Episode 39: Unhinged New Year Debauchery

Happy New Year, little witchlings! In today's episode Poppy, River, and Skye just get together and chat about the new year, reminisce about the previous year, and just generally yap away as good friends do. So join us, pull up a seat, pull out your brand new calendars and planners, and let's hop into 2026 Death Coven Style

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Transcript

River 0:19

Mm-hmm. Apparently 2025 is the end of like the snake era according to what astrology Instagram. Girlies keep telling me on the algorithm, which is why it sucked so bad. It's about like shedding and rebirthing and like the discomfort that comes with all of that, which is apparently why it sucked so bad the past few years.

Skye 0:44

that also like, like we also recently entered into the age of Aquarius finally, or something like that. Right?

River 0:51

I don't know. I'm a fake astrology. Girly.

Skye 0:53

don't

Poppy 0:54

I have no idea. And what does that even mean? It's just like more loosey goosey.

Skye 0:59

I, I'm sure there's probably some specific celestial body. Something, something.

River 1:04

I think it's like something, something with the fool card of like, like revolutions and like a new age of like wisdom and peace or whatever. Very out with the old in, with the new for the better.

Skye 1:21

Dunno, couldn't, couldn't tell you.

River 1:25

I, I'm excited to break out my 2026 calendar though.

Poppy 1:28

Oh yeah.

Skye 1:30

kind did you get?

River 1:32

I found a

Poppy 1:33

hold it, hold it, hold it. It has to do with the hypothetical.

Skye 1:39

Oh,

Poppy 1:39

share.

River 1:40

you sneaky little devil. Okay, everybody shut the hell up. We're not there yet.

Skye 1:44

okay.

Poppy 1:46

Oh, are we in?

River 1:49

I think so.

Poppy 1:51

Welcome to Death coven. Woo. Happy New Year 2026.

Skye 1:58

Insert champagne, popping bottle noise,

River 2:00

Woo. The Great Gatsby party in the background going on.

Poppy 2:12

This is a podcast by a death coven that comes out every other Thursday. Thank you for joining us today. We're going a little bit lax. A day is a goal and we're talking about the new year and just generally what, what the hell is going on? Where have we been? Where are we now? Where are we going? Cotton? I, Joe. Um,

Skye 2:35

will find it along the way.

Poppy 2:37

yeah. We'll, you know, this is a, this is chill. If we end up, oh, we've all said that this is going to probably be a little bit unhinged'cause we're all feeling a little goofy wild right now.

Skye 2:50

It'll be what it is.

Poppy 2:52

Slap happy, slap your pappy.

Skye 2:55

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Poppy 2:57

Ah,

River 2:57

I would never slap my pappy. My pappy's dead. Thank you very much.

Poppy 3:00

you dig him up.

River 3:02

Oh,

Poppy 3:05

Uh, what did I say? Um, all right, well that's what we're doing now. So I'm extracting a lemon seed from my drink and

River 3:14

ew.

Poppy 3:16

my fingers were deep in there.

Skye 3:19

Drink reveal. I sky. I'm sky By the way, one of the hosts of this podcast,

Poppy 3:25

Oh yeah,

Skye 3:25

um, uh, I am drinking a mimosa, just a tradition. OJ Sparkling Wine.

Poppy 3:34

yeah. Nice. A breakfast cocktail to kick off the breakfast of the year. January.

Skye 3:40

Yes.

River 3:41

I've never thought of it like that, but that's so true.

Poppy 3:44

I, well, January. I feel like it might be more of like a your morning coffee before you make breakfast kind of month perhaps.

River 3:53

I try to eat a little bit of my breakfast before I drink my coffee.'cause apparently it's not

Poppy 3:57

'cause you care about your body. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

River 4:01

I'm just incredibly sensitive to caffeine, so I have to be real careful.

Poppy 4:05

Yeah. And what do you drink in River who is also a host of this podcast?

River 4:10

I have a, an easy, simple, humble lime white claw with me today.

Poppy 4:17

the deal with the natural lime? Is there like a regular lime? Unnatural

River 4:23

no, I think they just call it that. Yeah. They have this one and they have like the dumpster lime.

Skye 4:29

dumpster

Poppy 4:30

for real.

River 4:31

Yeah.

Poppy 4:31

lime, that's my lime Sona personally.

Skye 4:37

I am a key lime'cause I'm so petite and small

River 4:39

Oh, I'm so petite and I'm like a little bit tart.

Poppy 4:43

And I wanna cream your pie,

Skye 4:44

You put me in a pie. Yeah.

Poppy 4:47

put you in a

Skye 4:48

on my pie. Yeah,

Poppy 4:51

Uh, and I'm

Skye 4:51

started, the gas leak has

River 4:53

It's already

Skye 4:54

chat. Yeah,

River 4:55

It started minutes ago.

Skye 4:57

hours ago.

Poppy 4:58

tequila and lemon juice and a ginger lime poppy.

River 5:03

Mm.

Poppy 5:03

that's where I am.

Skye 5:04

And that's also your name, poppy.

Poppy 5:06

And that's my name, poppy. That's me, yeehaw Shaw. Okay. Y'all wanna do a cute little hypothetical?

Skye 5:16

Yeah, that's a thing we do

Poppy 5:18

Yeah. At the beginning of every episode, we do a, what we call a hypothetical. It, sometimes it's a question, sometimes it's a, uh.

River 5:31

Sometimes it's a

Poppy 5:31

Situations. Sometimes it's an event. Um, and it, today it's just a cute, it's just a cute little question. Easy breezy, simple. In honor of the, of the new year, uh, I want you to describe your perfect planner slash calendar slash whatever you use to keep track of stuff. Is it physical, digital, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly. Do you not use anything at all color coded? You know what, tell, tell me about it.

Skye 6:02

I have a rant. Can I open with a rant?

Poppy 6:05

Please. I wish you

River 6:06

pop off Queen.

Skye 6:09

It's a rant at myself, and it was something that I've been thinking about recently because it's

Poppy 6:14

coming out swinging.

Skye 6:17

Every fucking year I buy a planner

Poppy 6:20

I

Skye 6:20

and I don't fucking use it by March. That shit is empty, but like the first month or two, oh, there's like stickers. I have different color pens

Poppy 6:32

This year's, the year.

Skye 6:33

every year is the year and no year's the fucking year. So do you know what actually works for me though? A combination of two things because, and I'm so disappointed, I'm, I wish I was a fucking, oh, what's it called? Those, those girlies who do like the

Poppy 6:50

Oh, I know what you're talking about. Like the, um, oh God, what is it

Skye 6:54

what is it called? It's a bullet

Poppy 6:57

bullet

River 6:57

Is it? Okay.

Skye 6:59

I wish I was a bullet journal girly. In my heart of hearts I am because I'm like, ooh. Because I love to have stickers and draw, and I love the idea of

River 7:08

my secret symbols. That only I understand.

Poppy 7:12

You're writing in Wingdings.

Skye 7:13

yes.

River 7:15

And somehow you understand it perfectly.

Skye 7:18

But you know what actually works for me, and I fucking hate this, it's just a whiteboard calendar combined with my Google calendar.

River 7:27

Mm-hmm.

Skye 7:28

That's it.

Poppy 7:29

feel that.

River 7:30

Yep.

Skye 7:30

my notes, app,

Poppy 7:32

What do you keep in your Google calendar? Just like appointments and stuff, or do you put social things in there and whatnot? Yeah. That's good.

Skye 7:40

um, appointments for, I have a client that I see, I go to her house and so I like schedule with her using my Google calendar, and then I transfer it onto my physical whiteboard calendar. Um, Michael and I also have, in addition to, I have like a whiteboard that is like a blank calendar that I can fill in. We also have a larger. A standard whiteboard where we have two columns, we have a need, like items we need like if we're running outta toilet paper or whatever. And then the other side is a to-do column. So if there's like a bill, if I need to go to the post office and like whatever errand or chore or whatever needs to be done that we needed to be reminded of, or if we need to put a magnet on the board with like an envelope that needs to be taken care of. Like that's sort of how our systems of operation work. It's not a fun cutesy bullet journal like I wish it was, but that it is very utilitarian.

River 8:38

the job done.

Skye 8:39

done. I just need a big sign in my house that goes, fucker take care of it. Remember this?

Poppy 8:46

Yeah. You

River 8:47

remember this bill?

Skye 8:48

You wrote it in block capital letters in red and underlined it.

Poppy 8:52

Mm-hmm.

Skye 8:53

Get it done. Get her

River 8:54

And then you circled it'cause you forgot.

Poppy 8:57

Mm-hmm.

Skye 8:57

Yeah. So that's what works for me. Sorry, I

Poppy 9:00

Oh, you know what's so good though? A Juicy Expo marker. Like

River 9:06

Mm. Fresh

Skye 9:07

is a content creator who I sometimes see, and she's a teacher and she rates the juiciness of different branded markers workers,

River 9:17

I want that shit

Poppy 9:18

Back when I was teaching, I, so I shared classrooms and the markers were just there, and by the like end of the very first week of the semester, they would just be dry and squeaky. And some people just brought their own markers and I never did, but I should have like, looking back at it,'cause it just

Skye 9:40

ass, broke ass. Just

Poppy 9:42

I was, I was a fucking grad student, bro. I didn't have the money to buy expo

River 9:47

Expo mark, name brand. Expo markers. Expensive.

Poppy 9:50

But it just makes everything so much worse when you're trying to, like, first of all, you're up talking in front of a bunch of like 19 year olds that hate your guts and then your

River 10:00

you are like 22 years old and you're like, I'm your peer, please.

Poppy 10:04

Like, please respect me. Ugh.

Skye 10:08

What about y'all?

River 10:09

I feel like Poppy is the most, not

Poppy 10:12

it's similar, it's similar

River 10:15

Yours is just a little bit more, how you say categorized, I guess. Like you put a lot of stuff on your calendar.

Poppy 10:24

I, so I have, first of all, I do use Google Calendar, but only for work. I don't use it in my personal life. But I keep that shit up to date for work. You know, you kind of have to with like meetings and projects and whatnot. So there's that. And then I have, for my personal life, I have both a planner and then the whiteboard that I have out in my kitchen. Uh, and I've been doing that for years. And it's like a huge five foot by four foot whiteboard that I have in

Skye 11:01

interesting to be that you go vertical with your whiteboard instead of

Poppy 11:05

Well, so I like to write like at the beginning or at the end of every month. For the next month, I write out like top to bottom every single day in order, like first day of the month to the last day of the month. And I put all of my stuff in then, uh, and it's color coded appointments are in blue. Anything socials, orange, uh, anything exercise related, like yoga classes or aerial or whatever, that's pink. Anything work related is light green. And then anything with Greg is dark green,

River 11:40

Hmm.

Skye 11:42

green. Greg. Yeah,

Poppy 11:44

green Greg.

River 11:45

old Green Greg. They call him

Poppy 11:48

He's more blue in my

River 11:49

Greg.

Poppy 11:49

but blue is already spoken for with the, um,

River 11:52

Blue is medical

Skye 11:53

Blue was there before Greg came around, so Greg's gotta get kicked to the side for green.

Poppy 11:58

is like doctor's appointments and vet appointments

Skye 12:01

very.

Poppy 12:03

hair haircuts and shit.

River 12:04

I have a very similar color coordinating system where blue is medical appointments and vets, but social events are pink, and then my bills are orange and then paydays are green.

Skye 12:15

Yeah,

Poppy 12:17

And I, I also do use a planner and I keep up with my planner. At the beginning of the year last year, I went in and I wrote down all the birth, like Sky was saying, like birthdays and like big events, vacations and shit like that. That's already planned. And then again, at the beginning of every month and as I go, like as things pop up, I just put it in, in the planner. So that's like my source of truth. And then every month I'll kind of transcribe that onto whatever's relevant onto the whiteboard.

Skye 12:44

but also metaphysically you do your, um, like goal spreadsheet thing. Like I feel like that would also count in this kind of

Poppy 12:53

I

River 12:54

Oh yeah, your

Skye 12:54

where you tally

River 12:56

phase challenges

Skye 12:57

didn't do it daily sort of thing.

Poppy 12:59

Yeah. Every, either every month or depending on like, my goals at that time period, it, it is like with the moon phases. So it'll either be like New Moon to full moon, full Moon to New Moon or just the whole month. And I break those up into three categories. Mind, body, spirit, for mind. I usually do like meditation. And then, for the past six months or so, I've been doing like living the eight limb path, like through my yogic journey bodies, nourishment, like fruits and vegetables and whatnot.'cause I have a really hard time, as I've said before, eating fruits and vegetables. So I keep track of it. Uh,

Skye 13:43

eating meat and taters y'all. She's just eating meat and taters all the

Poppy 13:46

And bread, bro. I, it's just so hard when, when I get into like a groove with it, it's a lot easier, but I have

River 13:55

Once you fall outta that groove, you're like, ah,

Poppy 13:58

Yeah,

River 13:58

buy a fruit.

Poppy 14:00

then it just goes bad in the fridge and I'm like,

River 14:01

Yeah.

Skye 14:02

Yeah.

Poppy 14:03

Um, and then spirit is, uh, like any kind of deity stuff. Sometimes it's tarot, sometimes, sometimes I do meditation there. Uh, and then dream work. Yeah.

Skye 14:18

you get a little prize depending on how good you did.

River 14:21

Sometimes you get a little treat.

