Inside Marcy's Mind
Having hosted the Aging aint for Sissie's podcast for two years, I wanted to expand what I could discuss. This podcast will touch on the fun of aging and whatever has crossed my mind! Please join me as I walk through life! #retirement #travel #fun #aginggracefully Link in my bio! Listen now!
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#aginggracefully
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Inside Marcy's Mind
Organizing, Spring Cleaning, and Cancer Treatment: A Weekly Update
Cancer treatment becomes a window into resilience, gratitude, and finding joy in the ordinary in this deeply personal episode. Marcy opens up about navigating her third round of chemotherapy, candidly describing it as "the hardest thing I've ever done." The unique challenge isn't just physical—it's the psychological disconnect between not looking sick while feeling distinctly unwell that creates an unseen burden.
Despite these challenges, Marcy embraces her "good week" in the chemo cycle with characteristic enthusiasm, planning a special bra fitting (supporting breast cancer awareness), appreciating Chicago's spectacular spring tulips, and preparing for upcoming California travel. Her practical advice about breaking free from daily ruts resonates with universal wisdom: "Be a tourist in your own town." This philosophy helped transform her experience after moving to Chicago, where she now takes full advantage of the city's beauty after regretting not fully enjoying Laguna Beach during her California years.
The episode weaves between heartfelt personal updates and practical advice on organization, home decor, and laundry care. Standout tips include hanging curtains at ceiling height to create dramatic spaces that appear larger, organizing closets seasonally rather than by frequency of wear, and avoiding fabric softeners when washing towels. Each suggestion comes wrapped in Marci's warm, conversational style that makes listeners feel they're chatting with a friend.
As Marci celebrates her podcast's 40th episode milestone, her authentic voice shines through—sometimes vulnerable, sometimes humorous (she admits to 34 years of "pettiness" in how she handles her husband's laundry), but always genuine. Listen for practical wisdom, emotional resonance, and a gentle reminder that finding small joys matters most during life's greatest challenges.
Share this podcast with friends and find all episodes on InsideMarcisMind.com or your favorite podcast platform!
Hello and welcome to Inside Marci's Mind. My name is Marci Backus and I am your host Once again this morning. I have just lost my mind. I had to do my intro like three or four times, and that's not like me. Usually it's once and off I go. But we'll blame it on chemo. How's that? Speaking of chemo sorry, I had to take a sip of my coffee. Speaking of chemo, I am in my good week. So how my chemo works is it's 12 weeks long two weeks of hard medicine, one week of light medicine. So I'm headed into my light medicine week, which is my happy week. I will have finished three rounds, one more to go and then on to radiation and then back to 12 more weeks of chemo fun. Yay.
Speaker 1:It's an interesting thing when you're poisoning yourself. Since I don't have a port, I have to do pills, lots of pills every day, and I have to take them myself. And when you don't feel good and you're taking something that makes you sick, it's hard to do it sometimes. Let me tell you this is I will tell you honestly. I've been through a lot in my life a lot, a lot and a lot of medical stuff, a lot of a lot of stuff period. But this is the hardest thing I've ever done. I think I don't look sick, I don't act sick. So it's not that I want to, it just is it means the world treats you normal and you don't feel normal, and I think that's kind of hard sometimes, but nonetheless we're getting through it, moving forward, going to the gym today, going for a bra fitting today Okay, ladies, speaking to the ladies that listen, I know men listen as well.
Speaker 1:My main audience is women, but I do have men listening. A good bra is important. So I am going to Bloomingdale's today. They have a special bra fitting day and anything that you buy they donate to breast cancer awareness. So since I am going through breast cancer treatment, I thought what a perfect time to get a bra fitting. Plus, I've now lost 50 pounds, kept it off for over a year and a half now I think over a year at least and it's time to get some bras that fit. Sister, you know the girls need to look good, so I'm going to go do that today.
