Go Bucket Yourself
Go Bucket Yourself
Journey Through Transitions: From High School Graduation to Outdoor Projects
What happens when the nest starts emptying out? Do you feel a strong sense of melancholy or are you filled with anticipation for the next chapter of your life? We found ourselves grappling with these feelings as we experienced our daughter's high school graduation and the subsequent transition. This episode is a heartwarming mix of laughter, tears, and insight as we share our journey through these major family transitions.
This summer was a whirlwind of emotions as we navigated our way through Claire's graduation, traveling, hosting retreats, and spending ample time at swim meets. We even had a thrilling river rafting adventure that taught us a lot about preparedness, teamwork, and resilience. And as we adjusted to the emptiness of Claire's room, we realized the importance of giving ourselves permission to rest. We also found joy in hosting the first two Go Bucket Yourself retreats and were delighted by the positive impact it had on our community.
But that's not all. We're also excited to share the progress of our outdoor kitchen project and our homeschooling journey. We learned the importance of setting boundaries and saying 'hell yes' rather than 'I guess so'. As we move forward, we're eager to hear from you. Your questions, feedback, and curiosity drive us to curate content that resonates with each of you. So, feel free to reach out to us with your thoughts or questions. Trust us, this is an episode you won't want to miss!
Stay in touch!
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- Deb @imperfectprogress.me on Insta
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Hello friends, and welcome to another episode of the go bucky yourself podcast. We have been on a bit of a break that we did not announce or do a very good job of even really planning, but it just came upon us and it felt good to stay in that break and so we broke and we have been breaking and we're ready to end the break. Is that right, deb?
Speaker 2:Possibly.
Speaker 1:Possibly, so why are we recording if? We're not ending the break.
Speaker 2:Well, we're ready or not? We are ending the break.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, so the ready part was potentially not done. So, yeah, we ended fairly abruptly, but now we have a little bit of energy and are going into a season of releasing some episodes that we had already recorded, plus we have some solo episodes in our mind. So, yeah, welcome, or welcome back to the show. We intend to be releasing new episodes every Thursday henceforth until we communicate if we're taking another break again between this season and not. But I guess, before we move on to the meat and potatoes of like what we've been up to and what's coming with the go bucky yourself podcast and with our brand go bucky yourself, I do think that it's worthy of just mentioning like breaks are good, right, sometimes we get too caught up in like this thing's really important, this thing's really special, so why don't I just keep doing it? Or why don't I give it that same amount of energy that I have been doing it and all that kind of stuff? So want to riff a couple minutes on that, deb, or no?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I totally agree that breaks are good. In my deepest knowing, I know that whatever is meant for me personally, you, the community of go bucky yourself, will happen regardless of oh, we need a rest, let's take a rest, right. But algorithms and like modern technology would, I think, very clearly disagree with that, and so it's just a matter of staying grounded in that truth rather than getting caught up in yeah, the idea of what will happen if we take a break and we don't release an episode every Thursday and we're on this. You know growth trajectory and every time there's a break that does take a dip. So I think that's where maybe the difficulty lies. But the truth is, with a podcast or otherwise, when you need rest, yes, it's okay to take a rest, and, for whatever reason, we need to continually give ourselves permission for that, and if you need permission for that, this is your permission now permission slip granted.
Speaker 2:Not that you do or that mine is the ultimate, but, yes, anyone who needs or feels like they need, permission to take a break, take the break, man.
Speaker 1:And so if there's something stirring inside of you that resonates just from us saying like, hey, we took a break and now we're back from our break, then, yeah, pay attention to that, do some journaling on that, consider that, give it some time and attention, because if there's a little whisper of something that maybe you need to take a break from then, yeah, listen to that and maybe it will serve you.
