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Where I’ve Been This Year image

Where I’ve Been This Year

S3 E1 · Eat Like a Mother
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170 Plays4 months ago

Woah! It’s been a year since we last chatted in this space and SO much has happened. In this episode I am catching you up with everything that has been going on in my life this past year and how I’ve lived basically 10 different lives in the span of 12 months. Come join for a little girl chat as we softly launch back into a pod that digs deep on all things hormones and metabolism, but also makes room for the chaos of every day.

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Transcript

Introduction to the Podcast

00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome to the eat like a mother podcast where we take complicated topics surrounding hormones and metabolism and make them simple and applicable to your daily life as a woman. I'm your host, Castie Welfell.
00:00:25
Speaker
My hope is that you walk away feeling empowered to start taking radical responsibility for your health and lean into this body God created for you. Are you ready to eat like a mother? This podcast is meant for educational purposes only and is not meant to be taken as medical advice.
00:00:43
Speaker
Please consult your physician before making any dietary or lifestyle changes.

Podcast Relaunch and Personal Updates

00:00:48
Speaker
Well, it has a hot second since I've been in this space and I'm so excited to be relaunching this podcast because I have a lot of great podcasts in store for y'all this year.
00:00:58
Speaker
Before we get into all of those details, stories, the drama, the learning that I have planned for you this year, I want to kind of give you an idea of how my last year has been because It's been wild.
00:01:13
Speaker
So if you notice, if you're jumping back into this podcast, the last time that I had ah podcast episode was March of 2024. And a lot has happened in the last year. So it's been a year since my last podcast episode.
00:01:28
Speaker
And really the stopping of the podcast was not intentional. It started with just my computer breaking and me needing to get the proper equipment to relaunch the podcast.
00:01:41
Speaker
But after that happened, after the break in March, pretty much everything and started happening in our lives. And I was talking with my husband about this the other day, and it's just, I told him, it feels like we have lived forever.
00:01:56
Speaker
like 10 different lives in the past year. So let's walk through it because our year has been so crazy and this is going to be a little bit different than the majority of the content that you hear in

New Podcast Direction

00:02:10
Speaker
this space. but I kind of have been feeling a lot lately just as I move back into this podcast. I really want this this area, this this corner of technology that I hold to be more casual, more laid back, more of my thoughts and musings because I've tried to follow the really strict, like,
00:02:30
Speaker
standards and just have a really big plan of everything that I talk about the last time I had my podcast going and it just wasn't as fun and so want to keep it fun and fresh and so want to tell you a little bit about how our last year has been this again won't be the standard content that I have this will be more of a talking about wellness talking about metabolism talking about different ways that your metabolism impacts your health and wellness and and everything in between.
00:02:59
Speaker
But I want to tell you a little bit about what's been going on with me. And so, like I said, it feels like we we've lived 10 different lives in the last year. So after my computer broke in March of 2024, we just a lot of stuff happen.

