Fire Wives
Join me as I chat with my fellow Fire Wives about what it's like to be married to a Firefighter. Every week, we’ll be talking about the good and the bad of being in the Fire Family, sharing funny stories, and highlighting the spouses that make it all possible.
Fire Wives
E6 Ro
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Roschel Griffin!
Good morning, how are you? Good, how are you? Good. Is it Rochelle?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's Rochelle. Rochelle. You can you can call me Ro.
SPEAKER_01Ro, nice to meet you. I'm Noha. Nice to meet you.
SPEAKER_00Noha. Noha, that's right. I was trying to say it correctly when I did my story, and I knew I knew I made a mistake.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's okay. You wouldn't be the first. Don't worry. Same with me. Same with me. So, Ro, it's so nice to meet you. Thank you for agreeing to do this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. No, I think it's so awesome what you're doing. This is so cool.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. So, first things first, tell me a little bit about yourself.
SPEAKER_00Well, I am an aesthetician in the state of California. I'm the lead educator for a professional skincare company based out of Irvine. So I travel and I do like education seminars. I'll be at the International Congress of Aesthetics and Spa conference in Long Beach this year again. I've been at the one in Vegas. I've been at the one in Sacramento. I do all that stuff. And then I am an aesthetician in Bakersville, California at a plastic surgery office. So I've been doing that since I've been licensed since 2007, and I've been in the industry since 2001.
SPEAKER_01Wow. That's a long time. Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever done anything else or did you start off with this?
SPEAKER_00I was a bartender for a long time. I was a bartender and a waitress. And that was like my lifeline until I decided that this is the direction that I wanted to go. And of course, my dad, my dad's an almond farmer. Well, he owns an almond hulling and shelling plant in the Central Valley. And he wanted me to go to a real college. And he just didn't understand. And then now that I'm educating and doing all this stuff, like he jokes around and calls me Professor Wynn. Well, now I'm Griffin. But it yeah, right. So it's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that's awesome. And what made you decide to do that?
SPEAKER_00Well, my mom she had breast cancer for 11 years. Oh wow. And she, I remember when I was younger, she did this program called the Look Good Feel Better Program. And the only people that could volunteer for that were licensed cosmetologists and licensed estheticians. And she passed away when I was 15. And that was something that really like stuck with me. And I was like, I I want to be an aesthetician. I want to be able to go and help with stuff like this. And I have. And that was that was kind of what stemmed this side of I want to help. And now I help all walks of life. And I get to be an unlicensed therapist to a lot of my clients and my friends, which is cool.
SPEAKER_01That's great. Wow, I'm sorry for your loss, but you made something great out of such a sad thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. No, it's I think she'd be proud. So I'm sure she would be.
SPEAKER_01That's great. Was your mom kind of into the you know aesthetician stuff? Did you ever talk to her about that before?
SPEAKER_00No. So I was raised in Maui, Hawaii, and she was the lead of in the research department for Maui Land and Pineapple. And my dad ran the supervisor side of Maui Land and Pineapple. And but she was like a little hippie dippy. And when she was diagnosed when we were living in Maui, um, she enlisted a lot of like the natural healers and they were coming out and helping her. And I remember sitting there in our house when they would come to our house and and learning about all of the natural healing and stuff like that. And I'm still like super like tin foil hat crunchy. So I love that stuff. Yeah. So that I mean, she instilled that side of it for me, which was really cool.
SPEAKER_01Wow. That's very cool. Yeah. Do you have any brothers or sisters?
SPEAKER_00So I do. I have a sister in Dallas, Texas. I have a sister in Louisville, Kentucky. My brother, Jay, is in Boston with his wife.
SPEAKER_02Oh, he's next door to us.
SPEAKER_00And yeah. So yeah, there's we're scattered. We're definitely not like the tight-knit group. Like I've listened to some of your podcasts, and everybody has family so close, and all of my family is like gone. My dad moved to Grants Pass, Oregon, a year ago. His sister lives up there. Rest of my family lives in Northern California. Dylan's from Southern California.
SPEAKER_01So and Dylan's your husband.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00How did you guys meet? Oh, it was a very unromantic. I had just left eight-year relationship and went to go visit my sister in Texas. And my niece took my phone and downloaded Tinder. And I was like, girl, the last time I met anybody with the interweb was when I had MySpace. This is weird.
SPEAKER_01The interweb.