Speaker 1:Just like I feel refreshed, more refreshed as we're pulling out the podcasting gear today than I did, you know, at the end of our last season, when you know we've been going for several weeks in a row and we're batching episodes here and there and all that kind of stuff. So this feels more sustainable to us. This feels very much in line with where we are, how we live our lives, where we give things a season, we take breaks from those things. We spend time together as a family. We take breaks from that. We spend time with friends. We take breaks from that. We create, we take breaks from that. So, yeah, that's that's it in a nutshell. But what have we been up to since the listeners last heard us speak with, whichever guest they heard us last speak to?
Speaker 2:exactly that's the question in my mind. When was the last episode released? We've been up to quite a bit, if we're just speaking in the season of summer, right? So we graduated a child, we went traveling, we hosted a couple of retreats and we moved a child out of our house and spent so much time at swim meets, which is a very typical summer activity yeah.
Speaker 1:So I thought maybe we could just dive into a couple of those just to give some context color shade to the two people you listen to. When you listen to the go buck yourself podcast and you know if you're if you're hanging around like you're an og you've been around for a while or if you're new, you know you've heard us on some other podcast or something like that and you're new to us. Yeah. So just give a little bit of context to to who we are. Let's start with, yeah, our daughter, claire. She graduated from high school. So do you want to want me to lead in more than that or do you want to? You got somewhere to go with that no, you go ahead okay.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that was an interesting little part of life. It's definitely a huge milestone for Claire and she had a fair amount of anxiety and just like all the considerations that go into okay, now I'm deemed an adult. What goes into that? And what is society want me to do? What do I want to do? What am I scared of doing all that kind of stuff?
Speaker 1:So it was interesting being in her orbit and it was interesting just as you know parents of someone going through that as well as someone you know going through that and then a transition happening to our lives.
Speaker 1:You know you're independent of us, you know trying to help and coach and guide her and have compassion for her and all that kind of stuff. But just like knowing that, oh wow, that little two-year-old that used to do these two-year-oldy things is now a young lady that is going to be spending less time with us than she ever has in her life and so when we walk, pot walk by her empty room, you know it stirs up these feelings of sadness and grief and maybe some regret here and there, but it also stirs up these feelings of excitement and hope and brightness for where she's going and you know the potential roads that lay for her. So yeah, that's, it's been interesting. As I won't call us empty nesters from just her, I mean one we still have Lila home, thank you I mean I meant like empty nesting as a verb, like Claire empty nested us, you know.
Speaker 1:I guess it's just it's not empty nesting if you still have another child at home. So whatever the verb, the most appropriate verb is where Claire mostly moved out yeah, I would just say it's been a transition for everyone, right.
Speaker 2:So a big transition for Claire, obviously, but then a transition for us as parents, in our role as parents and then just as outside of parent. Like who am I now at this stage in my life? And I think sometimes these transitions just serve as what the like jumping off point for that own, like our own personal transition. So, just speaking for myself, it has been a lot of questioning and growth and change over the course of a few months, when all of this is taking place and was, I guess, just sort of brought about by this typical life transition, this walk through this right of passage right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so as she's transitioned out, she's going to do some nannying outside of our home for some family and then we're going to do some travel as a family in Europe here in about a month for us as we're recording, and all of that, so we'll get some more time together. But yeah, it's just been interesting as I consider each of those things where it's like I wonder what it's like to be Debbie right now. I wonder what it's like to be Lila, I wonder what it's like to be Claire. You know all four of us have are going through some level of transition, for better or worse.
