Speaker 1: 0:03

Hello and welcome to Inside Marci's Mind. My name is Marci Backus and I am your host. Well, I missed last week. I honestly forgot. My life got a little crazy and it just was not at the forefront of my mind. So those of you that are my regular listeners know that I was diagnosed with breast cancer January 8th.

Speaker 1: 0:27

I had breast cancer surgery and I'm happy to announce everything went great. It's now three weeks out so I can honestly say it was a great surgery. It all went well. Was it a normal surgery? Absolutely not, because those of you again that know me know that I have a very rare genetic disorder, that is, a connective tissue disorder. So it was not a normal surgery but it did go well. Not to be too graphic, but my tissue fell apart, completely Fell apart, so much so that when he was in where the tumor was, the tissue completely fell away from the tumor, kind of had to scoop it up and create margins and and so on and so forth.

Speaker 1: 1:08

So now I'm moving on to next steps, which is, I guess it's basically the part that they kill you with medication so that you never get it again. So I will begin next week. I will start chemotherapy. My tissue is unable to support a port, which is normally what you get put in for chemotherapy. So I am going to be doing an all oral chemotherapy. That means that I take pills, and quite a few pills every day for six months. So instead of a three month chemotherapy round I will be doing six. It is exactly the same. I will have all of the same side effects. Hopefully I do well, but you know I lose my hair throw up all the lovely stuff that comes with chemo. Just because I'm taking it oral doesn't change that it's the exact same medication. So that's my next start. I start that next week. So I kind of have a little reprieve right now and I'm enjoying it. I was cleared to go back to the pool at the gym. I've been going to the gym doing things I hate. I love the pool, so I was in yesterday, did a class yesterday and I feel it today. I'm going to go back again today and tomorrow. So I'll get three good days in this week of my pool aerobics, my aquasculpt, my pool aerobics, my aquasculpt.

Speaker 1: 2:46

Let's see what else has been going on, talking to my kids a lot, which has been really delightful. I have adult children 32 and 30. And you know, there's nothing like cancer to bring a family together. Craig is Craig. I don't even know what to say about Craig. Craig is just Craig and he does Craig-ing very well. Not the most verbally supportive person on the planet, but that's what I've got friends for and my kids are really good at that, so I'll take that. Let's see what else.

Speaker 1: 3:23

Oh, some exciting news. Craig's sisters and himself have sold the family home. This is a home his dad designed and built on land that he and his, their mom, chose here in Illinois in a suburb called Mokena. And, the most exciting thing, the only reason I'm really sharing this is because the young couple that purchased the home are from Mokina. They've been looking for six years for a home. They absolutely love it. It's a very unique home, so it's not your standard home and they just love it and they want to keep it the way it is and enhance and beautify it, and there'll be two big dogs living there and I assume they're big dogs. They may be little dogs, you know, I don't know, but they have two dogs and, uh, that's a very exciting thing and that went very well.

Speaker 1: 4:26

Let's see what else is going on. It was two weeks of frigid cold here in Chicago and I survived. I'm doing really well with the cold. It's hard to believe, but as of March, craig will have lived here three years. I came in late May, so I've got a little ways to go, but we're in our third year here and I can't believe it. It has gone so fast. So to my friends out there that have not visited me yet and are listening, it's time to come to Chicago. Let's see what else. I am just. Things are going well. Cats are happy watching lots of mice on TV. If you have cats and you haven't found YouTube cat videos of mice and birds and there's a whole genre out there, boy, do my cats love it. They absolutely love it.

Speaker 1: 5:18

We have some things to talk about today. I'm going to talk about laundry today. What a weird subject, right Laundry. But you know, I don't know if we sometimes we wash things more than we need to and sometimes we don't wash them enough. Interesting. I usually share little antidotes about what happens to me around the city and since I've been kind of sequestered because of the cold, I haven't had any really weird or odd or fun little run-ins. I haven't been out and about as much I've been either at the hospital or where the clinic is, the breast clinic or I have. Excuse me, that was a big yawn early in the morning here. I either that or I have been in the house.