SPEAKER_00So I had it for about three weeks and it was overwhelming because I had set it to where I was traveling to. And so I ended up with way too many swipes and too many things going on. And I had moved in with this couple of my best friends, Matt and Maddie, after I left my home and all that stuff. And I sat down after coming back from Irvine doing filming for Control Corrective, the skincare company. And I was like, I think I'm gonna delete this. This is awful. This is this is not what I was looking for. And the last person that I looked at was Dylan. And I was like, this one seems different. And you know, he had his San Bernardino fire gear on, and you know, he was a surfer and he had traveled the world and all this stuff. I'm like, oh, this one, oh, okay. So we did a weekend away together in Kernville, and it was just supposed to be light. We I was gonna take over the world of aesthetics, and he had great plans with the department and all this stuff. And the last day that we were on our trip, I said, What are we doing? And he said, I don't know, but I've been looking for you my entire life, and I'm not gonna let you go. Oh my gosh, are you kidding? Yeah, so it was just supposed to be like a a light hookup weekend, and now he's stuck with me forever.
SPEAKER_01So I mean, I doubt he feels that way. That's so sweet. How long ago was this?
SPEAKER_00Uh, three years ago. Wow, that's nice. Yeah, so we met each other later in life. We're both gonna be 40 this year, and so it's we always say, Oh, why couldn't we have met each other like sooner, earlier in life, when we both know we would have been total a-holes to one another? So we had to go through what we needed to go to through to really appreciate each other when we found each other. So that's that's pretty a good fairy tale for me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I think you're probably right. I uh my husband and I joke sometimes that I think I'm grown up enough now to understand his sense of humor, but had we met like in high school or something, I would have thought he was a major jerk and been like, oh, that guy, you know.
SPEAKER_00Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. I I hear you on that 1000%. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So was he a firefighter when you met him already? You said he had a San Bernardino gear on.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, so he was he works for the department. So he's San Bernardino County fire paramedic. And so he does the paramedic side of everything there. And yeah, he was already working for the, he's been with them for six years. And his dad, my father-in-law, Scott Griffin, was with San Bernardino and he was a captain and he was there for 30 plus years.
SPEAKER_01Weren't they on at the same time?
SPEAKER_00No, no, I don't believe so. Scott was injured, cinder brick wall fell on him and injured him to the point that he was forced into retirement.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00And so, but I know Scott's really proud of Dylan for following his foot footsteps. You know, that was one of the things that you guys talked about on your last podcast is would you be proud or of your child going into it? I know Scott's so proud of him. I bet.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Wow, thank you for listening. I'm so glad you're paying attention. I love it.
SPEAKER_00Thank you.
SPEAKER_01That's great. That's great. Yeah, I mean, we've talked about it before too, and I would be obviously so proud. I would be so scared. I don't know how to feel about it, but my kids are little, so I have time.
SPEAKER_00Only imagine, you know, a mother's love. We're getting ready to start that journey right now. And so I get to have a geriatric pregnancy.
SPEAKER_01Isn't that the most disrespectful thing you've ever heard?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. It's so rude. I'm pretty sure I'm still 26. So I don't know how geriatric.
SPEAKER_01I'm the opposite. When I turned 30, my I was so sad, you know, thinking, well, oh gosh, I'm 30 and my 20s are gone. And my sister who's younger than me, she's like, You've been 85 since the day you were born. Why are you sad? And you know what? It actually really helped me. I was like, you know what? You're right. I'm just old at heart.
SPEAKER_00So oh well, I do all the old stuff too, you know. Like since we moved up here, Dylan left. He was born and raised in Newport, Costa Mesa. So he was like the orange county boy, you know. And I was living in Bakersfield at the time, and he made the move to Bakersfield for me. And I don't know if you've heard what Bakersfield is considered in California, but you know, people refer to it as the armpit of California. Oh my god, it's awful. Oh, yeah, yeah. The Central Valley. Well, and it's all it's farming, it's oil, it's it's all of our blue-collar industries that really support the rest of the nation. And so, yeah, it's not Hollywood and it's not the beach, but it's an amazing group of of small town people that I love so much, but it's it's not the beach, it's desert, it's not pretty at all. So when he moved there, he's like saying it. And he moved there when it was hitting the the heat wave of like 117. Oh my gosh. And he was like, no, I can't do this. So we agreed to move to the mountains east of Bakersfield. So it cut his drive time down from over four hours to get to station to just under three hours to get to station. So he not only moved me to the mountains, we're at 6,200 feet and we're completely off grid. Our nearest neighbor is a 15-minute walk up the road from us. So we're no no power, no nothing. We are self-sufficient up here.
SPEAKER_01So do you like that?
