Providing at a Distance

In this episode we have a more serious and personal conversation about what its really like when providing for your family means being away from them.

Working out of town sounds simple from the outside, but there's a lot that comes with it, missing your kids, missing your wife and knowing that while you're gone, she's balancing her own job, the kids, the house, and everything else that comes with keeping a family moving.

We talk about the sacrifices, the guilt, the frustration, and the reality of trying to be present while miles away.

It's not always easy, and sometimes providing for your family means missing the moments you're woking so hard for. 

We want to hear what you think, so drop your answer in the comments. Until next time, keep it real, keep it unscripted and we'll see you on the next one.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

And that and that puts you in a hard position too, because there's really not a whole lot you can do about it.

SPEAKER_03 0:06

What do you think that some people don't understand about us and realizing that I'm not here half the time? Welcome back to another episode of C and C unscripted. I want to touch base on our last podcast about working out of town and the struggles with that. I think a lot of people can relate to us in that way.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Mm-hmm. For sure.

SPEAKER_03 0:46

A lot of people spend time on the road trying to raise kids, wipes at home alone, raising kids. And you're also working full time.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:58

That's tough.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Yeah, it is. It's a trip.

SPEAKER_03 1:03

It's it was nice coming home today.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

I'm not gonna lie, I was very excited for you to be home tonight.

SPEAKER_03 1:10

It was nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:12

I know I'll get like one little small snippet of that. And it's like it gets it's almost worse when I work a couple weeks and I'm home.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:21

Because then we get in a routine and then I leave again.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Yep. That's probably where I find it the hardest is when you're home, like have a job close and you're home every night for a couple weeks, and then you leave. And just like disappear. It's just pure chaos for a good week or two before we can like get our bearings.

SPEAKER_03 1:42

Yeah. Well, you gotta like relearn what you were doing before.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Yeah, you have to like almost change your entire schedule or routine with the kids, especially.

SPEAKER_03 1:55

Yeah, it was nice today though.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Yeah, it was good.

SPEAKER_03 1:58

Not looking forward to not coming home and eating dinner, turning the sprinkler on. Kids are playing out front. Yeah, just hopefully slow evening. Yeah, slow evening.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:11

It's nice to decompress after work and do it in my own house. One of these days, we'll make that happen.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:21

I think it's gonna take time.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

I think honestly, it would probably be easier for me personally, even if you're still doing your job the way you are, if I wasn't working a full-time job. Working 40 hours a week and then coming home to two kids and then still working like my 7:30 to 5 doesn't end at 5.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Like I come home and I still have XYZ to do with the kids, dinner, tub time, bedtime, and then I still have to shower and go to bed. It's like this just it's every day.

SPEAKER_03 2:59

It's like a rushed, rushed mornings to get everything ready for when a sitter gets here. And then we are fortunate enough that the babysitter comes to our house.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 3:11

Which is nice. But then you rush home to relieve the babysitter to come home to just chaos, which is raising kids, but it's not it's like you raise them in the evening all week, and then we get them together on the weekend.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 3:30

But you you mostly do it all by yourself.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Yeah, it's just me, a single parent during the week.

SPEAKER_03 3:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Four days a week. In the wintertime, five days a week.

SPEAKER_03 3:41

Five days a week in the winter. That's tough.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:44

The d the hours in the day for me in the winter don't get any shorter. It just gets darker faster.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Right.

SPEAKER_03 3:52

So those are even more tiring weeks than it is in the summertime. Or can be.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 3:57

Winters are tough. Winters are I get down in the dumps in the winter sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Get the winter blues, man.

SPEAKER_03 4:03

Yeah. I want to go outside.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Yeah, you can't go outside and just be in the sun.

SPEAKER_03 4:09

Yeah, I want it. I want the I want the heat rays, you know?

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Mm-hmm. That warm weather.

SPEAKER_03 4:15

Yep. That's what I want.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Yeah, we don't have we don't have that.

SPEAKER_03 4:18

Right now it was I will say that it was too hot today.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

It was a squirker today.

SPEAKER_03 4:22

Yeah, it was hot. But I'm not gonna be too picky. I would probably pick it over.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:31

Or I mean if we want to get picky, I want I want fall weather. The change in leaves. And uh sweatshirt in the morning with the colt with with coffee. And it's kinda cold outside.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

I personally on the mountain. Okay, you're getting picky now.

SPEAKER_03 4:51

I told you I was gonna be picky about it.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

No, I personally would just rather have summer year-round. I hate all the seasons. I hate them. I don't like fall because it's cold. I just don't think I like being cold. You don't hate being cold. It's like my biggest pet peeve in life.

SPEAKER_03 5:10

Your temperature gauge is a lot different than most.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

You get cold and it's 80 outside.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

I know.

SPEAKER_03 5:18

Like your fingers start losing color.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Yeah, it's a problem.

SPEAKER_03 5:22

Well.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

My heater runs year round in my office.

SPEAKER_03 5:26

All year?

SPEAKER_00 5:27

All year. It doesn't matter if it's a hundred degrees outside or if it's 20 degrees outside, my heater is running. The warm temperature humid.

SPEAKER_03 5:39

Well, we have your heater under the desk in here now.

unknown 5:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:43

Which is nice because I kind of tuck it under away from the kids. Because they mess with the heater. What do you think that some people don't understand about us and realizing that I'm not here half the time?

SPEAKER_00 5:59

I don't think people realize that I'm actually doing it alone. I people ask me all the time. They're like, Where's your husband at? Where's your husband? Like, oh, he works out of town. He's gone four to five days a week. It's just me. They're like, you do it by yourself all week long. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:18

That's tough.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

I do. I do it by myself.

SPEAKER_03 6:22

I think the only like the only thing that keeps me sane on the road is having the boys with me.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Right.

SPEAKER_03 6:29

And then having like ever since Kyle came on the crew. It's it's the one guy that's on our crew that has kids too.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Right.

SPEAKER_03 6:38

So I like we can We can relate to him. Yeah, we can relate more about that.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:44

But it's like you're you're like you're trying to be present, but you're not there.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

No.

SPEAKER_03 6:52

So then it almost makes it easier to not and we've talked about this. To me, it's like, yeah, well, if I don't call, then you have like I have this guilt. But then it's like if I do it just prolongs the week and drags because I just want the week to just go by.

unknown 7:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:08

I just want to haul ass through it and be done so we can so I can just go home. I don't want to do that. I need I need to be better about talking on the phone. And we've been good about it.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

But yeah, some but honestly, sometimes might be just me, but there are some nights that I'm like, I just don't have it in me. To just sit down the phone. The kids are climbing all over me, they're screaming in the background. It's so hard to have a conversation with someone when there's no buffer here. It's they just want me. And so sometimes I'm like, I'm so glad he didn't call. Cause it's just like pure case. It's it's a smoother evening if there's no interruptions.