Speaker 1:Like, just as we're saying this, I've had several parts of worry of like, oh, are we? You know, I hope Lila doesn't feel, you know, like she's not getting as much attention or consideration because Claire's you know, departure has been very involved. You know she's gone away and then she's come back for a weekend and yada, yada, yada. So there's probably a potential for that to come up. So that's just a good opportunity or prompt for us to make sure that we're checking in with Lila. I have done that and I feel like it's it's going fine there too. But yeah, so that's one major what we've been up to transition thing that is both sad and exciting going on in our life. Then we did a couple of retreats Uh-huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this summer. I think that's a good place to start because I feel like, at least for me, I can put all the other things within the box of that. Like that's the framework I'm going out into the world with at the point I'm at in my life right now. And we did host a couple of retreats. I say we I didn't really host two retreats personally, but G go bucket yourself. There were the first two ever this summer, so that felt like a big moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So both of them were collaborations in that we we launched a little bit of an idea of doing a retreat and we kind of got down that road a little bit ourselves in 2022, but it didn't really have legs. Effort, energy Um, I struggled a fair amount, was like imposter syndrome and and not maintaining the energy and so, in reflection of that almost was a retreat experience. Uh, one or two things that took I took away were, uh, that I wanted to collaborate Um, you and I collaborated a fair amount on that, uh, but I also wanted to collaborate with other people, maybe other people's audience that would benefit from what we're trying to do with the world. So that felt a little bit easier of a foray into hosting retreats or adventures or meeting up type of space.
Speaker 1:So we leveraged um the campfire audience and reached out to Steven uh, the founder and the guy that runs that whole ship and said like, hey, here's what we're thinking. How does this fit with um the campfire brand? And he was like, yeah, let's, uh, he's an amazing guy. So even if he probably thought it was a dumb idea, he probably still would have said yes, but anyways, he said yes and that was a hit. We took um. What was it Like? What was our last number? Like 20, some 22.
Speaker 2:I think 22, including four people like you and I and, oh yeah, our moms who helped with. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So let's call it 18 guests or 18, you know, attendees type of thing. So, yeah, we took 18 attendees into the wild Rocky mountains, um, in July and it it was at the conclusion of the camp fire event that happened in Colorado Springs, uh, around the fourth of July weekend. And then we, uh, we added on three or four days of that and, yeah, it was cool, like there were some new faces. I thought it was mainly just going to be people that already knew us, um, like personally, like people that we've shook hands with or hugged or whatnot, but there was a fair amount, like the majority was definitely, uh, people that did not know us. Uh, so they were saying yes to, oh, I want to be in, I'm in Colorado, I want to see some of the things in Colorado, or they were saying yes to um, you know the go buck yourself brand. I'm not sure, uh, but anyways, yeah, so we, we put that on and had that retreat and it was.
Speaker 1:It was a huge learning experience slash huge motivation. I felt a lot of, um, excitement, I felt a lot of joy. I felt a lot of uh, stress at times, but yeah, that was, that was a hit. What. What was your opinion of it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. Overall, it was an amazing place and way to connect with people. Just gratitude for people showing up and trusting us with their experience and, um, yeah, I feel like it was definitely a like proof of concept or beta version and, like all things, upon reflection, there's things I will do differently next time, but overall, a really good opportunity to connect and experience nature and I think those were two of the major goals that we had and I feel like we fulfilled that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, uh, I want to share one fun ish, impactful uh experience from from there. So we had three rafts with what? Six people each in it, I think. So Six or eight reports, thank you, yes, right, of course, I want to share one more exciting experience five to eight years ago. Do you want to? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Sure, that would Well, yeah, I am happy that we had these skeletonscause there are.
Speaker 1:just that sounds too much, Anyways. Yeah, so we had a few rafts. We had 20-ish people in these rafts and we aren't the guides of the raft.
Speaker 2:Oh, six per raft, right yeah, because a little family couldn't go because they had no human. Oh, that's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so anyway. So there was 18 of us rafters and we're going down. We're doing a full day rafting adventure on the Arkansas River, specifically the Browns Canyon area, and so we do our thing, we sign our waivers, we hop on our rafts, get paired with our guides and everything like that, and we're cruising along. And, yeah, it was a pretty cool experience because Colorado had a huge snowfall this last year, so that means all that snow melts and that turns the rivers into more exciting compared to years where we don't have as much. So the first half of the day we did a full day experience, but the first half of the day was like a nice little warm-up and everybody was having a good time. They're learning how to row, learning how to do some teamwork and all that kind of stuff, and there were a lot of exciting faces. I wasn't part of this, but my mom was in your raft, right, and she dumped out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she fell out as we our boat tipped up pretty high on one side and she was on the low side and she just slipped out.
