This is the almost famous podcast with iHeartRadio. Hi, everybody, welcome to the almost famous OG podcast with me and my husband. We just went from Colorado to Los Angeles and we decided to have a chat not at home, because why not.
I didn't even know who were having this chat.
So what are we supposed to talk about?
We can talk about anything, really, I mean, this is my podcast, so but I think just life in general. Let's just give give the people a little glimpse into life lately and what's going on with us. So thanks for coming on the podcast.
Sure I didn't have a choice, you did not, but you're anyway.
That's actually true. So we're here for the iHeart Radio music words. And I know I'm really excited, but we have a member of the family who is also probably way more excited than me, and that is our daughter Blakesley. She is so she's so excited, babe. We were in the car, so Blakesley and I for everybody listening, Blakesley and I flew out to Los Angeles last night and
Ryan flewent today because he was working. And I was like, Okay, Blake's look up, who is performing or who's going to be there or whatever, and she looked up everybody and she was like and Kelsey Ballerini And I was like, do you know what that means? And she's like no, And I go, do you know who Kelsey Ballerina Ballerina is dating? And she was like no, And I go, do you know John B And She's like what outer ranks? You know how obsessed she has been with that show?
She was freaking out that he might be there. I mean, this is like for a teenage girl. So our daughter is fifteen, almost sixteen, almost sixteen. It's crazy. She turns sixteen in gosh, what is it like two weeks now.
I don't even know what today is somewhere around there.
Yeah, it's like two weeks away.
That makes me happy and so sad at the same time. Anyway, so teenage girl dreams like this event. I'm so grateful for just because she is living out her best life dreams.
You know, I think she's really excited.
Yeah, it's so fun. I wish that Max could have been here, but he's got some hockey obligations so he couldn't be here. But to walk a red carpet and get glammed, and you know, see people that she kind of idolizes like Taylor Swift maybe and oh gosh, Eilish, she was obsessed with Billie Eila Eilish, you know a few years back. Anyway, I'm really excited to be here. You're feeling okay, you're feeling good about it.
I know it's not really I wouldn't go with I'm really excited to be here, but I.
Think it's finn.
I mean, I'm actually more excited to see Blake Slee and you know, have this opportunity for her. Wait, like, we used to do this kind of stuff a lot and haven't for for a long time, especially since the kids have been old enough to kind of appreciate what it was and to be sort of into pop culture, and and for her to have this opportunity and you know, to get, like you said, do get to see the people that she really looks up to and listens to
and that sort of stuff is pretty cool. I don't think I don't think Max would have gotten the same experience out of it. He I think he's probably more like sort of hedges more in my direction when it comes to that sort of stuff, But it is it would be fun for him into music. I think he's just less into like the show.
Totally, the red carpet stuff. Yeah, for sure, I agree. Yeah, No, I think it'll be fun. And I mean Kenny Chesney's performing like it's like a It's like, you know, when we've been to other award shows in the past, it's like a big concert.
Yeah, of all the things that we used to do, I think the award shows were probably yeah, up there with with my favorite, just because of that. You get such a wide variety of performers, and you get to see people in person and see kind of sometimes get to meet him and see how they are and yeah, and that's always kind of fun too.
So Yeah, I'm glad you're here.
I'm glad I'm here too.
So and then afterwards we talked about Blakesley turning sixteen, which, you know, it makes me sad just because I feel like I saw someone someone, you know, my brain does not work that well these days people. So someone was talking about why would you be sad, like with your kids growing up, and I'm like, it's just like I miss the baby days with all with any milestone, it's just one more step for her, like leaving the nest.
In my mind, so you know, it's it's a happy thing for her to turn sixteen, and I'm really excited for her because she's very excited to drive and have that independence. But it also like breaks my little mama's heart that she's getting older and closer to leaving me, not.
You, she's just no, I know.
Hopefully, I mean hopefully they'll both find their footing in life and be able to have successful, fun lives with families that we'll get to enjoy that phase of two.
So, yeah, I agree.
I think as the kids were growing up, I always thought, you know, I think every little phase of life, I was always kind of like, I wish they could just stay in this phase of life and then they would progress to the next phase of life, and I would say the same thing and on and on and so I think that's going to continue to be the case.
Where we're we'll just appreciate all of the all of the milestones and all of the steps, and and what will be really strange is if they're if they're both off in college, or like if our house is empty.
I know that will be.
An adjustment, but yeah, that's still a ways often. So I think that you know, having moments like this with Blakesley, and you know, when I got to go to North Dakota and watch Max play hockey and those sorts of things. Those are sort of the bigger things, but even just the day to day interactions and stuff, just trying to appreciate those more.
Yeah, totally.
Yeah, It's it's interesting because people always ask, I mean, it's kind of a superficial question these days, but just like what's new. I'll see, like I'll work with somebody I haven't worked with for a while or something, and they'll always ask what's new, And there's really not anything, you know, momentous or monumental or anything giant, but it's just a lot of little things in this phase of life.
I think I'm.