SPEAKER_03 7:54

Cause you're in your you're like in your group.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Because I'm trying to get like in my group, yeah. Like definitely a group of things because I come home at 5, 15, and I've got to hurry and get something made for dinner. But again, it's just me and the kids. So to like make a full meal, right? I'm not doing that. And I make comments at work all the time. I'm like, I'm such like an old I'm a I'm an old mom. You know, like you're you're like you growing up as and your mom was like, fig figure something out. Like you're on your own for dinner.

SPEAKER_03 8:27

We had a lot of breakfast for dinner, I think, on some late nights, and I think that's where I get breakfast for dinner. Like I'll cook eggs and toast.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 8:39

And whatever you can find. Well, it's like breakfast for dinner. Everybody likes breakfast.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Oh, yeah, everybody likes breakfast.

SPEAKER_03 8:46

It's almost better at dinner sometimes. I like breakfast for dinner.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

I don't know. My dad was a big breakfast for dinner guy, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 8:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

I don't know if maybe it's the generation.

SPEAKER_03 8:56

Did you ever have shit on a shingle?

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Oh no.

SPEAKER_03 8:59

Milk gravy and sausage.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

And toast.

SPEAKER_03 9:01

Over toast.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

No.

SPEAKER_03 9:03

It looks like shit on a shingle.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Honey, my dad is a little bougie, you know.

SPEAKER_03 9:07

Well, his breakfast skills are pretty top tier.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Yeah, they're pretty top tier. That's how it was always growing up.

SPEAKER_03 9:13

He could have his own diner.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Yeah. He makes a mean taco and mean breakfast.

SPEAKER_03 9:19

I love he does good Mexican food.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

He does good Mexican food. He is very good at that.

SPEAKER_03 9:25

Borrilla tacos. And I d I do love tamales.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

I hate tamales.

SPEAKER_03 9:30

Building them is a bigger pain in the ass than I ever thought.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Oh, it's it's a mess. It takes like a crew to do tamales.

SPEAKER_03 9:38

Well, they're I think last time we made a batch of tamales, it was like How many did we make? Well, it was two tins.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Of what is that stuff called?

SPEAKER_03 9:48

Massa.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Massa.

SPEAKER_03 9:50

It was a shitload of tamales.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

It was a lot of tamales.

SPEAKER_03 9:53

It was good though.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Don't love tamales.

SPEAKER_03 9:56

I like them, but I douse them in hot sauce.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:58

Because they're kinda they can be dry.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Not my thing.

SPEAKER_03 10:02

Not your fave.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

Mexican in general is just not not my thing, you know?

SPEAKER_03 10:07

You've never really loved Mexican food.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

No, it's not. I'll eat it. Like it's fine, but like if I had a choice, I would prefer not to eat that.

SPEAKER_03 10:16

Yeah. But I I love it. I know you do.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

I think I think I'm the oddball out with the Mexican food.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Like every like every time we're like, oh, where are we gonna go eat? Mexican? Why is that always the go-to?

SPEAKER_03 10:33

Because there's 47 restaurants in each town that's Mexican food. It's easy to find, apparently. You could be in Beaver, Utah, and there's Mexican or Mexican. And you could go to Cedar and there's 40 different Mexican restaurants. You go to St. George and it's the same way.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:50

There's a lot of Mexican food there. I think that's why when we go to town and we go to St. George, we get sushi.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Yeah, because we never have it and it's good.

SPEAKER_03 10:59

It's freaking good.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

It's killer.

SPEAKER_03 11:00

Oh, I enjoy the shit out of it.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

But meals cooking meals for you and two little, a four-year-old and a two-year-old. I'd rather starve to death. I usually I this is usually what I do when I come home. I say to Clark, Clark, what do you want for dinner? And I can I'm like mimicking her behind her. And she'll without a doubt say, pizza.

SPEAKER_03 11:29

Well, she likes pizza.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

She loves pizza.

SPEAKER_03 11:31

I I like pizza too.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

For sure.

SPEAKER_03 11:33

I would rather us make our homemade pizza.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Yeah, we make a mean homemade pizza. But so yeah, I usually try and keep like easy something like mac and cheese, top ramen, pe like frozen pizza. Because yeah, cooking a meal for just you and two kids is like pointless.

SPEAKER_03 11:53

Well, when I can cook dinner, like when I actually have like dinner planned out and it's something that you can have.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

I feel like I'm like supporting you in a way.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

For sure.

SPEAKER_03 12:06

Because it's like now I'm here and I can cook dinner now.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:11

I mean, I did text you today and I was like, what do we have for dinner tonight?

SPEAKER_00 12:14

Well, you had the plan.

SPEAKER_03 12:14

But I had the idea.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

You had the plan. Trying to come up with something for dinner every night.

SPEAKER_03 12:19

That's hard.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Is the worst thing in the entire world.

SPEAKER_03 12:24

I bet every couple does that and they have that conversation.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

Oh, a hundred percent. Dinner is the worst. But you what's even worse is trying to tub two children by yourself. I think they'd shower me more than they are being clean.

SPEAKER_03 12:43

They just splash a lot.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

They just splash a lot. I'm kind of I'm also that parent. I'm like, oh Clark, did you play in the sprinkler today? Yeah, I did. Perfect. You don't need a tub. You don't need a shower.

SPEAKER_03 12:54

You're completely disaster. Well, and they don't need a tub every day anyway.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

No, they're usually home. But like Tucker, he's disgusting. That kid is filthy.

SPEAKER_03 13:03

Well, he never stops eating. Never. He's like a little pig.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

He's a little garbage cut.

SPEAKER_03 13:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:10

When I'm away, you have like your routine, but when I come back, what makes you feel the most supported when I come back? Like what actions do I do that help the most?

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Probably. I can it's nice to be able to like pawn one off on you.

SPEAKER_03 13:31

One of the kids.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Yeah. So like I'll I'll take Clark, you take Tucker, and you handle him. And I'll handle one. So like that for me is probably the most supported thing I feel. I feel relief when I'm like, oh, I can just handle one. Like one kid is so much easier than two at a time. So that's probably what I find most beneficial and makes the evening go better. Is that I can be like, you take Tucker, you take him, you shower him, you get him dressed, and then we'll handle bedtime.

SPEAKER_03 14:10

And then we'll all lay down and get everybody settled down. Getting the kids settled down before bed is probably one of the most tough things.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Oh, it's annoying.