SPEAKER_00I do. I do, I do now. When we first moved up here, I was like, what did I get myself into? Because I mean, you gotta think. He's you guys talk about, oh, how can I it's so hard to do 48 hours without my guy. And I'm like, minimum for me is six days.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, tell me about that.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so his his schedule is two on, two off, two on, four off. Then it goes two on, two off, two on eight off. Well, he picks up those two in between to make it worth the drive. So he's there six on, four on, six on, eight off, unless he's picking up additional overtime, which the longest he's been gone has been 23 days. That's insane. Yeah, it's it's hard. And I mean when we first moved up here, our first winner was gnarly, and we had a tiny little generator and we had four solo panels, and our battery storage was 20 deep cell golf cart batteries daisy chained together. This is how the house came. It was a doctor from Bakesfield, it was his weekend getaway cabin. And so I remember we got almost four and a half feet of snow. I got stuck, my neighbors came down to try and help me. The plow came to try and help plow the front of my driveway. The plow got stuck, my generator blew, and I just sat and cried. And I was like, I can't do this. And now I'm like, I'm out there, I'm starting the generator by myself, I'm hauling firewood, I'm feeding all of our farm animals, I'm doing all of this stuff alone for days at a time.
SPEAKER_01So wow, we actually just got hit with a crazy storm. We it's still kind of snowing, but yesterday I think what we think of crazy was like two feet of snow. And it sounds like that's nothing to you.
SPEAKER_00That's what we just got here, yeah. And luckily, Dylan Dylan was home for this one, and he had he was out on the tractor plowing our um our driveway three days in a row because it just kept dumping and dumping and dumping. So yeah, it was it was pretty wild. It was pretty wild for sure.
SPEAKER_01Do you ever worry about him being away from you, not just in the safety sake, but as your relationship and your connection to him?
SPEAKER_00So I will say there's times that he picks up the additional, like beyond the six. And I do pretty good for a while. At the beginning, I had I was I I had a toxic codependency, very much so from my last relationship, is what had developed. And so when he left, I was not okay for a while, and I've slowly like grown as an individual, and I have made it to the point where I'm like, I got this and I'm doing okay, and then towards the end, it'll hit me and I'm like, I'm not okay anymore. Like I haven't been touched, I haven't been held, I haven't been kissed, I haven't, you know, like stuff like that. And that does start to weigh on me because I know when he gets home, I get that hug and a kiss, but then he's unavailable for 24 hours because he is absolutely zapped.
SPEAKER_01I mean, imagine working that long straight.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00It's not human. He's a machine, he really is. I mean, I am so proud of him and everything that he sacrifices to make our dreams a reality. I mean, there's nothing that I've said that I want that he hasn't made happen for me. And I know that it's because of how hard he works, but it does affect our relationship because I need the connection. I need you to be present for me. And sometimes he doesn't have it in him because he has had such a horrible six days or longer, you know? So yeah, it's it does, it weighs on our relationship at times. Yes.
SPEAKER_01I can imagine. I mean, I feel similarly sometimes, but to a much lesser degree. Because, like you said, you know, what's one day or two days compared to six or twenty-three? Was it 23 that you said? 23. 23.
SPEAKER_00Um, the line fire, the bridge fire, and the airport fire happened, and he does all of the staffing. So when this stuff pops off, he's still responding, but he gets pulled and he sits at the table with like the battalion chiefs and they construct like the strike teams and stuff. So he's helping get all of that stuff organized, and he's up till like four, five o'clock in the morning organizing strike teams of where all these different, you know, departments are heading. So it's pretty wild. So yeah, I mean, that was that was a I did not like that.
SPEAKER_01I bet. Do they have a limit for how many hours he can work? Like, does he have required rest time?
SPEAKER_00He does. So if he's gone for like 17 days, there's mandatory one day off. So he'll go and he'll stay with his dad down in Rancho Cucumonga for a day to do the reset so he can be there for an additional. So I mean, he just goes and he sleeps for 24 hours and he hits it again.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, a machine. That's a good description. Wow. So tell me what it means to you to be a firewife.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so the first thing that comes to me is how proud. I'm just so proud. It's such an honorable position, an honorable career to me, because they this is a job of selflessness, and I am so proud that I get to be married to one of the good guys, you know? And not saying that, you know, everybody's a good guy or other careers aren't good guys, but like he is the one that's going towards the chaos, and I'm sure you you see what I'm saying. Like he is, he's got such a good heart, and I am so proud to be a wife of a first responder. I think it's one of the neatest things that I've got to add to my life resume, right? You know, the other thing is this I I love this, I love the schedule. And then on the opposite side is one of the worst things about being a farmer is the schedule. I hate the schedule. So I like it because I get to do my thing. So I schedule a lot of my uh days at the office when he's at work. I work my butt off while he's gone. So when he's home, that's our weekend because we don't have Saturdays and Sundays like a nine to five.
SPEAKER_01No, weekends don't matter.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So that's our weekend.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So yeah. What do you guys do together when he when he's home?
SPEAKER_00So that's another fight that we really it's not really a fight, it's more of a disagreement because when he gets up to the house, this is his reprieve, this is his decompression. He loves being home. He goes out, and I mean, the guy you name it, he can build it. He built our entire shed that has all of our solar batteries and our our inverter, our inverter, and all of that stuff. He's in the process of building our livestock guardian, a log cabin doghouse with his own porch. Wow.