Speaker 1:What else has been happening in my life? I've had some crazy weather here, very spring. I hope it's spring is springing where you are. I see the tulips. The city of Chicago plants over 100,000 tulips every year when they put in our Christmas decorations and our Christmas greenery. The city of Chicago is an extremely beautiful city and if you haven't been here and you've only heard what you've heard, you're wrong. It's an extremely beautiful city and the gardening that goes on here is Disney quality, let me just put it that way. So when they put in the winter beds and they put greenery all over the ground, they plant over 100,000 tulips underneath and so in the next few weeks our tulips will bloom and it's excuse me, it's so beautiful, it's so beautiful and it makes you so happy. Tulips are a happy flower, so that's going on. I noticed some of them are peaking up.
Speaker 1:We're having like crazy weather Hot, cold, hot, cold, hot cold. I don't know what the heck it is. Snows one day is 85 and I'm in the car. My air conditioning goes on another day. So it's still too cold. We need to warm up, but it is only April and it can be cold here through May. So that's the way it goes. I've got the hiccups this morning, so sorry.
Speaker 1:What else went on this week? I did have some down days this week Sick, that's OK, I was expecting them. I was expecting a lot more of them, to be honest. So I'll take the four that I had and I hunkered down in bed. But what I did do is watch a lot of TV and I realized that prime, if you have prime and you, you haven't gone in. I I really never go into my prime streaming, don't know in. I really never go into my Prime streaming, don't know why. Just, there's never anything I've wanted to watch. But, man, they have a lot of old stuff. I started watching I don't know if you remember the show Northern Exposure, but I started from episode one, season one, great show Found some good old movies. Just, it's a really good find. So check it out. The other thing, if you don't know, you can store your photos with Prime, also for free. If you're paying for storage for your photos through Google or somewhere else, you don't need to. If you're a Prime member, you can do it through Amazon. So that was a little something I found out Today.
Speaker 1:What are we going to talk about? Some more advice. We're going to go through some organizing advice Today. What are we going to talk about? Some more advice. We're going to go through some organizing advice. If you're wondering where I'm getting my advice. The last couple of weeks is I have since it came out, real Simple Magazine I've subscribed to and this month is their 25th year anniversary and they're giving they put up columns of their best advice over the years. So I've been pilfering from that and pilfering just from my own opinions and my own thoughts.
Speaker 1:One of the things I was going to say is it is spring and spring brings out the beauty in all cities and all areas where we live. If you are in a rut and you are doing the same things over and over again, I have to highly recommend changing up your routine. I think one of the best things that happened to Craig and I when we moved to the city. Now I do live in one of the most spectacular cities in the world with, you know, miles of coastline, which I know you don't think of and beautiful beaches, and plays and symphony and art exhibits and music. We have some of the best museums. The Art Institute is the number two art museum in the United States, maybe number one. I'm not going to be so cocky, but nonetheless we have everything at our fingertips here.
Speaker 1:But you can still get in a rut here. Craig and I have done pretty good and that's one of the things that got us out of our rut where we lived, lived out in the suburbs, went to similar restaurants. I mean, my God, we live near Laguna Beach and I can't tell you we rarely went to Laguna Beach for dinner. Well, that was just stupid. I'm irritated at myself for not enjoying my surroundings more, where I used to live, but Craig and I do take credit advantage of it here and, um, take a weekend trip, take a day trip, do a day trip somewhere. If you're, if you live I mean even if you live in orange County go up to Ojai for the day, go to Santa Barbara, go for a night Santa Barbara, go for a night. You know, I just I think we get into ruts and ruts are not healthy.
Speaker 1:So this is my plea to you to go to an arboretum, go to a flower show, go do something. Go do something that you've never done before. Look at your husband or your spouse or your significant other and say let's go do this this weekend. Just try it. Look in your paper. If you belong to AAA AAA gives you a magazine in California especially that tells you all the things that are going on. Look in your newspapers, look on your social media, follow people in the area that give tourist information. Be a tourist in your own town. How's that? Be a tourist in your own town, enjoy the spring, enjoy the summer.
Speaker 1:Now here in Chicago, since we only have 100 days of summer and then we plunge back into coldness, I last year took advantage of that the first two years we lived here. I did not. Last year I did. This year I will, or I guess the first year I didn't, the second year I did. This is my third year here. Yes, we have lived here three years, to those of you who knew us where we used to live, but I have learned to enjoy those days. Eat outside when it's an option, take a walk, sit on our deck, enjoy the sun. And again, one more year is not going to go by where I'm just not enjoying myself.