SPEAKER_03 14:20

It it can be really annoying. Like it I have to check myself and not getting upset because I know they just want to see us both.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:28

Tonight was a perfect example. Clark is having a hard time going to bed. She's wide awake right now.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Oh yeah. But she's she's like me though, where she doesn't sleep good. She's not a good sleeper and has never been a good sleeper. So she's up till 11 midnight every night. She's in her room most of the time, but she doesn't sleep very good. And that's exactly how I am. She gets that from me.

SPEAKER_03 14:55

I need to make her run around the house like 10 times before. Oh yeah. Get all the what do you what do you call it? Get all the wiggles out.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Well, let's flip it on its head too. Like, what's when you come home after working out of town, like what's the hardest thing for you to like come into the house? Because like obviously I have a routine, you know, I do things a certain way, and then you're coming home into this structured atmosphere.

SPEAKER_03 15:30

Right. That's so I feel like I need to I don't want to step on toes because you're probably still going through your routine, and I kind of just want to show up and you know be the happy guy that I mean, yeah, I'm tired and it's exhausting.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:48

I'm already exhausted when I get home, so are you, like even more so than me. But I think one thing that helps me decompress before I actually get to the house is when I'm like 15 miles out, I stop listening to anything. Like I drive in complete silence for like a good 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:11

And that was not even my idea. I was telling Valdez about it last year. I was like, dude, I cannot like stop my brain from just keep like from going when I get home. And then I get home and I have like this urge to just start cleaning everything. Because I know you've had a long week, you're only home for a few hours at night, and then you go to bed after you get the kids ready for bed. So you're not just coming home and just like cleaning shit.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:40

So I have like this urge to just start cleaning because I don't like coming home to like a dirty house, but it that's a me thing. So it's like I need to I feel like that's how I cope with it almost. It's like, oh, if I just come home and clean, then I can relax. But my decompression to getting here is like I have to stop listening to music or podcasts.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Almost like shut your brain down.

SPEAKER_03 17:05

I have and just drive, but then I also get my own head about things doing that too.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Right.

SPEAKER_03 17:10

Which can be good and bad. Some of the I mean, yeah, we think I think of crazy ideas all the time. Going through with the idea is completely different than just thinking about them, I think. And it's mostly like all goal-oriented, but I feel like we're to the age where I don't need to learn how to do everything. I need to master one thing.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:34

And then move on.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:36

And that's not even necessarily like hobby hobbies. Like, I mean goals that could potentially change our lives in the next five years.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:46

So that's like my time to think and decompress.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

I think the decompressing thing is kind of a huge me and Mari were talking about decompressing. And because obviously my commute to work is only like 10 minutes. And so like I don't have a huge gap to really decompress from my nine hours at work. So, but like when I was working in St. George, you have 40 minutes to just decompress from your day. Yeah. Because my my line of work is I'm not dealing with people necessarily, like the the members, but I am my job can be high stress. And it it's a lot, there's a lot to do. I have to fit all fiddle out, like there's deadlines and stuff like that. So I'm stressed at work sometimes. And I don't I don't get that. I miss that 40-minute drive of just shutting my brain down and like disassociating with work. I want to be able to leave work and work stays at work. Because when I come home, I have to be mom. So I have to like, there's no time for me to like almost flip that switch. So that's kind of hard. I miss that about like commuting back and forth.

SPEAKER_03 19:07

One thing you would miss about, I mean, the commute itself probably isn't fun, especially like say like your morning commute. I think it would be tough. But a lot of people in this town work in St. George.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Yeah, we're small town. You have to cut you have to drive to work.

SPEAKER_03 19:22

Well, it's no different than like so my sisters both drive to Penguich, which is over an hour from Escalant. So it's like they have to do that too. I think if you just want a good job and you whatever you land yourself in or whatever you put your head down and decide that's what you're gonna do, you kind of have to just put up with these things. It's life, but I don't know, I think we can write our own story too.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:49

I d you know, we we can. It's it's also our lives. So if it's whatever's gonna work best for us, we do. What works for me coming to the house is driving in silence for 15 or 20 miles. You don't get that, I think that's why I think that's why your tub time until 11 o'clock at night is probably your decompress time too.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

My decompressing time probably is.

SPEAKER_03 20:17

It just comes much later. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Yeah. Yeah. I just have to like when I get home from work sometimes, like I I come home, the kids are excited, and then the babysitter leaves, and then I kind of like I tend to wander around like I don't know what to do with my hands.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

Like you pace.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Like I pace around like I don't know what to do, and it's such a weird, like I can't sit. I I don't really want to like it's like aim aimlessly, like I'm just wandering around because I don't know what to do with myself. Yeah, it's like almost trying to like get switch the roles. I'm I'm work and then gotta be mom. So switching that role is hard for me.

SPEAKER_03 21:01

Yeah. There's not a lot of time from the job to the house though.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:06

I do get that time, but it's almost there's a lot of it.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I just need like like a good 20 minutes would be perfect.

SPEAKER_03 21:15

Like, that's really why that's like when I I shut it down.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:19

Like I'll almost get to say if I'm coming from the other side of the mountain. Like I almost get to Newcastle and I'm like, alright, I need to like I need to shut it down.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Just sit in s sit in silence.

SPEAKER_03 21:31

Like I'm driving, I'm there, but I I'm I'm not like tuned into something. Yeah. You know, I have all week by myself all day at work to listen to whatever I want to. Which it makes the day go by, but it's monotonous.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 21:49

So you can k you can get pretty worn out just by doing the same exact thing all the time.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:56

But Yeah. Tough.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

It's tough. Work, work is rough sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 22:04

Well, it's good though. Unfortunately, we have good jobs.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Yes, we do have great jobs. And that I say that all the time. I don't dislike my job. I like my job. I really enjoy the people I work with.

SPEAKER_03 22:16

I like that more than anything.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:18

For for me on my side.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

You have to like the people you work with. Or it's I mean, you could work a shit job, but if you liked the people that you work with, it almost like that's the reason people stay in a company. I think so. Is because people have friends and they like the community that they're in, but the job could be shit.

SPEAKER_02 22:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

My my job's not shit. My job is a great job. So is mine. But I love I also we're fortunate too. I also love the people that I work with. They're like my moms. Because I'm the I'm the youngest person in my department. And so everybody else is quite a bit older than me. Like there's several of them that could be my like are the age of my mom.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

So it's like I get I get lots of advice at work.

SPEAKER_03 23:06

Advice is good.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:08

I I love getting advice.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Life advice.