Speaker 1:She went for a swim, as they say, and I didn't know any of that happened. So I'm in a raft, either in front or behind, and then we stop to pull out for lunch as our guides kind of get things ready, and my mom comes up to me and she just has this look on her face and I don't even remember where her words were, but she just said something like wow, I just I didn't know it was going to be like that and I was like, oh, because at this time I didn't know that she went into the river.
Speaker 2:And she's rafted like, I think, at least three other times before this right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Wasn't like her first experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I was just like I can't tell by the deer and the headlights look she's giving me Like, is she having a lot of fun? Is she having not much fun? Is, did someone say something in a program Like what's going on here? So eventually, like I find out, like oh, she fell in the river. And so then she tells me her version of the story is we're having lunch. I hear other versions of the story. I'm like, oh okay, mom, mom went in the river. I bet that was. It sounds like it was pretty spooky for her. Yada, yada, yada. So at that point I think she was the only one that took a swim, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So. So then we have lunch, we're having a good time, the guides are joking around us as, like river guides, ski guides, those kind of guys are fun to hang out with. So they're having fun with us, we're having fun with them, and then they like okay, it's time to get serious. These next two rapids that are coming up are, you know, definitely the hardest part of the day.
Speaker 2:And just to build a little bit, because this was my first experience river rafting. It's not that I've never wanted to go, it's just that I've never wanted to go bad enough that I've chosen it over something else. And when we kind of pulled the community campfire and go buck yourself communities, there was a pretty clear consensus that people wanted to go river rafting. So that was something we made sure was a part of our itinerary. And on the way to put our rafts in the water, we're all riding this old school bus together and the head rafter gets up with his like paddle. That's what they're called, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, or paddle, or paddle. Actually, I think it's the right.
Speaker 2:And so I I didn't expect them to be so like putting the fear into you, but they definitely put fear into you on your way there. So I felt like your description of deer in the headlights is kind of how I felt getting out of the bus, like getting ready to put this raft in the water, like this is to be taken seriously. And there's this one point where he takes his or any just like uh, shoves it really hard up against the roof of the bus and everyone jumps to like show how, how hard you could hit someone with your paddle or or whatever it is, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:And so there was that level of seriousness at first, just getting in. And then the morning was went fairly smoothly, other than your mom like going in. But we felt like, oh, we handled that, that was okay, no one died. And then after lunch the level of seriousness went up like 10 times. I thought just getting in the water, the way they talked to you about what's coming up.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, cause, cause, like, even like to Debbie's point, I have rafted before, so I wasn't at really that much nervous about myself rafting. I was nervous mainly because it's like in some ways, uh, I feel responsible for these people saying yes to this event today, so I hope nothing bad happens. So then you know, like he's talking about the river's running high right now, like every cubic foot is think of like a chicken, and so the river is running at 1200 cubic feet per second. So like that's 1200 chickens. You know every second that'd be hitting you, you know. So it's like it's a lot of things. So even then the morning talk, even though there is some seriousness to it, it still had a lot of, is it levity?
Speaker 2:Is it yeah?
Speaker 1:a lot of levity to it, whereas the afternoon talk all the levity went out the window, like my guide who was kind of like yo bro, kind of guy. It was like okay, guys, now here we go. So this part coming up here, 50% of us will be in the water. I'm like whoa shit. Did you say 50 or?