Poppy 14:24

I have like a ranking system. So usually there's like gold, silver, bronze, or cop. Is that what Yeah, bronze and bronze is like, did I make it through the cycle and keep up with everything? Like, did I actually fill out this tracker and then I get a tiny reward? Silver's, like, did I reach this point threshold and then go's like, yeah, you knocked it out of the park. You get to schedule a massage or something like that. You know, let me get my, my planner for this year. It's really, it's different from my previous planners.

River 14:56

Different.

Skye 14:56

I am excited to hear about that. Like if you used to lean towards a certain kind of planner and what drew you to this one, what makes it different? Do you like it? Are you gonna go back to the old way? Are you gonna try a new one? I love plan again. Wish I was a bullet journal. Girly. I'm not.

River 15:12

at heart. You're a stationary

Skye 15:14

Do you know how much washy tape I have that doesn't not get fucking get

River 15:18

I've seen it. Yes.

Poppy 15:20

this was mine from last year

Skye 15:22

Oh, that's so cute.

Poppy 15:22

2025. It's a thicken, it's like a big book. Um,

Skye 15:28

you do weekly, monthly? How does yours

Poppy 15:31

this one, so this one was a little bit too much because there's a, there's a monthly at the beginning of each month, but then after that it's just like, um, like daily spreads and

River 15:44

Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Poppy 15:46

mood scale, uh, main focus of the day, food tracking. I'm grateful for a shopping list, like, you know, stuff like that. There's an urgent category and it was just a little bit too much. Um, so this year I paired down a ton and it's this

Skye 16:05

so

River 16:06

Hell yeah.

Poppy 16:08

this one is,

River 16:09

I used to buy those all the time. I love that

Skye 16:12

It looks like the size of an old school. Um, address book. Like, I feel like at home we, yeah, we used to have like a little address book about that

River 16:19

And that's all you need.

Poppy 16:21

instead of like an every single day, it's two pages that covered the whole week. And I feel like that's much more,

Skye 16:27

That's more of what I'm familiar with. All the, the planners that I usually have bought in the past, they're physically larger.'cause I like a big thing to put all my stickers in and what have you when I actually use a planner. But it'll have

River 16:40

When you sit down for 45 minutes to plan out your week.

Skye 16:44

Every Sunday night. Yeah. And it would have like a traditional calendar with like the little squares. And then after that it'll have like the week, every day gets like a little, a little chunk and you

Poppy 16:56

Like for me, the smaller it is, it's one of those like, um, like mental manipulation tricks where it's like, the smaller it is, the more it looks like the text is filling it up, the more likely I am to use it because it looks like I, I'm actually like making a difference in the book, you know? Does that

Skye 17:15

with a bigger one, you feel like you need

Poppy 17:17

There's too much

River 17:18

too much empty space. I'm

Poppy 17:20

And I'm like, oh, I don't have that much stuff. Yeah. Why bother writing anything down? But then when it's small like that,

River 17:25

You're like, I'm, I'm so busy. I can't. I'm so busy.

Poppy 17:31

Well, actually, like keeping a planner for me makes me realize how much free time I have, if that makes sense. Because I, I do, I mean, I have a lot of activities and things that I do regularly and whatnot, but it highlights the free spaces between the events for me. So I'm like, okay, what can I, what can I

Skye 17:51

Have you bought, is that 1 4 20 26.

Poppy 17:55

Yeah. This is 2026. A nice light green. I, feel like 2026 for me is

River 18:01

Also so cheap, but God does it work?

Skye 18:04

yeah, I just bought a new duvet for the

Poppy 18:09

me too. Well, I didn't buy it, but yeah,

Skye 18:11

and the duvet cover, I got like a light sage color, so I'm with you on like, sage.

Poppy 18:18

this is our new one. I just,

River 18:20

Gorge.

Poppy 18:21

I just, it's sage green as well.

Skye 18:23

Did you get it from, from, from Bezos?

Poppy 18:26

the, from, from Jeff Bezos? No, it was a, um, it was on the wedding registry. Yeah.

Skye 18:33

Okay. I get him. And somebody

Poppy 18:35

It was a wedding

Skye 18:36

remember. Yeah. I have your wedding gifts come in. This is separate. I don't know if you want to cut

Poppy 18:41

Um, a lot of them have, some of them are on back order and they have not. Yeah.

Skye 18:48

I don't remember. I think I got you Tupperware.

Poppy 18:50

You, oh, that came in and that's already come in

Skye 18:52

Hell yeah.

Poppy 18:54

been really good. I'm trying to switch over from plastic to class,

Skye 18:57

Which is dangerous for you. I,

River 18:59

Brave of you to do

Skye 19:00

it's thick though. It's like thick.

Poppy 19:02

The ones that you got me

River 19:03

tempered. Yeah.

Poppy 19:04

Yeah. I

Skye 19:05

them out, so hope you love them.

Poppy 19:08

I They will be hard to break. Knock on wood.

Skye 19:12

don't knock them on wood. I wouldn't recommend

Poppy 19:14

No, I ate a big old bowl of cereal in one of'em last

Skye 19:20

Nice. I,

River 19:24

Is it like a rectangle shape?

Poppy 19:26

Uh, there's, it's an assortment. There are some circular ones, some rectangles, a

River 19:30

I think it's very funny to eat cereal out of like

Poppy 19:32

out of a square bowl.

River 19:34

Yeah.

Poppy 19:35

I used to

River 19:36

cereal shape.

Skye 19:38

refill my mimosa before we dive into the main segment.

Poppy 19:41

river's gotta tell us about their

River 19:43

I sure didn't. I'm just polite.

Skye 19:47

Oh. I thought, well, I'll do it

River 19:49

No, I talked about my color coordination system, but on my little calendars,

Poppy 19:53

I wanna hear it.'cause you were talking about your gay

River 19:56

my, my queer little, I found, uh, online the beauty of the internet. There is a queer Catholic artist online. I believe their handle is. Give me a second. have to go through like three layers of do you actually want to go on Instagram right now? How much time do you want to spend on Instagram

Poppy 20:25

oh, is that like a parental control app or something, or?

River 20:28

like my mindfulness timer.

Poppy 20:31

Mm-hmm.

River 20:32

like my, my minimalism timer. It's like, how much time are you trying to spend? I'm like, fuck you.

Poppy 20:39

How, what is, what is

River 20:40

for

Poppy 20:40

Oh, it's a, oh,

River 20:42

literally just like the minimalist phone app.

Poppy 20:45

okay. Is it

River 20:46

Yeah. Uh, it's like a one time subscription, I want to say, or like, um, I don't think it's yearly. I think it's like a one time and you can just use it for however, however long you

Poppy 20:58

I need something like that, man.

River 21:00

It's, it's relatively easy to get workarounds to spend more time than you should be on apps.

Poppy 21:07

Yeah, but then it shames you a little bit and you're

River 21:09

It shames you. And also the new thing they're doing with it is the longer you're on an app throughout the day, the more time you spend on it. If you're still on an app and the time runs out, it'll send you a popup and there's like a mindfulness like wheel that you have to wait for it to fill up and then go down. And the longer you're on that app, the slower it goes. So you have to really think about it. Very annoying sometimes

Skye 21:38

that brick.

River 21:40

thought about it.

Poppy 21:41

Yeah. I

River 21:41

I'm on Instagram now.

Poppy 21:42

I don't use my phone for work anymore, so I

River 21:45

Yeah,

Skye 21:46

That's good.

River 21:47

coach.

Poppy 21:47

yeah.

Skye 21:49

I feel like that's a good excuse of like, well, I need it for work, and then you end up on Instagram.

Poppy 21:55

Yep.

River 21:55

Yeah. For too long that there's a queer Catholic artist on Instagram under the handle and her Saints, and I just randomly found them scrolling one day, and they made a queer liturgical calendar for 2026. So I got all the feast days, the important Catholic holidays, and each month is themed after a saint. And it's a very beautiful, and it's an independent artist, and I love supporting independent artists, but I'm really just, I have one physical calendar that I keep everything on. It hangs in my kitchen. It's a Moen calendar. I got a Barnes and Noble last year.

Skye 22:38

So you haven't bought one for 2026 yet?

River 22:41

I did, it's my liturgical calendar.

Skye 22:44

Oh, it's a calendar. I don't know why. In my mind, I thought it was a planner.

River 22:48

I'm not, I was a planner girly when I was younger, but then I grew up and I got a calendar. I,

Poppy 22:55

I used to travel so much, I had to bring it with me. Like I couldn't just leave

River 22:59

I, for some reason, when I was younger, I wouldn't put stuff in my calendar on my phone. If I was like away from a calendar now I'll just put it in my phone as like a placeholder so I can look back

Skye 23:10

We have, Michael just bought our, um, hanging calendar.'cause we, we get like a, it's basically just a decorative calendar, um, of the year. And I picked our one from last year, which was the anime spy family themed, which was very cute. But Michael got ours for this year and it's a cosmos themed one. It's like some photographer that takes really closeup pictures of like the sun and really cool, like astrological stuff. So it's just like, it's like space themed basically for 2026.

Poppy 23:51

He loves space.

Skye 23:53

I mostly use the physical calendar like that to, to view the moon phases.'cause a lot of those will have like moon phases on them. And I'm like, when's the noon moon?

River 24:02

I haven't checked to see if my new calendar has the moon phases on

Skye 24:06

Well, I feel like, so there are many Catholic holidays that fall, like our lunar base, like Easter, right?

River 24:11

not partic, that's more of like the Jewish calendar that's lunar based. The Catholic calendar is more like day based.

Poppy 24:18

Mm.

Skye 24:20

but it's not Easter a a moon based one.

River 24:24

I don't think so. It's just about his resurrection.

Poppy 24:27

It's like a certain number of Sundays after.

River 24:31

It's a certain number of days after the, uh, the crucifixion,

Poppy 24:35

Mm-hmm.

River 24:36

the three days he was in hell and then he was risen and they opened the tomb. They said, what the fuck? It's,

Poppy 24:43

And the amount of times that I Google moon phase today.

Skye 24:47

Easter is set at the first Sunday after the first full moon that occurs on or after the vernal equinox.

River 24:57

hmm.

Poppy 24:57

Hmm.

Skye 24:58

I knew East, I'm not even fucking Catholic. And I'm like, I know this shit is moon based. It's because it's a weird, because sometimes Easter will either be, it's, you think of it primarily as like the mid to late months in April, but sometimes it's like weirdly, like in a

River 25:14

It moves around sometimes.

Skye 25:16

it's not like Thanksgiving where it's like it's the last Thursday of November or whatever. Like it's, it depends on the New Moon or the full moon rather

River 25:26

Yeah. The more you know,

Poppy 25:27

I guess Good Friday also depends on the full moon.

Skye 25:30

because it's following whatever.

Poppy 25:32

Yeah.

River 25:34

the vernal

Poppy 25:35

Which would mean lint also.

Skye 25:37

Yep. All of them,

Poppy 25:39

Huh?

Skye 25:39

I guess.

Poppy 25:40

You're backtracking. We had

Skye 25:42

Yeah. I dunno. I dunno.

Poppy 25:45

think speed and mother moon

Skye 25:47

I'll drink to that.

River 25:48

Cheers.

Poppy 25:49

clank.

Skye 25:52

are the vibes of this year? Oh, no, poppy. Are you okay? Did you get a bad sip

River 25:56

got a bad sip.

Skye 25:58

tart?

River 25:58

the back of your throat. You went,

Poppy 26:00

Yep. Little, little tart. Oh, can we talk real quick about the fucking Pantone color of the year?

Skye 26:07

Yes. I wish

Poppy 26:08

That blew my mind. Like in today's

River 26:11

color of the year is white times. Person of the year is the AI fucks.

Poppy 26:16

Yeah. Like is it just, is it literally just white or is it like

Skye 26:21

It's got a

Poppy 26:22

creamy blah blah.

River 26:24

It's like something dancer or some shit.

Skye 26:28

let

Poppy 26:28

dancer,

Skye 26:29

look

River 26:29

I think so. It's fucking white.

Skye 26:33

Cloud

Poppy 26:34

color of the year? It is cloud dancer.

Skye 26:36

Yep.

Poppy 26:38

That's, I mean, that's, it's a cute

River 26:40

I am honestly surprised they didn't go with butter yellow.

Skye 26:43

pale gray. Like at least in this,

Poppy 26:48

toned. It just looks white.

River 26:51

I.

Skye 26:53

like two notches above eggshell. You know what I mean? Like, it's just like,

River 26:57

It's all

Poppy 26:58

It's, it's a warm white.

Skye 27:00

Yeah.

River 27:01

Which is still white.

Poppy 27:03

Yeah. I feel like, um, positive. Positive. Oh my god. Odd number years are like cool toned, and even number years are warm, toned. Personally,

Skye 27:17

Mm.

Poppy 27:17

I

Skye 27:19

I do understand that even numbers are positive and odd. Numbers are negative. Like I understand why you said that though.'cause Yeah,

River 27:26

They're just so odd. Numbers are just so harsh,

Poppy 27:29

just so negative.

Skye 27:30

have that extra

River 27:32

Yeah. Whenever there's like a, an angle in a number that's not four, I'm like, whoa,

Poppy 27:40

calm down. Calm

River 27:41

whoa.

Skye 27:42

like seven,

Poppy 27:43

Seven. So

River 27:44

Like seven or five?

Poppy 27:46

Do you guys do the dash across your seven?

River 27:48

no. but I do a dash in my Zs.

Poppy 27:51

Yeah.

Skye 27:52

Ooh. When you guys do the number eight, do you do an infinity or do you do the snowman?