SPEAKER_01That's amazing.
SPEAKER_00Yes. So he loves to go and do stuff like that. So I'm home when he's gone, and I'm home when he's home. And so that is a little bit of a problem for me. I tell him, I'm like, I need I need to go do something fun with you. We need to go do stuff. And he's kind of like, okay. And so we try and make at least a date night where we go out to dinner, or you know, we really love to go see concerts. We haven't gone to a concert in a long time.
SPEAKER_01But what was the last concert you went to?
SPEAKER_00Culture Wall in Vegas for Cowboys. We went for Cowboy Christmas. Wow. And that was a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_01That must have been so fun.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Oh gosh, it's a it's a blast. If you guys are into that kind of stuff, I mean Vegas just transforms for Cowboy Christmas. It's phenomenal.
SPEAKER_01I bet. The only time I've been somewhere for Christmas was we went to Key West in Florida and it was all Santas everywhere, but it was hot, you know, it's like 80 degrees and everyone's Santa. It was it was very kind of disconcerting. You're like, I'm a little confused. Have you ever visited here?
SPEAKER_00Yes, I love Boston. That's cool. It's so cool. It's so cool. Um, so we went out for Dylan's brother's wedding, which his wife is from Gloucester. Uh-huh. And so the wedding was in Gloucester, which was so beautiful. From a movie. So beautiful. Yeah, it's so neat out there.
SPEAKER_01It's so gorgeous, but honestly, it's so crazy expensive around here. It's it's hard to live. Like, I would love to live on the ocean, but I don't think in a million years we could do that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, you can always try and cut it in California. We've got great taxes and all of that stuff out here, too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I've heard. So you said you have some farm animals. What kind of animals do you have?
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh. So we got goats because we have about three acres, and I really hate having to go weedy when the foxtails start to pop up in the spring. So I was like, I'm gonna get some goats. And that has been nothing short of a nightmare. Really? Why? So this fall we got back from our wedding, and shortly after Dylan goes back to work, and I wake up in the middle of the night, my livestock guardian dog is losing his mind, and I'm hearing screaming. We had a bear get into the goat pen and attack one of my goats. So I'm out at 3 a.m. with my gun, trying to protect my goats. My goats, other goats get out of the pen. They take off. I'm having to find the goats. I had to go and put my goat out of her misery by myself, with Patsy Klein. So sad. And then for the next six weeks on and off, we had bears returning. And in the middle of the night, killed another. I ended up Dylan was home for that one, had to put another one of my goats down, Merle Haggard. He had to be put down. It was an absolute nightmare. My nerves were shot. Every time the dogs would bark, I would bolt out of bed, grab my gun, go and try. I was out with a rifle on the dirt road, shooting at bears, trying to protect my farm. It was yeah, I saw myself turning into Annie Oakley.
SPEAKER_01I was just gonna ask, growing up in Hawaii, did you ever expect that for yourself?
SPEAKER_00No. No. The answer to all of this up here is no. I did not see myself being an off-grid homesteader doing all of that stuff. I recently got meat rabbits to start breeding so I can start processing my own raw feed for my for my dogs. I have Central Asian Shepherd, he's a year and four months, he's about 200 pounds. I have a Bernese mountain dog, she's about 100 pounds, and then I have a miniature Australia and Shepherd. So timber oak and or timber willow and oak. And yeah. So we have meat rabbits, and then I rescued a mama cat and her five kittens last year, and so they're my barn cat.
SPEAKER_01So I saw pictures of your dogs on Instagram. They're beautiful.
SPEAKER_00Oh, thank you. They're fun, yeah. They're a pain in the butt sometimes, but yes, they're awesome.
SPEAKER_01Do you miss the beach not being near Hawaii anymore? Or near Hawaii in Hawaii.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I do. I I miss the I miss the community out there. I miss the food. I'm a foodie. I love all types of food. And I think that's the coolest part about being raised in Hawaii was my palate was expanded so broadly as a child that I love all kinds of food. But the food from Hawaii is oh my god, it's just so good.
SPEAKER_01Really? I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, you've got it's a melting pot. It's a melting pot of all of the Asian nations. And I mean, they just have some of the best cuisine I've ever had.
SPEAKER_01So noted. We actually had planned a trip to Hawaii, but then COVID happened, so we had to cancel it.
SPEAKER_02Oh no.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was our one of our anniversaries. And fortunately, for some reason, I had never booked anything refundable before that. But I did because I had just accepted a new job. And then because before that, like you never booked refundable. You're like, no, nothing's gonna happen. And then COVID happened, so we had to cancel, and I got all my money back. It was it was crazy. I did not expect that.