Speaker 2:15 or five part has different directions. So you're like trying to breathe through, like your nervous system getting ramped up, and like still maintain a level of ease and calm. And then they're like, well, this, this section is called this, and if you fall in on this section, swim this way and do this and then you get to the next. Each section has a different direction that I can't remember all of, as I'm like paddle three stroke, you know. So, yeah, it just felt like, oh my gosh, are we going to make it past this afternoon?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so then my guide. I could tell the shift in his seriousness, and so then I went into my own level of seriousness for me. But I also, for whatever reason, really wanted to take you aside and say make sure your feet are in the fucking cups.
Speaker 2:This is right before I get in. I'm like that was such a good lunch for having fun and you pull me aside, like get your feet in that like you did cuss.
Speaker 1:I think I can't remember exactly what you said, I just wanted you to be very secure.
Speaker 2:I'm doing that. Okay, I will do that. That's my plan, yeah.
Speaker 1:So so yeah, we have. We went through the class threes prior to lunch. We had lunch, then the two. Class four is slide L suck hole and I can't remember the next one, you said slide L suck hole right. Yeah, slide, l suck hole.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was quick.
Speaker 1:So basically, that's the one where 50% of the rafters go in.
Speaker 2:Well, one of them had something that alluded to death in the name of it. I can't remember what it was, but it was like oh, this is because someone died here.
Speaker 1:Yeah but that wasn't either of those class fours, I think.
Speaker 2:Liberty.
Speaker 1:Falls. I think it's like slide L suck hole and Liberty Falls or something. Anyway so we start heading out to do slide L suck hole in the first class four for us of the day, and I don't even remember all of the details. I do remember a detail where the lead raft goes in to the suck hole and sure as shit, the suck hole does what it does and it starts sucking their raft and the raft goes vertical and all of the people pretty much go in the water.
Speaker 2:So so it went literally all but two, and that raft happened to have two children on it. So it was pretty spooky and they were the first raft, so the next two rafts behind them saw that happen and had the serious talk of at least in our raft. The talk was like if you don't paddle as hard as you physically can through this part, we are going to tip over and just know that's going to happen. And so there was already all this pressure and then that happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So we were right behind them. So I saw the raft go vertical, I saw people start to fall in the river and I'm at the front of our raft and listening to our guide, who's doing his job. Well, he's, you know, calling out the strokes and that we clear the suck hole, fine, with, with zeal, and all that. But then he immediately goes into okay, he, he had us flip to where we were basically going down backwards, so all of our eyes could then see upriver, where all of our all of raft one people are now in the river and so we could have a better place to see them and rescue them. And so he's like, okay, guys, now go get them and all that kind of stuff. So then yeah, it's, it's one of those where we cleared the suck hole for ourselves.
Speaker 1:So that level of anxiety is disappeared, you know. And then, a millisecond later, seeing the paddles and the people from the other boat all scattered throughout there just immediately hit me as like, oh my gosh, you know I'm seeing the kids are in the. Or I saw Devin was in the water, one of the kids was in the water. I saw the other adults in the water and like, oh shit, this is serious Our guide still barking out orders because he needs the people not in rescue mode to keep keeping our raft, you know, doing its thing so that we are in a good position to help and not creating more of a problem for ourselves.
Speaker 1:So then it was probably only five minutes of rescuing, but that five minutes felt like an eternity. And in the in the aftermath of getting everybody rescued out of the the river and into our raft temporarily till we got to the side of the river where we could kind of get everyone reorganized, it was just like damn, that felt like I had done 10 workouts, you know, in two minutes. Like I was just like wiped and spent my brain, my nervous system, all of that stuff was just like on edge and, yeah, that changed, uh, changed the course of the day for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think. Another surprising thing was for almost everyone other than you and the little family who had a boy go in, which I think increases the level of anxiety and seriousness. By the time we got back on the bus, pretty much everyone had just shook it all off and they were ready to party that night.
Speaker 1:It was fourth of July.
Speaker 2:And so, while some of you about four of you are having this like adrenaline dump, like hangover, the rest of everyone else was like, well, what's up next?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's for dinner?