River 27:59

Honestly, it depends on how fast I'm

Poppy 28:01

If I'm trying to have good handwriting, I'll do the snowman. If I'm just like journaling or whatever, then it's a,

River 28:08

It's an s with a, like a, a sign through

Poppy 28:11

Do you start at the bottom or the top though?

River 28:13

I start at the top.

Skye 28:14

I go, I go up to the left, down to the right. Back up to the left.

River 28:19

Mm-hmm.

Poppy 28:20

I start at the center point and then go left down and over and across.

Skye 28:26

that's psychotic. sociopathic behavior.

Poppy 28:31

it rounder for me. I don't know.

Skye 28:34

I mean, everybody's handwriting is so, I mean, I literally take my paper and I tilt it at like a 50 degree angle and write in italics. So I, I can't, I it's'cause when I learned cursive, we, we did that and just ever since then, that's how I write.

River 28:51

It's

Poppy 28:51

helps you get a better,

River 28:53

Yeah.

Poppy 28:53

grip on You gotta

River 28:54

Otherwise, my arm's at a weird angle while I'm writing on this straight

Skye 28:57

because who, who writes just like vertical up and down, you know what I mean? Like with your, you.

Poppy 29:02

if you're left-handed, if you're left-handed, you

River 29:04

oh, lefties have it

Skye 29:05

he's a lefty.

Poppy 29:07

Yeah. I've only ever dated left-handed men then.

Skye 29:09

What is up with that?

Poppy 29:11

I don't know. No idea.

Skye 29:13

Have they all had blue eyes also? No.

Poppy 29:15

No

Skye 29:16

'cause I think other Michael had brown eyes. Right? I,

Poppy 29:19

other Michael had brown eyes and um, the other guy before that was also was eyed.

River 29:26

Hmm.

Skye 29:27

mm. I think that he just gives scary blue eye energy to me, you know?

Poppy 29:33

Yeah,

River 29:34

Yeah. Like those intense blue eyes.

Poppy 29:39

man. If he had blue eyes it would be too much with his, his just the intensity

Skye 29:44

his energy.

Poppy 29:45

just blind me.

Skye 29:46

Ugh.

Poppy 29:48

Uh, anyway.

Skye 29:50

How

Poppy 29:51

Any other comments on our calendars or,

Skye 29:53

No. I thought we, uh, are we, I think we're

Poppy 29:57

I don't, I don't know. I just wanted to give River an opportunity to finish up if

River 30:01

my calendar's out. I'm done. I'm over it.

Skye 30:04

I'm over it. Do we have any, um, predictions that we wanna

Poppy 30:12

Death

River 30:13

I can't say that. I can't say that and leave it in

Skye 30:17

Just like grand scale? Oh, I have one. I think that, um, Rachel's gonna get pregnant again

River 30:24

again. Yeah,

Skye 30:26

And also Violet,

Poppy 30:27

summer

River 30:29

I hope not.

Poppy 30:30

Perhaps. I think they might be done for a little bit. Unless it's an accident.

Skye 30:35

well, that's, I'm not trying to say it, but that's what I'm saying.

Poppy 30:40

Yeah.

Skye 30:41

But I think intentional from Rachel

Poppy 30:44

Yeah.

Skye 30:46

and an accident for Violet. Sorry if Violet, if you're listening. I love you, girl. I wanna see more than things. You do, you do great work.

Poppy 30:53

little babies. He did great

River 30:54

Great job.

Skye 30:56

they're beautiful. I love them.

Poppy 31:00

I forget which, oh, what's his name? Oh my God. Who was it recently that I was like, they're gonna die soon. The actor, you know who I'm talking about?

River 31:11

Ian McKellan.

Poppy 31:12

Ian McKellen?

River 31:13

Yeah.

Skye 31:14

said, I have a bad feeling about Ian McKellen and did not say what you meant by that and then fell asleep.

Poppy 31:20

I, I just had like a very, very, well, I was driving, I

River 31:24

I mean he's what, like 90 something at

Poppy 31:28

in his late eighties or

Skye 31:29

He's knighted, right? Isn't he a sir?

River 31:31

He's Sir Ian McKellan. Yeah.

Poppy 31:34

in McKellen.

Skye 31:37

You Google right now. He's already dead. Can you imagine?

River 31:39

Fuck. The news just breaks.

Poppy 31:42

I did see. So you know how they have like their birthday on one side and then like the death date on the other side usually. Um, so on the left side, right now it says, age 86, May 25th, 1939. And then on the right it says Ian Kellen 2017. And I was like, what has he been dead? But no, it,

River 32:03

whole time.

Poppy 32:03

else. It was like an X-Men thing.

River 32:05

Mm.

Skye 32:06

Oh, right, right, right, right. Imagine they have like a future date already listed. Can you

Poppy 32:10

Oh my God.

River 32:10

God.

Skye 32:11

just predicting,

River 32:13

They're just like, yeah, we'll see. We'll change it if it doesn't happen. Any who?

Skye 32:20

anyway, we were talking earlier, talking about, I don't, did, was it during, while we were recording that, we briefly mentioned the 25 for 25 that Poppy and I do. I don't remember if that

River 32:33

I think it might've been at the very beginning of

Poppy 32:35

I know we like touched on it last night in the group

Skye 32:38

yeah, so I'll just reidify for the listeners that, um, in years past. For the past, I don't know, maybe I don't Poppy. Uh, did you do it? Uh, at least for the last two years.

Poppy 32:53

Yeah. So I've done it. I've done it for three years

Skye 32:56

Yeah, so I think mm-hmm. So I think for the past several years, poppy and I have done um, like 22 for 22, 25 for 25. So it's just a goal list that we write, you know, late December, thinking about the year ahead, things that we want to accomplish for that year

Poppy 33:16

Yeah. Small goals, not like huge.

Skye 33:19

goals. You can put some big ones, but it's just supposed to be sort of a wide swath of,

Poppy 33:26

things to

Skye 33:27

and yeah. And they can be things that you either have already done or things that you know, for certain will get done. Like one of the ones that I checked off for last year was move. I knew that my lease was coming up, we had to move, but it was just something easy for me to check off.

Poppy 33:43

Yeah. I had get married online

Skye 33:45

yeah, exactly.

Poppy 33:46

planned.

Skye 33:48

Yeah. And you had put a get engaged on the year before

Poppy 33:51

Yeah, and I did. So

Skye 33:53

come true. So,

Poppy 33:54

yeah. Don't let your dreams be dreams.

Skye 33:57

yeah. So grand reveal, I'm not doing one this year.

Poppy 34:04

Oh,

Skye 34:07

And that is because with, it kind of ties a spoiler alert, we. Prerecorded the next episode before this episode. So kind of going into the ideas that you'll hear about next episode is why I decided not to do a 26 for 26 this year. But basically in previous years where I've created these lists for myself, I have felt very bold and, and assumptive of the whole year. And as it turns out, every single year, December me is different from May me and different from November. Me.

Poppy 34:52

Honestly, March me. March me versus January. Me completely different

Skye 34:57

And

Poppy 34:57

Once a sun comes back,

Skye 34:59

yeah, I grow and adapt and change, and honestly, don't even fucking revisit the list immediately after I write it. Half the time, what's on

River 35:10

just find it again halfway after the years through and

Skye 35:13

Just at the year's end, I'm like, oh yeah, let's see if I happened to complete any

River 35:18

by luck. I wasn't checking. But let's see if anything happened.

Skye 35:22

Yeah. And most of the time I check off like the main ones that were probably gonna happen anyway, even if I hadn't written them down. But anyway, I, I, end of the year, I think about New year, new me, January one, things are gonna be different. I'm different, yada, yada, yada. I buy that new planner. I don't use.

River 35:43

This is the year I finally turned

Skye 35:45

This is the year and I get, I

River 35:47

for absolutely no reason.

Skye 35:49

love that energy of reinventing

Poppy 35:52

It, it feels good until you run outta steam.

River 35:55

Yeah.

Skye 35:56

It feels good. And then you have to experience the month of February and then it,

Poppy 35:59

It's like a caffeine

River 36:00

And nobody's having a good

Skye 36:02

and nobody's having a good time. So with all of that being said, I have thought about this and I'm like, well, I still want to adapt and grow and change and have goals as a person throughout my year. So what would be a better way to do this? Um, it basically, I'm paring it down, so I'm going to attempt, I will not, I mean, I would like to do it, but I'm not, this is my first time doing it. So we will, I'm gonna give myself a little bit of grace,

Poppy 36:32

Mm-hmm.

Skye 36:34

monthly or quarterly goals and maybe only doing like five of them depending on what the goals are.'cause some of them may be more quarterly appropriate, some of them may be more monthly appropriate. Um, and trying to do more check-ins. So that's kind of the issue that I have. The main issue is like lack of check-ins. So if I set it for a shorter parameter, hopefully the idea is that I end up doing more check-ins. And I think that if I pair it with like my monthly

Poppy 37:02

the monthly tarot, reading. I was gonna say,'cause that's, I mean, that's something we do regularly, so it's a great check-in

Skye 37:09

let, let me pair it with my monthly tarot. Do do a check-in. Even if I didn't do a quote unquote good job at the list, let me at least check in and see what's going on there. So that way I can adapt throughout the year and say, you know what? For the past three months, this item has been on my list and I haven't done it a single time. Maybe it's time to scrap that idea and, and think of something else, and like refresh the list as the year goes on, and sort of adapt with what is needed as the year progresses instead of in December, trying to predict how my

River 37:45

What's going to happen next year? I think that's a more sustainable way to do it, because looking at these like long, daunting lists, you're like, you have no way of knowing that's how it's gonna shake out for you next

Poppy 37:58

And also

River 37:59

like a very little room for

Skye 38:01

Yeah.

Poppy 38:02

it's like, oh, I have all this time to accomplish that, so

River 38:05

365 days.

Poppy 38:08

Whereas if you're doing it monthly, you're influencing me. I'm being influenced. Yeah.

River 38:13

influence. Quick hold something up to the camera.

Skye 38:20

knowing Poppy. She'll just keep the 26 for 26, and then in addition to on

River 38:24

And just be doing some new

Skye 38:26

shit on the

Poppy 38:26

I feel like the, I was actually thinking that I was gonna do that. Yeah.

River 38:31

Mm-hmm. I'm being influenced to do something

Poppy 38:35

but those are, like we said, those are more like overarching, like, like one of mine, for example is just like, start running again or, um,

Skye 38:45

Does that mean if you go on one run that you can check that off?

Poppy 38:48

no, no.

Skye 38:49

what? Like what are the

Poppy 38:51

consistently throughout the year. Yeah. Um, uh, like one of them obviously is like my honeymoon thing or like performing in an aerial show, and I feel like those are, I can just check those off throughout the year. But yeah, maybe three, I feel like three monthly slash quarterly goals would

Skye 39:09

yeah,

Poppy 39:11

would be good.

Skye 39:12

yeah. Three, three to five. I,'cause I'm like, I haven't really written any down yet. I haven't really sat down and thought about logistically specifically. I like, I don't currently have any examples for you where we're still recording in like mid-December. So it's not actually January yet and I haven't, I'm waiting to, I have room in my tarot journal for one more entry and I'm saving it for like my ul end of year reading. So that way when I buy a new notebook, I've already bought a new notebook. Actually I can have it to be my first of the year reading. So that way on my Jan one, my fresh journal, my fresh notebook for tarot can, can be for Jan

Poppy 39:56

Love that. Oh, nothing

Skye 39:58

of

Poppy 39:58

a fresh notebook.

Skye 40:00

god. I love it. Uh, so I'm waiting for that. Uh, last Yule tarot reading to kind of give me a little bit of a guiding light of what the flavor of goals are for the beginning of the year. So I'm kind of waiting a little, I'm, I'm mulling and

River 40:19

Do you have any, even before the tarot spread, where you're like, I really wanna get that done next year. I really want to get into that next year.

Skye 40:28

Uh, well again, spoilers for the next episode, but very, very, um, generally speaking, like being more in tune with my body, generally speaking. And I have to kind of flush out and see what that means for me as the year goes on. But the, as a theme, uh, also the themes of grounding control, sort of being in my lower chakras I think is sort of gonna be a big theme for me from the solar plexus down to the root.

River 40:56

Get into that root.

Poppy 40:58

Yeah.

Skye 40:58

So that's kind of being, and also exploring a little bit more masculine energy, root chakra, grounding, control, personal sovereignty, et

Poppy 41:11

Warm, toned for the even year.

Skye 41:15

Warm tone. Indeed. So that's sort of my, my vibe for the upcoming year. Loosely River, you've, what are you thinking?

Poppy 41:29

What the, what the fuck are you

River 41:31

what the hell is going on over there? What the fuck is wrong with you, dude? What's your problem? Nah, I in, I don't think I have done any sort of New Year's resolution for the past, like seven years of my life.

Skye 41:50

And that's not what I'm asking of you.

River 41:52

Oh, just like for what? My theme or my goals or

Skye 41:57

like how are you approaching the year? How do you view it? Is there any sort of loose

River 42:02

upcoming year, this past year.

Skye 42:04

this? Well either, I suppose, but primarily 2026, the upcoming year.

River 42:10

I always like to not think too far ahead. I'm a very like, Hey, I'll, I'll tell you day of, we'll see how it's feeling day of. I'm that kind of person. And I, as always, I try to be cautiously optimistic around the new year where I'm like, Hey, I, it could be good. I don't know. But I'm also open to the realities and possibilities of, Hey, something really bad could happen. Only time will tell.

Poppy 42:45

Mm-hmm.

Skye 42:46

But, but I know that there are certain things like starting a new job. Perhaps

River 42:55

I'm very tired right now, so my brain's not

Skye 42:58

okay.

