Day 10: Fifty Episodes Later...I'm Still Showing Up

Episode 50...I honestly can't believe I'm saying that.

Today's memory takes me back to one of Rebecca's incredible acts of generosity. As she cleaned out her closet, she invited me to "shop" through clothes that no longer fit her style. If you know Rebecca, you know she has amazing taste, and at a time when I desperately needed to refresh my wardrobe, her kindness couldn't have come at a better moment. What started as a closet cleanout became a reminder that generosity doesn't always come wrapped in a box.

I also share today's entry in my Daily Gratitude Jar, celebrating another person who has made a lasting impact on my life.

Then we celebrate a milestone together—50 episodes! I'm blown away that listeners have found this little podcast not only across the United States, but in places like Australia, Mexico, and Africa. Thank you for spending a few minutes of your day with me.

Finally, I give a candid update on my health journey and the emotional ups and downs that have defined this year. Just when I feel ready to move forward, life seems to throw another curveball. Through it all, this podcast has become more than a creative outlet—it's become part of my healing. Choosing gratitude every day hasn't changed my circumstances overnight, but it has changed me.

Thank you for being here for Episode 50. Here's to finding joy, one memory and one grateful heart at a time.

Transcript

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Good morning everyone. Welcome to another edition of Ten Unedited Minutes with Marlena. It is uh Tuesday, June 30th, and it is hotter than hell outside. I'm not complaining. Don't mistake that for complaining because I'm the person in the wintertime who wishes for days like this. The only thing that kind of gets me is the humidity, but we will get through that. Okay? I'd rather be hot than cold any day. Anyway, today's episode is brought to you by my dear friend Rebecca Conklin Kleibomer. And Rebecca has agreed to sponsor this podcast for the next two months. And she does so because she believes in me, she loves me, and she loves the work I'm doing. So to honor her, I have decided we are going to dedicate the next 60 episodes to Rebecca, and we're gonna do that by um sharing a memory of her or just loving on her for a little bit at the beginning of each episode. So today's memory is um one that I think about often. I probably still have some of this stuff, but back when I first when I got my job as the editor of a newspaper, I um needed some professional looking clothing. And Rebecca called me up one day and she said, Hey, I am cleaning out my closet, and I was wondering if you'd like to come over and you know see if you could use anything. And I'm like, Are you kidding me? Rebecca buys the nicest clothes. The woman has uh we are not gonna share how many shoes that woman has, but I nearly fell over. So thank you, Rebecca. Thank you for letting me do that. I picked out a lot of nice pieces, and um I still have some of them to this day, and I still wear them. So an orange sweater specifically that I love it's my favorite one. But um anyway, so thank you, Rebecca. Thank you for sponsoring this podcast. I absolutely love you. I'm so grateful for your friendship. You will always be somebody very special to me. So if you guys are following along from podcast to podcast, yesterday our podcast was about being grateful. And when things are negative, um try to make a habit of or practice trying to find the positive in any situation. Oh my gosh, my best friend and I were texting yesterday. Oh, I know. Sorry. My best friend and I were texting yesterday. This is a prime example, okay? So I'm sure you've heard me talk about Lisa. Lisa is like my sister, okay. We met when we were in middle school and we've been friends ever since. That's a story for another day. Um, but anyway, we were texting yesterday, and we both have our individual herb gardens, okay? And there we um some of ours is doing really well, some of ours isn't doing really well. And it's really funny because like the herbs in my garden that are doing well are the ones that are in her garden that are not doing well. But I I told her, um, I said, well, I planted a half-dead dill plant the other day, and I'm hoping it, you know, grows out of it. And she texts me back and she goes, Well, half dead is half alive. And I said, Thanks for the positivity. That just that just kind of made me step back a minute and go, you know what, Marlena, that's exactly right. It's like the half the glass half full, half empty ordeal, but my dough plant is half alive. So hopefully it becomes fully alive here pretty soon. But anyway, what I'm getting at is I read a uh devotional that my mom sent me yesterday, and at the end of it, it challenged us to get a jar and write one thing down that you're grateful for each day and put it in that jar. So if you're on YouTube, you can see me pointing to my gratitude jar. And if you are listening, you let me see if I can make you hear that. That's my gratitude jar. So we are going to write down one thing we're grateful for today. And today, I'm grateful for my best friend Lisa. Um thank you for showing me how to be positive um just in a funny situation. And I'm writing that down. I don't know that she listens to this podcast because whenever I ask her, she's like, I don't listen to podcasts. So I'm gonna make her listen to this. Okay, we are we are spending the day together on Thursday, and we're gonna listen to this podcast together. And she's gonna hear how grateful I am of her. She's probably gonna laugh her ass off, but and I'm gonna write the dill plant on here just so I remember why. And we're going to fold it up. Actually, we don't even have to fold it, we're just gonna throw it in that jar. And then at the end of the year, we can go back and hopefully we have 365 uh things that we have been grateful for. So I put the date on the back of it. I wrote it, I put the date on the back, and it's going in my gratitude jar. There it is. Number one, day one, guys. And speaking of getting um into the habit of doing things, I am absolutely crazy over the thought of this being the 50th podcast episode that I'm uh recording. 