Trying to do a better job of appreciating because I do kind of see the sort of writing off into the sunset part of it. And you know, like fifty years old, you're like closer to one hundred than zero now, and that's not Sometimes that awakens something and you just say, like, well, let's make sure that we appreciate these days and stuff.
Yeah, well, I like that you said closer to one hundred. That means you're thinking that a hundred will be your number. So that's good. Stick around for a while, please, I don't know.
I don't know if I'll make a hundred.
Yeah, I don't know if I would want to live that old. Like, you know, if I'm in pain already.
I imagine how I'm.
Going to feel what I'm one hundred.
You know, well, just imagine this is totally off topic. Fifty fifty years ago. Yeh, so what is that nineteen seventy five, and.
I don't know, you're better in mass seventy well when we were born nineteen seventy four.
Yeah, so.
Yeah, exactly, I mean that would be easy with figured it out, like like with the world, like it was so much different right, like barely there were I don't even think that those little Apple to e computers were out yet. There was no like it was all televisions were giant boxes with like ears sticking out like you said, telegraphs.
No, I'm just kidding.
Everything is so different. And then in another fifty years, I mean, who knows.
Maybe we will be one hundred years alone.
We know, maybe the world will or.
Maybe the world that way we go, Yeah, we'll prefer to think of.
It that's to be positive. Yes, uh huh, in hopes that we actually can become grandparents and enjoy that part of life too. No rush there by the way, Blake's lean, Max, if you're listening, they are, Yeah, So I don't know if I interrupted you and if you had more to that thought.
No, that was just a brief like wonder if like you know what, because that will be well, let's just say when Max and blakes here are fifty years old and we're grandparents, hopefully, yeah, what will the world be like for our grandparents? Hopefully hopefully we as a human population figure it out and we can kind of start to, oh make things good, yeah for everybody, but know that they're bad now, but no better.
Yeah, No, life is good. During this trip, we decide I decided that because Blakesley and I were going to be here, you have to go back to work, obviously, but since Blakesley and I were going to be here, that we would go look at some colleges, which is a whole other thing, like just envisioning her being in college, you know, or and not necessarily college, just being on her own, you know, not living in our home, which she's always welcome to come back to as is Max.
But I it's it's kind of a little shock to the system. I'm not going to lie. Yeah, trying to take advantage of it and really enjoy it. Rented a convertible because when we were in LA the last time and Blakesley and I rented a convertible, it was I feel like a core memory, you know, like just blasting the music and down, you know. I don't think we were on the PCH but just cruising around LA. So we did that again, and we're going to go visit
some colleges. I wish you could be there, But it's it's a little shock to the system, and it's kind of bittersweet, like it'll be exciting to share that with her, but at the same time thinking about my baby.
Yeah.
I mean, hopefully they can figure out sort of what they want to do, which I think is kind of a weird thing to ask a sixteen year old or I had no idea what I wanted to do when I was seventeen years old, And I'm not sure you're supposed to know, unless like there are those rare people who like some of them will prop I see today that just like knew they wanted to be musicians, and so that's what they just strove for their entire lives.
But I think the majority of people are still on a exploratory mission as they graduate high school and go to college, and you know, deciding on which college to go to is part of that. And so I think Blakesley tends to to want to go somewhere more.
Beachy, like the West Coast.
I could I couldn't imagine Max wanting anything to do with the Los Angeles area, but he did.
Say at home, because we were talking like what we were going to do, and he said, yeah, I don't think California is you know for me. Actually I think you were in the kitchen when we said that. Yeah.
Yeah, so, but I think you guys will have a good time and hopefully she'll see something at one of these places that that sort of sparks her interest and at least gets her thinking in that direction. It's hard, you know, Like with the move to Denver, I think that was part like partly intentional as a way to sort of start to build a foundation for our kids so that they could we could do as much as we could to set them up to be successful adults.
This is just a continuation of that. That's the That's definitely the phase of life that I feel like I'm in, that we're in is it's more it's less a selfish phase, so you know, less of these types of my heart radio events and.
That sort of stuff that just you and I go to.
That we're incorporating our kids into our lives and we're trying to build them as best we can and prepare them as best we can for for that time when they do step out the door, leave the nest, and and then you know, then you can kind of circle back and we can, you know, refocus our attention in other places.
Hopefully hopefully we will give it.
You have given them enough to be self sustaining.
But but like you said.
I don't think parenting ever ends. And you know, I mean clearly, we live super close to my parents, and I feel like my mom and dad are always helping out and checking.
Up on us.
And you know, my mom always says that she just never never stops worrying about me or my brother. And so it doesn't matter what period of life you're in, you know, you're always gonna love and care for and want the best for your kids.
Always I recently, I don't know if I told you this, but so you know how they're always on Snapchat. I've decided, like they snap their friends constantly, yeah, or boyfriends or girlfriends or whatever, and I'm like, I need to do that with them so that they'll like so we can continue this interaction. So maybe you don't, I know, you don't have it on your phone, but maybe you set up an account so that like just just even snapping like pictures. That's kind of like so my mom and
I as you know, but you know, people listening. In order for me to stay connected to my mom who's in Indiana, we like send each other. We play wordle every morning, you know, and we send each other like our results from Mortal. Just I need to know that she's okay, Like every morning. I want to make sure that she's okay. She lives alone, you know, I want to make sure she's okay. And I'm feeling that way about the kids, Like I want to create some kind
of habitual thing where we stay connected. So I don't know if there's something that you would want to do too, or if you want to join me in the snapchat thing, but.