River 43:00

My a, a little, a little bit of river lore. Is I the company I work for got out, uh, got bought out. So we have a new owner. We've had a new owner for the past few months now, and I've been generally unhappy at my place of

Skye 43:23

prior to the new ownership.

River 43:25

for years, for the past few years. I've just generally not been very happy there. And I would always say I love what I do. I don't love where I do it, but it was a living and they paid me well and the old owners treated us well. So it was whatever, I'll stick it out. But the new owner is the last straw that I'm willing to put up with. So my goal was to find somewhere else to work by the end of the year. I have a job interview tomorrow morning.

Poppy 43:58

God.

River 44:00

I applied to this place. It's a small local business. I applied there in October. Had a wonderful phone call with one of, like the hiring team. Great guy.

Poppy 44:11

Oh, is this the new one?

River 44:13

This is, um, it's not new. It's, they had to move. So they've been a small business. So I don't remember what I was saying, but I'm very excited. I'm very nervous.

Skye 44:26

Well,'cause I know that you're gonna get this job, obviously.

River 44:29

I hope so.

Skye 44:30

Do you feel that once you get this job and once you're at least out of where you are currently, that will help you be in a mental head space to foster further growth? Like, do you think that you're kind of limiting yourself right now? That like what you just said a moment ago about, we'll, we'll take it day by day. Like, I know that is kind of a little bit of how you are as a core person, but I do feel like, because this is such a pressing issue for you, that you, you do literally every time you go into work, you're like, I literally have to get through the day and you're so not happy. It's difficult when you're in that head space to think about the future in like a positive way and plan for growth. So do you feel that once you start this new job, you will then have perhaps more plans for the year to come?

River 45:17

I think it, if, I know you're saying when like it's a sure thing, but I'm always like the little, like, maybe not, maybe they won't. I don't know.

Skye 45:27

I am saying when you get a new job, I'm not necessarily, you know, like, because you're, you'll be

Poppy 45:32

Because you will get a new job

River 45:33

I will get a new job somewhere,

Skye 45:36

what I'm saying.

River 45:37

but when I do not currently work where I work, I think it will take a lot of the emotional fatigue and the mental burden off so that I can be like, oh, life is more beautiful than I

Poppy 45:55

outta survival mode.

River 45:56

Yeah. Where I'm not spending 28 hours a week somewhere where I'm like, God, I fucking hate you people. You are the worst people I've

Skye 46:06

And then when you're not there, you're simply recouping and preparing yourself to go back again.

River 46:12

I'm, I'm like energetically cleansing and protecting myself and lighting my sake candles and asking for like, strength. So yeah, I think it will, but I also am just like a, I don't know, we'll see what happens, kind of guy where I'm just like, I don't, I

Skye 46:26

But that's also very like,

River 46:28

gonna be.

Skye 46:30

I maybe not like, I think it is reasonable to leave wiggle room for potential in your day, but also like it is important to

River 46:42

It's important to have goals and things to work towards, and I do have things I want to work towards. It's very limited because I know myself. No, not necessarily. Like I was talking to our friend Sage, who will be talked about more in the next upcoming episode in a couple weeks where we go to the same pole dancing studio and my goal is in like the next,

Skye 47:09

You are about to enter your next phase.

River 47:12

yeah, at, in like the next two years. I want to perform in an exhibition like that is my like pole goal right now for

Skye 47:21

Well, that's awesome.

River 47:25

That's really just like the big thing I wanna work towards.

Skye 47:29

and you have a poll at home too, like you can practice like you can, you

River 47:32

got a pole in a big ass mirror.

Skye 47:34

yeah, you can have little

Poppy 47:35

I'm so jealous of you.

River 47:37

I,

Poppy 47:39

If I could have silks in my house, I would be a menace.

River 47:42

Can you like feasibly, can you, or is just like the space not,

Poppy 47:46

one, I mean, the ceilings are high enough, but I don't trust it as a renter. And also at home, rigs just kind of skive me out

River 47:56

Yeah. Sometimes I get real nervous when I do something on my pole. I'm like, I hope it doesn't, I know I checked it, but I hope it doesn't slip.

Poppy 48:03

'cause like your pole is like on the ceiling and the floor,

River 48:06

Yeah.

Poppy 48:06

like silks would just be suspended from the ceiling. And I'm like, I don't trust the ceiling

River 48:11

Unless you like bolt that shit down.

Poppy 48:15

Especially'cause I recently started practicing drops, like I don't trust it

River 48:19

ooh. God. I look so cool.

Poppy 48:21

anyway, so you're gonna perform

River 48:23

I, that is my goal.'cause bear in mind listeners, I just started pole dancing in March of 2025. It is not even March of 2026 yet. And I also took like a three or four month break in like

Poppy 48:39

you've made still.

River 48:40

It takes a lot of practice and I put my whole pussy into practicing. Over the past few months, I was doing two classes a week on average. I was bruised as all hell and I felt like I got hit by a bus after class,

Poppy 48:54

Yeah.

River 48:54

it's incredible.

Poppy 48:57

It's another one of those circumstances where I'm so incredibly proud of you for getting out of your comfort zone and doing it, and like, you know, that's,

River 49:06

I, I will pat myself on the back for that'cause it's

Poppy 49:10

It's hard. It's

River 49:12

to do, but I've been so scared

Poppy 49:15

Mm-hmm. It's

River 49:16

even during my first months of classes I was like, I'm still so scared doing this

Poppy 49:22

Yeah. And, and you get over, well, maybe not. I mean, I still struggle with it too. Like the whole, I'm not good enough. Look at all these people around me that are so

River 49:31

of the people at the studio. If I'm in the same, if the, I've had people that I had to like share a poll with'cause the classes were so big. One of like a friend I've made through classes is so good. It pisses me off and we've had to share a poll multiple times and I'm like, you're so good. It annoys me and I love you and you're one of the kindest people I've ever met. But you're so good. Yeah. But it also inspires, like, I don't get mad and down on myself. I'm like, I want to do that.

Poppy 50:03

Yeah. And I love that for you.

River 50:05

Thank you. That's really the only big goal I have. Um, I wanna be better at like, my spiritual practice. I go long stretches of like not really feeding it. So I want to be more intentional about that. Much like again, in the next episode coming up. It's a really good one. Good tion. Uh, just being more of an active participant in my life is like a broad, every single day kind of goal. I try to keep it reasonable'cause I know myself and I know how easily overwhelmed I am.

Poppy 50:39

Important to factor in because it, it's so easy to just like Sky was kind of saying like at the beginning of the year, deciding you're gonna do all of these things and biting off more than you can chew, and then when you don't hit that, you're so discouraged. You're like, oh, why even

River 50:57

Yeah. You're like, I guess I'm just a fuck up. I didn't read 52 books this year. I guess I'm just fucked up and I'm worthless. It's like, no, you still read 48 books. That's

Poppy 51:08

yeah, yeah. I might get to 50. There's still like

River 51:14

you still got two weeks.

Skye 51:16

issue with like the reading goal thing in years past is that like the books that I tend to read are fucking big dude. So it's like, you mean that only counts for one? I read almost a thousand pages in just one

River 51:28

Months to read one book.

Poppy 51:31

I also have a page

Skye 51:32

I started and finished Throne of Glass last year, and that's basically all I fucking read.

River 51:37

Yeah.

Poppy 51:38

I mean those are, that's like 10,000 pages or something crazy

Skye 51:42

Yeah, the last one was like almost a thousand pages alone. Yeah. I did the Tandem read.

Poppy 51:48

Oh, violet is doing that right now, by the way. She was just sending me a bunch of Snapchats, like venting about it. Yeah,

River 51:55

She was like, I got these two big

Skye 51:57

Does she think that Tower of Dawn is boring and that she hates reading

Poppy 52:00

uh, I don't, she was basically just saying like, with the kids, it's just hard to keep

Skye 52:07

Oh yeah. I had

Poppy 52:10

has to put it down for so long. Yeah. I'm sure there are like online guides or

Skye 52:16

that's what I used. I printed out an online guide.

Poppy 52:18

yeah. That's insane. That's crazy to

Skye 52:21

it was really fun.

River 52:22

not

Poppy 52:23

I've been doing the audio

River 52:24

for a book.

Poppy 52:27

I listen to the audio books when I run at a podcast to listen to. Uh, which now will probably be more often because Blahba Macy's retiring.

Skye 52:37

Rest in peace.

Poppy 52:39

Yeah. Who, I mean who knows what it's gonna look like in the new year. Um, by this time Macy will be retired from WBA when this comes out. Oh.

Skye 52:49

And we're listening to, as a group, a friend group, we're listening to the, uh, the milking farm.

Poppy 52:54

morning Glory

River 52:55

Glory milking

Poppy 52:57

I'm on chapter four.

Skye 52:58

I haven't started it

River 52:59

think I

Skye 53:01

saw y'all talking about it in the group chat, and I was like, no spoilers.

River 53:04

Yeah. No, we kept it pretty Spoiler

Poppy 53:07

I see what Rachel was saying when she's like, it's just a CEO like

River 53:12

Yeah. It's a millionaire fantasy. Yeah.

Poppy 53:15

Like from the first page, she's like, I'm fucking broke. I need money.

River 53:21

She's like, I guess it's not sex work, but like it kind of is, but

Poppy 53:25

it kind of is like, it's medical, but also

River 53:29

Yeah. You're

Poppy 53:30

you'll see

River 53:31

a mini

Poppy 53:31

sky. Yeah.

Skye 53:32

Also,

River 53:33

Yeah, it's, I

Skye 53:34

earlier today, they mentioned Morning Glory Milking Farm, and I was like,

Poppy 53:38

It's not, it's one of those things where it's objectively not good. Uh, like the value that I'm getting out of it is the social aspect of vent. Like, venting about it or like talking about it, you know,

Skye 53:52

The absurdity. Yeah, absolutely.

Poppy 53:55

am I enjoying it

River 53:56

to turn to your friends and go and, what the hell was that all about?

Skye 54:00

I do need to ask you, because I, I know that you guys, and I've said this before, but I actually need to get it, like, I need to remember what it is. I'm like, I, since we to it, can't stop thinking about it. I need to go back and listen to the whole series, that audio book that me, you and Rachel listened to on the way to the cruise. I was like,

Poppy 54:21

It's like a whole series basically.

River 54:23

You are like, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.

Skye 54:26

I genuinely liked it. I was like, I kind of wanna listen to the sequel. Yeah, absolutely.

Poppy 54:31

they, they're like

Skye 54:32

There's many, I don't think I'll read the, I think it's like a, um, alien, barbarian situation where I'm just like, I

Poppy 54:39

each one is a different bitch and a different guy. Yeah.

Skye 54:42

I just wanna read like three or four until I'm tired of it and then stop. I

River 54:46

Yeah. I

Poppy 54:47

if we keep this in sky, Rachel and I did a big girls trip a couple years ago where we like drove all the way down to Miami and did a cruise and whatnot, and on the drive we listened to, uh, oh my gosh. A Soul To Keep By Opal Rain. Yeah. Which apparently is the second book in the series. Not the first one.

Skye 55:13

you. You wouldn't have needed to read the first one'cause they describe the

Poppy 55:18

Like, like the barbarian

Skye 55:20

alien barbarian. Yeah.

Poppy 55:23

listeners. Go read the Ice Planet Barbarian series.

River 55:27

good.

Skye 55:28

probably already

River 55:28

the first one. I was told to skip the first

Poppy 55:31

The second one is, the second

Skye 55:35

one's top

River 55:35

one is really all you

Poppy 55:37

The main characters in the first one are just annoying and they continue

River 55:40

And there's also like that weird kidnapping, like one of those girls gets like tortured in mind broken and I don't want to read that. She like runs off into the snow to die. Yeah.

Skye 55:50

Yeah.

River 55:52

So

Poppy 55:52

But the rest of it is,

River 55:54

book two Really. It's good stuff.

Poppy 55:57

Man. Uh,

Skye 56:01

up here?

Poppy 56:03

uh,

River 56:03

Uh,

Poppy 56:04

river was saying, oh, so I didn't read 52 books.

River 56:09

I do wanna read more in the coming. I've read a decent amount, but I'm more of like a summertime reader I've noticed.'cause I keep track of the books I read, but

Poppy 56:21

reads or you just like write'em

River 56:22

no, I just write it down in my notebook and I do my own little rating style. I don't like good reads. I don't know what it is about it. I just don't want people to know what I'm doing.

Poppy 56:31

No, I don't. I just don't like social media, like in general.

River 56:34

No, especially like letterbox, good reads. I'm like, I'm not trying to make my hobbies like a social event and a post.

Poppy 56:44

I update

River 56:46

I write it down privately in my little notebook. I give it my own little review and my own little rating. That's just for me, so I remember if it was good or not, and I don't care what anybody else thinks about

Poppy 56:57

Yeah. Listeners annually I start a spreadsheet where I keep track of all of the books that I read, only the ones that I physically read. I do not keep track of the audio

River 57:09

I keep track of audio books. I count'em.

Poppy 57:11

Um, I think they're just,'cause I use Audible even though like, fuck Amazon, but it

River 57:16

Amazon. It's just convenient.

Poppy 57:19

Uh, so that has everything in my

River 57:21

to use Libby and there's like a two month waiting period sometimes.

Poppy 57:26

but I do title, author, gender nationality fiction, nonfiction, genre, sub genre, page count, publication year, the date that I finished it, the rating. And then overall I like tally the books that I read per month.