SPEAKER_00But I'm so thankful that you got all that money back. Are you guys gonna go try and go back?
SPEAKER_01I would love to. Absolutely. It's on the list, but now we have two young kids, and like if you're gonna go from here, it's gotta be at least. I mean, even a week is probably not enough. So I don't want to do it while the kids are young because it won't be f as fun, I think. Maybe we'll take them when we're older, or I won't feel so bad leaving them for a week and a half, you know.
SPEAKER_00Right, exactly, exactly. Yeah, I suggest you put it on your bucket list. Maui is better than any of the other islands. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Which island did you grow up on? Maui. Okay, awesome. Wow, that's great. But you visited all of them. Was that easy to kind of get around from one to the other?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've been to all of the islands. Um, Oahu is just like a miniature LA. I mean, it's you got the North Shore, you got all of that stuff, which is pretty cool, but Maui just has so much to offer, and it's one of the most beautiful islands, I in my opinion.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00So yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's great.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You mentioned the best part. The worst part is probably the schedule. Anything else that you think of that you know what I would do without this if I could.
SPEAKER_00Um, I you know, I would do without the like insane amounts of exha exhaustion that really kind of weighs him down because it that that part I feel like the department steals something from us. It steals the some of the the joy and energy from our our marriage and our relationship when he comes home and and it's not only been physically exhausting and challenging, but it's been mentally challeng challenging and exhausting if he runs a bad call. And what I've learned is really bad calls are with children. And that's something that he carries with him. And which just shows that he has such a great heart, you know. But I do feel like it it it's a time it's a it's a moment stealer, it's a memory stealer. He's missing birthdays or holidays or you know, stuff like that. We he missed our friend's wedding because he actually got forced. And you know, there's stuff like that that I get pretty bummed out about, but I also am very gracious with him about because I know this is what I signed up for. I knew what I was signing up for before I said I do. So I don't get to sit here and have a sob story over all of it because I know that this was part of the deal. Of course, I still feel sorry for myself. I have my own little pity party, I bring my own balloons, it's a party of ones, but then I I give myself uh some time to get through it, and then I'm like, okay, you know what? Don't let that ruin the time that we have when he does come home.
SPEAKER_01Right.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_01That's a great attitude to have about it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, as the as the backup support. We are the backup support system. We are supposed to be their peace when they come home. We don't need to compile all of that chaos as soon as they walk through the door. Like it's I know when he comes home, it's I have his PJs out and I have the sheets washed and turned down for him. I have snacks next to the bed, I have a water next to the bed for him, I get everything ready so that he can come in and he can just be like, I can shut down finally. Come home. I can recover finally. You know what I mean? Wow, that's really kind.
SPEAKER_01Do you worry about him driving that long distance after such a long shift?
SPEAKER_00Yes. There's days that he's like, I'm barely keeping my eyes open. That's scary. Um, there's mornings, he leaves at 3 a.m. in the morning for a almost a three-hour drive to work. So I worry about other people on the road at that time because I mean, he's used to this, but there's other people that are exhausted as well. And that's a long drive on a two-lane highway with a lot of semis going back and forth. So wow, it's scary.
SPEAKER_01Very scary. Yeah. Wow. Now, do you worry about having kids? You mentioned you're starting that journey. Do you worry about being alone with them?
SPEAKER_00Let me tell you. Tell me. I that was something that I was really terrified at the beginning. I've been through so much up on this mountain that I'm like, I can do anything now.
SPEAKER_01But you are you're superwoman, it's true.
SPEAKER_00I feel like it. But so I don't have my mom. I don't have my dad. My aunt is six hours away, which is my mom's sister, which has really filled in for my mom. I will say my mother-in-law is an absolute angel. I have a great stepmother-in-law as well that is just kind as can be. And but stepmom and father-in-law are in Rancho Cucamunga, which is three and a half hours away. Mother-in-law retired from the Newport School District and decided to move to Florida to enjoy the rest of her life. And good for her because she deserves it. But I am here alone. I literally all I have is my tribe of my girlfriends. And again, I'm on the mountain alone. Everybody is minimum of 30 minutes away to my friends in Bakersfield are an hour and 10 minutes away. So having a newborn on the mountain by myself is going to be one of the biggest adventures I think I'll have in my entire life.
SPEAKER_01For sure. Yeah. Did it make you second guess it at any point?
SPEAKER_00I have weighed out the pros and cons a million times over in my brain. And what I keep coming down to is he is going to be such a great daddy. He needs to be a daddy. So that wins. That trumps everything for me. That's amazing.
