of room, and we don't have a pantry, and I have a lot of kids and snacks and it's hard to find places for things. But I realized, yeah, anyway, my point is I walked into my home and didn't recognize my home.
Because it was in such.
A state of disaster that I thought someone had eluded it. Then I looked around and all my stuff was still there, all our stuff was still there. It just was everywhere. So I said to my best friend Jess, I said, we're home, because she wanted to know when we're home safe. We're home, and she said, are you happy to be home? And I said, grateful to come home to a home, I said, but I got to say. I walked in and I thought our house had been burglarized. And then
I realized, nope, this is just how we live. And she goes, Wow, she goes, that's actually the perfect way to describe your home. I said, what, and she goes, your house constantly looks like you've been burglarized.
I said great.
So if I wasn't backing it up myself, now my best friend was backing it up. And then I said, well, I don't want to live like this anymore. And then she had to go because she knew the next step was going to be me saying, because she's amazing at organizing, like, do you think you can come over when the kids are at school this week and help me organize? I know you're listening to us, so it's a subtle hint.
Help me help me. Anyway, so we were here, I did straight enough best I could, and we settled back in the kids were anxious to go back to school.
You know, everyone had been out of school for a week.
And anyway, we went back to our normal routine, kind of normal, and then boom this week, Oh you start getting You memorize the sound of that watch duty app ding that comes through because I don't know about you, but I have it on constantly and I kept hearing it ding ding ding, you know, first weather warnings.
It's like, oh gosh, the winds are coming back.
And then fires broke out again, and it's like, oh my gosh. So it was where near Santa Clarita and near Ventura County, Camera Rio where we just were. It's like, oh my gosh, I feel bad. Like we were here and we evacuated and went there because we were safe, and then we came back here because we were safe, and now came Rio's on fire, and it's like, this is just a wild, a wild time. You guys, being I know, I always bring this up, but being an La native, like, we never had winds like this, we
never had fires like this. This is just so many natural disasters that in La you know, I guess we were very lucky we didn't have to have them for that long and it's catching up with us.
But it's you know, no one's prepared here in LA.
And then you know, with the fires starting and the winds kicking in high gear, all the kids going.
Back to school, it's just the air quality.
And I don't know how other moms and dads and parents feel out there, but I know I was hesitant to send my kids back. And one, you know, having gone through that time of hearing the watch app the ding, the ding, you know, and red flag warnings and.
Evacuations.
You know, all of our PTSD you know kind of red flags, red flag warnings are peaked right now. You know, it's like just when we thought things were calming down and containment and there was so much lost in distraught people thanks to a really amazing community in LA, in California, everyone was starting to help each other go on that long, hard road of building stuff back and then to suddenly be faced with, oh my god, it's all starting again. So yeah, I just you know, and the kids, the teenagers,
you tell them, you send them with their masks. I can't monitor if they're going to wear a mask. All I know is they tell me our other friends aren't wearing masks. We look really stupid in masks. And I said, well, I have one kid who has horrible asthma, so she agreed to it. But the other kids, I'm like, I'm not there. I don't know what's going on. I don't
know if they're wearing their mask. I don't know about your kids' schools, but all my kids go to public schools, and their schools are outdoor campuses, so it's.
Not all in a main school thing.
They go in and out of classrooms, and they are predominantly outside when they are not in their classroom period. And then I saw Pee was returning, and I'm like, really, they're going to make them run with the air quality like this and do laps. That just blew my mind. But anyway, you know, now I dropped my kids off at school this morning. They're all having allergies again because the winds and the fires and the smoke in the air. They're all sneezing, throats are hurting, rubbing their eyes, not
feeling well. But they've missed so much school, so I get them back to school and the wind is just kicking into high gear.
I watched one of my daughters walk away.
She has a pretty far walk outdoor campus, and I'm watching her and her whole little body is just moving back and forth with the wind, and I'm just like, oh my god. And as a mom, you just want I wanted to scream out of the car, get back in the car, let's go, let's go, let's go to do something fun, because these kids shouldn't have to worry about all of this. We're parents, we should be worrying about all this, but they're like having to go through
it with us and worry about it, and it's just insane. Anyway, the fires have spread. They're now god Ventura County, Santa Clarita, Oxnard, they're heading. One broke out on the four or five Supulvita Pass last night, like, so it's just coming from all angles. So I don't think anyone who lives in California, who lives in La specifically and roundabout there, feel safe because you know, at any time, if these winds don't stop, it's just going to start all over again. It's this
vicious circle. But yeah, so that's where we're at. We're at, and I've been trying this week to like get back to normal and cooking and doing.
For the kids.
But it's you know, I'd be lying if I didn't say, like, every time I hear a ding, I lose focus on what I'm doing. And it's not you know, helping them with homework, it's not making them dinner. It's like glued to my watch app and I'm like, oh god, I just I don't know. I hope things calm down. I know twenty twenty five. Every year, we're all so positive and it's so much motivation to go into the new year being like this.
Is going to be great.
It's a reset, restart, things are gonna be amazing.
And things started off.
Pretty rough in twenty twenty five for a lot of people across the world, and it's like okay, And then he started thinking, like the new year just started.
I'm like, goodness, okay.
Well how long do I let the new year go on before I'm like, okay, this isn't the year. If this isn't the one for me or anyone like. But as we all know, in life, life has ebbs and flows, positives and negatives. We have moments of distraught, and we have moments of.
Joy and life and rebirth.
And I don't know, and we have each other, so we keep we keep going on.
We hold each other up and and say let's keep moving.
And to those that don't have people to hold them up, you just keep moving anyway. But I'm very lucky I have my five kids with me at all times. But yeah, when when huge disasters and you got to move fast and you got to get going, it does. It's hard, you know, being a single mom getting all of it together fast.
You're just.
When you're used to having a partner for twenty years that lives with you in the house, you know, you are. You get used to having four sets of hands, you know, and someone's strong. You know, we haven't in the house
physically mentally, I'm the strong one. But I'm just saying you get used to that, and then when things happen that are beyond your control and you have to take action fast, It's just it's an interesting thing that you realize, like, oh, you really think about it again, I'm a single mom of five kids. And then when they're all asleep at night, I remind myself, fuck all the naysayers, I'm doing great.
So yeah, we're all doing great. We're all doing the best we can and we're doing great and it's getting better.
Okay, that's my rant.
My god, my podcast was so interesting today that my kid who was fixated watching me, I.
Put them to sleep. This is great, this is great.
I'm just gonna set up a makeshift podcast anytime I need to get that kid to bed, because that kid does not go to sleep, so like some camerameal tea like settle down, turn the TV off, wind down, shut your brain off, count sheep. And also because they were out of school for a week and like on vacation time, even though it was evacuation time, they stayed up all night. You know, I didn't limit them, like they can sleep in as long as they're getting their online school stuff done.
He wouldn't sleep. But now I got a backup tool.
Anytime I need to put the kid to sleep, I'll just start talking, start podcasting. Oh boy, wildlife