Skye 57:41

Did you use that reading diary journal thing? Did that ever come in handy for you?

Poppy 57:47

I do not know where it is

Skye 57:50

Because I remember, I think I bought two on accident or something and I gave one to you. I in,

Poppy 57:56

Are you sure you didn't give it to Rachel? Because I feel like I would've used it if I had it. I

Skye 58:01

I gave it to somebody. I don't remember.

Poppy 58:03

think you gave it to Rachel.

Skye 58:04

must have got,

Poppy 58:05

I would have used that.

Skye 58:07

yeah, I, in natural sky fashion, started using it and then didn't keep up

Poppy 58:13

Yeah.

Skye 58:13

I, I kept reading, but

River 58:15

part of why like the new year, new me, I'm gonna buy all this like new shit for my ideal

Poppy 58:20

The consumerism.

River 58:22

Yeah. I feel like it's just so

Poppy 58:23

Right after Christmas too. People, they're just like keeps spending money until we get to the next big consumer holiday.

River 58:30

Until we get to Valentine's

Poppy 58:32

god. Valentine's Day. Yeah. I like to use a spreadsheet because it auto calculates like my page averages and everything like that to keep track of average books read per month, total

Skye 58:47

My issue is just like, I, I forget to check in and so I, I just don't have the knowledge or the data of how much I've done it.

Poppy 58:57

Count function. I can count how many of each genre.

River 59:01

Hmm.

Poppy 59:02

You don't. I mean, at the end of a book, I feel like that's a pretty good checkpoint though. Like when you finish a book, you just write it down

Skye 59:10

You'd think

River 59:13

Yeah,

Skye 59:14

my brain don't work good like yours do

River 59:16

and then two weeks later I start a new book and then I'm like, oh fuck, I forgot to write that other book down.

Poppy 59:22

yeah, I literally,'cause I mean, I, as a person living in 2025, I always have my phone on me, so I just open up my little spreadsheet and enter it in like immediately after, because then my thoughts are fresh too. And I can like give, give a rating and like write down my thoughts about it just right there

Skye 59:43

your data like a good girl.

River 59:45

Mm-hmm.

Poppy 59:46

like looking back now, back toward the beginning of the year, I'm like, I don't even remember.

River 59:52

I couldn't tell you like half the books I've read this year, I remember I read The Novelization of the Alien versus Predator movie.

Poppy 1:00:01

Oh.

River 1:00:02

Yeah, it's a pretty good book. I like it.

Skye 1:00:03

I feel like you've read 80% Ann Rice this year.

River 1:00:10

I feel like that was a few years. I read one New Ann Rice book last year at Ana's, adas, whatever, and it was the fourth book in the Vampire Chronicles, which was The Tale of the Body Thief. And then I started rereading the Vampire List stat because I found it at a flea market sale.

Poppy 1:00:29

Mm-hmm.

Skye 1:00:29

Yeah. Not to out you, but I went to your house yesterday and used your toilet and I

River 1:00:35

it's my bathtime book. I read it when I'm in the bathroom. I read it when I'm taking a bath. Uh, it's

Skye 1:00:43

it looked heavily

River 1:00:44

media. I got it like that from the flea market. Thank you very much. The only other copy of it I have is like the first three books bound together in one big ass book, and I don't wanna take that thing into the tub with me.

Poppy 1:00:58

Hey, if it's your book, love it. How it needs to be Loved,

Skye 1:01:02

I love a well-worn book.

River 1:01:03

tired.

Poppy 1:01:05

of the 48 books I have read so far this year, 22 were horror. This year has been like the year of

River 1:01:12

It's been a big horror year

Skye 1:01:13

I am feeling that way for myself personally.

River 1:01:16

Yeah. I primarily read horror novels. That's just kind of like my go-to genre.

Poppy 1:01:22

I, I wanted to read more nonfiction this year and I didn't really, but the nonfiction I did read was really, really good,

Skye 1:01:29

I just finished Dark Places by Jillian Flynn.

Poppy 1:01:32

oh, yeah,

Skye 1:01:33

Um, did you read it?

Poppy 1:01:35

yeah. I read that a few years

Skye 1:01:36

It was fine. I rated It, like four stars, I think. Like it was good, but I was just like, yeah, you

Poppy 1:01:42

Yeah. It's just like a crime thriller.

Skye 1:01:45

I'm like, yeah, it was a crime book. I'm not like an a crime obsessed person, but if you are like a crime

River 1:01:50

are

Poppy 1:01:51

it's a good, just like

River 1:01:52

girly. You love a detective novel. You love an Agatha Christie novel.

Skye 1:01:57

Christie novel.

Poppy 1:01:59

I feel like, and this is gonna sound like a humble brag, and I promise you it's not, but I feel like I've consumed enough media at this point that I can see twists coming

River 1:02:10

No,

Poppy 1:02:10

like, it takes a lot, it takes a

River 1:02:13

That's how I feel about most movies. I'm like, oh, I saw it. I saw the, I saw the foreshadowing.

Skye 1:02:19

the

Poppy 1:02:20

or a book or whatever actually surprises me, and it's not one of those, like, there's no way that you could have known because we didn't give you the information, you

River 1:02:29

yeah. If something's genuinely like shocking and

Poppy 1:02:32

and you can go back and be like, oh my gosh.

River 1:02:35

the signs were there, but they were so subtle. Yeah,

Skye 1:02:39

Like I really enjoy that trope. If it's done well,

Poppy 1:02:43

yeah,

Skye 1:02:44

like if, if it's like at the end it's like, oh

River 1:02:47

off at

Skye 1:02:48

yeah,

Poppy 1:02:50

yeah.

Skye 1:02:52

anyway,

Poppy 1:02:52

That's kind of why I've really been into, um, what are they called? You know the book format? Like Dracula, like the book format That's like written in

River 1:03:01

Oh, like diary

Poppy 1:03:03

Yeah, like diary entries, letters and what, because that's like, so, um, unreliable, narrator

Skye 1:03:11

when it's removed, like it's like written from like, there's like several layers

Poppy 1:03:16

Yeah. It's like the narrator just experienced it and now they're relaying it to you. It's not like in the moment. So they've already filtered it through their worldview and they're actively

River 1:03:27

Jonathan Harker, baby, you need to

Poppy 1:03:31

It's not just like, because when you're writing from the third person, you're, or even the first person with it, sorry, with an unreliable narrator, they're you. They have to be like super fucked up for it to truly

River 1:03:49

Or like so self-centered that you're getting so little external information from them.

Poppy 1:03:55

But like with that type of book where it's like essentially like a found footage kind of

River 1:04:00

Yeah.

Poppy 1:04:01

then even a normal person can be like that. Yeah. Whatever. Uh, what are we, are we still talking about the new year?

River 1:04:10

I think so. With some twist and turns. We just love books in this house. What are some creative goals for you guys For the upcoming year?

Poppy 1:04:22

much like you. I also want to perform this year. My studio does

Skye 1:04:28

you please record yourself Performing

River 1:04:30

please. This is what the third performance you've done now,

Skye 1:04:35

you know, we can't come. We can't go see you.

Poppy 1:04:37

I know I'm going to an open gym on Wednesday and I'm planning to film then. But I mean we most, I, I'll have to like upload it to like a Google Drive or something so you guys

River 1:04:48

Uh, do what Sky and I do, when we make each other little vlogs, we upload it and keep it private on YouTube and just like send each other the

Poppy 1:04:56

I didn't know

River 1:04:56

video. Yeah.

Skye 1:04:58

Yeah,

Poppy 1:04:59

Oh, okay. I might have to do that then.

River 1:05:01

It's super easy, especially if you're not editing it, you're just like uploading a video.

Skye 1:05:07

raw video. Yeah.

River 1:05:08

Yeah. And then just like post the link in the Discord chat.

Poppy 1:05:13

Yeah. So, yeah, I wanna, I wanna do that. I also just wanna like generally do complete some kind of creative project, whether it's just like a short story or, you know, finish knitting something that I started.'cause I never finish anything, any

River 1:05:34

so fun to start knitting, but it's such a pain in the ass to finish it.

Poppy 1:05:38

yeah. So I'd like to carry something over the finish line creatively other than the podcast.

Skye 1:05:46

I think I feel like every year, maybe I don't, I didn't have it on my list last year, but a lot of years I have had complete and October,

River 1:05:58

Mm-hmm.

Poppy 1:05:58

Yeah.

Skye 1:05:59

think more specifically, it doesn't have to be October. I think that might be what holding me back, because I might not always necessarily be in the right space to be doing that in October necessarily. So 30 or 31 a month of doing an everyday drawing challenge, I think could be beneficial for me to finally feel like I get that. Yeah,

Poppy 1:06:23

is it the everyday aspect? Okay. Because I was like, could it be your whole, like maybe once a month you complete something just so it's more manageable or,

Skye 1:06:34

I just feel like I've had, every time I see ink tober or people talk about it or people do it,

River 1:06:41

there's a big community

Skye 1:06:43

I wanna like get the, I think I would just wanna scratch that itch of saying like, I did it. I think I just want to do an everyday drawing challenge. It's usually simple prompts. Um, and our, one of our friends in our other group, discord, like, she'll do it with me sometimes, so it's not like I don't have a buddy who we can be accountable with. But it's like if one of us drops off, the other typically

River 1:07:06

If somebody has like a really busy week and you're like, ah, I fell behind.

Skye 1:07:11

sometimes I'd have, I'd miss a few days and then I'd have a catchup day, but I ideally don't wanna catch up day. I wanna do it consistently. And

Poppy 1:07:21

And some of the prompts though, were just like, they just don't resonate, which I guess is kind of maybe the point a little bit.'cause it's like draw

River 1:07:28

test

Skye 1:07:29

it makes you think outside of your comfort zone. And I could also come up with my own list. Like I could also find a list that resonates more with

River 1:07:38

You don't have to do the official ink tober

Skye 1:07:41

No, no. But I, I do wanna do some sort of daily drawing prompt so that way. I can sort of get that muscle flexed, you know what I mean? To be more regular.

River 1:07:54

of sporadically every like few weeks or couple months, you're like, and I'm, I'm throwing

Skye 1:08:01

You love

Poppy 1:08:01

every time you finish some. I love seeing your art, like every time you finish something and you share it, I get so excited. I'm

Skye 1:08:06

Oh, I did also

River 1:08:08

finish the tarot series.

Skye 1:08:11

oh, bro, shut the, I have so

River 1:08:12

back into

Skye 1:08:13

the back burner. I also have a portrait of us, my beach

Poppy 1:08:18

I thought you posted that one. Did you not post the portrait already?

River 1:08:21

yet

Skye 1:08:22

I did a, I did a, um, like a progress pick, but I did not formally finish it. I actually made a big decision change on that that I don't think that I told anyone about.

Poppy 1:08:34

Oh.

Skye 1:08:36

But anyway, uh, yeah, I have many

River 1:08:38

I'll continue not to tell you about it,

Skye 1:08:41

fingers in many pies artistically. Uh, but what I was gonna say was, again, kind of spoiler for the next episode, but when we were at the event that River and I were at yesterday, I did talk about how I wanted to draw figures. And I was like, what if I did like a figure drawing, like, like a drop in

River 1:09:02

would go with you in a heartbeat. I love figure drawing classes. I haven't been in so long,

Skye 1:09:08

even have to be nude. It would be nice if it was nude, but it doesn't have to be

River 1:09:11

generally they are nude though. Us,

Poppy 1:09:13

Hey, next time we're all together, I'll strip down. Y'all

River 1:09:16

I would say thank you

Skye 1:09:18

Be my muse

Poppy 1:09:19

I'll sit on a stool or like lay on a couch or whatever.

River 1:09:22

Yeah.

Skye 1:09:24

But yeah. What about, what about you river? I guess like your pole thing,

River 1:09:28

my whole thing that's, yeah.

Skye 1:09:31

Like, is that your creative thing?

River 1:09:33

yeah. That's like my big general and creative goal to work towards. I also do just want to use my sewing machine more this year for like whatever, like making mending, whatever. I just don't use it as often as

Skye 1:09:49

and I discussed a secret project that still needs to be done.

River 1:09:52

Yeah. Could I tell you what it is right now? Oh, yes. I could actually. I just remembered maybe for next year,

Skye 1:10:00

Like what? At what point next year? I,

River 1:10:04

maybe just I, it's'cause I remember last time we talked about it, we were like, oh, a nice, you will give gift and it's a little too close to you right now to

Skye 1:10:15

Oh, well, don't let that limit you. It could be a nice Easter gift, you know, like it could be a

River 1:10:19

next, sometime next year we could actually get that moving and grooving.

Skye 1:10:26

And Poppy's like, and I'll never know.

River 1:10:28

and you'll never know

Poppy 1:10:29

Is it for me?

River 1:10:31

could be, who's to

Poppy 1:10:33

You guys are like, no.

River 1:10:34

No, it's actually for my mom.

Poppy 1:10:37

Oh, she needs any, any help she can get,

Skye 1:10:41

Textiles. Huh?

River 1:10:44

Yeah. Cloth work.'cause I just, oh, I love sewing. I love hitting the pedal. I love adjusting the knobs for the different kind of, um, different kind of needle adjustments

Poppy 1:10:56

I used to use my mom's all the time in high school. Like I loved sewing and I made, I made a whole bunch of different shit and I was getting pretty good and then I left and went to college and didn't have access to a sewing machine and

Skye 1:11:09

you got science pilled.

Poppy 1:11:11

Yeah, I got fucking science pilled.

River 1:11:14

You stepped away from your womanly roots to pursue science.