SPEAKER_01That goes to show what a good guy he must be. The fact that despite all of what you're going through and what what you live through, you still want to do that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, he is um he is everything that I have uh uh prayed for and wished for and manifested my entire life. That's amazing. So he's pretty awesome. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that's great. So if you were coming into this, you're new, or you're talking to yourself three years ago, what would you tell yourself?
SPEAKER_00So I did write it down. The first thing that came to my mind was don't take it personal. If they are exhausted, don't take it personal. If they choose overtime, it's not they're not choosing overtime over you. They are they are programmed to provide. They are programmed if there's an opportunity to make more money and to set you up better for success. And I don't know about you guys, but overtime pays way better. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's why they love it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, if they're getting the overtime, let them let them do it. You know, this is their this is their gift to you to take care of you. Don't keep score. If you're keeping score, you're gonna lose. That's not it's not a fair fight. Keeping score.
SPEAKER_01Amazing advice.
SPEAKER_00And it's something that I have I I started at the beginning and I was like, this is why are you doing this? And so I've learned to not keep score. Be his peace, his place to recover, and come down from his fight or flight. If you are continuing that energy in the home, they can't fully recover, and that and that does affect their health overall. They can't constantly be in that fight or flight. That's not it, it's not fair, it's not healthy, it's not good for them. The relationship isn't 50-50. Sometimes it looks like it's 2080 or it's 90-10. We have to pick up where the other one needs help. And I know Dylan does that for me. There's times where I'll come home, I'll be working, and I'll have 12 clients in a day. I jam-pack my days because I drive so far. And I'll come home and he's like, I got you. What do you mean? You want me to run your bass? You know, so he'll go out and he'll feed. There's gotta be something to say about a man who takes care of farm animals that he didn't want in the first place.
SPEAKER_01Oh, so they were your idea.
SPEAKER_00Always, always. Didn't your parents tell you you can have as many animals as you as you want when you get older? Oh, yeah, they did.
SPEAKER_01They did actually, and then I got two dogs because they never let me have dogs. Wow, I like that. Wow, that's really funny. That's really funny, Rose.
SPEAKER_00So, and keep each other's hearts safe and have each other's backs at the end of the day. This is what matters the most. Everybody else can fall to the wayward side, friends, family, you guys are what matter the most, and you have to take care of each other, you have to be each other's greatest cheerleader for everything. And if you're constantly pouring into each other's cups, your cups will never run dry.
SPEAKER_01Wow. I feel like we need to do like a seminar for people entering this life, you know, and and talk about some of that stuff. That'd be really good to hear because I feel like setting people up for success is is better than get going in kind of blind and acting like it's all dandy when there's so much good, but there's a lot of hard stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. There is there's there's a lot of hard, but if you can pro you can't prepare for all of it because some of it is a learn as you go, and it's not always gonna be perfect, and you're not always gonna respond the best way, right? You know, we're only human, yeah. We are, but as long as you can step back and say, I need to evaluate the situation, how could I have done this better? And learn from that and do better next time, that that's all that matters, right? And don't hang on to stuff, don't don't bring it up in the next fight. Once it's done, it's done. Let it go.
SPEAKER_01Put it away.
SPEAKER_00That's really good.
SPEAKER_01That's all really good advice.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So if you ever need a public speaker, I'm I'll sign you up.
SPEAKER_01That's great. That's amazing. What would you want to hear? What would you you've heard the first few episodes, which again, thank you for listening. What would you have liked me to ask them? Because, you know, I'm new at this. I'm not, I don't know what I'm doing. So it would be nice to have some ideas.
SPEAKER_00You know, you guys really cover a lot. I love hearing everybody's different, you know, we all we have one thing in common. We have this this career that our husbands and our partners have chosen, and we're in it regardless. And but everybody's story has a different spin to it. Everybody has different experiences, and I love hearing what they've taken away from it, what they've learned. I love hearing about you guys with kids because that's really giving me encouragement. You know what? I can do this. I I I these women are just magnificent lionesses that take care of the house, take care of the kids, take care of the family, and you guys still have careers, which is incredible that you're juggling all of this and you get to be mom and dad for chunks of the week. And so I do love hearing about how you guys are staying sane through all of it.
SPEAKER_01I was worried that talking about the kids so much would push turn people away, I guess anybody who doesn't have kids, because I I did find it a lot easier before kids because you do your own thing, and I'm not in the situation you're in where it's six days at a time. It's one day on, two days off, one day on, four days off, right? So it's a little different. But with that said, it's nice to hear what you're saying that it doesn't it doesn't push you from away from listening because this is real life and that's reality. Even if you don't want kids, it's just the way of life.
SPEAKER_00Right, right. Yeah. It's I really feel like that is such a great gift because these kids are they're built different. They, you know, they're exposed to things that other kids aren't. And I feel like that's we're you guys are really doing the Lord's work and raising these children to look at the challenges that this life, this career brings, and makes them understand that it's not the end of the world if dad isn't gonna be there, if dad picks up over time. And they learn to really cherish when dad is around. It's not just this unspoken just taking for granted dad's always home situation, you know?