Family Moves and Camper Life

00:03:15
Speaker
So come April, we traveled back to Texas. If you're new here, hi, I'm from Texas, born and raised.
00:03:21
Speaker
My husband and I have moved around a lot, which is part of this story. So we were in Florida, were living in Florida in March of last year, and then computer broke, which is where the podcast shut down.
00:03:37
Speaker
And then come April, we traveled back to Texas because my older brother was getting married and my sister-in-law, so my husband's sister, was getting married. They got married on the same weekend. It was a wild event because we had my brother's wedding.
00:03:51
Speaker
So we had his rehearsal dinner and his wedding and then my sister-in-law's wedding, which I was the coordinator for the wedding. um I've done like sporadic wedding coordinating over the years just for friends and family because I find it fun. you know it should come as no shock to y'all that I really enjoy bossing people around.
00:04:09
Speaker
So when it comes to like wedding coordinating duties, I'm really good at it. So whenever I have like family members or friends that have that need, it's really fun for me to step in and say, hey, I can do that.
00:04:19
Speaker
So i coordinated my sister-in-law's wedding that weekend and it was wild. We got back to Florida, started getting back into our life and decided we were going to buy a camper to renovate. That was our next move. Our lease was up in our apartment in May.
00:04:35
Speaker
And so we had to decide whether we wanted to sign another lease in Florida, which we were feeling we weren't wanting to stay in Florida for much longer. um We moved to Florida from Texas in May of 2022. Nope.
00:04:48
Speaker
no May of 2023. Y'all, I do not have my year together. So we moved to Florida in May 2023 and it was always our two year plan. You know, we knew we wanted to end up on property somewhere. So we decided let's go to Florida and figure out where we want to plant roots and be by the beach while we do it.
00:05:07
Speaker
So we did and it was awesome. And it was coming to the end of our year lease. And we're like, okay, well, we don't want to stay in Florida a whole nother year, but we're not ready to move to another state yet. We haven't figured that out yet. So we decided we were going to a camper and renovate it. We found a family in the area in Florida that had 20 acres and they rented off different spots on their property for people with ah RVs. And so we found them, we put the deposit down to what rent off a portion of their property.
00:05:39
Speaker
and then we bought a camper. And that was a lot of fun. It was a big learning experience to go and figure out what we were looking for stay within a certain price range. And a few days after we buy the camper,
00:05:52
Speaker
we find out I'm pregnant with baby number three. And we're like, well, frick, we are locked into this depreciating asset that we just poured a lot of money into.
00:06:05
Speaker
There's no turning back now. Our original plan with the camper was to buy it and stay in it until November of 24. So that would have given us like six months in the camper. That was kind of my cap whenever we decided to move forward with it. I told my husband,
00:06:21
Speaker
I'll do camper, I'll live in it, I'll help renovate, but I don't think I can do more than six months in a camper. And i definitely do not want to have three children in a camper.
00:06:32
Speaker
And so that's what we had decided on. So we move in to the camper in May, we park it and we start renovating it. and that was a ton of work. It was a huge learning experience. If you're new around here,
00:06:45
Speaker
My husband is a carpenter, so that's his trade. and So he's really great at this kind of work. And so it was a lot of fun to have a creative project that we could work on together and then see to the end. But it was a lot more work than we had anticipated just because the camper we bought had a lot more problems than we had seen. So we had to do with some remediation. We had to rebuild whole portions of it. We were able to do it and it was great. It was a lot of fun, but we were in it for maybe...
00:07:14
Speaker
I think two full months. Okay, so we got in it in May right after we found out I was pregnant during that time My husband was working a lot so my brother-in-law actually flew to Florida to help me and the kids pack up our apartment sell everything and move into the camper so that was really helpful and then June, we spent all of June renovating and then we find out that the people that their property were we were living on did not disclose to us that they are really big Halloween fanatics. Okay.
00:07:47
Speaker
And that might not sound like a big deal. But they were explaining to us, we were just chatting with them and they were super sweet, kind of kooky, a little woo woo, but it wasn't like as big a deal with our living setup. But we were chatting with them and then they were explaining to us that they're not just Halloween fanatics. Like they go hard and pretty much turn the entire 20 acres into like a horror fest.
00:08:10
Speaker
And they were explaining to us in gruesome detail that how horrific their property becomes over Halloween. And they told us, they were like, we usually start setting up in June, but we have a wedding at the end of July.
00:08:25
Speaker
So we're not going to start setting up until the end of July, until the wedding, which was July 31st. And my husband and I were like, wow, the Halloween thing would have been really great to know because we have two small children.
00:08:39
Speaker
Like if it was just he and i we probably could have, you know, just sucked it up and dealt with it until the end of our plan, which was the end of October, November, staying in the camper. But with two kids that we really did not want to scar for the rest of their life, we were like, well, this is just, this is not going to fly.
00:08:59
Speaker
So that's when we started kind of kicking into gear our plans to move. And in this time over the last couple of months, at this point, we've been talking about where we