Yeah, I mean I guess I.
Know you hate it, and I don't hate it.
I just don't know that I need another thing.
Yeah, true, but none of us do. None of us do.
Yeah, it's hard enough to just check my regular text emails that I have, like now I looked at so I know, adding another form of communication isn't.
True top priority.
But yeah, and plus, you know, I think there are certain things that are just theirs, you know. Yeah, I think Chat's kind of theirs that was developed for more of their generation than ours. And so yeah, I mean we we got married. I think it was like my.
Space for sure.
And now there's no MySpace.
Oh wait, what was it?
It was?
Well Twitter had had Twitter. No, Twitter hadn't even started.
It was MySpace and chat rooms.
And stuff, but the message boards right, there was nothing.
Really, there's no Twitter, no Instagram, no Facebook.
No, none of that. No, those kids weren't even in college yet. Those Facebook guys, they were not They were still in the moon. No. Maybe I know that this is a question that we always get asked, but I just wanted you to give everyone kind of an update on how you're.
Feeling, like an actual update or just what I tell.
Everybody, an actual update. Would be lovely fine.
I feel fine. I feel fine basically.
I mean that the actual update, because that's what you tell everybody.
I think. I think there's just a new definition of fine that isn't maybe as as like, I don't know what the word would be, the descriptive word like, it's not as great as maybe fine was ten years ago. But there's nothing like in my life that's preventing me from doing really anything that I want to do in.
My life because you don't let it.
Well, maybe, I think, and I think honestly, I think age plays a large factor into a lot of decisions now. It's less so than any kind of or more so than any kind of health concerns or anything like that.
So I don't know.
I mean, it's it's a tough adjustment when mentally you want to be in or feel like you're in one place, and then physically sometimes you're reminded that you're not in that same place, and so just trying to find a balance there and still live a productive, fun, enjoyable life is the challenge that I face.
But certainly a lot.
I'm a lot better than I was four years ago, I would say, but probably not.
Fourteen years ago, but I was thirty six.
I was just gonna say, I think that's all of us.
It is what it is like.
That question is hard to answer, And I think the hardest part about that is when people ask me what they can do when they're not feeling good, and when they understand kind of what I went through health wise, which is I'm assuming what you were referring to, and they're also going through something similar, And the hardest part for me is to say that I feel fine, but not really be able to explain how to find that for them, because I think it's such a personal journey
and effort, and a lot of it just depends on what you're willing to go through and what works for
you and what like. It's a very complicated subject, I think, and I really feel for people that are suffering through things like chronic illnesses and things like that that there really isn't a lot of attention given to or there's not a lot of remedies offered, and so you're just kind of, you know, throwing darts and hoping that some of them happen to hit and and I think for luckily for me, several of them have hit and that's
reduced the impact that's had on me personally. Unfortunately, I don't know how to translate that for everybody, And so that's that's probably the biggest frustration for me, is just now the understanding of what that feels like and what people are going through and how frustrating and debilitating that can be.
And then to.
Top it all off, to not have any real legitimate hope. I mean, you can always have hope, but there's just sometimes it's hard to find it when you you just can't see alight at the end of the tunnel.
So yeah, and you feel like that. Yeah, And I think what I feel like a lot of people don't understand is that lime, for whatever reason, is different for everybody. So like you know, you say, oh, well I have a cold, so I'm coughing and I'm sneezing, and you know, I've got congestion. That's kind of across the board what people experience, no matter your national or gender or you
know what I mean. And lime is different for everyone because it attacked whatever wherever it's attacking in your body, that's what your symptoms are going to show, right, So it's different for everybody. And I think The hard thing is that you know your path. Your your path with lime disease has been it's all individual. It's very very personal, personalized. I don't what's the word, do you know what I mean? Like,
it's it's unique to everybody. And I think that's really hard because a lot of people ask you for you know, your help in like how you've found some success in feeling better. And it's hard because I feel like everyone that you talk to who has dealt with lime has a different path. So it's not like you can't take this one medicine and find a cure. I don't know.
Yeah, there's just not very much known about it, and I think it can bring out other conditions and things like that that you have to deal with and so but anyways, I don't want to go down like a
Debbie Downer path life. Life for me is great and I think life in general is great, and so hopefully, hopefully that could be the message is that there is like I can be an example of someone who has dealt with it and has come out the other end for the most part, and I probably will always be dealing with some component of it, but it definitely doesn't
impact me in any negative sort of way. I'm able to come here, I'm able to work, I'm able to enjoy the kids, like you know, take the dog for walks and like like really doing just about everything I've always done.
So totally so yeah it's not.
Yeah, there is hope.
There is there.
Thank you, Thank you.
For our little chat. Not that I don't talk to you every single day, so thanks for listening. Everybody, keep tuning in