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00So I think it makes the children a lot more versatile, I guess. That's a really cool gift that they have, even though sometimes it doesn't seem like a gift. Life is gonna pose those challenges. Like things aren't always gonna work out, plans are gonna be canceled. We're not gonna end up going here because dad got forced, and to just be able to learn how to roll with the punches and not feel like the world is crumbling, right?
SPEAKER_01Or even just, you know, dad got forced, but we can still go, right? It stinks that he can't come, but we're not gonna not live and do things. You know, life goes on. Life goes on, exactly, right? Any funny stories, any anything you want to share, anything you want to tell about? I'm sure you have tons.
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh. Well, yeah, there's there's all kinds of stuff. You know, there's been times that I've packed the dogs up and we've driven up to his station to go visit because you know, everybody else gets to bring their kids. These are our kids. Yeah, that's great. I love that. We've uh gone up to go visit the guys at the station.
SPEAKER_01They probably love seeing the dogs too.
SPEAKER_00Oh, it's fun, it's fun. Cap is hilarious. He I was like, Are you sure Cap is gonna be okay with Willow? At the at that time, well, Timber doesn't go for rides because he gets car sick. Oh and 200 pounds of puke in the backseat is not fun to clean up. So thank you. So it's yeah, we've done it, it's not good. So Oak and Willow get to go, and I mean, they're just having a great time. And as soon as they come through the door, they immediately go in and see Cap, and Cap's just so stoked to see him. So that was that's always fun when we get to go visit dad at the station. And you know, you guys have talked about, you know, the community and how close you guys are to station, and you guys have all the the families that you're connected to, which I think is incredible. That's something that I don't feel that I get to have because we're so far away, and it's hard to go visit. Haven't I only met one of the wives, and she's amazing, Trina. That's one of Dylan's partner's wives, and they have two little girls, and and so we've connected, uh, but they live down in Southern California. So that's I think that in itself is kind of hard because I do feel disconnected from his work so much. Like I feel like you guys are so much more involved, like you get to swing by the station and see everybody and have a little bit more of a relationship with the guys that are on shift together all the time. So but uh yeah, there's been a let me tell you, moving up here was a was a wild change from my normal day-to-day. And there's been us getting stuck in the snow and having to call for help because Dylan's at station and all of that stuff. But I'm trying to think of like more fun stories of just I mean, the chaos with the animals is always I can't believe that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, bears just wandering around is not a life I would have ever assigned for that. Right.
SPEAKER_00So the we initially got these four goats, right? And we rushed to get this fence built. We have this huge and like fenced-in area. Dylan built the the goat mansion for them out there, and we didn't know what we were doing, and we thought that it was secure, and one thing that you got to know about goats is if there's a way out, they're gonna find it.
SPEAKER_01Really?
SPEAKER_00And these four goats escaped, and they have been loose on the mountain since they escaped.
SPEAKER_02Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00And we were talking to one of the neighbors that stopped at the end of the drive the other day, and he's like, Hey, did you lose some goats at one point? And Dylan was like, Sure did, I don't even want to admit this. And he's like, I don't know what you're talking about. And he's like, Yeah, I saw on the game camera yesterday this goat ran by, and shortly after, here comes a bear that was chasing this goat. So these goats are out here just trying to these poor goats.
unknownI know.
SPEAKER_00So, but yeah, it's definitely been an adventure moving up here, being on our own, doing all of the all of the upgrades and adding more solar panels. And you know, we've had some fires in Southern California close to our house, and there was one point that it was right over the ridge from our place, and it was getting closer and closer. And Dylan was at station. Wow, and the winds were blowing the opposite direction, and I was standing out on the deck talking to him, and all of a sudden the winds shifted and they started blowing towards the house, and ash was falling on the house. And I said, Dylan, I don't know what to do. And he went and told Cap what was going on, and Cap was like, Go, go home. And it got pretty freaking close to. Our neighborhood up here, our mountain community. And but that was amazing that you know they're so gracious that yeah, you're on shift to make sure that the rest of civilization is okay. But when yours is in trouble, they're like, go for sure. And I think that that is a testament to this department as well. I mean, it's pretty incredible.
SPEAKER_01Did you tell them you're doing this podcast?
SPEAKER_00I did. What is it? He's like, really? What how what? How? Well, I made a new friend. I started talking to her, but I told her, you know, this is my schedule of everything. And she's like, You want to get interviewed? I'm like, yeah, let's talk.