Speaker 1:I'm going to be headed to California in the next couple weeks the Easter week, the week before Easter, heading to California, and I'm hoping the weather's good because I need some sunshine. We have sunshine here. It's just still cold to sit outside still, so I am looking forward to some outdoor sunshine. I'm going to spend my son's going to fly in for the weekend. We're going to spend the weekend at my sister and brother-in-law's house and have Easter. I'm going to see my nephew Dennis and his wife Melissa. So I'm kind of excited about that. I'm not kind of, I'm very excited. But before I do that, of course, there will be some days at Disneyland, as you all know.
Speaker 1:That's my happy, that's truly my happy place. And if you don't understand it well, too bad, so sad for you. It is my happy place. And if you don't understand it, well, too bad, so sad for you. It is my happy place. Well, with that being said, that's what's going on in my life Patrick, sitting here looking out the window this morning watching. We have five seagulls that live outside our area and fly around and zoom around, and they're the only birds big enough to get up this high. So Patrick loves to watch his seagulls. He's waiting for them to make their morning show. Pickles is Miss. Pickles is watching her mice on the television and I forgot to turn the volume down so you might hear birds tweeting, but that's just the sound of pickles in her mice. I'm not outside, and what else? I think that's about it.
Speaker 1:Have a spring party with my ladies next week. I'm excited. I always like to think about what I'm going to wear and, with that being said, we're going to talk about some closet organizing. We are going to talk about a few quick decorating tips that I think are really great, a little bit of gardening and house planning advice, and maybe we'll end on some laundry advice, but I've got some of the the best tips and tricks from real simple this week. And, um, oh and, before I go, if you're ever tempted to buy any makeup from El Makiage, this is just my own thing. They messed up things for me so bad with my order. They every time I wrote an email, they misunderstood it. It made me crazy. So I am just as my. I'm going to use my own platform to say don't buy any El Makiage makeup there. Ha, el Makiage, hang in there, I'll be right back. Well, you know, I forgot to say I'm very excited.
Speaker 1:So I used to have another podcast called Aging Ain't for Sissies. Those of you that know my podcast know that, but this is our 40th episode of Inside Marci's Mind, so if you've missed some episodes, you can go find them on my website, InsideMarci'sMindcom. You can find them on all platforms. I am on Apple. I am on Spotify, I am on Google, I am on all of it. You can go back and find it. You can go back and listen to episodes. They are not just, like you know, I just talk about different random things all the time, so it's no big deal going back and listening to an old episode. Share this with your friends. Please, let's grow this audience.
Speaker 1:Some days I feel like I just don't want to do this anymore. But that's silly. You know, I do enjoy this. It's just, you know, I'll be honest, like yesterday, I literally forgot to do it and so my brain lately is not quite there. So I am doing this on Thursday, which I always promise you on Wednesday. But you know, cancer is cancer. It's doing what it's doing to my brain. I can't help it.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about some organized. So we were talking about, um, spring clothes. Ooh, the seagulls are out, very exciting. Um, I love going to a party, cause I love thinking about what I'm going to wear and getting especially now that I'm not so heavy anymore, I enjoy my clothes a lot more getting, especially now that I'm not so heavy anymore, I enjoy my clothes a lot more.
Speaker 1:And one of the things, how do I? First thing, most of us have overstuffed closets. So my advice to you is to go through that closet and I do this quite often and I had to do it because 90% of my clothes didn't fit and I've had to buy new clothes the last couple of years. I know big problem, but it kind of is you know you have pieces that you love, but go through your closet. Okay, I hate this advice. I'm just going to tell you advice. I don't like you know.
