The Mental Funny Bone

Episode 38: The Year in Review

• Gaster Girls • Season 4 • Episode 2

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In this special Christmas episode of 'The Mental Funny Bone,' Sarah and Christine celebrate their final episode of the year with laughs and a heartfelt review of their journey. They discuss taking a two-week break before returning rejuvenated in 2025. The hosts share amusing anecdotes, such as Sarah’s experience with Dan Harris’s meditation session and Christine’s exploration of different meditation techniques. They delve into the importance of not worrying about others' opinions and the benefits of meditation and self-improvement. The episode wraps up with reflections on their successful year of podcasting, their goals for the future, and maintaining a sense of humor amidst life's challenges.

How to find mental health help when you're struggling. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists
https://washingtoncountyhumanservices.com/agencies/behavioral-health-developmental-services
https://www.alleghenycounty.us/Services/Human-Services-DHS/Publications/Resource-Guides
Apps - Just search mental health where you get your apps.
EAP programs are a great place to look for help!!

Additional Resources (Sports Related):
https://globalsportmatters.com/health/2020/12/04/mental-health-resources-2/

Sarah:

Hello, and welcome to the Mental Funny Bone. I'm Sarah

Chris:

And I'm Christine, and neither of us is, medical, mental health professionals. we are, however, very gifted at, providing insights into how, we can be better people.

Sarah:

gifted. Yes, I like it. I like them. and welcome to the special Christmas episode. Yay.

Chris:

Huzzah! We've

Sarah:

we,

Chris:

it!

Sarah:

yeah. So today I'm going to just give them a little rundown. Today's going to be a tiny bit different. because this will actually be the last episode of the year. we're going to take the last couple of weeks of December. I'll say off, but that's not really what's happening. We're going to

Chris:

You can say off. You can say off. We don't need to let them behind the curtain that much. We're going to take two weeks off.

Sarah:

we're going to take two weeks off and then we'll be back, back and even better in 2025.

Chris:

I'm going to read the text I sent you minutes ago.

Sarah:

Okay.

Chris:

take your time. I'm playing games on my phone because I give the fuck up with this year already.

Sarah:

And to which I responded, you almost made it through the whole year, so I feel like you're not really giving up like all that early or you give up on 2025 already. question mark.

Chris:

And I said, I'm going to make 2025 my bitch. So I am going to rest up a bit and then come back and tackle this with a new sense of vigor and purpose. also just, just to confirm the Michael Gervais book, Gervais, Jervas,

Sarah:

Whatever. Ava.

Chris:

Jervas,

Sarah:

Sier.

Chris:

Michael Jervasier, his book, Tasting Like Delicious Whiskey,

Sarah:

is, that what Sier is? I have no

Chris:

what's the one that tastes like oranges?

Sarah:

grand Monet

Chris:

That's it. Kervasier and Garmoni are definitely different

Sarah:

I think they're different. I think so. they both end with a,

Chris:

They don't, they put them with R.

Sarah:

you know what I mean, Dick?

Chris:

Anyway, Michael Gervais, The Art of Mastery, The First Rule of Mastery, The Art of Not Giving a Fuck About the Mastery of Other People. Whatever book this is.

Sarah:

it's the first rule of mastery, not worrying about what people think of you.

Chris:

Exactly.

Sarah:

Bingo.

Chris:

I read the part one of it, and it's really good, and when we get into that in the new year, we're going to be, citing Jumbo and quoting him a lot, cause this book is almost all about how nobody gives a shit about you.

Sarah:

I love it. Which I should, real quick make a shout out to my husband, because he did say to me the other day, Hey, and this is me paraphrasing. So when he hears it, he won't tell me that's not what I said. But he said, Hey, just so you know, you guys talk about nobody caring and, like I care.

Chris:

Oh, no,

Sarah:

And I, said, that's not exactly, you're missing the point and not in a mean way. I didn't say it. I probably did say in a mean way. Shit. It's that's not what it's not caring. We know that you care and we love you for that. We know that you care. And my dad cares. it's just the fact it's more nobody like that stranger out there doesn't give a fuck what you look like in those pants.

Chris:

No,

Sarah:

You should be more worried about how they're pinching your own belly.

Chris:

Yes, that is the whole premise of this book. Is that you can up your performance and you can up your mental well being by understanding that you need to focus on the stuff that you have control over. And people's opinions about what you're doing do not fall into that category. And, I read some stuff today about how you're limiting what you can do in the world if you're always afraid, to try something because you think someone will think it's dumb or stupid.