SPEAKER_03 23:11

Life advice is important.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

And it's kind of fun too because I work with our neighbor and she's so helpful, and she I'm so glad I was able to be able to work with her because it kind of opened a door for us. Cause like we've been neighbors with them for what four years? We've been in this house almost five years. So they've been our neighbors for that long, and I never knew her. So when she started working for the company, I was like, this is good. And then we've really just hit it off, and we've become really good friends, and they're so helpful with the kids. And that is a huge thing being a single mom during the week, is you have to have people behind you. And I'm a hor I'm horrible about asking for help. But April knows that.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

And so, like the other day she texted me, she's like, When you saw the kids outside, can can they come over and play? I'm like, Absolutely. Yeah, I would love to I would love to send them right on over to you. Have a little break for yeah, and they're so helpful.

SPEAKER_03 24:15

And Brian's really good about coming and getting the kids.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

Yeah, he'll text me on a random Thursday. Like he'll show up, like, because I work remotely from home on Thursdays. So he'll like text me like midday, like, hey, is Tucker done for a nap? No. Can I come grab him for a couple hours? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 24:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

I would love that. Probably the best thing I hate when people are like, let me know if you need anything. I'm not gonna let you know. I'm not gonna let you know that I need anything because I'm not that person that's gonna reach out for help. So if you actually want to help me, just show up. Or text me and say, hey, I'm gonna stop by and grab the kids. Are you good with that? Yes. I would love that. That would be amazing. But I'm not gonna make I'm not gonna make this step and say, like, hey, like, I I need a couple hours. Would you mind coming and getting them? I'm not gonna do that. But if you offer and say I'm on my way, I'll have them, I'll have them ready.

SPEAKER_03 25:16

Sure. I don't have anything planned. I need a minute.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:20

I I need 10 minutes to do whatever. Clean the kitchen, swap the laundry out, or like just something.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

It's it's really helpful to have people like that that are just they know me and they know that I'm not gonna reach out, so they just do it. They're like April is very, very good about that. She'll just text me, say, hey, Whitney's gonna come up and grab the kids.

SPEAKER_03 25:43

Sweet.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 25:44

Yeah, thanks.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

As a mom, you you get mom guilt. Mom guilt's a huge thing for me, and I I start to feel like I'm not spending enough time with my kids because I am. I'm I'm I leave the house at 7.15 in the morning, and then I don't get home till 5. So if like in that time gap between five and they go to bed, that's the only time I get to see them. So when someone's like, well, if you need a break, like I'm happy to come get them, or like, why don't you go to the gym and work out? Like, why don't you do things for you? I'm like, I don't when would you like me to do that? I've got to I'm a mom. I can't just like call someone and be like, hey, I'm gonna go to the gym for an hour. Can you come sit with my kids?

SPEAKER_03 26:28

I think we have different guilds.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:31

I definitely I like I definitely have like a problem leaving them, but I also like we do it together a lot. But I think part of me, like, okay, let me how am I supposed to say this? The fact that you raise the kids all week and say like say if I need like a 30 minutes and I go take a rip on my dirt bike or whatever to clear my head. I almost don't feel guilty about it because I know you have it handled. I think my biggest guilt comes in is me being hard on myself because I'm kind of hard on the kids sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:16

Like I can go like zero to ten too fast. And I think it's like a I don't even know why.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

It's a patience thing.

SPEAKER_03 27:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

And it's definitely something I don't always have patience with the kids. Right. For sure. Like I and that's something I feel guilty about. I'm like, oh, I shouldn't have done that, or I didn't need to lose my temper there. It's like a matter of figuring out, like, pick your battles. And I if I'm cooking dinner and Tucker's in the kitchen and pulling all of the bowls out of the cabinet or taking all the washcloths out of the drawer. I really don't care. Like, go for it, bro.

SPEAKER_02 27:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

If I can have 10 minutes to finish doing what I'm doing without you hanging on me, by all means, pull all of those towels out. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 28:06

Pull the towels out of the drawer so I can cook dip.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 28:10

For 10 or 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Is it a mess that I can clean up? Yes.

SPEAKER_03 28:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

Any mess can be cleaned up.

SPEAKER_03 28:16

Yeah, it's true.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Any mess can be cleaned up. But if you can give me 10 minutes to get done what I'm doing, how about it? See you later. Have have a great time.

SPEAKER_03 28:27

Right. Have fun with the towels. He was playing with them this evening on the floor.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

Yep. Oh, you're you're crawling in and out of the bathtub. Yeah. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 28:36

I got after him for dumping the his drink on the ground. He's just holding it like this.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

Yeah, that's totally different.

SPEAKER_03 28:43

And I was like, dude, you don't need to be doing that right now.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

No.

SPEAKER_03 28:46

You said you wanted to touch base on something.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Yeah, so we're kind of going back to like having people in your corner like helping you. I don't think people really understand how special it is to have someone that checks in on you. And that's something that like I didn't think I actually needed. And I do like I think about that all the time. Mike, when was the last time someone just like shot me a text? Like other than you.

SPEAKER_03 29:25

Right. Somebody that somebody that knows that.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

Yeah, knows my situation.

SPEAKER_03 29:30

Yeah, knows you're here by yourself with the kids and stops by or shoots.

SPEAKER_00 29:35

Or just like shoots me in text and just be like, I'm just checking on you, making sure you're okay. Um, like anything like that. It it goes a long way, and I didn't realize that until I had kids. And then once I had kids and I was like in the loneliest part of my life, I'm you know, being a mom with her husband's out of town, trying to take care of two kids, even when I just had Clark, it was like you don't realize how much that little text or that little check-in can really just change your entire mood. Like, someone is thinking about me. I don't feel as lonely. So check in on your freaking people.

SPEAKER_03 30:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

Check in on your people.

SPEAKER_03 30:27

I you check on me constantly.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

All the time.

SPEAKER_03 30:30

Out of town.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:32

It also is different when I'm gone because I'm probably with someone like you I got my friends with me.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

Yeah, I know who you're with.

SPEAKER_03 30:40

Oh yeah. Like my my high school friends f since we were children are the guys I work with.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:50

Like we all got on board with this company.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

Um, what's the what's the time of day? Like when you're out of town, when do you find that like you feel like the saddest or the lowest or like when do you hit that wall?

SPEAKER_03 31:11

If I it kind of depends on what we're doing. But like I don't know, I think probably around like two o'clock in the afternoon. Which is really like right on point of that's a crazy time, right? Morning seems fine because we all we have a morning meeting every morning. Like we we all get together, we shoot the shit, talk about what we need to do for that day. If I'm in an area by myself, like uh two winters ago, I was in Anemony for a month by myself. Like there was no other splicers there. It was just me. And like that was pretty damn tough. I it was tough. And then you try to like you like make friends, right? You there's a guy that would stop buying his four-wheeler and we'd like shoot the shit. But when you're doing your job, you have to you still have to do it. So I don't know, it seems like uh in the morning, morning goes by, eat lunch, and then like an hour after lunch, you're still working throughout the day, and you're like, you know, two o'clock hits, I'm four and a half hours away from being done. Then you're like, damn, I'm really looking forward to you know, not doing this. Because where are you gonna go?