Speaker 1:They say turn all your hangers around and then every time you wear a piece, put it in correctly and then at the end of six months, all the things you didn't turn around, get rid of them. That's stupid. There's pieces in there you may wear once or twice a season, but you still love. I don't. That doesn't work for me. What does work for me is to go through and get rid of things that don't fit now. If you don't want to get rid of them, put them in a tub, throw them in the garage. If you don't want to get rid of them, put them in a tub, throw them in the garage, put them in your storage, I don't care, shop them in six months. But if they still fit you. You don't know what to do with them. I'm not going to tell you to get rid of them. Do that, but go through things that don't fit Certainly don't fit. Get them out of your closet.
Speaker 1:Things that are the wrong color for the season. I seasonal closet. I do a spring, summer, fall, winter colors are. Color palettes are very different. I love in the winters. I love burgundies, purples, navy blues, teals, and those are in jewel tones and then I like similar tones but in brighter tones for spring, summer.
Speaker 1:So I definitely and and I do by weight, so heavy clothes. If you've got heavy clothes in your closet right now, get them out. I even got them out here in Chicago. I can wear layers. I can wear layers of spring clothes. I don't have to have winter. It's not going to be below zero right now. I got rid of my really heavy coat. Put that in storage. Going to be below zero right now. I got rid of my really heavy coat. Put that in storage. I have my puffers. I have things that will be suitable for this time of year, but I have my fun colors because, just because it's cool out, I still want to wear spring colors.
Speaker 1:So get your closet in order. Make it so that you can actually get dressed reasonably. It should not be so packed. You can't see things. I don't know about you, but I hate shopping on packed racks at a store. And if you look at your high-end stores, they do not pack the racks. Now if you go to TJ Maxx, they may. I still love TJ Maxx, don't get me wrong, that's my favorite. Well, it's not my favorite place to shop, but I do shop there. But if you look at your high end stores, they never pack their racks. So don't do it in your closet. Get your closet all refreshed. So give yourself a refresh on your closet. Pull everything out. I did that. I actually pulled everything out and put it on the bed and went through it when I was getting rid of my heavy clothes.
Speaker 1:Rehome the small stuff in your bathroom. If you have little tiny things around, um tweezers, nail clippers, bobby pins, little things that bug you put a magnetic strip in your bathroom and tack them up to that. If you need them to be handy, I need my tweezers to be handy because, god knows, I'm losing my hair. My body hair is not growing from chemo, but, man, that chin hair, let me tell you that sucker never gives up. So my tweezers are need to be at the ready.
Speaker 1:Break down big tasks into smaller one. If your closet is too big of a task, break it down into small pieces. Keep all your sheets together. Don't have separate. Bundle them up your bottom, top and pillowcases. It's an easier way and you can store them in magazine racks in your closet if you want to. To keep them separated, there are these really cool new kind of bands that go around them that tell you that they're queen king. When we had the bigger house and I had more bedrooms and different size beds, it was really hard to tell what sheet was what. So I think these ideas of these rubber bands you can get big, giant ones from Amazon and they tell you what king or queen. I think that's a good idea.
Speaker 1:Add storage to your refrigerator. I've done this, I've done the, I've got. I got caught up in the trend from Tik TOK or not Tik TOK, I think it was anyways, instagram, social media on organizing my refrigerator. But I do like some organizational bins. It does make it easier. I have a bin for my string cheeses, cause I love me a string cheese and we get them from Costco. Um, I have a roundabout in there a little. You know, lazy Susan. So take some time to clean out your refrigerator this spring. Organize that. And um, I don't like this one. I'm not set up to deal with system. Nope, deal with stuff right away. I don't like having a system for things that you're going to deal with because you never do and then you just keep adding to it. I think deal with it right away. Put stuff in its home. If it has a home, put it in its home, all right. So this is one of my favorite hacks for decorating If you do have drapes or curtains or anything like that, hang them all the way to the ceiling.
Speaker 1:Do not hang them at the top of the window. Have you ever seen a hotel room with curtains that are hung at the window? Nope, they go all the way to the ceiling. Why is that? It makes it a longer and more dramatic look. And I'm going to give you my best tip of all.
Speaker 1:When we moved in here, I hated our bathroom. It was from the 2000s. We knew we were going to redo it, but I just hated it. I hated the tile around the tub. So to freshen the bathroom, I got a. It was a tub shower combo. We now have a walk-in beautiful shower, but it was a tub shower combo. So what I did? I had read on Pinterest again hang it at the ceiling.