Choosing a New Home Location

00:09:08
Speaker
want to live. We weighed all the pros and cons. You know, we have some key that that are really important to us when it comes to determining where we move. So we know that home birth is really important to us.
00:09:19
Speaker
Homeschooling is really important to us. And the right to carry is really important to us. So those were kind of our three main things that we were looking at. We also wanted to live somewhere that does not have a state income tax.
00:09:33
Speaker
Just a lot of facets that we were discussing when we were trying to find a place to move. And then also we wanted to be somewhere that had more than just two seasons. Because we've done the two seasons in Texas and in Florida, which we love the heat, we love the milder weather, but we just, we wanted to experience a little bit more. And where we were in Texas, not super beautiful. And so we just wanted to be surrounded by beauty and nature and that be a big part of our life so we landed on tennessee and we decided okay that's where we're going to move forward i started looking for houses to move to for us to move to in tennessee i found this house that was just the most beautiful thing that i'd ever seen it was on an acre it was a home that we'd be able to rent because we knew that we were not ready to buy land because
00:10:24
Speaker
Now our time in the camper was being cut short. So the whole reason we were going to be in the camper for six months was to finish saving up for a down payment on property in Tennessee. ah but with that being cut short, we're like, well, we're going to have to rent because we're not ready to put a down payment on a house yet.
00:10:39
Speaker
So I found this house and fell in love with it. Like I said, it was on an acre. was beautiful old home, 100 years old. And I kind of hounded them until they responded to me. Like this was Fourth of July weekend. I sent multiple emails, called multiple times, could not get a hold of anyone. You know, it took me about a week to finally get a hold of someone to talk about the house. And it was great. i got on the phone, asked all of my questions.
00:11:07
Speaker
and was like, i can I can drive up there as soon as you want to come see the house. And so this is about mid-July at this point. He was like, I mean, are you sure? We've got other people with offers on the home. And I like, yes, if those offers go through, we want to come and see the house.
00:11:23
Speaker
A couple of days went by those offers, the people that were gonna rent the house, go through. And he called me and was like, hey, yeah, if you wanna come see it, you know I can make time for you. And I was like, great. So I packed up my two kids.
00:11:36
Speaker
I'm five months pregnant. And we drove, I think it's 12 hours from where we were in Tampa to we're in Tennessee we were, we were finding the property. So I drove 12 hours by myself with the kids and we checked out the house and it was awesome.
00:11:49
Speaker
Okay. I fell in love with it, but my husband was like, it's out of our price range. Like it it's not what we want to be spending on rent. And I was like, I'm willing to spend that much on this house because it is so beautiful.
00:12:04
Speaker
It was surrounded by land. Our next door neighbors were cows and horses and everything. It was beautiful, okay? i listened to my husband. I went and checked out a few more houses in the area, but there was still nothing that I loved as much as this one house.
00:12:19
Speaker
It had so many windows, an acre. It had this beautiful little picket fence. It was super charming, 100 years old. I just, I loved it. I wanted that house. And so my husband was like, okay, if you can get them to knock off a couple hundred dollars more on rent,
00:12:34
Speaker
We'll go for it. And so I did. I started negotiating and sure enough, we were able to get the house. Now, it's really important to note that when I went and visited the house, one thing that my husband and I take very seriously is mold in homes because we know the effects of mold.