SPEAKER_00 32:31

Or what are you gonna do after work?

SPEAKER_03 32:33

I'm looking forward to not doing this, or man, I would really like to talk to somebody. Yeah. Or I want, you know, I want to communicate and talk to people. I like to bullshit.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

You're a bullshitter for sure. You can talk to a wall.

SPEAKER_03 32:47

I well, I could.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

You know, it doesn't matter where we go, you know somebody, and you're like, oh, yeah, you remember that's so-and-so. I'm like, who the f are you talking about?

SPEAKER_03 32:57

Hey, I don't know who that is. I do know a lot of people, it's true, but I also I'm more extroverted than you are.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 33:07

You you know, and I know you like to get out too, but you like to get out with your people. Yeah, I'm definitely like If I get dropped in a in a random place and there's I like I will make a friend somehow.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:18

Like I'm not looking for it, but I'm not gonna just like be the awkward guy. So I'm always like, hey, how you doing? And then I don't know how, but somehow someone's got something in common. And then I just make friends, and I'm not trying to I'm not a people pleaser, but I'm I like to make friends.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

That's something we have in common though. We are both of us, we are not people pleasers.

SPEAKER_03 33:46

I think that um it's hard to please everyone when you speak your mind.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

Yeah, we we don't really have a filter.

SPEAKER_03 33:56

When you have your when you have your own opinion and you're stuck to it, it's yeah. You find your group of people and they're the people you want to hang out with. And yeah, you might not even have some of the same beliefs, but you have something that you guys all do together, or we do as a group together, and we all enjoy that thing. Why let you know, let's just throw like politics out there, let's why let that get in the way of having a good time.

SPEAKER_00 34:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:24

But I definitely like to make friends.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:27

Uh it's I think part of that is because when you make a new friend, you start to get new stories.

SPEAKER_00 34:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:35

You have you now have a story of how you met this person, and then you also have their story. So, like a good example of this that just came into my head, which is wild, and it's probably just because I heard uh about it this week. But Kel got a new job.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 34:55

He's working for the county in Wayne County now.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:59

So I saw him on the job site in Escalant like two times. We started working in Wayne County, and he just stops by on his four-wheeler one day, and he's like, Come to my house and and let's have dinner. I'll be there in a while and we'll grill some we'll grill some stuff. Well, he had set it up with Kenna. But I didn't even know this guy. And we have some of the wildest fucking stories ever.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

We do have some wild stories, but this we had some good stories. How you guys became friends was so random.

SPEAKER_03 35:38

It was random.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

Like it's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 35:40

Yeah, it was random. And it's and I can run into him anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:44

Like, I ran into him at the beginning of summer. It was probably like two and a half months ago. Down in um the hell did you live? Lavurican?

SPEAKER_02 35:56

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 35:57

Or your dad lived there. I ran into him and his little brother in the grocery store. And it like we sat there and talked in the aisle for like a half hour.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

Yeah, but Kale is also super chappy.

SPEAKER_03 36:08

Well, moving our carts like this and leaning on them. And he grabbed a I had a tall boy in the cart and he grabbed it and he shook the shit out of it and he put it back.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

And I was like, So something there he is, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:20

Yeah. But that was like that's just one example of meeting someone that you don't really know, but you had a few things in common, and we've got some wild stories now.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

Yeah. I think that's a cool thing about your job though, is that you you do travel all over, like you don't even know where you're gonna be next week, like it's very up in the air, but you're you meet a lot of different people and you become friends with a lot of different people doing that, yeah. And that's cool.

SPEAKER_03 36:51

That is cool, it's it's nice because now it's like since we started in all these smaller regions moving along in this company, right? You had something in common with someone's cousin or my uncle grew up there, or so there's always a conversation starter, there's always a tie, and then it depends on what you end up talking about, and then you get these wild stories out of guys that you know, like some of my lifelong friends I talk to weekly, yeah, don't work for the same company more anymore, but we just stay in touch. I think that's why I have so many friends, I know so many people. There was um who the hell was it? But yeah, I'm pretty sure it was me talking about Hagen at work, and KP was like he worked with Albert. That's what it was.

SPEAKER_00 37:49

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 37:50

And then KP ran into Hagen at a gas pump and was like, hey, I know who you are, but you don't know who I am. And like, so like we had we knew these people in common, but I didn't know like I knew KP after that, but and we got we figured this out. Yeah. Just by bullshitting.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:09

And he was like, I knew who you're I knew your old man. We used to work together. And KP has a a voicemail from Albert on his phone. Oh, that's from years ago.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

Did he show Hagen?

SPEAKER_03 38:22

I don't know if he showed it to me. Oh, that would have been, but it was it's hilarious. Oh, that's funny. Because if you knew Albert, it was he's he's just a funny dude. Yeah. Like he calls him and he's like, God damn light. Hey, when you get done playing with yourself, call me back, maybe we can go hunk coyotes or something. Like one of those, you know? So just meeting guys like that on different jobs and stuff, yeah. And around different towns. I think that's why I know so many people.

SPEAKER_01 38:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:50

But that keeps my sanity throughout the week. It also is fun when we're together and we run into somebody that we know.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:59

Which seems like it happens all the time.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

Oh, everywhere we go. It doesn't matter if we're in Vegas or up north or wherever it may be. It's like we always will run into somebody that we know.

SPEAKER_03 39:12

We were you were having you went into labor with Clark.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

Yes. And that was crazy.

SPEAKER_03 39:18

That lady was she was like, Oh, where are you from? And I still hadn't accepted the fact that we lived in Enterprise. So I was like, Oh, I'm from Escalani. And she's like, Oh, I'm married to she's married to a Munson. She's like, I'm married to a Munson. And I'm like looking at her and I'm like, how like when did he graduate? And I knew exactly who it was, and I called him by his nickname, and she's like, Yeah, I don't call him that, and I'm not gonna say it. I'm not gonna say it.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

But it's a little inappropriate.

SPEAKER_03 39:54

It is an inappropriate nickname, but I knew exactly who it was. That's how small of a world it is. I was like, what in the hell is going on? This is crazy.

SPEAKER_00 40:03

Yeah. If you ask JP, every all all roads lead back to enterprise. I'm telling you. It's like you run into someone and they're like, Oh, where are you from? And you say enterprise, and they're like, Oh my gosh, do you know so and so? Yes, all roads lead back to enterprise, either that. It's so true.