Speaker 1:If you're hanging your shower curtain right where the shower, the top of the shower, ends, it's cutting it off, it's it's it's stumping the room. If you want to bring the eye up, hang, get a longer shower curtain, which you can get from Amazon. Hang it at the top of the ceiling. So I got a beautiful white one hung, put the rod all the way at the top of the ceiling. It hung all the way down and, man, it made my bathroom just look so much better. It really did it, the white being, when you looked in, it gave it a bigger look. It made the bathroom look bigger because it's a small bathroom, it's a condo bathroom. But hang your drapes, your curtains and your shower curtains at ceiling height. Do not hang them where the shower ends. It just stumps the room. So that's my select the right size area rug.
Speaker 1:A lot of us do not choose big enough rugs, so the edges should land about two feet from the walls. Now let's say you've fallen for a rug that's not quite there. Layer it on top of a larger one. So layering rugs is a great thing. So if you have a rug that you love and you want to put it under your coffee table but it's too small, it ultimately is too small Put a bigger one under it, layer it.
Speaker 1:I love layering rugs. I think it looks beautiful. Make sure you don't tip on them, tack down the rug that's on top. I need to say that because you know we do do tripping on things. So, um, that's it, and just just big rugs open up the space. Small rugs look like I don't know.
Speaker 1:Craig always wanted to put this rug under one of our coffee tables. It was a rug he had bought before I met him. It's an oriental rug and I always just thought it looked like a fine carpet. It wasn't big enough for our rooms, it wasn't big enough for what we needed, and I never thought of layering rugs. And now that I do, I wish I had done that, but it always it just I called it the flying carpet, cause that's what it looked like. It looked like our coffee table was going on a magic carpet ride. So make sure your furniture isn't going on a magic carpet ride and if it is layer um paint with the right finish. That is huge.
Speaker 1:When you're painting, talk to your local paint expert, tell them the area you're painting and get you've got your eggshells, you've got your semi-gloss, you've got your gloss, you've got your flat. You want to make sure that, for the area you're painting, that you're okay. The cats are cracking me up this morning. They're both sitting here watching the seagull. Sorry, make sure you're getting the right paint.
Speaker 1:Now, for some reason I have been a really good houseplant person and I don't work at it. I think that's the key. Don't care enough, don't overcare, but water just enough. Pour water in until it starts to leak out of the drainage hole. So that's what I do. I put all my plants in my kitchen sink here, I water them till water starts coming out. I let them sit there and drain for a while and then I do it once a week for all the plants. Don't care who you are, except for my orchids and maybe some of my succulents. I would say my succulents I'm a little more careful with, but other than that I don't fertilize, I don't nothing. I'm afraid of fertilizing because you can over fertilize and you under fertilize. I don't know. But that's my gardening and houseplant advice Don't just take off dead leaves either. Check, look up on Google the plant and see if you should. Sometimes the dead leaves are something that they need. So there's that.
Speaker 1:How about a little laundry advice? This is super important when you're washing your towels, when you are washing your, you should wash your towels and your cleaning rags separate from your laundry. Anyway, you can wash them together, but you should never put any softener or dryer sheets with them. Softener and dryer sheets have a waxy finish. They will ruin how your rags work when you clean. They will mess up windows. It's not good. So and really your gym clothes you should not put fabric softener in with either, because it puts a waxy coat. I just don't even think those things you should be using. Fabric balls work great in the dryer. You don't need the dryer sheets with all the waxy fragrances. Right now I'm really sensitive to smell. So you know everybody thinks their clothes should smell good. I just want them to not smell. I don't want them to smell like anything. So that's my opinion on that Unshrinked knits in the sink If you have shrunk something or if your significant other has put, helped you out by throwing everything that was in the washer and the dryer, and there are some things in the dryer now that normally would have gotten hung up.