Challenges with Tennessee House

00:12:51
Speaker
I have lived in toxic mold before. We both have lived in toxic mold before and have seen the health effects of it.
00:12:57
Speaker
And that's just not something that we were willing to risk. And so that was one of my big questions before we even drove out to Tennessee to see the house. When I was on the phone with the property manager, i was like, look, you'll see on our history, on our credit that we have, you know, we moved out of a house a month early because of both. So that's what you're going to see on our, on our rental history is there was one lease that we broke. It was a month early.
00:13:23
Speaker
This is why. And I'm always really upfront. You know, we've rent rented our entire marriage. I'm always really upfront with landlords about that before they even run our our credit. Like, this is what you're going to see. This is why. that's an issue, let me know and I'll go apply somewhere else.
00:13:40
Speaker
And I've never had, you know, issues renting. We never issues renting anywhere with that on our credit. So I told him, you know, this is a big deal for us. you'll see this on a credit. He was like, that's not a problem. And then I asked him on the phone, okay, so is there any mold in this house? You know, I would hate to drive 12 hours with my two kids and and that be an issue because that's a deal breaker for us. And he was like, no, no mold has not had any issues. And I was like, okay, great.
00:14:05
Speaker
So I drive out there with the kids and i check all of the things, check the house. And i didn't see any signs of water damage or anything that would be concerning, you know, within the home. My husband and i have done home renovations before in the past I kind of knew what to look for. Didn't see water damage, didn't even smell must be.
00:14:24
Speaker
But something that we've never encountered before because we're from Texas is a crawl space. And so that was something that I asked the property manager, okay, so I know crawl spaces are usually hotbed for mold.
00:14:38
Speaker
Is that an issue here? And he was like, nope, there's no mold in the crawl space. I'm under there all the time. i have never seen any mold. No no issues down there, you're perfectly fine. And I was like, great.
00:14:50
Speaker
I trusted him. i wasn't about to go under a house at five months pregnant and leave my two small children with a stranger in a different state, you know what I mean So we went with it that evening or the next day. i was able to get him to knock couple hundred bucks off rent, which was great. And we were like, awesome.
00:15:08
Speaker
We had signed the papers, we paid the deposit, and the house was ours. And we planned to move in two weeks later on August 1st, okay? So this has been wild.
00:15:20
Speaker
We yeah get everything together and we decide that my husband is going to stay in Florida for all of August to finish out his work. He had a great relationship with a carpenter that he was working under in Florida.
00:15:34
Speaker
So he stayed with him and finished out projects for all of August. And I took the kids to Tennessee to get the house ready to clean it up. There were some things that I wanted done when lease started, which was August 1st.
00:15:49
Speaker
I'm kind of like, fujie when it comes to houses. So I want things cleaned from like ceilings, the floor with my non-toxic cleaners, just to help with any off-gassing. You know, if you're renting, you're going to have chemicals from people that have lived there in the past. And so like off-gassing, cleaning the walls and the ceilings and everything.
00:16:10
Speaker
with a non-toxic cleaner, letting it air out is like standard for me as a renter. So i hired a company, they cleaned everything head to toe, which is great. And then I also paid for a professional air duct cleaning service.
00:16:24
Speaker
I was like, look, this house is 100 years old. I don't know when the last time these ducts were clean. So i had someone come out and they did a great job. cleaned out the AC ducting and it was great.
00:16:35
Speaker
We didn't have any issues with breathing for a couple of weeks. Bum, bum, bum. So they cleaned out the AC ducts and then, you know, a few weeks in we just started to like have problems. was like, this is so weird.
00:16:50
Speaker
And I kept talking with the property manager and he wasn't really listening to my concerns, which was not that big a deal, but had issues with the house not cooling down. And that was, that was a problem because it would get up to like 90 degrees in the house and stay that hot until 12 o'clock at night.
00:17:09
Speaker
So I'm having trouble getting my kids to sleep because it's so frigging hot in the house. My son is like laying on the floor because that's the coldest part to try and cool off his little body. And i couldn't get anyone out there to actually fix the house, right? My husband comes and he gets there September 1st. He finishes up his work in Florida. I finished my month of solo parenting, which is not for the faint of heart. This is why, side note, I hound on minerals so much because stress increases your need for mineral consumption. So y'all know i was eating a lot of calories, really making sure I was getting a lot of minerals during this time so that I would not be an absolute wreck.
00:17:50
Speaker