Speaker 1: 6:14

Oh, I've watched a lot of really good TV, so let me share a few things. If you haven't watched Landman L-A-N-D-M-A-N. Good one I already watched Tulsa King, loved that. All by the same creator, yellowstone. I watched the 1923. Really enjoyed that with Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren On Apple TV. The things that I recommend are Shrinking with Harrison Ford. If you haven't watched that, it's a great series. Another one that I watched on there was Inside man with Ted Danson. It's really good. He's retired, he lives in San Francisco, so it's kind of I love the ambiance of it. And he gets a job with a young girl who's a private eye and he goes inside. It's an inside job, really in a retirement home and it's great and the characters are great, very good. I'm trying to go with some things that maybe you haven't watched, but I have watched a lot of TV.

Speaker 1: 7:23

Oh, the animated show Wild Robot. If you love animals and you love animation, I do, I love both. Wild Robot was just the sweetest movie ever have Kleenex, because you're going to cry. So that's a good one. And I watched. You know what I watched? I watched the first Gidgetget, the 1959 one with sandra d. That was the one that was filmed before before um, the one with sally field. So it was filmed in.

Speaker 1: 8:01

We used to camp at leo cur State Beach every summer, my family and it was filmed at Leo Carrillo where we used to go to the beach and all of the gidgets were, and so it was kind of fun. It brought back a lot of memories. There's a big jetty that jets out there and when I was a little girl remember I was 8, 10, and 12 years younger than my siblings, so at a point probably around 7, 8. I would just get on my bike, they would take my bike when we'd camp and I'd just ride and I'd go down and I'd sit on that jetty and play by myself. And now I look at that jetty and I think I could have been taken away by a sneaker wave. Like God had other plans for me, man, because I think about me being out there all by my lonesome.

Speaker 1: 8:46

But it was a different time, but not so much. People could have grabbed me. Well, they could have, but nobody would have. They would have thrown me back, because the whole reason I do this podcast is because I love to talk. Well, let me tell you, when I was a kid, there was no throttle on it. I was full force, chatty, cathy, yakety, yak. What did my dad tell me? I had diarrhea in the mouth, Nice dad, but yeah. So they would have thrown me back if they had ever kidnapped me. I'll tell you that much.

Speaker 1: 9:12

Another fun thing about that time was there was a like a camp store and they had penny candy and my mom would give me like a dime and it was when it was really a penny right, like not five, 10, 15, 25 cents, like it is now. But I could go get a little bag of penny candy and I loved that. I loved it there because I had so much freedom as a kid. I had freedom at home. I was a feral child anyway, but being the youngest and probably not expected, I'm my mom. Did my mom want me? Don't think so. Did she eventually love me and want me? I think so, but probably not so much in the beginning. And so my life was pretty much feral and doing what I wanted to do where I wanted to do it, when I wanted to do it, and long as I didn't interfere with my mom's plans, it was probably pretty good.

Speaker 1: 10:14

I think we all have different childhoods and that was a bit of mine. With that being said, don't and if you're listening, don't be sad. You know I loved my childhood. It was my childhood. It got me to where I am today. I'm a happy adult and nobody has a perfect childhood. We all have things in there that are different, and that was just mine. I had a sister. I had two sisters, excuse me, one at that time that just took me under her wing, kind of as her mom, her wing kind of as her mom, and, uh, so I had a sister more than I had a mother, and now I have two sisters that I adore and that adore me. So, pretty lucky there too, I'll take it and I got a brother, and my brother I got to visit this October and really enjoyed my time with my brother and his wife Liz. That's a relationship that's had to grow over 64 years. I don't think he really wanted a sister, so now he's got another one and we did just fine this October. So love my siblings.

Speaker 1: 11:29

Family dynamics and family relationships are interesting. They're not like your friends. You pick your friends, your family you're given. So you got to walk through that one. We'll have to delve into that sometime. But let's talk about something more fun laundry. Do you know how often you should wash your bra? I kind of thought about this when I had the cancer surgery and decided to kind of look it up. So we're going to talk about how often and why and why, why and why not, what you should do with your bras and other laundry. So hang in there.