Speaker 1:You can put them in the sink with warm water, dissolve, add a tablespoon of olive oil, swirl the solution for a few seconds, then submerge your sweater for two or three hours, or the shrunken item, lay it on a flat surface and gently reshape it. So that is the tip the olive oil, warm water. Sink two to three hours, reshape, pick the right temperature for stains, blah, blah, blah. Unless it's a major stain, I don't get that neurotic about my laundry. You can remove red wine stains with shaving cream and you can do that on the carpet or on furniture. Check it in a small area to make sure it doesn't hurt anything. You can do it on clothes. Spray it over the stain as soon as possible, the sooner the better.
Speaker 1:When treating stains of any kind, don't throw stains into the laundry hamper without them being treated. When Craig and I were first married and I was doing laundry, he would go. Well, did you get the stain out of my shirt? I'm like. I don't look for stains. That's not my job. Your job is to fix that stain before you stick it in the laundry. So either put pretreatment on it or something. So he does it now because I don't look who looks. Do you look at every garment for a stain? I think not, sir. I also. This is really petty and we've been married 34 years. But I'm going to share you my most petty move of all times.
Speaker 1:When Craig and I were first married, I did the laundry. I matched his socks, I did folded, he redid everything, and I mean everything. So guess what? The next week I just huck his stuff in the laundry basket. He could do do it. And that's what I do. 34 years later. I do laundry every Friday. I fold all my stuff, put it away, his, I sort. We have a three sorter laundry bin. I put his socks, underwear, that and one thing, shirts and one of the things and pants. I fold them my way. I will. I refuse to turn clothes back right side out. If you didn't put them in right side out, they're going to get folded wrong side out now. But that's my pettiness and I've kept up that for 34 years and I will keep it up for another 34,.
Speaker 1:Just so you know, give new jeans a pre-wash. This is especially if it's a dark wash on the jean. I have had blue hands before. I have had blue legs before. I have left a blue stain on a chair before because the dye came off the fabric. So make sure you are washing those jeans especially a dark wash before you wear them.
Speaker 1:This is an interesting one. If you're out and you get an oily stain on your clothes from like, let's just say, a salad dressing, grab a pack of the artificial sweetener and sprinkle it on it, wait a few minutes and then brush it off and rinse. The sweet stuff will absorb the oil, giving you a better chance of getting the stain out when you wash it. So that is my advice for today. I think that's enough, right? Did you get some handy tips in there? Is there some tips and tricks that you might use? You can always check back on this episode. If you forgot, listen to that part again, get a reminder, make some. If you're out in the car, when you're home, listen to it again, make some notes. But I think those were some great advice from the magazine and magazine and um, next week we're going to talk about cooking and entertaining.
Speaker 1:It's coming into that time of year, um, where maybe we don't do as much entertaining, and I think we should. I think we should take advantage of our decks, our, our grills, our patios, our outdoor time and do some entertaining. We seem to shove it all into the holiday months and I think I prefer to entertain when I can have my doors open, like in our house in California. I would have the doors open, people could be inside, outside. I love to entertain. I miss it immensely, immensely. I was a huge Craig and I were a huge gathering through. I don't want to say parties, because they're really not party parties, but you know we had football things, we had all kinds. I had book group at my house all the time. I miss that. So we're going to talk about some of my cooking and entertaining advice and then we're going to use some of the thoughts and tips and tricks from Real Simple we are going to.
Speaker 1:Now I'm going to give you a funny fun, a fun fact. Always leave you with a fun fact, but I hope today's episode was interesting. Again, share it with your friends. You can find it anywhere you can get. Download your podcast inside Marcy's mind. You can get it at my website inside Marcy's mindcom. All episodes are there, as well as some information, so check it out. I hope you're going to have a good day, but before you leave this podcast, check out my interesting fact. Well, since I am a crime junkie, I thought this was an interesting fact Ident identical twins don't have the same fingerprints, so you can't blame your crimes on your twin.
Speaker 1:This is because environmental factors during development in the womb, umbilical cord length and this goes for all of us, this is how your fingerprints are formed umbilical length, position in the womb and the rate of finger growth Impact your fingerprints. Who knew? I didn't know. Did you know? Anyway, if you are an identical twin, you cannot blame your crimes on your twins. So just so you know. Anyways, go out there and do something positive this week.