Speaker 2:Yeah, anyway, everyone survived, but it was quite a story to tell and the only time you've ever gone rafting that the boats have ever tipped right, yeah, I'd only done class three up to that point.
Speaker 1:So I've never seen anyone like anyone that I knew that I was rafting with, I've never heard of them or seen them go in the water and I've never definitely never then had to pull anyone out of the water. So in retrospect, I think it was a great experience to learn like, oh shit, if we're gonna take people into situations that there is some level of risk, now that went from being a thought exercise to like, oh, this could really could happen. So we just wanna be super clear on those kinds of things moving forward, and if I do wanna continue river rafting, which I do, and doing harder stuff, which I think I do at this year, this summer, prove that then, yeah, I'm gonna have to learn how to go in the water myself at some point as well as help other people out of the water.
Speaker 1:So, yeah so that was a long story, but it was a fun. It was a fun, fun trip that first trip, and we Deb and I did that one together. We had some help from our mothers and that was amazing and we just had a great group of people. We got some good feedback. We both learned some things that we would iterate on for the next version of that type of retreat and, yeah, so that was amazing.
Speaker 1:I loved hanging with people and getting to know them better, so yeah, and I'll do a fast forward version of the front row dads retreat. That was the other one that we collaborated with. I did a lot of the work on that one, so it was mainly me in this front row dads community men's group. We collaborated or yeah, I collaborated with the owner, founder, john Broman, and said similarly to what I said to Steven at Camp Fire like hey, I want to put this on to your community. How do you feel about that? Yadda, yadda, yadda. He said cool, and so put that together with my brother, ali.
Speaker 1:So Ali and I led that retreat for other guys in the FRD community similar-ish in many ways, but there was a backpacking component. It was just for members of the front row dads and we also went river rafting, but just three weeks later the river was like a completely different beast, like it was much tamer and we only did the half day section with that. So that was an amazing experience as well, which I also came back with some good feedback and some ideas for how we'll use that for future events. So be looking forward. If you did not join us on those first two events, be looking forward to future collaborations and future like independent events where it's just members of the go bucky yourself community, whether they overlap with these others or not.
Speaker 2:Definitely, and don't be afraid to give us a heads up, like, if you're interested in one, what you would like to see happen at one, what your priorities or goals would be for a retreat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause the intention will always be, at least for this current chapter of life, that they're gonna be smaller, intimate, so there will be more opportunity for someone to influence. Like, hey, what about this place? What about this type of activity when I'm in that mode now of kind of thinking about brainstorming some places and all of that? So, yeah, be on the lookout for those If that sounds like fun or you want to join us to adventure, connect and grow in nature. That's what we love to do.
Speaker 2:So we also are really good at making something we plan as like a brief topic to talk about kind of long. So now we can wrap up what the rest of the summer was Our audiences have a nice long break from us.
Speaker 1:So, they can maybe indulge us a little frivolty or a little as we went over a bit on the rafting talk from the first one. Yeah, so that's pretty much what we've been up to. We've I've been doing a project with my dad. I've been talking about it for years but we're actually making progress in the physical form and so my dad's come out a couple of times, helped us to put together this outdoor kitchen and we reclaimed some barn wood from my stepdad's barn. That's at least a hundred years old and so it looks. Anyways, it's coming together. That's been fun. It's been great to have the free time to work with my dad, who's retired, so it's kind of been fun. You know, I think that's one of the cool parts about this early retirement chapter is being able to have abundant Monday, tuesday, wednesday time, you know, with with my dad, who's also got abundance in that area.
Speaker 2:So yeah, if you happen to watch my Instagram stories, it's made some features on there not deliberately, but just by being in my backyard you can see that taking shape in different forms.