Sarah:

Amen. Amen. Hey, I have, I know that we talked a little bit about what you're going to jabber about on this call, but, I just wanted to throw out there that we have to discuss how Dan Harris loves me and said my name.

Chris:

Oh my god, yes. Do that now. Do that now.

Sarah:

So this goes along the lines of, how much you limit yourself if you're afraid to do shit because you're afraid of what you're going to look like. I am super, super good at not saying shit cause I don't want to sound dumb. like I do it at work. And even when I say a shit, I'll be like, this might sound dumb. I'm sorry. if this is stupid. so I need to start, stop doing that. But anyway, I'm on the Substack app, with Dan Harris. And, last Wednesday, I believe it was, I don't know, last week, he put a little note out there to all of his followers that he was going to do a live meditation session and then, answer some questions. And he asked us, on his post in Substack to, throw out any questions that we had for him. And so I was like, Oh, that would be cool. Like I have 8, 000 of them, but all of them are dumb. That's that was my exact thought like I can't like they're all stupid. They're all really elementary and super basic Like he's gonna want to answer that shit. And then I thought wow I just read about this last night that I shouldn't be doing this and I'm limiting myself. you know what fuck this shit I'm gonna get sweaty palms and I'm gonna write a question right out here for everybody to fucking see and I did, and then I got on the live meditation the following day and did a live meditation with Dan Harris. That's so fun. And then he read my question and answered it out loud.

Chris:

and he said your name.

Sarah:

He said, my name, he said, this one's from Sarah. And then he said, I don't know you, but it sounds like you're doing everything right so far. Just keep doing what you're doing.

Chris:

There you go. You can't ask for more than that.

Sarah:

my hands are sweating a little bit just talking about it, but. it's really cool because I did some shit that, scares the shit out of me. keep doing it because the reward of that was really awesome. not only hearing my name, and having to watch it later, the recording, cause I didn't hear what he answered. Cause I was so excited that he read my question.

Chris:

I'm like, I can't listen anymore.

Sarah:

I literally went, Oh, anyway, but it was really, it was just a really cool experience and it's something just, joining that meditation, I wasn't even going to do because I, again, felt like I didn't belong there cause I'm new and I'm dumb and all of that shit. But, I'm super glad I participated in it and I highly suggest Christine or anyone else that's following Dan Harris on Substack that, you participate next time. It's really, it was really cool.

Chris:

that is amazing. And, while we're on Dan Harris, while we're on the meditation, while we're on trying to be 10 percent happier in our lives, How is your practice going? Your meditation practice? how are you faring this week?

Sarah:

I would like to, so a couple of things, need to do better when I don't exercise because that's when I meditate every day is right after I exercise and I don't exercise every day. Like the weekends I don't exercise. So then I get lost. So I need to do better. and one of the questions I asked Dan Harris.

Chris:

I was just raising my finger to write down a point.

Sarah:

okay. So I'll Continue. Okay. So I'll continue. So one of the questions I asked Dan Harris was how many times he meditates and if he schedules it and he thinks blah, blah, blah. so what I would like to start doing is do a little bit of meditation in the morning and a little bit of meditation before I go to bed. just small little things. so I've been doing the regular 10 minutes like during the week, but I'm not doing it during the weekend. So I need to I need to get into the habit of doing it seven days a week. And doing that morning and night and then maybe in between a little bit here and there

Chris:

Stop

Sarah:

and I am

Chris:

Whatever you're tapping is really loud in my ears.

Sarah:

wow That's funny because I wasn't even tapping anything But it's funny that you say tapping because my next thing was going to be I've been trying the tapping meditation

Chris:

What? That's weird.

Sarah:

Michelle mentioned it when we did our interview with her I forget the, it's called EFT, I think. And it's not electronic funds transfer. emotional something, anyway. check it out online. I. a little, I'm still trying to, I dig it like I'm still trying to get there, but it's the thing. Do you remember she was

Chris:

Oh yeah. Thank you.

Sarah:

So here's your tapping. Yeah. So you're

Chris:

I don't hear that at all.

Sarah:

you're tapping here, you're tapping here, you're tapping here, and it's doing like affirmations. if you're having an anxious day, so you can say, all right, I'm feeling very anxious. I'm feeling very anxious. Yes. But. Even though I'm anxious, I love myself. Like it goes through it. Like you're basically forgiving yourself, for the things that you're annoyed with or for what you don't like about yourself. what was the other one? Just, what's it called? When I'm mean to myself. when I say I'm dumb,

Chris:

mean to myself.

Sarah:

yeah. So it has a, there's a shit ton of them on, what's it called? YouTubes on the YouTubes.

