This week I really enjoyed not being sick and also being able to work in shorts. It’s the little things, guys.
On the heels of a productive week, I thought I’d share all of the podcasts that have been keeping me company. It’s weird when you go from sharing an office to being home alone all day. And I don’t mean sharing an office as in there are other people near by…I mean legitimately sharing the same room. It’s a big adjustment to go from never being alone to always being alone.
The boyfriend has a job where he works a school year schedule and a summer schedule. He hasn’t switched to summer schedule yet so he’s been home in the mornings. Which is good because I’m not alone. But bad because I get distracted by him. Imagine all the things you do after you get home from work and that’s what his morning is like.
And then he leaves and I’m alone again.
So, to fill up the space I’ve been listening to podcasts. I started listening to podcasts a few years ago after I got my real estate license. I discovered I really liked spending my time in the car learning something, not listening to music. Since then, I think I’ve really accelerated my personal and career development through the number of hours I’ve put in to listening to podcasts. If I’m driving, I’m probably listening to a podcast. If I’m cleaning, I’m definitely listening to a podcast. Exercising? Podcast. Walking dog? Yep, podcast.
Here’s what I currently enjoy, loosely grouped by topic!
Entrepreneurship, Business, and Mindset:
Gary Vaynerchuk, The Gary Vee Audio Experience
John Lee Dumas, Entreprenuer on Fire
Pat Flynn, Smart Passive Income
Chris Ducker, Youprenuer
Mike Dillard, Self Made Man
Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show
And not technically a podcast, but still including:
Darren Hardy, Darren Daily
Marketing, Blogging, and Vlogging:
Amy Porterfield, Online Marketing Made Easy
Sunny Lenarduzzi, The Sunny Show
Social Media Examiner, both the Social Media Marketing podcast and the Social Media Marketing Talk Show
John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing
John Jantsch, Consulting Spark
Buffer, The Science of Social Media
Amy Landino, Vlog Boss Radio
Ray Edwards, The Ray Edwards Show
Darren Rowse, ProBlogger
Copyblogger, Copyblogger FM
Writing:
K.M. Weiland, Helping Writers Become Authors
NPR, 10 Minute Writer’s Workshop (now over, but go binge the old episodes!)
Brandon Sanderson et al., Writing Excuses
Various Topics:
TED, TED Talks Daily
NPR and TED, TED Radio Hour
NPR, Hidden Brain
I would LOVE to hear your podcast recommendations so leave me a comment below with some more. I’m especially looking more to go in the “Various Topics” section because sometimes I want to half-listen to something and passively learn or not learn.
Let’s dive into the week!
Despite how terrible I felt on Friday, I woke up feeling lots better on Saturday. I did some work in the morning before and during my dog’s grooming session. He gets groomed to the house, which is really convenient. The groomer has her own bus that she brings and parks outside. It’s actually not that much more expensive to get Elliot groomed at home than to take him somewhere. Like maybe $20-30 more a session. And he gets done in half or a third of the time and isn’t stressed because he’s not stuck in a drying cage for hours and listening to other stressed out dogs. Plus, he’s always groomed by the same person.
I tried to wash Elliot myself a couple times after I adopted him home from Helen Woodward. All were terrible experiences for both of us. The first time I tried to wash him in the backyard. The end result was a wet, not very clean dog, a lot of mud, and a soaked human. Second time, I tried to wash him in the bath tub. Also terrible because I had to lift him over the edge of the tub while he was struggling to get away from me and fit him through the opening of the glass door. Elliot’s currently a little fat, he’s about seventy-seven pounds right now. But he’s pretty much been between seventy and seventy-five pounds the whole time I’ve had him. The third time I washed him I decided to try the walk-in shower. But the shower wasn’t big enough for both of us so I thought I’d put him in the shower and I’d kneel outside and wash him and clean up all the water in the bathroom after. Well, Elliot made a run for it after about a minute of being bathed and pushed me out of the way which caused me to hit my head and neck on the tile wall. Yep, we were done with the home grooming business after that.
But getting him groomed was not much better. He was so stressed about the grooming, I literally had to drag/carry him to the appointment. He would not go into the shop. Any shop. So that was a struggle right from the moment we got to the parking lot. Once you got him inside, he laid down on the floor and refused to walk. And he’s way too big for me to have to work that hard to get him there and then feel like I was torturing him as he trembled from head to toe. So to me, it’s well worth that extra money to get him done at home!!
After Elliot was done with his grooming, I went and got myself groomed. I had made an appointment earlier in the week on a day when I wasn’t feeling so bad to get my hair touched up. I recently started dyeing it because the greys were getting out of control.
Then, I met up with the boyfriend and we drove up to Oceanside to have an early Father’s Day dinner with his dad and family at Texas Roadhouse. This dinner also included some assorted friends so that was fun.
After that, we went back to his family’s house to meet their new dog. They just adopted a German Shepherd after their old dog passed away a few months ago. Their new dog is very nice and hopefully he and Elliot will get along as we like to leave Elliot there when we go on vacation because they have a big piece of property and the dogs can pretty much go in and out as they please.
On Sunday I actually found some time to work on Shadow of the Magician in the morning. I rewrote one chapter that needed it and edited four more that didn’t need an overhaul. I worked some more in the afternoon to try and catch up on some of the things that didn’t get done the week before.