Speaker 1:So Indeed indeed. So yeah, that's, that's been part of it. We've got a new homeschool. Look. I put this as a bullet point that we've been up to. So you're headed back to a classroom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, new fun thing to try for me. I don't know We'll see where this goes, but just teaching a homeschool group once a week-ish for a couple semesters, All Aero. It's called Aero Lab, so it's really aerospace related. It's STEAM, so science, technology, engineering, art, math focus, but particularly in aerospace with this group. So our daughter's 13 now our youngest and wanting to challenge her educationally, so it will hopefully do that. I didn't really think I wanted to go back to the classroom, so this is interesting and trying it out, See how it goes.
Speaker 1:Yep, cool. So yeah, the nice part is our daughter has been doing this experience, but it was a town 30 minutes away and so now there was enough interest in our own town and the quote unquote classroom is only a block and a half away from us, so that will cut down on the commute times, the travel here and there, but definitely more of an- Instead of driving once a day because I carpooled, I'm staying the whole day and planning multiple days beforehand.
Speaker 2:So yes, it's different, but hopefully good yeah.
Speaker 1:And you're better. None of us are perfect, but you're better at setting boundaries and knowing what you're saying yes to, and so I feel like you went into this eyes wide open. Yet it wasn't like a 100% yes, like it wasn't a hell yes.
Speaker 2:No, definitely not. I mean, I do homeschool my daughter, so there is responsibility there. I kept looking for obstacles. There were none, and it felt like it was the right thing to do, but I didn't commit beyond this year and I still haven't committed beyond this year. So it's kind of like a trial, but I know getting it started is all that was necessary in this case and that getting it started in this year it can keep going in future years, even if I'm not involved as closely as I am now. So it is an interesting topic because I think a lot of people see us as retired in quotes, but I do do several jobs, thank you, you know, do jobs and this is I play Zelda.
Speaker 2:This is literally a job I will be getting paid for. I have another job, selling insurance, and so, yeah, just trying to balance how many things I say no to, and I do want this stage of my life to be about saying hell yes, and not just like I guess so. So this was a trickier decision and I think there's plenty of growth still available in it. Like I felt myself needing more confidence and more authority, where I had kind of lost that because I've been out of the classroom for years and years, whereas I wouldn't have questioned myself or my techniques or my motives, you know, back when I left the classroom I certainly was this week, this last week, when I taught, and so that has been a good lesson for me, and the hope is I experienced more growth in my level of confidence and authority with the things that I actually know and I'm somewhat of an expert at.
Speaker 1:Nice, yes, yep. So my intention is to try to assist you and to assist in several ways, but yeah, you're definitely the lead on that one taking that role. But it is fun, like it's nice, because our daughter really enjoys this social element of the this homeschool groups get together. But we were able to because you are now the lead teacher, we were able to control the schedule a little bit better, so it has to fit around your schedule.
Speaker 2:So we had. That was a pro for sure.
Speaker 1:So we were able to basically say like, okay, here's Debbie's schedule for the next nine months. Make this fit around it. And it did.
Speaker 2:And then which was surprising, because we have a month of travel this semester and a month of travel next semester, essentially. So I was looking for that to be my no, so that I didn't have to say no. So I was like, well, sorry, but yeah and they're like yeah, not a problem.
Speaker 1:Yep. And then, and while it is aerospace specific and that's intentional on their side, there is some flexibility that we're hoping to explore with not being so aerospace specific, because there are plenty of kids in the group that enjoy the aerospace element, and then there's probably other ways of achieving some steam, to find some interests within these kids. That isn't so aerospace heavy. So we'll be doing that, debbie will be doing that, I'll be watching and helping from time to time. So, yeah, what's coming down the road for? Go bucket yourself. Yeah, be looking for more podcasts. We've got this season of the podcast coming up. We've got a few solo episodes. We didn't do much of that last season and that was both debonize desires to do more solo episodes, where we take a topic or a book or a concept and just go between the two of us rather than always having a guest on.