SPEAKER_03 40:23

It yeah, it's either that or you if you say you're you live here. Yeah, there's like four or five big names in this town. Yeah, and like, oh, do you know so and so? And I'm like, Yeah, I I don't. My wife probably does.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

Yeah, but that's we've grown so much now that I'm like, I don't there's a lot of people here that I don't know. I will never forget. I had we had moved back, we had been here a minute, like back here, and I was in the grocery store and I knew who the kid was. Like he was checking me out at the grocery store, and he I knew exactly who he was. I went to high school with his sister. So he's like, Are you like are you local or like did like are you new here? And I was like, nah, bruh. I born and raised here, like from here. He was like, Oh, I don't know who you are. I'm like, it's fine. I know who you are. Yeah, but it's just like there's just so many people here now that you just don't know anybody anymore.

SPEAKER_03 41:23

It's it's growing, definitely. Yeah, there's a lot, there's a lot of subdivisions, a lot of development going on here right now. That's a good way to put it. Yeah, I think I just have subdivision in my head because when they build jobs out there, you work in subdivisions all the time, so that's probably why. When they build a job out, it's always some subdivision, and it's like, oh, okay. Yeah. But I'm a landmark dude too, so I'm like, oh, is that over by the cemetery? Or is that, you know, where is that past high school?

SPEAKER_00 41:53

That's how I landmarks. I need landmarks. Don't be giving me no address.

SPEAKER_03 41:58

I look at I cannot remember addresses.

SPEAKER_00 42:01

No, don't give me an address. Yeah. If you give me an address, I'm like, where's that? I don't know where that is.

SPEAKER_03 42:07

We went down a hell of a rabbit hole right there about deep about knowing people.

SPEAKER_00 42:12

It's just we go off on tangents.

SPEAKER_03 42:13

We do. And I've probably mentioned a few names in here. Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:20

Yeah, sorry about it. If you might not ever see this, but it will be released sometime eventually.

SPEAKER_00 42:28

It's all good things.

SPEAKER_03 42:29

It's good things. It's they're good stories.

SPEAKER_00 42:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:32

Good stories involve people, and if you ran into them on the street, they would probably have a story to tell too.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

That's the great thing about small towns.

SPEAKER_03 42:41

Yep. What's your what's your toughest part of the day?

SPEAKER_00 42:46

My toughest time of the day.

SPEAKER_03 42:49

I know, I know I told you mine. Yeah. I gotta know what your toughest time of the day is.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

Um mine usually hits like because I'm go, go, go from the time I get home. And so like after I get settled down and like tubbed and I get in bed, it's like that, like that time. I'm climbing into an empty bed. Like that part of the night is the toughest for me. Is I'm then that's when I feel really alone is at night. I get the night scary for sure.

SPEAKER_03 43:23

That's tough.

SPEAKER_00 43:24

Yeah. Nighttime's hard for me. Sitting there, like like getting in bed and laying there and like being in bed by myself. And then my mind really starts to wander. So yeah, like nighttime after after kids go to bed, after I climb in bed, I'm like, uh it'd be really nice if I was there. If my husband was in my bed with me.

SPEAKER_03 43:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

But yeah, 'cause like yeah, I'm I'm going from I'm up at five, five thirty, and I'm literally going till nine o'clock, ten o'clock at night.

SPEAKER_03 44:00

Sometimes even later.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:02

I mean, we've sent texts back and forth sometimes and it's like uh 11 o'clock at nine.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

Yeah, especially like if you're on a night cut or something.

SPEAKER_03 44:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:09

Um, I have called you many a times on a night cut in tears.

SPEAKER_03 44:15

True.

SPEAKER_00 44:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:17

No, those are tough. Those aren't fun. Those are tough. I don't think those are fun for you. They're not they're not fun for me either.

SPEAKER_00 44:23

Yeah. There's um and I I feel bad, but it's like you're my person, so like I and one, I know you're on a night cut, so it's like I know he's awake, and I'll I'm just gonna call him.

SPEAKER_02 44:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:34

And that and that puts you in a hard position too, because there's really not a whole lot you can do about it. You're four hours away, anywhere between two to four hours away from me. So it's like there's really not a whole lot you can do, but I think just the fact of being able to call you and you'll pick up, and you can have the time to just talk me through it and let me have my minute. I think I just that's so I just need someone, I need to just not feel so alone, and I think that's why I talk on the phone with Mari all the time a lot, because yeah, she's not here, but it's that I'm not alone.

SPEAKER_03 45:18

She's also shall I might be your person in some ways, she's also there more in other ways. Yeah, you know she's she's your lifelong best friend, your sister.

SPEAKER_00 45:29

Yeah, like me and Mari, we are we're a different kind of sisters. Yeah, like we're like the exception to the rule, sisters. It's like when you think close, like we're probably more than close. Like they don't think there's a definition of what we are, which is super special.

SPEAKER_03 45:50

But not everybody has that, not everybody has that. No, I even I'm I'm closer with my friends and probably my own siblings I am than my own siblings.

SPEAKER_01 46:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:01

And they're they're my people. Like when I need to talk about guys' stuff, it's it's with the boys.

SPEAKER_00 46:08

Yeah. Like when I'm in they're also there. Yeah, they're with you.

SPEAKER_03 46:12

Uh most of the time that well, yeah, we get separated. Yeah. But it's I'm gonna see them within that month.

SPEAKER_00 46:22

You probably see your friends more than you we see each other.

SPEAKER_03 46:26

True.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:27

Yeah, it's true. Which is wild to think of. It is wild to think. That's so fucking bass acquires. But it's true.

SPEAKER_00 46:37

I think people ask me all the time, they're like, how do you do it? How do you like do you miss him? I'm like, yeah, of course I I miss him. Like, I don't want to do this alone. But you were doing this job when we started dating.

SPEAKER_03 46:56

Yeah, I was.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

So it it's been like this from the beginning of our relationship, and I knew that. So there's a part of me that it's like, it's oh, it's all I know. I don't know any different.

SPEAKER_03 47:11

Well, and like during the beginning when we started dating, I even talked about maybe going back to what I did before.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:23

Which is not any better whatsoever.

SPEAKER_00 47:24

No, it was worse.

SPEAKER_03 47:26

Two like two weeks on, two weeks off.

SPEAKER_00 47:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:29

So you never got that part of my life. No, but you've got a lot of the stories from it.

SPEAKER_00 47:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:34

And when you moved to Escalani, you got a lot, you got to see a lot of how that worked because a lot of guys there were kind of oil filled.

SPEAKER_00 47:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:42

So wives running their kids to the school, wives picking their kids up from school.