Poppy 1:11:19

hey, at least I can cook now.'cause cooking is just science. Same with baking.

River 1:11:23

Yeah.

Skye 1:11:24

What about podcast goals?

Poppy 1:11:26

I was about to say, I was going to propose. Because I know we usually, like annually, we kind of do like a podcast, like a coven trip, you know, a short, long weekend. I was gonna propose this year that we find a haunted location, perhaps another haunted bed and breakfast or hotel, and we just go and spend a long weekend in like a dinky little town or whatever. Much

Skye 1:12:00

May I request? Can we buy, um, like

River 1:12:07

like ghost hunting gear. Like thermal imaging cameras

Poppy 1:12:12

we're gonna

Skye 1:12:13

camera, but like the, the, the voice recording

Poppy 1:12:17

Yeah, no, I know what you're, they're pretty cheap,

Skye 1:12:19

That's what I mean. Yeah.

Poppy 1:12:21

Yeah.

River 1:12:21

Ghost hunting's really been co-opted by boys on YouTube. So like the market's crashed.

Poppy 1:12:27

you guys be open to it though, perhaps in the late spring?

River 1:12:34

It depends on how far we're traveling.

Poppy 1:12:37

I was thinking we would stay in insert state here, like

River 1:12:41

Okay. Because I was like, if we're gonna need to get on a plane or something, I might, I might have to

Skye 1:12:47

No driving

Poppy 1:12:49

Yes, it I, I was thinking like ideally it would be somewhere where we can meet like in the middle perhaps. Yeah.

River 1:12:59

Oh, you're the one that wanted to get ghost hunting Acqui bit. But you won't go to

Poppy 1:13:05

We will go on a little hike before too.

Skye 1:13:07

beings out there that'll

Poppy 1:13:08

There's

River 1:13:10

deer out there.

Poppy 1:13:12

Hey,

River 1:13:12

The Stump Hollow man is out there.

Skye 1:13:16

I mean, it depe like, as long as we're not like searching the woods and we're going to like a

River 1:13:22

As long as I don't get Blair Witched, I'm fine.

Poppy 1:13:25

feel like, like a short two mile hike though would

River 1:13:29

No, I'd be fine with that in the daytime.

Poppy 1:13:31

Not in a, I mean like not necessarily in a notable, like known to be haunted area, but it is so anything could happen.

River 1:13:41

Just get some fresh air,

Poppy 1:13:44

Go light a candle, do a ritual in the woods.

Skye 1:13:47

a candle in the woods.

Poppy 1:13:49

no,

River 1:13:49

no, But you can

Poppy 1:13:51

what I mean. You know what I mean? Light a let a light, a metaphorical

River 1:13:54

Yeah. Bring one of those little electric tea light candles with you.

Poppy 1:13:59

Well, cool. I'll start researching then

Skye 1:14:01

Okay.

Poppy 1:14:02

in earnest.

Skye 1:14:04

Yeah. If we say we're gonna do something, poppy will manifest it almost immediately. I

River 1:14:09

if it's a bid or a joke. Poppy's like, I'm serious. I've already got the itinerary

Poppy 1:14:14

Well, I always, I always double check. I'm like, are we joking? Because you know that I don't get social cues like that a lot of the time. Like, are you joking right now or are we serious? Because if

Skye 1:14:24

and we're also like, you know what, if you're actually gonna go, like if you're actually gonna do it, then like Yeah. Because that's sort of the barrier to entry I think for us is like the whole to do

River 1:14:35

it Yeah. I don't wanna find something. I don't wanna plan it, but if somebody presents something to me, I'm like, yeah, I'll

Skye 1:14:43

I love that You love it.'cause I also kind of feel bad that you're always planning stuff and I'm like, how nice would it be if someone just did it for Poppy once in a

River 1:14:50

Yeah. But

Skye 1:14:51

also be uncomfortable with that?

River 1:14:53

we wouldn't do it. the way she wanted it.

Poppy 1:14:56

I don't think so. I mean, as long as I, like, I don't, as long as it's not like something that horrible that I would hate, you know? But

Skye 1:15:05

Well, no, but I I, but I just wonder if we planned something for you, hypothetically, if you were like, well, I wouldn't have done it like that. Well, I would've made sure this blah, blah, blah, blah. You know?

Poppy 1:15:16

Depend. Like if we're camping. Yes. If it's like something safe, then no. Uh, well, I was gonna say something. Fuck. Oh, I was just gonna say like, if I ever had a career change or something like that, and I had the opportunity to be like a travel planner or an event planner, oh my

River 1:15:34

you'd be so good at it, dude.

Poppy 1:15:37

the market is oversaturated.

River 1:15:39

Yeah. That and like real estate agents, like you cannot get in.

Poppy 1:15:44

And also, I just have a big girl job now that I feel like I can't escape.

River 1:15:48

Yeah.

Skye 1:15:49

We will pin

River 1:15:50

Even

Skye 1:15:50

and talk about that at a later time.

Poppy 1:15:53

It's just like strategically, career wise, not smart. To,

Skye 1:15:58

To make a lateral move. Yeah.

Poppy 1:16:00

Yeah. Um, planning, I love planning.

River 1:16:07

Mm-hmm. The

Skye 1:16:09

Any big plans for you and Greg coming up this year?

Poppy 1:16:15

We are going on our honeymoon this month. AKA January. Um, I don't wanna give like too much information, but we're basically going on a cruise,

River 1:16:29

Cute.

Poppy 1:16:30

uh, that should be nice. And then in the summer, we're doing a big beach week kind of trip with, uh, his friends. Like a lot of online people that live internationally and whatnot.

River 1:16:42

break, 2026, Papa Molly, and get jolly in Palm Springs.

Poppy 1:16:48

planning it?

River 1:16:50

Is it

Skye 1:16:50

are

Poppy 1:16:52

Yeah. We're gonna, I'm basically, as long as people pay me back, I'm fine with whatever. Like if I plan it and people are like, okay, here's the money that I owe you. Great.

River 1:17:04

Yeah. Here's the petty cash you need to actually book it

Poppy 1:17:08

I'm getting us a boat for the week.

River 1:17:10

to stay on or just

Poppy 1:17:12

no. In addition,'cause the house that I'm, that I wanna dig my little claws into is on the harbor, so I'm like, Ooh, wouldn't it be so cool if we got

River 1:17:22

To just have a boat. Yeah.

Poppy 1:17:25

We just go, pontooning.

River 1:17:27

You can play Grand theft auto on a boat.

Poppy 1:17:31

boat nap.

River 1:17:32

Yeah. Let's get real sunburned.

Skye 1:17:35

a hard time pissing in the water like you did that

Poppy 1:17:37

Oh God. Yeah.

Skye 1:17:38

we rented a boat.

Poppy 1:17:39

I can't, I can't, pee in the water.

River 1:17:42

You just gotta let it fly.

Poppy 1:17:44

I can't pee. If my feet aren't touching the ground,

Skye 1:17:46

That's

River 1:17:46

Release your, it's so freeing.

Poppy 1:17:49

will. I can't, like I physically cannot do it.

Skye 1:17:52

You're so short. I'm surprised your feet can touch the ground on her normal standard

Poppy 1:17:56

I have to scoot all the way up to the edge a lot of the time.

Skye 1:18:01

She's like, I need to use my squatty potty to touch the crowd.

Poppy 1:18:05

Yeah. I, oh, have we told that story on the pod before?

River 1:18:09

I don't

Skye 1:18:10

The boat story.

Poppy 1:18:11

Yeah. Sky. Rachel, her husband and I were doing like at a boat party or something. I forget what the context was.

River 1:18:21

I think it was just like a summertime, early twenties.

Poppy 1:18:26

by that horrible man

River 1:18:28

Oh, weird.

Poppy 1:18:31

yeah, it was like his, because they went back to his house and stuff that afterward. But I drove down and I had like, went to the hospital the day before too.

River 1:18:41

Oh my God. Uh

Poppy 1:18:42

I came, but it was because I was a hypochondriac and I thought that I had deep vein thrombosis, but I did not, because I am not,

River 1:18:52

you're not at high risk.

Skye 1:18:54

a healthy 23-year-old or whatever,

Poppy 1:18:56

Yeah. But I was convinced. I had, I literally, like, looking back now, I'm like, I was sore because I was lifting the day before,

Skye 1:19:04

Girl,

Poppy 1:19:05

but I somehow got it in my mind and had a panic attack and ended up at the hospital. But then we went boating and we were out

River 1:19:12

I had a ga. I had a great time

Poppy 1:19:14

We were drinking and as you do, everybody was pissing in the water. And I kept trying, I was trying so hard. I was like hanging off the side of the boat. I was like, I'm trying so hard. But I could not, and I thought that I was, I thought my bladder was going to explode and I was gonna die.

River 1:19:33

Oh, no. Just like that one guy in the strange DA episode. No,

Skye 1:19:40

he was so polite. He just had to

River 1:19:43

so

Skye 1:19:43

it.

Poppy 1:19:44

Oh my gosh. So Rachel's husband ended up like driving the boat to a marina just so I could pee. Oh, it was Michael. Oh, well, he, okay now I don't feel as bad'cause I, I'm sure he got some enjoyment outta driving the boat.

Skye 1:19:59

Yeah, obviously.

River 1:20:02

He said, this is all I wanted.

Poppy 1:20:04

I don't feel bad about inconveniencing Michael as much as I do. Rachel's husband.

Skye 1:20:08

Yeah. Any other relationship plans, I guess, for anybody?

Poppy 1:20:15

I, so we're thinking about moving, we're thinking about moving to a different place, uh, when our lease is up over the summer, but it's like, we only have one more year here, so it's kind of a, but I hate our apartment so much. I do not like it here.

Skye 1:20:36

You said that you don't feel at home there.

Poppy 1:20:39

no, uh, that's one of my resolutions is to make it feel more homey here, but I just like, I feel like a

River 1:20:45

What do you think it's lacking? That just doesn't feel right.

Poppy 1:20:51

sunlight.

Skye 1:20:52

Mm-hmm.

River 1:20:53

That's

Poppy 1:20:53

dark. It's very dark. Uh, it's dark all the time. And

River 1:20:59

Especially this time of year when you have such little sunlight to grab onto.

Poppy 1:21:04

I think another part of it is that like when I moved in here, I was leaving just the best place that I have ever lived, and I was mourning that. And so it kind of tainted this place for me, like to the point where there are areas that I just haven't cleaned in a long time. Just because I don't care. Like, I don't, I don't feel any ownership over this place, you know? And I just, I wanna change that, but.

Skye 1:21:30

would you be willing to maybe not read the whole thing, but would you be willing to share some of your 26 for 26?

Poppy 1:21:39

I don't have 26, I have 22

Skye 1:21:42

Well, that's fine. I think I, in years past, I would leave some blanks open for me to add things throughout the year. So I mean, that makes sense. Are there some that you're like really excited for? Some that you're like, I don't know if this will happen, but I kind of just put it down'cause I hope it will.

Poppy 1:21:58

Um,

River 1:22:00

Dainty little.

Poppy 1:22:03

so these are not in order of priority. They are just like, they just came to me at different times. You know, first one is,, walk 1500 miles. So 1,500 miles for the Conqueror challenge. That's about four miles a day, um, to stay on track because, uh, have we, we've talked about the Conqueror Challenge on this podcast, right?

Skye 1:22:32

I don't know.

Poppy 1:22:32

Maybe

River 1:22:33

I don't, it's likely, but I don't remember.

Poppy 1:22:36

a couple years ago, sky and I were getting tacos and she mentioned that she had signed up for this challenge. Um. Where basically, like you're supposed to walk a certain amount in a certain amount of time, and it's really cool. They're like themed challenges with checkpoints

Skye 1:22:57

to thank to, to bring up Macy and Waba. She was the one, she was the reason how I found out about it because she was doing the Lord of the Rings one.

Poppy 1:23:07

yeah.

Skye 1:23:08

that sounded so cool. And then I looked it up and the Lord of the Rings one was a bit too long and felt like a huge commitment for the first time doing it. So I did a shorter one and I've done several short ones. Please continue your story, but yeah,

Poppy 1:23:25

Yeah. So I, I was inspired, um, with when Skye told me that she had started doing it, so I was like, okay, I'm gonna, this was 20, 23

Skye 1:23:38

something like that.'cause we were already Fitbit friends where we would do like those little challenges or whatever, like in Fitbit,

Poppy 1:23:44

And I was living in the city that we both lived in together, and I signed up immediately and did the Appalachian Trail Challenge,

Skye 1:23:52

like the longest one that they have,

Poppy 1:23:54

it was like 1800 miles. Uh, and it, I finished it this fall and immediately started the next challenge, that I had on like my wishlist, which was the Continental Divide Trail, which I think total is about 2,800 miles, and I'm slotted to finish it. Like two and a half years from now, I think two, two-ish years from now. So, So, in the next year I need to walk 1500 miles to stay on track. Like I've already done like 300 miles or so. Um, so that's, that's the first one on the list. And then honeymoon, that's gonna happen. Summer, beach trip that we talked about. That's gonna happen. Performing in an aerial show. Keep death, coven pod alive.

River 1:24:49

Going well so far.

Poppy 1:24:51

It's all

River 1:24:51

Not too bad. Yeah.

Poppy 1:24:54

Um, number six, gain muscle

River 1:24:57

You are so jacked already, dude. What are you talking about?

Poppy 1:25:03

sope, we'll get into it a little bit next episode, but like I've, I trigger warning for body issues. I've had body issues my entire, I think like probably since I was like 14, 13, or 14 years old, my goal has been to lose fat

River 1:25:18

Mm-hmm.