Speaker 2:So I think that's your desire always. And I'm always like let's get this guest, let's get this guest. So it's like a balance of the two.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool, so it'll be more balanced is what I meant to say for this coming season. We've got a. Do you want to? Do you have any guests here? Like, yeah, I feel confident let's actually say names or topics or anything like that, we're gonna get. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I know who we have, which will be cool if you've gone to economy If you're listening to this, there's a fairly good chance that you've been to economy. So we have a couple of the economy stage speakers Barbara Sloan, who is always a pleasure to be around and talk to, and, yeah, another economy stage speaker, we have someone I met at economy, brandon, who is transitioning into a coaching career, who came on. So those will be exciting and I do have hopes that I'm pretty sure we'll be able to get like. I know Jillian John Shrut is publishing a new book and I would love to get her back on. This might be the third time if she comes back on. I'm not sure to talk about retiring often, so that's her platform right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but specifically retiring often is what she's calling that and then maybe hoping to get Jonah Jensen, who I don't know if you listened to his episode if you're listening now, maybe you heard him talk about going to nature we called it going to nature with a whole heart had a really great response from that episode and he's always great to talk to. So those are a couple I had in mind that I think would be helpful in this next season.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nice, yep, I I've got some folks that I want to reach out to yet, but I haven't reached out to them, so it might be premature to say who they are. But yeah, so, adventure, connection, growth those are the topics you know in general that we talk about. We focus a lot on growth growing as, as parents, growing as people in their middle ages, growing as a husband, as a wife, growing as, just you know, people that are part of various communities and all that kind of stuff. So hopefully you know that already if you're listening to this. But yeah, what else is coming? We're going to be doing some European travel here soon. As we mentioned, we just hired virtual assistants to to be able to give us even more freedom. So I'm excited to kind of go down that road of taking this idea proof of concept, vetting it out and seeing how that can impact our lives or add more peace and freedom to our lives.
Speaker 1:But yeah, we're getting ready to head off to Europe as a family of four and, if you ask, I think everyone but Chris for far too long. I even think it's a long amount of time. But everything everyone else is probably the other three in my family are like this is a long time. So we have our first year without a work calendar or a public school calendar. So I really wanted to test the waters of what I thought we were going to be doing three or four years ago, which is spending months at a time traveling or living in a different place and then coming back home to our base camp in between those moments. So we will be doing that. We have some time in Europe. I will probably be over there for about two months and you guys will be over there for about a month, and then then we'll be doing something similar ish in the in the winter months with Costa Rica.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to be clear, I'm totally cool with the amount of time but, I, feel the weight of our daughter's pressure more than you do, possibly or what not? And both of our daughters have reasons to want to be back. So, they are a little less thrilled about being gone for a long time than we are.
Speaker 1:Yep, so that's it. So that's that. And we also have we're starting to, like I mentioned before, ruminate on next year's retreats. So I will talk to the people that we're thinking about collaborating with, as well as bringing up some of our independent retreats and everything. So that's that. That's 40 minutes of what was supposed to be a 15 minute conversation.
Speaker 2:Pretty thorough. So a call to you listening yeah, let us know if there's a guest or a topic you'd like to hear on this season and if there's an idea you have for a retreat activity, adventure or location, we'd love to hear it. You can find us on Instagram messages there really easily, or shoot us an email, yep.
Speaker 1:So the Instagrams are at bucky yourself to get all the me directly at imperfect, imperfect progress. Dot me for Deborah and you can find both of our those things on our website. Go bucky yourselfcom as well as hit us up there. But, yeah, the Instagram DMs will probably find us the fastest. And, yes, we would love to hear from you. That is, the call to action from this episode is to reach out if you have anything, questions, your questions help us to curate the content that we will be bringing next season. So, whether that's, we don't really touch much on real estate, but I always I'm getting questions about real estate all the time. So if we could hit a couple questions that people have more commonly, maybe we can fluff those in and get those answered for y'all. But, yep, we are here for you and we are here for ourselves and we are back from our break and we're excited. So take care and until next time.