Chris:

On the YouTubes,

Sarah:

So I've been, so I tried that. I would like to give it a few more times before I say, I'm not sure it's my thing. But I'm giving it a try. So all in all, all in all, everything's going well. I would like to up my game.

Chris:

Yeah, how do you up your game? Do you just meditate longer, meditate more frequently? Is that how you're

Sarah:

That's My plan My plan is to not increase the,

Chris:

Duration?

Sarah:

but to increase the, the sessions, frequencies, that's it. So that's what I was looking for. I would like to do, in the morning and in the evening and maybe throw a little five minutes and those morning and evening ones, I'd like to just stick with the 10 minutes. Cause I feel like I'm doing pretty good there. I also saw a gentleman and you could take note of this too. you don't have to take note of it. I already did. I, on my favorite, morning talk show, Good Morning America, Robin Roberts and George Stephanopoulos, or as I say in my head, George Snuffleupagus,

Chris:

do. We all do.

Sarah:

they were, talking about, trans. Fuck, I wrote it down and I know I didn't spell it And therefore I can't remember Transcendental Divine

Chris:

Transcendental.

Sarah:

Yeah, something like that. a guy named Bob Roth. So I was like, Ooh, is that, I was like, Ooh, is that Mike Tyson saying Bob Ross? No, guy's name is Bob Roth. R O T H. But I cannot say it now without thinking about Mike Tyson that interview he did and walked away and his ass was showing. anyway, and he has. And his, they were talking about strength and stillness meditation. And he talked about a bunch of really cool stuff that I want to look up there is on Friday, 1220. It is some tour, some sort of meditation day that I meant to look up before we started. talking, but I didn't get a chance to. And the initiative that he works on is Meditate America, which from what I grasp, again, I wanted to look it up, but I didn't get a chance. Meditate America is an initiative to, work with insurances.

Chris:

Oh, is this still Bob Roth?

Sarah:

Yes. yes.

Chris:

this is why we shouldn't have a podcast. Because this poor guy, he didn't do anything wrong. He didn't do anything that.

Sarah:

Yeah. The name's just while we're off. That's it.

Chris:

Listen, some people have speech impediments, some people stutter.

Sarah:

So anyway, there's that. of shit that we have to look into, but that's what I saw on Good Morning America today. And George and Robin were talking about their meditation and how they meditate. And,

Chris:

oh sure.

Sarah:

George made a statement that I thought was really cool and they were talking about how people said they don't have time to do it. And George was like, I think it gives me extra time because I'm calmer and I'm more And I'm not focusing on things that I should not be focusing on that are out of my control and it gives me a much better perspective. And therefore I feel like I have more time in my day.

Chris:

I think executives will tell you that same thing. there, there is still the same amount of time in the day. whether or not you're doing things that are productive for you, or if you're pissing around on the internet comparing the quality of digital calendars.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Chris:

Like both of these are things that can get done during the day, but, if you're meditating, you're probably making it so that you're more focused, more productive, more efficient. That is the way that I'm starting to look at, exercising. So I felt amazing. every day this week, these two days where I have done the yoga, where I've done the yoga before work

Sarah:

Yeah.

Chris:

and. I'm getting back into the groove and it, it always, surprises me how much I like to do it and then how easy it is for me to not do it. I don't know what part of my brain forgets, I don't know.

Sarah:

part of the brain that, that. deteriorates during sleep. So what part of brain is that? Cause it. happens like I've been, I've been working out midday, like during my lunch break. I, it, my afternoons are great, but then my morning, like I'm in my PJs all morning and it's mostly because I'm lazy and really like to sleep. And so I sleep to the last minute, get up and work in my PJs, then go work out. but my doctor, gave me a prescription for some vitamin D. Yeah,

Chris:

that is so funny. My, my friend Maggie B, you might remember Maggie B and, Jeandog, they both texted me yesterday, to see about, supplements. That maybe Olivia and I had any exposure to while we've been going on our sort of mental health journeys. apparently one of the children refuses to see the counselor or take any medication. So they're trying maybe, at least something to help with a bit of relief. Maggie B had asked me about, B12 vitamins. And I'm like, Olivia takes one every day because it turns out that she doesn't have enough in

Sarah:

yeah.

Chris:

blood or lymph nodes or inside, whatever part of the body stores the B12, there's not enough there. and she finds that's pretty helpful. Like she can tell the difference B12 supplements.

Sarah:

Yeah. That's what I'm pretty sure it's a vitamin. I have, I didn't pick it up yet. but it's some sort of supplement that will make me not super sleepy all the time.