SPEAKER_01Why not? That's amazing. You should tell your story. It's great. And I'm I'm finding it's interesting. You have a huge Instagram following. You are so put together, and you got beautiful hair and makeup and everything. And yet you live off the grid, which in my mind is like we went off the grid, quote unquote, once in Maine, and there was no running water. Like there was a well water, but there was no well. But but there was no bathroom running water. It was a portagon, and it's just not what I knew. I did not know what off the grid meant. So it was not expected.
SPEAKER_00Oh well shit. When we I'm sorry, that's okay. When we first moved here, um, great story. So yes, uh, you know, I'm I'm naturally blonde, but I lighten my hair and I use my purple shampoo and Dylan's at station, and I hop in the shower to get ready for work and I'm mid-shampoo, purple shampoo, and we run out of power. Now, if you don't know, our well has to have electricity in order to pump water into the house. So what happened? So I run out of water, there's no power, I have to stark butt naked, run downstairs outside, and we still have the mini generator. So I'm purple shampoo is running down into my eyes. I can barely see I'm cranking this generator trying to get it started so I can get water back into my shower.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00And at that point, all I could do was cuss at my husband under my breath for moving me to the middle of nowhere where I have to go start a generator so I can finish my shower.
SPEAKER_01Oh geez. Well, you make it look easy. It looks like your house is beautiful from what I can see. It looks gorgeous behind you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, it is it has been my place of peace and healing from you know, I've been through we all have our stories. We have I have been through quite a lot in my 39 years of life, and I've never been in a place where I can just sit and heal. And this is what this place has given me. It's given me a lot of headaches, but it has definitely healed my soul. And I I really do I love it. Up here, the pine trees, we've got snow right now. During the summer, it's a lot cooler. It's it's really a little slice of heaven up here.
SPEAKER_01That's beautiful. I feel like everybody should have that.
SPEAKER_00So if you need a little mountain getaway in California, by all means.
SPEAKER_01Don't tell my husband he loves the off-the-grid stuff. He's the one who brought me there and made me poop in a portageon.
SPEAKER_00I love it so much. It's not the beach.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, but it's still it still looks beautiful. All the all the pictures I've seen on your Instagram look beautiful.
SPEAKER_00Oh, thank you. It's it's wonderful. And uh yeah, if you ever are find yourself in the area and you need a good facial, by all means, thank you. Thank you so much. That's so nice.
SPEAKER_01I'd love to offer you something in return, but I don't I don't have much to offer. But if you're ever around here, I'd love to meet you.
SPEAKER_00Next time we're out in Boston, yeah, we'll we'll reach outly swing by and say hi to everybody and see the station. I'd love that.
SPEAKER_01That would be so fun. Yeah. All right, awesome. This has been lovely. Thank you so much for taking the time.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Thank you for having me. And thank you again so much for creating a space for us because I really think that this is helping me because I'm so far away from our community that Dylan's at. So this is really cool. Um, also I will say to add on to for the newbie advice, Dylan brought home a book for me. I don't know if you've read it, but it's called Fully Involved. No, fully involved. It's by a fire wife um who ended up getting her PhD in psychology, I think. And it is a full breakdown of start to finish what is involved in being married to a first responder. Really? Um it's incredible. Yeah, it was a really great insight for me. It was a lot of stuff that I underst I knew, but I needed to understand a little bit better. So fully involved, I highly recommend all of our firewives, even if you've been in it forever, to read because it's it's a it's a quick read, it's a good read.
SPEAKER_01It's kind of nice to know that there's psychology to it, right? It's not you or your spouse who's crazy or handling things in a weird way. This there's real science behind it.
SPEAKER_00Right, right. And I I have an idea, and you can cut this out if you want to. Sure. But I think each time you bring on someone, they need to list some firewives that need to either listen to the podcast or be on the podcast.
SPEAKER_01Like a tag your it kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00Tag your it. Love that.
SPEAKER_01Perfect.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because this honestly will help expand even out this direction because we're all connected, you know.
SPEAKER_01Tag your it. Just wondering how we're gonna do that. You'll have to tag them on Instagram, I think.
SPEAKER_00I'm going to. I'm going to tag them and say that they need to reach out and talk to you because that's it's just a domino effect because you know they've got other wives in because these are all different departments. Right. So they all are connected to other wives that need to tell their story too.
SPEAKER_01That would be amazing. Thank you so much for doing that. And I like that. I'm gonna call it the tag your it section.
SPEAKER_00Tag your it.
SPEAKER_01Love that. Amazing. All right. Well, thank you so much for your time. Good luck with everything.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much. And I'm here if you need anything. And uh we'll talk soon.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. All right, bye. Bye. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed being here as much as I did. If you have any questions for me or if you'd like to be interviewed, please reach out at the firewivespodcast at gmail.com. You can also follow me on Instagram and Facebook. Tune in next week for the next episode of Firewives.