Speaker 1: 12:08

All right, before we get started on this, I do want to remind you that you can go, if you're looking for any information. You can go to my website, which is insidemarcismindcom. I also insidemarcismind at gmail. If you have questions or you have subjects you want me to cover or things you want me to talk about, please don't hesitate to reach out Also, please.

Speaker 1: 12:32

I am on all platforms, every platform out there. I know my inconsistency in the last couple of weeks hurts my view, my listenership. So if you can share this with your friends and family, if you want to be on my email list, I email the link to my to my um page with all of my episodes. I'm happy to put you on that. Just email me at inside Marcy's mind at gmailcom and send me in the. Obviously I'll capture your email, but let me know you want to be on that list, cause I do send out an email list, but I am on Apple, I am on Spotify, I am on Google, I am on everything you can possibly think of. You can find my podcast, so I know a lot of my listeners listen through my website, so there's that as well. Again, please share my podcast if you're enjoying it. I need to. I need to grow. My old podcast was much larger than this one and I really want this one to grow as big as the other one.

Speaker 1: 13:38

I I like talking about more things than just aging, although next week we're going to talk about aging because it seems like our current administration may have it out for us old people and he's an old people, he's the oldest people, so we'll talk about that next week. This week we're going to be talking about laundry and you may be washing your laundry. A little too often we wear our bras right up against our skin, so we may feel like we need to wash it after every use. I bet there's not a woman out there that does that, maybe a few of you, but I don't think so. But lingerie experts say that maybe taking things a little bit too far for washing it every time. I think bras are very interesting. They're hard to fit. I don't know why. It seems like they try. There's a billion different types of bras out there now way more than there used to be and it still seems like a difficult thing to get right.

Speaker 1: 14:42

So exactly how often should you wash your bra and how should you launder it so it stays in great shape for as long as possible? So I'm going to give you some expert advice here. Here's a fun fact, not my end of the episode, fun fact, just the middle of the episode. Fun fact you don't have to wash your bra every time you wear it. If you're a fan of not doing a lot of laundry, you're in luck.

Speaker 1: 15:07

Washing your bra after every wear is actually not a great idea. You don't need to wash your bra every time you wear it, unless it's particularly sweaty or stained. Okay, so over washing can weaken delicate fabrics and elastics, so you want to really be careful about that Wearing your bra a few times before you wash it. How to decide if your bra is ready to be washed. Well, let me tell you. In the swampy south on a hot summer's day, I guarantee you don't want to wear that bra the next day. Your bras may need more or less frequent cleaning and here the last couple weeks have been freezing, so your bra is just frozen, especially if you wear underwire just frozen wire. To decide if your bra needs to be tossed into the laundry basket, consider the following so the weather and just what I shared During the summer.

Speaker 1: 16:02

Honestly, if you're sweating a lot, body oils can degrade the material of a bra, so you're going to want to wash that bra more often. And does that mean every day? No, you may have bras that you trade off. Give one a break your activity level. Obviously a bra worn through a strenuous hike or hot yoga class Okay, Now we're getting extreme. It's probably ready to hit the shower along with you.

Speaker 1: 16:27

Bras worn during workouts or strenuous activities need cleaning after every each use. That's an interesting thing. Maybe wearing it in the shower is a good idea and using having a gentle soap in there and hand washing it while you're in the shower and then hanging it up. I like that idea. That's not even what this part of this article is talking about. But I think that's a great idea. You don't have to fire up the washing machine. If you wear a large cup size, you may sweat a bit more into your bra so you may need to wash it more often, the material of your bra. So now, like I said, there are a billion sports bras.