Poppy 1:25:19

just because I've just been in that toxic

River 1:25:22

because being skinny was the most important thing.

Poppy 1:25:26

Yeah. And so now I'm like, I had this weird AP epiphany recently, I guess that was like, hey. You don't need to make yourself smaller, but health-wise, I do want to become stronger and I wanna like, take care of my bones as I age and whatnot. So my goal for 2025 is not to lose weight, not to get smaller, not to have less fat on my body, but simply to gain muscle.

Skye 1:25:53

How do you calculate that? Just like logistically?

Poppy 1:25:57

Um, so there, I haven't had one done. You can do like a DEXA scan to do that. I don't know if I will. I think

Skye 1:26:06

the full body, like the ratio, like the muscle to fat ratio thing?

Poppy 1:26:10

I have a scale, that I have a smart scale that kind of tells you it's not super accurate, but I feel like it'll kind of give me the

River 1:26:17

a rough idea.

Poppy 1:26:18

Um, but just visually, I feel like I'll be able to tell and like if I'm getting stronger too, that's really all that I want, you know, because for such a long time I've been compromising physical performance and strength and whatnot for aesthetic goals, which I'm done doing. You know, I'm turning 30 this year.

River 1:26:40

Period. You guys are gonna be 30

Skye 1:26:43

had the wedding. The wedding, you looked great for the wedding photos, et cetera, et cetera, whatever.

Poppy 1:26:48

I'm done trying to shrink myself. I just wanna, I wanna, I want to do it for me, not for how people perceive me, you know? Um, and yes, I am already jacked. Thank you very much. But as we

River 1:27:06

you could be more jacked.

Poppy 1:27:08

as we age, we continue to lose bone mass and muscle mass. And like the number one predictor of health going into like your fifties and sixties is the amount of muscle mass that you have. So I wanna, I wanna, yeah. Blah.

Skye 1:27:22

for Afab and like women,

River 1:27:26

Yeah.

Skye 1:27:27

get older, like, like

River 1:27:29

it, that

Skye 1:27:30

gets so, so weak. Like, have you seen My mother has like stick legs

River 1:27:37

Mm-hmm.

Skye 1:27:37

and no ass.

Poppy 1:27:39

It's, it's one of those, it's like if you fall and break your pelvis

Skye 1:27:43

what I'm saying,

Poppy 1:27:44

the chances that you will die within a year skyrocket for like 70% or

Skye 1:27:49

so worried for because she lives alone and it, she lives in Scotland and we were talking about, I was telling her about how we had snow recently in that big winter storm or whatever that came by, and

River 1:28:02

And I fell on the sidewalk twice as a healthy 30-year-old.

Skye 1:28:06

and I was thinking about my

River 1:28:08

is still a little bit fucked up.

Skye 1:28:10

and how Scotland obviously naturally, historically canonically a cold environment. She lives alone. She doesn't drive. She walks everywhere. If she falls and fucking breaks her hip,

Poppy 1:28:21

Yeah,

Skye 1:28:22

she's lit. I, my mom probably weighs, well, I don't know, she's got like fat on her, but it's like, like she's small. She's a petite woman with very fragile bones. She's not getting the nutrients she needs at all. She eats like a little bird.

Poppy 1:28:39

But yeah, just I, that, that's what I want to avoid. I'm so glad to hear that. I know it's been up and down., But that's what I want, what I want to avoid personally. I wanna be able to still, like, walk long distances when I'm in my seventies and like pick things, like carry my own groceries and shit, you know. Um, number seven, I wanna keep up my yoga practice. And I practiced about a hundred times this past year, so I would like to also

Skye 1:29:12

that's like every other day. That's awesome

Poppy 1:29:15

It's like every three days.'cause there were, there were time, like there were stents where I didn't do anything. Yeah. But yeah, no, yeah, it is good. It is great, but I don't wanna backslide and not, you know, um, because it's become like a really central part of my life, not

Skye 1:29:32

you count at home practices too, or do you only count the, okay.

Poppy 1:29:35

yeah. No, and sometimes I, depending on how I feel during the class, I don't count. The classes because, I dunno if I've said this on the pod or not yet, but the studio that I currently go to because of the community that I live in, is not quote, real yoga, if that makes sense. There's no spiritual aspect.

River 1:30:00

the physical poses

Poppy 1:30:02

about pushing yourself as hard as you can. Like in some class I go to like some weightlifting classes there where there's like loud rap playing and, but if, if I get into that mindful, like flow state, aware of my body, like true asana, I'll count it. If it's literally just a, an exercise class, like the equivalent of like a Zumba class, you know, then no, then I won't count it. Uh, but I do count at home practice because that's mindful.

Skye 1:30:31

Uh, so you're saying like yoga, like the philosophy, yoga, like you want to be doing?

Poppy 1:30:36

in Ana. Yeah. Like mindful movement. Yeah.

Skye 1:30:41

Okay. All right. I do wanna say like, it still does count to get on the mat just for the listeners

Poppy 1:30:47

of course. Yeah.

Skye 1:30:49

like it does still count.

Poppy 1:30:51

It does still count. But for my personal goals, it's the mindfulness part, not necessarily just the, the physical is a gateway. Like for 99% of people in the west, like their introduction to yoga is because they want that physical. Stretching

River 1:31:10

You want the flexibility, the core strengths

Poppy 1:31:14

You wanna look hot in yoga pants? Yeah,

River 1:31:16

Yeah. It's the hot new thing now. It's Pilates, but it used to be

Poppy 1:31:20

yeah, yeah. But yeah, so that, that's a goal that fruits and vegetables eaten enough of those. I just constantly have to be aware of that and force myself to do it. It's been really bad during the holiday season with so many treats and

Skye 1:31:39

like apple pie though? Like, you

Poppy 1:31:42

I will cooked fruit and veg counts. So sometimes listeners add whatever you need as long as you're getting the fruits and the veg. That's what, if you need cheese on your broccoli, that's fine. If you need sugar and cinnamon on your apples and you need to bake'em,

River 1:31:59

The fiber is there, the nutrient is there.

Poppy 1:32:02

So I will, I'll like chop'em up and like put brown sugar and cinnamon on'em and bake'em and just

River 1:32:07

Mm.

Poppy 1:32:08

eat'em up that way. But it's a, it's a constant battle for me. Maybe one day it'll be easy,

Skye 1:32:15

you can't just buy like a bunch of bananas

Poppy 1:32:18

we always have bananas here.

River 1:32:20

Mm-hmm.

Skye 1:32:20

I was gonna say, you don't just grab a banana every day.

Poppy 1:32:23

sometimes biting into a, like biting into a banana for me is a, is a battle I have to force myself to do it,

Skye 1:32:32

Do not like bananas.

Poppy 1:32:34

No.

Skye 1:32:35

Well, if you don't like them, don't eat them. Girl.

Poppy 1:32:37

Well, I chop them up, I cut'em up, and I put'em in the freezer, and then I will blend them with chocolate protein powder and milk, and I'll drink'em instead of eating. Like, you just gotta find ways to work around it so that you're still consuming it in a way that is not going to make you

River 1:32:55

if you're not like a raw fruit person.

Poppy 1:32:59

Yeah.

River 1:33:00

I, could peel, I got a bag of clementines in my kitchen that I'll just, I'll peel'em and

Poppy 1:33:05

I can't do citrus. I've never, I've never eaten an orange.

River 1:33:09

I used

Poppy 1:33:10

I've never swallowed an

River 1:33:12

fruits. I,

Skye 1:33:13

Then how do you know you don't like it?

Poppy 1:33:18

I don't know, maybe I need to, I need to try more things. It's,

Skye 1:33:22

She is five years old

River 1:33:24

Yeah. I will say for me, orange is too big. I don't like how big they are, but Clementines, I can just pop a piece in real easy.

Poppy 1:33:34

Strawberries are very hit or miss. All berries are hit or miss. I have to be like in the exact right mood and they

River 1:33:40

you get a bad berry in the batch and it ruins the

Poppy 1:33:43

if it's too soft or if it's hard and not all the way ripe and you can taste the green,

River 1:33:48

Mm-hmm.

Poppy 1:33:49

throw it all

Skye 1:33:50

so what would you say is your favorite fruit?

Poppy 1:33:53

I, uh, pears.

Skye 1:33:55

Ooh, what kind of pear?

Poppy 1:33:57

I love a Bartlett. I also love a Bosque.

Skye 1:34:00

Mm, the green pear.

Poppy 1:34:02

Yeah. And they gotta be nice and ripe and in the fridge, and then you take'em out and you cut'em up and

Skye 1:34:06

I love a red pear myself.

Poppy 1:34:09

I also do like a red, like a nice Asian pair.

Skye 1:34:12

has to be very ripe, very juicy, very sweet and cold. I agree. Soft. It can't be hard. A hard pear is not worth my time.

Poppy 1:34:21

Mm-hmm.

Skye 1:34:22

I

Poppy 1:34:22

apples and carrots and cucumbers.

Skye 1:34:26

I would say cantaloupe is probably my favorite fruit if I had to pick one. But it's gotta be a

Poppy 1:34:30

It's again, it's so hit or miss. Yeah.

Skye 1:34:32

gotta be a good ripe cantaloupe.

Poppy 1:34:34

and I'm just like, I can't eat this. Like, a bunch of bites of it, you know? Like

Skye 1:34:39

that's more, that's more honeydew.

Poppy 1:34:43

Um, not to me, to me cantaloupe has like that meaty, like, like fleshy quality to

River 1:34:52

Yeah, it, does. And that's what I like about it.

Skye 1:34:57

Okay.

Poppy 1:34:58

I'm just, I'm just very picky. I don't know. I just have, I just have like very strong aversions and I feel like I'm gonna die if I bite into certain things, so I don't,

Skye 1:35:10

oh, what's number eight?

Poppy 1:35:12

but trying new things has been, has been good. Um, number, oh, that was number eight, number nine, regular meditation, which is something I've also gotten pretty good at this year.

Skye 1:35:22

What's the definition of regular?

Poppy 1:35:25

well currently I meditate like four to five times a week, and I feel like that's pretty good. So I would be happy with that. It doesn't have to be literally every single day, but more often than not.

River 1:35:36

Mm-hmm.

Poppy 1:35:39

Um, number 10, haunted location, coven trip.

River 1:35:43

I can't

Skye 1:35:44

is already

River 1:35:44

already on the list.

Skye 1:35:46

she even fucking asked us if we wanted to do it, she already had it on the list.

River 1:35:50

Uh, because she knew we'd say yes.

Skye 1:35:53

it wasn't a question. She was like, we're doing this.

River 1:35:56

No, she was like, just so you guys know, early springtime. We're going on a trip.

Poppy 1:36:02

uh, number nine is, uh, or sorry, number 11 is start running again, which we already touched on. Uh, read 52 books, which is always on my list every year. And if I don't get to 52, I'm not like disappointed. It's just a nice goal to have, to make sure that I'm always reading and I don't like, you know, I don't, just not it.

River 1:36:27

You don't

Skye 1:36:28

a week I feel like is a good, a good

Poppy 1:36:29

Yeah. It's about, it's about one a week. Yeah. And I always have a nonfiction one going because I try to read like 10 pages or so before bed. So those usually take me a lot longer than a week to finish,

Skye 1:36:40

Did you start that when there was that, what's it called? The what? What is that challenge where you like. Don't drink alcohol and you work. You go work

Poppy 1:36:50

30. Yeah. I think I did. No, not whole 30. It's, um, 75 hard I think.

Skye 1:36:56

hard, did you start that from 75?

Poppy 1:36:58

I did. I did. Yeah. But I, I took it because I think it's like 20 pages or something for 75 Hard, but I just, I'm like, 10 pages is enough. Like it's enough to get through one chapter,

Skye 1:37:08

Yeah.

Poppy 1:37:11

whatever, like 10 to 20 pages or a chapter

Skye 1:37:15

I would, I would never attempt 75 hard.

River 1:37:19

I would die on day three

Poppy 1:37:21

I, I did, I made it like halfway through and then, uh, my, the thing was my like diet plan was too strict, so there was no way that I was gonna make it 75 days

Skye 1:37:34

That's just too long. Like 30 days is already like a really significant

River 1:37:39

You want me to do two

Poppy 1:37:40

and I, I did do whole 30 and that was really, really hard.

Skye 1:37:45

Even like dry January, like that's really hard.

River 1:37:48

Yeah.

Poppy 1:37:49

Uh, which is actually on my list. Dry month one, dry month two. I wanna do two dry months this year because next year I'm going to be going completely sober to prepare my body for pregnancy.

River 1:38:02

Oh, you heard it here first listeners?

Poppy 1:38:05

27. Yeah.'cause I,'cause you're really supposed to be like nine months to a year, like without any substances just to make sure you're Yeah.

Skye 1:38:15

That's good. I'm, I'm glad there are people like you who actually like, plan properly and like, think and consider.

River 1:38:24

yourself up for

Poppy 1:38:25

Yeah.

Skye 1:38:25

That's awesome.

Poppy 1:38:26

uh. Anything I can do to prevent, like, gestational diabetes or,

River 1:38:32

Yeah.

Poppy 1:38:33

or not that, like, not saying that that's any, any mother's fault at all if they have a hard pregnancy. I just wanna do like the most that I can to make it as easy as possible. And also like make sure that the, the,

River 1:38:46

The baby's viable.

Skye 1:38:48

Yeah. You just wanna do the best you can for your little baby.