50. When I sat down at the beginning of this and challenged myself to do 365 days worth of podcasts, I'm I'm just amazed that I'm still at 50. And what amazes me even more is I before I uh recorded today, I went on to my Buzz Sprout account and I was able to find some um um stats of this podcast. And I'm I'm blown away. First of all, there have been an all-time download of 883 downloads since I started publishing this podcast, and it can it also tells you um the locations of where it's it's uh listened to or downloaded from. And there's somebody in Europe listening to my podcast. I kind of have an idea who it might be, but two they've downloaded two of them, and then um wait, maybe it's more. No, 18 downloads of over overall, and Oceana, which it looks like is down by like Australia, and then South America and Africa. Who in Africa is listening? That's crazy. Whoever you are, thank you, thank you, and Oceana and South America. I it I my podcast is worldwide, guys. I'm famous. I'm joking. I'm very grateful for the 50th uh episode, and that's crazy to me. So let's let's talk a little bit about the only thing that I can think about right now, and I want to give you all just a small update on my um health scare. I don't remember how many episodes ago that was, but it was probably about a month, month and a half ago, um I started to experience some severe abdominal pain, and that sent me to the ER, sent me to my OBGYN, and uh for a minute I thought I had um um endometrial cancer. And for those of you that are dealing with that terrible, terrible word, I pray for you, I I pray for you every day because I and I literally do, because it's touched our family. Um, and just you know, that that waiting period of not knowing is the hardest thing. It's it's just the worst feeling in the world, and I don't wish that on anyone. Um but I don't. I don't have um endometrial cancer, but I do have to get a hysterectomy. I just said it. And I'm scared, I'm terrified. I'm absolutely terrified to go through this. Um but the positive thing about it is is my mom had endometrial cancer. Not endometrial, was it endometrial? Yeah. And um that increased my risk for it significantly. So if we get rid of all the things down there, then we don't have to worry about it. And I think that was kind of the tipping point for uh the doctor when him and I were talking about it yesterday and you know, going through all my options, and I told him that, and he said, then yeah, you're most definitely probably gonna want to go with that choice. And so I am, so I am. So I feel like women go through this every day. I am in the hands of the absolute best doctor on the face of this planet, the best OBGYN. Um, and I'm not worried about that. Okay, I'm just I don't know. I'm just worried about going through it. This was not on my bingo card at the beginning of the year, and um it's good that I'm talking about gratitude on this podcast because it's forcing me to like try to look at this in a positive way. Um because I I just feel like this year has it's it's just been so crazy, like up and down for me trying to find a job. And every time I get into this like mindset of okay, I'm ready, I'm ready to take on a full-time job. Not that I wasn't ready a year ago, I I was ready, I could have done it, but I feel like God gave me a break, and I've I feel like that break is coming to an end, and it's time to um buckle down again and really start hitting the job applications really hard again. But now that I have to go through this, I'm like, okay, let's hire me and then oh, sorry, I need six weeks off, but no, so here I am again in this period of waiting, but we will get through it. God has a purpose and a plan for everything, and that's what I truly believe is happening here. I just don't know what his plan or purpose is, and that makes it even harder, but it also strengthens your faith in moments like this. So um here we are. That's what we're doing: strengthening our faith, praying and leaning on God every single day to get us through this, trying to see the positive in everything, and um, yeah. So, you guys stay inside today, especially if you have air conditioning and you're in a hot- you know what? I think I heard on the news that the entire country is under a heat wave, except for Montana. There was a winter storm in Montana this week, and here we are in 100-degree weather, and I have a very small air conditioner, and I'm probably gonna have to hang some blankets up in my living room just so it can cool that room down, and we are not miserable because I don't get too grumpy when I get hot, but my husband does. Don't tell him I said that. But anyway, alright, guys. Rebecca, thank you for being an absolutely amazing friend, for getting me through some crazy times and just doing the damn thing called life with me. I love you so much. I love everyone. Thank you for supporting this podcast, everyone, thank you for supporting this podcast. 50 episodes. Um, for those of you that have listened to every single one, mom, thank you. Um, I love everyone equally, and I am looking forward to doing 315 more of these episodes. I love this, it's a great way for me to get my day started. Um, and I I feel like it's going somewhere, right? So I'm excited about this. I I I genuinely am excited about this podcast. And yeah, so today I am going to try to bake some cookies. I know it's probably not the most ideal time to get your oven going, but um, my priests are heading off this week, and I need to send them off with cookies. So today's the day. Anyway, I love you guys. Pray for me, please. Pray for me. I pray for you every single day, and yeah, we'll see you tomorrow. Bye.