Speaker 1: 17:08

No underwire support all kinds of things. So, depending on the fabric of your bra, can handle more wear and tear. Other fabrics, like lace or silk, are more delicate. So sports bras obviously can handle a little bit more. Your delicate bras cannot. Less frequent washing, I'm sorry. Fabrics like lace and silk are more delicate and require gentler less frequent washing compared to synthetic blends like nylon, spandex or polyester, which tend to be a little bit more durable. Obviously that makes it the sniff test. I don't do I need to even explain the sniff test to you. I don't think so. We all know what that is. If it is not passing the sniff test, get that in, brought in the washer and put a clean one on. Let's talk about how to make them last and survive the wash it.

Speaker 1: 18:01

I don't know about you. I've worn underwire my whole life. My mom started me on underwire. She worked at a fancy department store part time when I I think I was in fourth grade when she started working at Joseph Magnin. There were two brothers in the San Fernando Valley or in LA, joseph and Ira Magnin, and there was a store. Joseph Magnin and Ira had a store called Magnin's. Magnin's was in Sherman Oaks and Joseph Magnins was in Woodland Hills. My sister, devin, started working at Joseph Magnins and then my mom worked in the cosmetic department so I had my. I was lucky enough to get my first bras from Joseph Magnins, if my sisters are listening, yeah, I'm sure you got yours at Sears, but mom was working at Joseph Magnin and I had my first bras fitted there.

Speaker 1: 18:53

It's kind of funny Bras tend to be made of more delicate fabric. So how you wash them, you want to avoid scrubbing, wringing, rubbing anything and I have to be honest with you, my generation, I don't think any of us scrub, wring or rub. I know that is how they used to do laundry in the olden days, but you want to just be gentle with it. You want to not disrupt the shape. I will tell you this. There are like lingerie bags and things that you can use in the washing machine. I wish I say I do that. I do connect the hooks when I put mine in the washer so it doesn't stretch or pull that way. But I'm a lazy bra washer. That's my confession today. I'm a lazy bra washer and I just throw mine in the washing machine.

Speaker 1: 19:42

You need to have at least three bras in your regular rotation. Rotating your bras helps keep them in good shape. You can. You've got one in the. You know. You've got one in the washer, one in the drawer, one you're wearing. It gives you a chance to wear a bra at least a couple times in a row and then go on to the next one. That way you also have a backup. If it happens to be an extra sweaty day and you're thinking I am not wearing this sucker tomorrow, you can spot clean between washings. So you can use a little mild soap on the underarm portion.

Speaker 1: 20:16

My feeling is, if you're going to do that, you might as well wash it, hand wash it. You want to use gentle detergents, cool water and delicate wash cycles. I just confessed I don't do that, but maybe I should. My bras are very expensive and I never do that Using your mesh laundry bag washing in a delicate cycle, again using gelicate detergent. I would love to know how many of you out there are doing that.

Speaker 1: 20:49

Okay, well, using the clothes dryer is a no-no. Well, I've failed everything in the bra department. How about you? Are you keeping track? If you are on top of this, I am proud of you. I am not. Don't use the dryer. Oh, my god, well, that's true, I used to not do that. That's so funny.

Speaker 1: 21:10

I had this thing that hung in my laundry room in California. Alec used to call it the broctopus. I forgot about this. It had little clips on it, like lots of clips, and I would hang all my bras on it. I would wash them. That is so funny, the broctopus. I forgot about the broctopus. And it would hang in our laundry room. But our laundry room. We had to walk from the garage through the laundry room to the house, so people would run into the bractopus. Oh my gosh, that's so funny. I forgot about that. But you're supposed to hang them. No ringing Ay, ay, ay.

Speaker 1: 21:44

Bras are a lot of work. Watch for signs of wear. Like we know that there's nothing, nothing, nothing worse than that when the wire pokes through, oh, and it always. It doesn't do it before you put it on, it doesn't halfway through the workday. Okay, let's talk about other things. When you should wash them, the frequency I've got a little chart here, so here's the frequency of how you should be washing things Anything white or silk after every wear. Bras after three to four wears. We've just spoken that ad nauseum Down.