Monday morning I finally made it back to the barn where I had to make some decisions for Pia. She’s still not feeling like herself so we decided to try the progesterone injection (basically Depo-Provera), called the farrier to consider getting shoes put on her back feet (she’s only shod in the front), and added her onto the saddle fitter’s list for the next time they come out. I rode Pia on Monday and left crossing my fingers that one of those things would do it.
I had an afternoon meeting in Clairemont so I decided not to go home. It was nearing lunch time so I decided to go to Panera Bread since I knew they had food, tables, wifi, and electric sockets. Spent about two or so hours there working before going across the street to the Forum Coffee House. If you follow me on Instagram, this is the home of the blue chai! I kid you not, it is truly blue!
Once I got home, I didn’t have that much time to work before Writer’s Group. This day was basically a day of not very much getting done on the work front, but yet being busy doing stuff for the business.
Tuesday I woke up early to get some work done. It was dark and kind of cloudy so I went into the garage to do my Miracle Morning routine at my actual desk. The boyfriend’s been sleeping on the couch since I’ve been sick and I didn’t want to turn on the light in the kitchen so I could see because we have an open floor plan and the living room and kitchen are pretty much the same room, just divided by a half wall.
While I was doing the exercising portion of the Miracle Morning, I looked up at the ceiling and discovered this situation. Apparently the rose bushes in the front yard decided to grow a branch under the exterior wall and up through the interior of the garage wall (there’s kind of a space behind the paneling). I honestly don’t understand how this could have happened. But here we are.
Later, I got a good amount of work done while I was waiting for the internet guy to show up. The boyfriend has been after me for years to upgrade or change our internet service provider. But I refused because a) I thought it would be really expensive to get better internet and b) I thought it would be a big hassle to change and c) I didn’t think we really needed it. However, when I started the business he suddenly had a good case for upgrading the internet. He did all on the research and it turns out that by switching to Spectrum, we wouldn’t pay any more money, but we’d get 20x faster internet. I’m serious, it truly is 20x faster. Now that we have it installed, I can say that I see the results of this more on the upload end of things. Last week, it took me well over thirty minutes to load a video longer than five minutes to Facebook. This week, it took me less than five minutes. I am in love.
Wednesday, went back to the barn. Rode Pia who felt soo much better. I am so relieved. The shot is kicking in already. And she seems way happier too. She was very relaxed when I got there. After after I was done, I turned her out into the pen like I usually do. Normally, she gets her cookie and immediately walks away to go do her own thing (#DoinPiaThings). But she actually hung around me and was rubbing her head up against me and just generally being very sweet. Heart. Melt.
We’re still going ahead with all of my other plans from Monday, but I’m so glad that we’re already seeing improvements!
Wednesday just generally ended up being a great day. Got more stuff done. Took Elliot for a walk, ran into one of my neighbors down the street, finished organizing my office in the evening. Solid day.
Thursday though…oh man. So busy. I worked hard this day to try and get through all the new things that had to be done in a hurry. One of the busier work days I’ve had since starting the business.
Still took a break to walk dogs with my neighbor. It was super hot on Thursday and after I got back, it was so hot in the house it was making me tired. Later, my friend, K, called me to see if I was free for dinner because she was nearby. I ended up meeting her at Soup Plantation and it was nice to spend some time with a friend after a busy day. Also the air conditioning was A+.
Friday, I was lazy about getting out of bed so I crammed the Miracle Morning into fifteen minutes before I had to leave for the barn because my lesson was earlier than normal. Rode Miss Pia who still felt great so I am very encouraged about that!
Came home and had another great work day. This week I really felt like I was actually making a difference and getting results. I also had a really exciting idea for the business as I listened to some podcasts. It will definitely take a lot of work and time to get there, but if I could do it, it would be SO cool.
In the afternoon, I drove over to Mostra Coffee in Carmel Mountain to meet my friend who telecommutes on Friday. I have to go somewhere with air conditioning in the afternoons now otherwise I get too sleepy to work. Got the chai tea latte which was pretty good. I didn’t love it, it was sweet in an odd way. But I really liked the vibe at Mostra. The only downside is because it was afternoon, there were a lot of people coming in and for some reason, the people coming in with kids were just letting their kids run wild. So, I was pretty grumpy about that. I’m not sure I would come back to Mostra in the afternoon. Not a quiet place to get some work done.
I met my friend, L, for dinner at a hot pot place on Convoy St. It was…not good. I don’t know if we just went to a place that wasn’t good, picked all the worst things on the menu, or just managed to not make the food taste good. We were both pretty disappointed so we walked over to Iceskimo – now THAT was a good choice. I’d never been to Iceskimo before, but it was tasty. It’s shaved ice, not ice cream so that’s important to know before you go, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it.
After that, we went down to North Park to see my friend, S, before he moves to Orange County. We checked out JuneShine, which is a newly opened Hard Kombucha place. Really good. Cute place. Great music. 10/10 would recommend.
I was still feeling pretty awake so I went with the group to Coin Op Game Room and stayed out much later than planned. When I finally got home, the boyfriend was watching a show on Netflix called American Vandal and I sat and watched multiple episodes of that before finally going to bed.
What I’m Reading:
Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferris (Finished! Review coming soon!)
The Book That Matters Most by Ann Hood (Finished! Review coming soon!)
Give and Take by Adam Grant (Almost Done!)
What I’m Listening To:
What I’m Watching:
Check out American Vandal on Netflix.
What I’m Loving:
Had some really great epiphanies this week – will share more in next week’s blog!