parenting two kids by myself in a different state for a month. but So my husband gets there and with his contractor eye starts to see all the problems with the house because mind you he did not see the house before we signed on it.
00:18:04
Speaker
He you know had the questions that I asked and told me where to check and I was able to do that but he hadn't been in the house yet until almost a month and a half actually exactly a month and a half from when I had visited the first time.
00:18:16
Speaker
So he gets in and he starts to see things that we could fix. No big deal, right? Well, then we're experiencing the heat and he's like, okay, yeah, the heat in this house is so ridiculous. And he starts digging out. We had floor vents and my son had thrown toys into the floor vent. So my husband's like, well, maybe, maybe the ducts are clogged. I'm going to pull out the toys that Ollie threw in there.
00:18:37
Speaker
And so he digs them out. Great. Once he pulls them out, they are covered in mold. And we're like, what the heck? Like those things couldn't have been in there for more than two weeks since my son had thrown them down there.
00:18:52
Speaker
So that mold had to be really fast growing. And that's when we started to get concerned. We'd had other issues with like smelling skunks and different animals, different pests and things in the house, which took them forever to get someone to come out and rid the house of the unwanted pest. But once we found the items covered in mold, and we had that paired with just the AC not cooling, our property manager friendly got someone out there, and when the AC guy got out there, he got under the house and said, yeah, there's mold all over this wall and all up under the house.
00:19:25
Speaker
Ducks were completely opened to the crawl space. Apparently, skunks had chewed through ducting. and just completely opened it up to the elements. And so the house wasn't cooling. We had animals coming in and out of the ducting and things just like spiraled from there, okay?
00:19:43
Speaker
So we're dealing with our property manager. We're trying to get this house fixed up. We're trying to get them to come and fix the things that are broken because we're renters. So we have to go through the property manager who has to get approval from the landlord, the landlord that's in California. It's just a whole ordeal. Well, in the middle of all of this,
00:20:01
Speaker
We ended up having a death in the family and have to pack up and travel back to Texas. so before we do that, we get in contact with our our property manager and are like, Hey, going to be in Texas for these four or five days.
00:20:16
Speaker
We really need this done. We needed the ducting replaced and the mold remediated before we got back. That was what they had said they were going to need. They were going to completely replace the ducting and remediate the mold. So we're like, we need this done before we get back. We don't want that going on with our kids here. Our kids have been having some really random symptoms just with breathing and sickness and just atrocious coughs, which made sense from the mold. They've had sensitivity to mold in the past.
00:20:41
Speaker
And so but like, we just need this done before we get back. So we're in Texas and we're planning to leave. Let's say we go to Texas on a Thursday and we're planning to come back to Tennessee on a Monday.
00:20:52
Speaker
Well, sunday The property manager texts us and is like, hey, it's not done. It's not going to be done until tomorrow on Monday. And we're like, okay, well, we can we can push it back a day. Monday comes and he's like, hey, it's not going to be done today. They're not going to be able to get out there until Friday. I'm like, I mean, okay, it wasn't that big a deal for us because we have family in Texas. So we're staying with family. So we just extended our stay until Friday. And Friday comes and they're like, it's not done. and They weren't able to get out there.
00:21:24
Speaker
And we're like, look, we can't stay in Texas any longer. We have to get back to work. Our children have appointments and school and all of the things. it It needs to be done. We're coming home Monday. It has to be done by then. So that Monday, we drive to Tennessee, you know, do the whole 13 hours in the car with our two kids.
00:21:40
Speaker
And we get there that Monday night and the house is worse than it was when we left. Immediately, my kids start having these bigger reactions. My daughter broke out in high. Her mouth had sores all in it. And I'm over here. I'm kind of fighting for this house because I just, I loved the house.
00:21:58
Speaker
I did not want this to be happening. i told my husband, would anything to stay in this house because we'd moved so many times with our kids. And I could see it was really wearing on, especially my four-year-old. Because in this past year, we have moved already three times.
00:22:15
Speaker
And that is a lot on four year old. And I promised her that we weren't going to move anytime soon. So I was telling my husband, like, I don't want to move. I want to stay in this house. I will do anything I can to stay in this house. And he was like, okay, well, we'll, we'll do that, but we can't stay in this house tonight.
00:22:32
Speaker
So we need to go get a hotel. And so we got a hotel that night and tried to figure out what we were going to do, what our plan was. Cause at this point, the ducting had not been fixed. It had been patched poorly.
00:22:44
Speaker