Speaker 1: 22:28

Parkas and vests two times a season. Well, that's good to know. That's about what I do on my parkas and my vests, dress pants and skirts two times a season. That's good. I don't wear my. I don't wash my dress pants after every time I wear them. Now, in my life I usually only wear my dress pants to either a luncheon or to church and I don't feel like I wear them long enough to wash them. So that's a good thing. Fleece, jackets and sweatshirts after six to seven wears. Oh, that's interesting. I wore my white sweatshirt this week and I threw it right in the laundry. Hmm, didn't need to do that. After six to seven wears.

Speaker 1: 23:11

Hats, gloves and scarves three to five times a season oh, I probably need to wash some of my gloves. I just got a new pair of gloves. You know any of you that know me know I have crunchy hands. My hands are all screwed up from surgeries they're they're called swan necks. My fingers and I have a really hard time with gloves and and things like that. I don't like them. So you know what I ordered myself and I got them yesterday a pair of men's leather gloves in a medium. The fingers are more roomy, so my crunchy fingers fit in there even though my fingers are super skinny. It gives it. So I'm very excited about my new leather fleece lined gloves. I'm very excited about my new leather fleece lined gloves. So hats, gloves and scarves is three to five times a season Hoziery after every wear. That goes without saying, just like underpants, jackets and blazers after five to six wears.

Speaker 1: 24:04

Jeans Now, this may throw you for a loop, people. It says jeans after four to five wears. Interesting, I wash mine after every wear. Leather and suede jackets should be cleaned once a season.

Speaker 1: 24:28

Leggings and yoga pants Okay, leggings and yoga pants, if you're not washing them after every wear. This is one to three, absolutely not. That is right up against the parts that now, no, it's like underpants. I'm sorry, I disagree with this. Leggings and yoga pants I'm saying after every wear Pajamas. After three to four wears, I wear pajamas twice and then a new pair of pajamas that's my pajama. Pajamas get two wears, then in the laundry Shapewear Okay, shapewear. We're going right back to the underpants Shapewear after every wear it says one to three wears. If you're doing that, nasty Shorts and khakis after two to three wears.

Speaker 1: 25:08

That's an interesting one too. Yes, patrick, good morning. Cotton, silk and cashmere after two wears. Wool and synthetic blends after five wears. Swimsuits after every wear. T-shirts, tanks and camis after every wear. Tops and dresses after one to three wears. I'll go with that, very much so. Formal dresses dry clean after every wear. And wool coats have those cleaned once to twice a season.

Speaker 1: 25:43

I'm going to put that article up on my website, which is Inside Marcy's Mind, or that chart, insidemarcy'smindcom, and you'll be able to find it there if you're looking for it. I think that's kind of a good chart, don't you? I disagree with some of it, though I'll tell you. Well, I hope you learned a little bit about laundry. Don't feel bad if you're not doing it perfect. None of us are, I don't think. And if you are, bless your soul for being the laundry expert Something I try to do things fairly well around my house.

Speaker 1: 26:28

Oh, here's one of the things. So in our house. I always had a housekeeper, or you know someone to clean the house. When I had the big house and when we moved here, I thought I can handle it, which I have. But you know what, with the cancer and going to start chemo, I went ahead and hired a housekeeper. They come in a pack of three for my little place. They're done in an hour. I love them. It was the best thing I've ever done. Every other week makes me very happy and I'm going to leave it there. I'm going to leave you with a fun fact. Hang in there.

Speaker 1: 27:06

Okay, today's fun fact is all brought to you by octopuses. The broctopus made me think of it. So how many hearts do you think an octopus has? Do you think they have one, two, three, maybe four? Well, the answer is three. They have three hearts, but an octopus. I love octopuses. They're very intelligent, so you should know that if you're eating octopuses, that they're very, very intelligent. But two things that octopuses do that I just love If other fishes are irritating them, octopuses will huck shells at them and they will also smack them, and I just I find that so delightful. I've seen a video of a octopus just sitting there trying to enjoy his octopus day or her octopus day and a fish is annoying them and they just reach out and smack it. Sometimes I wish I was an octopus. I'd smack stupid people. Anyways, remember what I always say I've tried to. I want to smack people. Go out and do something positive.