SPEAKER_00 47:47

I worked with a lot of the wives that their husbands were.

SPEAKER_03 47:50

They're all they're oil-filled guys. Like they so I could it could have been that or I I got out of that looking for something that was gonna be more steady. That's the whole reason I started doing what I I mean, I obviously didn't leave there and do what I do now. It took me some years to get where I'm at now.

SPEAKER_01 48:11

Right.

SPEAKER_03 48:12

But for the same company, just different positions that I've moved through. So yeah, that's you got a taste of that in a certain way. It wasn't me, but it doesn't mean that I'm also there every week.

SPEAKER_00 48:27

Right.

SPEAKER_03 48:28

Like there's guys that leave their house, drive to work, start at eight and get home at five.

SPEAKER_00 48:38

And that seems bizarre to me. Because it's not my normal.

SPEAKER_03 48:42

It's not my normal. I have never. I've never had a job that started at eight in the morning and got off at five o'clock.

SPEAKER_01 48:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:51

So when people say or what, nine to five, or they call it a nine to five. I have no idea what you're talking about. Like I I've never had that. I wouldn't even know if I would call it a luxury to have that. Because yeah, I'm uh all summer long. There's like three months out of the year that I work Fridays. So I really am home more nights than I'm not.

SPEAKER_00 49:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:17

It's just I'm not here.

SPEAKER_00 49:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:20

But also, if I would have gone back to working in the oil field, I don't know where I would be.

SPEAKER_00 49:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:28

And if something did happen at home, I could be twenty-one hours away.

SPEAKER_00 49:32

Right.

SPEAKER_03 49:33

Not what the farthest area we work in is in page. So yeah, I'm a I'm a jaunt away. I can be there in in less than half of a day.

SPEAKER_00 49:43

Right.

SPEAKER_03 49:44

Like I I'll be there in four hours. Well, like hauling some ass.

SPEAKER_00 49:48

There's there there are like pros and cons to everything. And probably the con about stuff like like with you working out of town is you're yeah, you're you're anywhere between two to four hours away at all times.

SPEAKER_02 50:04

Right.

SPEAKER_00 50:05

And it's like for an example, I ended up getting sick and was dying on my bedroom floor, and I had you I call you because you're my husband, I'm gonna call you. Like I'm in distress, and I need someone to call. And it's like you it puts you in such a hard position because you're like, I I want to be there, but I I can't get to you.

SPEAKER_03 50:35

Like I couldn't get to you're literally on the floor.

SPEAKER_00 50:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:41

The first thought to my mind is like what could happen by the time I get there? Like this could be bad.

SPEAKER_00 50:47

Right.

SPEAKER_03 50:47

So my first initial thought was I'm calling someone that I know is in town that is probably close by.

SPEAKER_00 50:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:54

So I call Brian.

SPEAKER_00 50:55

And we're and we're super lucky to have like we have three sets of parents that live here in town.

SPEAKER_03 51:00

We well, yeah, and you have we both have divorced parents.

SPEAKER_00 51:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:04

So it's we have like four sets of families.

SPEAKER_00 51:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:09

We have four sets of families, but three of them not all right here, but three of them are three sets of our parents are here, so that's super, super nice.

SPEAKER_00 51:18

And it and both of our moms are in the medical field, which is super handy. But it's like that situation, it's like it puts you in such a hard spot, right? And I can't even imagine how what because if you would have called me, like if you got hurt at work or something and you called me, it's like, what do I do? How do how do I get to you in time or whatever? But it's it's a it's a trip, it's a wild ride. Like that's definitely a con of not being like accessible at all times. But that's also why you have to have a community around you that people you trust and can lean on.

SPEAKER_03 52:00

I definitely have guys that I trust that are around me, and that's why we're here.

SPEAKER_00 52:05

I mean, that's why we're here where we are, because there's more of a community here for me specific.

SPEAKER_03 52:12

Yeah, which to me is most important because if you're good, the kids are good. If we're good, the kids are even better.

SPEAKER_00 52:19

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 52:20

So that is we've grown a lot since we've had kids.

SPEAKER_00 52:24

Oh, a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_03 52:25

I think I I think it's we've come a lot closer together.

SPEAKER_00 52:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:29

Like, and even deciding we're gonna have children, it was like, are we gonna do this? Are we not gonna do this? Yeah, and if we're gonna do this, let's just fucking do it. Yeah. Because there's not gonna be a right time.

SPEAKER_00 52:39

Never like my my dad always said that. He was like, There's never a right time for kids. And uh, we actually I was just talking to a friend about this, and I was like, There's you're there's never gonna be a right time. And I was like, were me and Cody necessarily ready for kids when we had kids? Maybe, maybe not, but you just have to do it, you just have to dive two feet in and be like, Yep, we're doing it. Yeah, and I am so grateful for our kids, like they're the best things in our lives, and they make life so funny and interesting. And Clark says the funniest things all the time, and she does funny things, and I'm just like, where do you learn the things that you learn?

SPEAKER_03 53:27

She learns it somewhere, yeah. I don't know. It when you're working towards something, it makes things different, yeah. Like those tough days that we're talking about, a lot of this episode is about our work life because work life, yeah. Work is the majority of the majority of our life, so it's it's gonna come up in conversation absolutely. I think the reason we touch base on it is I also want everyone to know that like if you're doing the same thing, you're not the only ones doing it. No, and I'm not that's not a pity party, it's just you might get a little bit of advice on how we get through it. It can be super tough sometimes. It can and everybody does if you're working towards like you're doing it, and at the end of the day, you're doing it so you can support your family. Yeah, that's what keeps me going. Yeah, my family is what's keeping me going.

SPEAKER_00 54:24

Yeah, absolutely. And even in the day in this day and age that we live in, like the world that we grew up in is not the same world that we live in currently. And I think I wish more people like the our parents' generation understood that just a little bit more. Is yeah, we grew up in that like prime time of like we were both born. I mean, you're 30, I'm 31. So we grew up in like early 2000s. So our childhood was like before technology. My mom didn't get a cell phone until I was like, I don't, I remember her getting her our like a first cell phone. And now, and we kind of grew into the technology. We didn't, we weren't born into what it is now. Oh no, no, so like we kind of got the best of both worlds of like we had a crazy cool childhood growing up, like no screens, no cell phones, like nobody knew where you were. And if you needed to call someone, you were like, Oh, I know this person, I know who lives here. Maybe if I go knock on their door, they'll let me use their phone. Like that's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 55:40

Using the school phone to call my parents and be like, hey, I I need a ride. Like, I need I need a ride home. And it was like, well, I was I'm four miles from the high school to your house. To my house. So it was I'd use the high school phone in front of Darylyn's office. And if that didn't work, I would flag somebody down and just like hitch a ride.