Poppy 1:38:52

the women in my family have a really, like strong, uh, his like history, I guess, of like miscarriages and whatnot, which I know a lot of families do, but it's like, it's hard in my family, so I wanna just try to avoid that, But anyway, uh, next hashtags save money.'cause I lost so

Skye 1:39:17

just save money, but hashtag save money.

Poppy 1:39:20

I lost so much this year'cause I was planning a fucking wedding and now I'm like, okay, now I can

Skye 1:39:25

The savings has been depleted.

Poppy 1:39:28

Yeah. Not, I mean, it hasn't been like depleted, but I did not put much away last year because it was redirected.

Skye 1:39:36

Okay. She's affluent. Okay. She's doing okay.

River 1:39:39

She's a big girl job, she said.

Skye 1:39:42

I've got my Roth IRA.

Poppy 1:39:44

Uh, decrease screen time.

River 1:39:47

mm-hmm.

Skye 1:39:48

What does that mean or look like and how is that measurable?

Poppy 1:39:53

so recently I've started working it into my monthly challenges. Kind of like we were talking about earlier, um,

Skye 1:39:59

Is there a certain hour limit that you're like looking

Poppy 1:40:03

Yes. So my target is under three hours.

Skye 1:40:07

that's low?

Poppy 1:40:09

Yeah.

River 1:40:10

Wow.

Skye 1:40:11

A lot of people are at least eight hours a day.

River 1:40:14

A lot of people are in the double digits. A

Poppy 1:40:17

double digits.

River 1:40:19

A lot of people are clocking in at like 10 and 12 hours.

Poppy 1:40:22

feel

Skye 1:40:22

is very low. Let me, I'll, I'll look, I'll, I'll tell you what I was at just yesterday, and I'm not on my phone a

River 1:40:28

pull up my screen time right

Poppy 1:40:29

on my point system, it's um, like full credit is three, like under three hours. Partial credit is four to six. And if I go over six then it's like bad girl. Yeah.

River 1:40:46

right? What's my screen time?

Poppy 1:40:49

You just look at like average for the week or

Skye 1:40:52

You can see day or

River 1:40:55

Yeah, there's like a screen time. Um, today. Four and a half hours.

Skye 1:41:02

Today, two hours and 40 minutes

Poppy 1:41:05

I've got one hour, one and a half hours today,

River 1:41:09

My highest last week. My highest last week. 12 and a half hours.

Poppy 1:41:16

Damn dog. I don't think I've

River 1:41:17

Yeah. But that's also because I will play YouTube videos on my phone and like do other shit and I'm not actively Yeah.

Poppy 1:41:25

if I just have Spotify open, then it

River 1:41:28

Yeah. it doesn't count.'cause my screen's not unlocked.

Skye 1:41:33

I don't know how to see by the

River 1:41:34

Yeah. I clocked in uh, eight hours and 14 minutes on YouTube last Monday. YouTube

Poppy 1:41:42

that's, that doesn't count as much if you just have it like playing in the background.

River 1:41:46

no, but it still doesn't make me feel good'cause I'm like, I could be sitting in silence. I could be listening to like an album or something.

Poppy 1:41:57

anyway, dry month one, dry month two, we discussed that more tarot readings, which is memorable just because I record all of them, obviously. Um, and this past year I've really just lapsed into only doing the monthlies and only doing my full moon, new moon ones. Like, very rarely have I done regular mind, body, spirit readings or just like,

Skye 1:42:20

Spur of the moment, daily

Poppy 1:42:21

yeah. And I know it's, it's one of those things where it's like. I've kind of made the excuse that, oh, I don't have anything specific to ask, so I'm not gonna do a reading. But those regular mind, body, spirit check-ins are so valuable. Like whether or not you have something specific to ask, it's

Skye 1:42:41

a good amount of time where I was doing daily readings almost every single day for a long time.

Poppy 1:42:50

Yeah.

Skye 1:42:50

Bring that back.

Poppy 1:42:52

And then I have the complete completion of a creative project. And then finally make apartment homey.

River 1:42:59

Mm-hmm.

Skye 1:43:00

Well, that was a great list, poppy. Um, how much did you, um, check off from 2025? Did you get most of, I have no doubt that you, you'll probably get most of it done for 2026 too, but

Poppy 1:43:12

I did a lot. Uh, there were some things where I definitely did not reach my goal. Um, I don't think I had 25 last year. 1, 2, 3.

Skye 1:43:29

do you feel that it, you didn't reach it because,

Poppy 1:43:32

24?

Skye 1:43:34

because you, um, had too high expectation or just like things came up during the year that made it not possible or?

Poppy 1:43:42

Um, kind of both, I guess. I don't know. Okay. So number one was exercise consistently, which I do, I do, uh, at least two yoga classes a week. I do three aerial classes and then like all of my extra, like daily walks and gym stuff, finish the conqueror challenge. I did that, uh, keep up with my step blanket. So I was doing a thing last year where every day I knit a row, um, depending, and like the color was dependent on the amount of steps I got for that day, you know, and I kept up with that through June. And then the blanket got so big that it was, it was like impractical to keep knitting it. So I stopped. Uh, and now I just have this big, like half finished ugly blanket that's like a

Skye 1:44:38

You are like that girl that did the poop blanket.

Poppy 1:44:40

That was where I got the inspiration from. Yeah. And you can see throughout the, it's crazy because I started, obviously I started in January and my color system was like, if I got under 5,000 steps, it was black, 5,000 to 10,000. It was gray and then 10,000 above, um, depending on the month, it was like a different color. And you can see during the colder months it was just like all black and gray. And then once the sun came back, it was just like color, color, color, uh, what is that again? Trigger warning for body image. I had get down to 22% body fat, which I did. I'm at 21 now. Um, attend on a hottest purpose. We did not go to, I thought that, like back in January, I thought we were gonna go, so I put that down. Uh, instead we went to Skunk of Palooza, which could not have been foreseen, unforeseen.

River 1:45:36

Yeah,

Poppy 1:45:37

And I'm, I'm happy

River 1:45:38

for us.

Poppy 1:45:40

Uh, consume less caffeine? No. Just, no. Uh, participate in an aerial performance. Yes, I did that. Um, dry month one and two. I tried to do last year two, no to both. Uh, just because I forgot about it. I think so I feel like if I had been actively trying, I would've gotten it, but.

Skye 1:46:05

I will say in years past, you have successfully done dry January and then have also done a second dry month as well. For the listeners, it, there's a reason why Poppy has this on her list. She has successfully done it in the past.

Poppy 1:46:21

Yes. I'm not like

River 1:46:22

It's about will. It's not about addiction,

Poppy 1:46:25

Although I do have a family history of alcoholism and I'm, I'm definitely riding that line. I'm riding that line. Um, read 52 books obviously every single year. Um, improve at Practicing Yoga. Difficult to measure, but in my harder of parts, I know that I have improved. Um, meditate three times a week. Yes. Cut back on unnecessary spending. I put kind of, because I did get married and a lot of the spending I did was not necessary.

Skye 1:46:57

Like the little middle Dinos that was on the table for the dinner that were

River 1:47:02

Like the Bigfoot statue cut out.

Poppy 1:47:05

I got a bunch of little, uh, brass dinosaurs that we put everywhere in

Skye 1:47:09

It was my job to put them out and I, it

Poppy 1:47:13

they were very cute.

Skye 1:47:14

it was my honor. The velociraptors did not stand up very well. I tried to make sure that they were leaning against something.'cause their big old Tootsie was like sticking up. I,

Poppy 1:47:25

Um, save money again, no wedding. I mean, I did save money, but like, obviously not. As much as I wanted to meet my nephew, I did? that. I did. He's so cute and bald and junky. And he's turning, he's, he's like eight months or so now, and my niece is turning, uh, two this month. Get, get married? Yes. Improve tarot practice. Kind of, because I feel like I have a better eye for like knowing what cards mean this year, you know? But at the same time, I didn't read as much as I wanted to. So Hit or miss.

Skye 1:48:12

But I feel like our, um, tarot episodes, I

Poppy 1:48:16

yeah, that's helped do like a deep dive. Yeah. So that's why I said kind of, kind of, um, keep in touch with, uh, friends that I don't live near.

Skye 1:48:30

Yes.

Poppy 1:48:31

Yes. Uh, decreased screen time. No. Play more video games. Yes. Um, no buy week. I wanted to do a week where I don't buy any, like I don't spend any money other than like reoccurring stuff that's already like on auto. Um,

Skye 1:48:53

my brain immediately went to not being bisexual for a week. No. Bi

Poppy 1:48:58

fight the urges.

River 1:49:00

not gonna be attracted to

Poppy 1:49:01

Don't look at any

Skye 1:49:03

I'm gonna be hetero for one week.

Poppy 1:49:06

Yeah. Uh, no, but it was just like not spending money for a straight week, once every quarter. And I did it twice, um, not four times. And then lastly, eat more fruits and vegetables. And I said kind of, because I went through peaks and valleys there last year.

Skye 1:49:25

job.

Poppy 1:49:25

Yeah. Thanks. I'm happy with how it went. You know, I'm not like, oh fuck, I like fucked up. This past year I didn't do anything.

Skye 1:49:35

No. This past year was, was it, was I,

Poppy 1:49:38

yeah, it was pretty, I, I made, I made lots of memories for sure. I learned.

Skye 1:49:43

Yep.

River 1:49:45

I lived, I laughed. I loved

Skye 1:49:48

Yeah. I was certainly physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, in a very different place. January of 2025 versus

Poppy 1:49:58

Yes. There was growth. I

Skye 1:50:00

Yes. I was physically living in a different environment. I had a different vehicle, I had a different job. I had different chemical, I had a different diet. I, I was still vaping,

Poppy 1:50:13

Were you medicated yet

Skye 1:50:14

I was not medicated yet,

Poppy 1:50:16

No. Yeah. You, I mean, that's a huge change.

Skye 1:50:19

yeah. Completely forgot about that. Got medicated this year.

River 1:50:23

It's just always been there.

Poppy 1:50:24

Listeners, it's worth it.

River 1:50:26

Yeah. Uh, I think that is also a goal for me for 2026 is like get back on medication, but I don't have health

Poppy 1:50:36

Which is difficult. Yeah. I mean, maybe does your potential new employer

River 1:50:42

I don't think they have a health insurance plan.'cause it's like a small business Yeah. So seeing a, maybe getting a PCP, that's a goal for 2026.

Poppy 1:50:53

What was your question, sky? I feel like you had a bigger question that we were responding to.

Skye 1:51:01

You know, I don't know.

River 1:51:05

Dust in the wind at this point. This is our second recording of the

Poppy 1:51:10

Oh, okay. Are we, are we ready? Are we good? Are we

Skye 1:51:13

I'm satisfied.

River 1:51:15

I'm satisfied.

Skye 1:51:16

We'll see what happens in the year. You guys will be along for the ride if if you continue to listen, which I hope you do.

Poppy 1:51:24

I hope you do. Thank you for listening this far. If you actually got through this unhinged,

River 1:51:30

If you just like to hear us yap. About our kidney stones and our like financial goals.

Skye 1:51:35

this was your first episode, listening to us, um,

Poppy 1:51:40

Go listen to some other ones.

River 1:51:42

Yeah, we've got better ones. We've got more entertaining

Skye 1:51:45

no. I feel like

River 1:51:47

locations is really

Skye 1:51:48

don't let this, don't, don't expect this for the rest of the year. I will say, um, because we, we actually very rarely do a real chatty episode like this. Most of our episodes are actually fairly structured, um, and we, and we put a lot of time into actually doing, um, research and planning out exactly what we're gonna say and, uh, thinking really deeply about what we wanna talk about. And we only pick topics that we deeply care about and find relevant to each of us.

Poppy 1:52:18

for the most part.

Skye 1:52:20

let, let, me, let me, let me sell them, let, let me hook'em in, and then once they're here, we can give them our bullshit.

River 1:52:30

like you've already

Poppy 1:52:30

in Portland and New York are like, you, guys are

River 1:52:34

Our, our international listeners,

Poppy 1:52:37

Sweden, we see you. Hey Portland. We see you New York. We see you South Carolina. We

River 1:52:43

Thanks.

Skye 1:52:43

Anyway, uh, we love you guys no matter where you're from. Thanks for listening to us ramble all the time, but especially today, in the new year, happy new Year.

Poppy 1:52:54

We've been a podcast for like a year and a half at this point, and uh, we appreciate when you, when you click that download button,

Skye 1:53:03

yeah. When you, when you rate and review

Poppy 1:53:06

we especially like when you rate and review. Yeah.

Skye 1:53:08

and, and when you reach out to us, which still no one has, so I

Poppy 1:53:12

nobody has, it's been a year and a half.

River 1:53:14

I feel like, I feel like now they're like, I can't be the first. That's too much pressure.

Skye 1:53:18

shy

River 1:53:20

I,

Poppy 1:53:20

If you'd like to tell us about your New Year's resolutions, what you got planned for 2026, what you did in 2025, uh, what you'd like to see from us in this new year. You can reach out to us at death coven pod@gmail.com or check us out on Instagram. I'm sure with Skye, with all of her creative projects this year we'll be posting more art. I'll just put that out there right now. Uh, you can find us there at Death Coven Pod. And with that I don't have anything else to say so by the power of three

Skye 1:53:54

and so it is

River 1:53:56

And so it is.

Poppy 1:53:57

so it is

Skye 1:53:58

Maple say, and so it is.

River 1:54:02

She speaks in perfect human English only once and never again.

Poppy 1:54:07

Uh, happy 2026.