And there was still mold all up under the house and then mold growing all within the house from it being improperly maintained and us being gone for a week. At the hotel, we're like, well, we don't know what's going to happen. We don't know if insurance is going to cover anything.
00:22:59
Speaker
It would be cheaper for us to go back to Texas and stay with family while we figure out what we're doing. So legitimately, that next day, we loaded up our kids again, got in the car and drove 13 hours back to Texas to be with family because we're like, well, it's cheaper to pay for gas and stay with family than it is for us to be put up in a hotel every night while we figure out what's going on.
00:23:24
Speaker
That was our reasoning behind that. Mind you, I am seven months pregnant at this point. So these drives are like freaking miserable just for my back and my hips. Okay, being that pregnant and driving, you know, mentally I was doing good because I had my minerals, remember.
00:23:37
Speaker
But just physically, I was like, dang, this is my back of the game. um Thankfully, shout out to Pronomat and Loombox. I brought those with me everywhere i go. This is not, this podcast is not sponsored by these companies, but I brought them with me everywhere I went. That super helps.
00:23:53
Speaker
my physical pain just from sitting so long but I digress so we go back to Texas we figure out what's going on and it starts to become abundantly clear to us that it is going to be an uphill battle to get this house fixed now in the time that we are battling with the landlord and the property manager our property manager actually steps down and it's October 1st at this point he's like my contract ends October 1st and so you're going to be dealing directly with the landlord he had said that the house had become too much of a hassle it just wasn't worth it for our property manager which god bless him he had just had a baby like it was their first kid and so he's dealing with all these properties and then this house that we're living in is just having so many issues and it's just not worth it for him which we understand okay that's that's a business move he steps down no problem right
00:24:48
Speaker
Well, we don't get any paperwork from the landlord for the house now that we're going to be dealing with him. All of our paperwork was signed with the property manager and there's nothing that ties us to the house with the landlord. All of our paperwork signed to the property manager and we once he stepped down, we received a move out email from the property manager property management company. I looked at my husband and I'm like, there's nothing legally binding us to this house anymore. All of the paperwork that we signed was to let's let's call him Paul, was to Paul's company.
00:25:22
Speaker
And we were not given any kind of paperwork for the landlord. So we actually reached out to the old property manager and we're like, hey, are we going to be getting a new lease for this house since we're no longer working with you?
00:25:35
Speaker
And i don't think they were going to tell us until the landlord had made it up to Tennessee because he had said they were planning on coming out to Tennessee We text the property manager and like, okay, yeah, you're supposed to be getting paperwork from, let's say Eric is the landlord. Okay, so Paul's the property manager. Eric is the landlord. These are not their real names. We're going to protect them for privacy reasons. But Eric now reaches out and is like, where are you staying right now? I'm going to fax you the new paperwork to get you signed under my name.
00:26:06
Speaker
And at this point, my husband and I, we kind of have a decision to make. Do we think that they're actually going to come through and fix the house once we sign?
00:26:17
Speaker
so do we sign again and lock us in for a year with no way out? Or do we take this as a door of opportunity and get out of the lease with no penalties and no issues? And so kind of weighed all the pros and cons and decided,
00:26:31
Speaker
it was gonna be smarter for us to not sign the lease again with this house. We kind of got the feeling that they weren't gonna work as hard to fix the problem once we signed the paperwork. We had had so many issues already with them not fixing things. And all of a sudden, now that we aren't contractually bound to them. They're like, oh yeah, we're going to fix it. These are all the things that we're going to do even though we hadn't seen that happen in practice.
00:26:55
Speaker
So we made the decision to not sign with them. Thankfully, yes, there was a little bit of upsetness on the landlord's part. They were super sweet. We met them at once they came and visited Tennessee and it gave them the cues back. They're super sweet family. And they were just like, man, we're just really sorry this didn't work out. We were hoping that Y'all were going to be here.
00:27:15
Speaker
i was talking with the wife and was like, look, I'm devastated. I love this house so much. I fell in love with this property. i wanted to be here for a really long time. Really sad that this isn't working out.
00:27:26
Speaker
So we yeah gave the keys back. Thankfully, we were able to get our security deposit back and not go on our record that we got out of this lease because there was nothing legally binding us to it.
00:27:38
Speaker
So the Lord really worked it out for us to be able to get out of this lease. But now we didn't have a place to live.