SPEAKER_01 56:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:04

It was the Barney boys give me a ride, Jeff Shakespeare, it would have been, it would have been anybody. Brandon Nez took me home one time just random out of like after basketball practice. Got stuck in my driveway.

SPEAKER_00 56:16

I remember walking down Main Street as a kid, and like people would stop and be like, Do you need a ride? And I'm and like now think like now us having kids and in the day and age that we live in, I would never allow my children to walk around by themselves. Not right now, I would.

SPEAKER_03 56:40

But I when they're older, I would say when they're older, yeah. But like there's plenty of kids that walk around this town.

SPEAKER_00 56:46

Oh, their kids are everywhere in the world.

SPEAKER_03 56:47

They might be growing into where there's a lot of people we don't know, but there's also a lot of people around that know someone.

SPEAKER_00 56:55

Oh yeah, everybody knows everybody here.

SPEAKER_03 56:57

And if if they don't even know you, they know your mom.

SPEAKER_00 57:02

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:02

If they don't know me, they know a lot of people know me in this.

SPEAKER_00 57:08

They know of you.

SPEAKER_03 57:09

They know of me. They don't but they don't see me much.

SPEAKER_00 57:11

Yeah, no. It's like when I go to like a work function, and I work with a lot of people that live here in our area because it's small. But we um like I have a work thing coming up this week. And I go and they're they they're always like, Where's where's Cody? Because it's they don't even for the longest time, I don't even think people knew I was married. They were like, Who's your husband? Oh, so then I have to like explain, like, well, you know, so-and-so, that's it's their oldest son, and they're like, Oh, okay, yeah, I know who you're talking about, but they never they didn't see you for like years. No, like I had worked back at the company for what two or three years before you were even able to attend a work function with me, and they're like, That's who you're married to? I'm like, Yes. Yes, but they had never seen you because you were always out of town.

SPEAKER_03 58:05

I was when I started installing an enterprise.

SPEAKER_00 58:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:10

And that's when we started dating. I Roy and Roy took me over to lunch one day at the firehouse, and that's when I met Brandon. And he was like, Oh, where do you live? And I was like, Oh, I live in Escalani, and he's like, Oh, cool, you know, just over here for the week. I'm like, I'm over here until they tell me it somewhere else. And he was like, Do you know anybody I would know? And I was like, Oh, my mom's April Terry. And he was like dumbfounded. Yeah, like I didn't even know April had a child this old. Yeah, didn't you? Yep. Like, I was here as a kid, I didn't gr grow up here.

SPEAKER_00 58:48

Right, you didn't you weren't raised here.

SPEAKER_03 58:50

Right. So that was like a shock. But then once I got older and I ran into people in enterprise that I didn't even know, and they would look at me and be like, I know exactly who you belong to. Because of my dad's parents of your dad, your spitting image of your dad. Because my dad's parents have you. So it's like there was that, but then I'd be like, I don't know you.

SPEAKER_00 59:12

Well, like you have ties with both your mom and dad because your dad grew up here and your mom grew up here. Yeah. Well, kind of. When she was she was in high school, she was 14.

SPEAKER_03 59:23

Yeah, she was 14 and she moved here from Vegas.

SPEAKER_00 59:26

So we we all we both have ties here.

SPEAKER_03 59:30

We definitely have ties here. Yeah, there's people I know. Yeah, I did spend a lot of time in my childhood here, but I definitely in my growing years, mid-teenagers and mid-teenager and up.

SPEAKER_00 59:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:43

I was I was in Escalani. Yeah. And I yeah, I still love the place, but yeah.

unknown 59:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:49

I just am so grateful that we live in a small town and small town community. I couldn't do the city thing. I couldn't do the city thing, and I just think my star like seriously think my stars that we're raising our kids where we're raising our kids.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:04

Because it might be growing, but there are there's still some roots here, so absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:10

Small town feel you just it just better for them, honestly. Better life. Slower life. I'm just grateful for that.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:22

Everything is super fast paced nowadays. So the fact that we can slow down here still is we're pretty fortunate.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:31

We kind of get the best of both worlds because we're so close to the city, but we get to be able to live in a small town.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:39

Yes, we are super fortunate that we get to live here.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:42

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:44

But I think that was a good episode.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:46

Great episode.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:47

Love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:48

Any do you wanna do you wanna close it out on uh what was your best part of your day?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:54

My best part of my day? My best part of today was coming home.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:59

Yeah. That wasn't that is a that is a good answer.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:02

It was I was that's it was coming home and not going to a hotel room.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:07

Honestly, I think that was probably my best part of the day.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:09

Good.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:10

With you coming home today. It was a little unexpected, which is oh, it's a pleasant surprise. So yeah, that'd probably be my best part of the day too. What was your what was your worst part of the day?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:22

I don't even know if I want to get into it.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:24

Oh, well, we kind of got into it early, sorry, I kinda already know.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:28

Yeah, I kind of told you about my day. I don't need to spill it to the world that it was a it was kind of a tough day for me.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:33

Yeah. Just running around. There's a lot of running around no solutions.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:38

Running around couldn't get a hold of the people I needed to.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:43

So I'll figure it out tomorrow. Yeah. It'll still be there tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:47

Tomorrow's a new day. That is that is nice to be able to the best part was coming home.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:52

Yeah. That was nice today.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:55

But it also, now that I've got an extra night at the house, it made my week that much shorter for when I'm out of town because I'm leaving tomorrow. So that was good.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:07

That's great.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:07

Anyone has any comments or questions? Or wait, how would I say that?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:15

Yeah, if like you have any questions that you want us to answer, or if you have like anything that you're curious about us, shoot us a comment and we'll we'll talk about it.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:23

We'll we'll get back to you.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:25

We can be chatty.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:27

We can chat it up.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:28

Chat it up.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:29

If we get a if we get a lot of comments on any of these first podcasts that we're shooting to, um any of the good questions that you want us to touch base on, we'll pick the top three and we'll talk about them.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:41

Yeah, top three topics.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:43

Give our opinion. Not that we know anything. We're just we know what we know and we don't know what we don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:48

So we're just we're just living life and we have to do the best for us.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:53

And that may not be the best for you, but that's okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:55

Yeah, that's fine. Everybody's got their own opinions too. So thanks for watching. Another episode. Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:03

Nailed it.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:04

Nailed it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:06

Nailed it.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:07

I kind of feel like a rock star with this sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:09

I know Clark always wants to like get right up in it.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:12

She wants to get up in here. Start singing Shania.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:14

I'm testing, testing. That's hilarious.