Finding a New Home and Pregnancy Journey

00:27:45
Speaker
And so we spent most of October trying to find a new house. We're staying in hotels and Airbnbs and it's just, there's a lot happening while we're trying to find a place to live. It is not easy to find ah home that meets our criteria in middle Tennessee. if That's decent.
00:28:02
Speaker
That's in our price range. That's not covered in mold or mildew, but We were able to find this house in a different area that we had originally been looking, but we found this house and it was in the suburbs, which was not my ideal area, but it was a great house and we loved it and we were able to get in it.
00:28:23
Speaker
In all honesty, like we just, at that point we had been in hotels and Airbnbs for a month now and we just needed a place to live. So we were able to get into this house turned the keys back over to the other house, got rid of most everything that we brought with us to the mold house because of contamination purposes. Now we're in this new house and we're just having to start from scratch, which if you've been following me on Instagram for any time, I've gotten a lot of stuff in this house for free because I am somehow the queen of Facebook marketplace, but that is a conversation for another time. So we've just been like
00:29:00
Speaker
Since we've been in the house, we got in at the end of October. We've been slowly trying to make it into a home. There was a little bit of time where right after we moved in, my husband went back to Florida for some work.
00:29:11
Speaker
So I did some more solo parenting for another two weeks. And then he got back and we had the holidays. Hosted a lot of family over... Thanksgiving, and then we of course had Christmas and this is when I was supposed to be due with the baby.
00:29:23
Speaker
This whole time, all of these lives that we've lived, I have done it all pregnant and that was just wild. Last baby, I did a completely wild pregnancy, so I did no prenatal care. i have podcast episodes coming up on that in the future, but did no prenatal care and then I had free birth, which was amazing. I, again, have a whole other podcast series on the wild pregnancy and free birth planned for y'all in the future.
00:29:48
Speaker
because it was so awesome, like such an incredible experience birthing a baby by myself. And she's perfectly happy and healthy. At the time I'm recording this podcast, she's six weeks old and just the perfect addition to our family. So yeah, that has been so life that we've lived. We did the holidays, baby was born.
00:30:10
Speaker
the first week of January. And then five days after she was born, we find out that my beloved grandpa had passed away. It was really unexpected. This was the grandparent that I am the most closest with or have been the most closest with my whole life. And so i was just like, I can't, I can't miss this funeral. Like I know I just had a baby, but there's no way that I will miss this funeral and not regret it. Like i would I would absolutely regret not being there and not closing that chapter.
00:30:41
Speaker
That was like a whole fiasco, trying to figure out going to Texas, you know, do we fly? Probably not smart to take a one week old on an airplane. That was kind of out of the picture.
00:30:53
Speaker
Financially, there was just no way for to buy me a ticket and buy my whole family a ticket because at this point, I would have had to take kids with me because my husband was going to be going back to work soon. So it was just like, okay, we've got to go as family.
00:31:07
Speaker
Well, now how do we drive? We can't fit all three kids in my car. my sisters, my little sisters stepped in and were the real MVPs. They were like, look, we'll drive to Tennessee, pick y'all up and drive you back to Texas and then drive you back to Tennessee after the funeral and everything.
00:31:25
Speaker
So they were amazing. We caravan back to Texas. I rode with my little sisters and the new baby. And then my husband drove the two kids behind us. Thankfully, my husband's a contractor. So was able to find work in Texas while we were there.
00:31:38
Speaker
But that was just like so so, much, you know, not just the emotional side of losing a beloved grandparent, but also being so freshly postpartum.
00:31:49
Speaker
Definitely not what I had planned for, just postpartum, but the Lord was good. And we were able to spend time with family and grieve and see people that we loved and then get back to Tennessee and and get back to just a normal pace.
00:32:03
Speaker
And so we've been back for a couple of weeks now and are finally, I'm finally starting to feel more like a human being again. And I had planned already ah to relaunch this podcast in March. I don't know why that had just been on my head for so long like march is when i'm going to relaunch the podcast that's how i have this super long story to tell you where i have been the past year we have had a lot happening i have legitimately lived 10 lives in this last year with moving three four times once to a camper then out of state and then again out of state within the state and then traveling
00:32:41
Speaker
but you know across the country multiple times with children by myself solo parenting being pregnant all of the things it has been a wild year in the well-fell home but something that I am so so excited about and this is why I'm so passionate about this it's just to be talking to y'all more about minerals and metabolism and nourishing your body not just with food but with movement and sunshine in your lifestyle because I believe 100% with my whole heart my whole being, y'all, that if I had not put in the work to truly, deeply nourish my body, this year would have been

Resilience and Future Podcast Plans

00:33:20
Speaker
a crap storm. Like, it just would have been horrible. I...
00:33:23
Speaker
i probably would not have been able to cope mentally or physically. My body probably would have shut down because the stress of our life is one thing that depletes minerals, but also being pregnant, that takes up a whole lot of minerals. It's it's a huge energetic seat to be pregnant and to carry a baby while also, and and I'm still breastfeeding my two-year-old, so I was breastfeeding the whole pregnancy and growing a baby, and we had all of these super stressful things going on.
00:33:52
Speaker
and I'm just, I'm convinced that had I not had the foundation of true deep nourishment, this year would have gone a lot worse. Thankfully, i was able to have a sense of humor and take things lightly. Again, thank you, Lord, and thank you, minerals. When I tell people, you just need Jesus and minerals, i fully believe that because that can fix just about everything.
00:34:17
Speaker
So this is my long story to tell y'all. This is where I've been this last year. And this is where I am beginning to step back into this podcast and have more material for y'all to share. I'm really excited for my new vision for this space.
00:34:32
Speaker
And I said at the beginning of this episode, I don't want it to be as formal as I had had it in the past. I really want to just feel like I'm chatting with my girlfriends, you know, and sharing these stories. Because I feel like I have so many stories to share.
00:34:47
Speaker
and is just going to be a fun place to share while also doing... what I love, which is educating on the female body and educating on how we can best support our bodies and live true, vibrant, healthy lives.
00:35:01
Speaker
So thank you so much for listening to this episode. Stay tuned. You can plan on a new episode on every platform, across every platform, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, new podcasts every week. So stay tuned, subscribe, all of the things, and i will see all next time.
00:35:24
Speaker
If you found this podcast helpful or encouraging, would you mind leaving us a rating or review? I love hearing from you. So be sure to shout us out on Instagram and tag me at Cassidy dot wealth bell.
00:35:34
Speaker
And we'll be sure to shout you right back out. Let's get this message to as many women as possible until next time, friend.