Chris:

right. B12 also in Red Bull, so I'll just drink like four of those sugary drinks a day and feel the same. I'm, again, I have to feel, I feel the need to remind the people, we are not medical professionals. We will exchange texas, texts, with our roommates from high school, or college, about this shit, but we don't know, I don't even know where you keep B12, like you keep it in your liver? is it a spleen? I was a math major, y'all.

Sarah:

haven't, I haven't a clue, have not, haven't a clue. I just said the doctor, I'll brag a little cause apparently my cholesterol is phenomenal. I phenomenal

Chris:

The best cholesterol. These cholesterol numbers have not been seen in a middle aged woman such as yourself in

Sarah:

ever. No, ever. That's how good it is. that's how good it is. It's the best. anyway, yeah, I got, my blood work is really awesome. and in the last two years, which is, When I last two years is when I've lost the weight. So I have lost 60 pounds in the last two years. So we were comparing my blood work from 2022 to 2024 and in 2022, I'm pretty sure everything was off the charts. And my sugar was off the charts. My cholesterol was terrible. Like everything that you could possibly be awful was awful. And now like last year it got better, and was still all in good range, but now it's like fucking amazing. So yay for me. but the doctor asked me any other concerns and I was like, no, I feel pretty good. except for I don't know if it's the time change that it just really having a tough time with. And I said, I'm not sad, I'm not depressed. It's not that. But I could sleep for probably 22 hours a day. So

Chris:

she said, yeah, how about some orange juice? Oh

Sarah:

she was like, let's look at some vitamins. So she sent me in some vitamins. I have to go to the pharmacy to pick them up anyway.

Chris:

you get them, they're Flintstone shaped so badly.

Sarah:

Me too. And they're chewable and they taste like the Flintstones. that would be, and then I'd OD on them. I was always afraid when I was little, I was going to OD on them because I would just like to eat them because they tasted good.

Chris:

delicious. That's how you get kids to take vitamins.

Sarah:

you have some meditation story.

Chris:

I do. So I am, oh, I know why I wrote that down. I am using an app for my meditation journey. So I'm using an app called Waking Up. And it is, the brainchild of a guy named Sam Harris, who then I fell into a giant hole. I'm like, how are these two bitches related? And, they're not.

Sarah:

They're not,

Chris:

They're not, they've talked, there's like interviews with, Dan and Sam, but they don't, they're not related.

Sarah:

I

Chris:

so disappointed. So disappointed. I, he probably was. Cause everybody was on that podcast at one point or another. But these are like. Meditations and then you get, you get some lessons on meditation. So it's not just sit down and meditate and do what I say. It's sit down and meditate and then let's talk about why we do this particular thing in meditation and what that kind of brings to the table. And.

Sarah:

I like that.

Chris:

it's the thing that i've been listening to In the shower instead of a podcast like the little lessons are like individual nuggets and you can have an entire playlist of different things like how to Not be so worried about what your clothes look like or how to do this particular thing. They're in like little chunks like that. really nice. But Saturday's meditation, I'm sitting down and I had just done yoga in the living room. So I'm sitting down like cross legged on my little yoga mat, my little hands up ready to accept the messages from the earth or whatever. See if I can get one of these drones from New Jersey to come and land on my hands, whatever it takes. And this meditation starts out, like all, like they all do, they're like, Oh, close your eyes. Concentrate on when you feel your breath. associate some sort of meaning to your breath. count it or call it a name. recognize the thoughts. Try to create the space of consciousness. And then he was talking about the space of consciousness. Like we tend to think about that as the stuff behind our eyes. The stuff that's inside of our head. And he's okay now open your eyes and he's like everything in your field of vision is also your consciousness He's so don't get so stuck in the fact that your consciousness is just the shit that happens inside of your head Your consciousness is everything that is happening around you Your consciousness is your interpretation of the signals that your brain is getting And I thought that was the craziest thing that I had ever heard and I was like, whoa, whoa wait, dude, I'm looking at a fucking Christmas tree, this isn't my consciousness, and then, I thought about it for half a second after I was arguing with the voice in my head, and I was like, no, it's absolutely right, because this is how my eyes, how the nerves, and the light are being interpreted by my dumbass brain. So it puts a new perspective on trying to get in touch with your consciousness. I'm always in touch with the consciousness, right? Like I'm always trying to take things in and understand and interpret what's happening, just like my eyeballs are doing that with the image of the Christmas tree. It was, I don't think I'm explaining it all that great,

Sarah:

No, I am it makes sense to me. But yeah, I get what you're saying.

Chris:

I was like, wow, yeah, that's like the reality that I live in every day is a construct of what my brain is creating. And if I can choose to have my brain interpret things in a slightly different way, then my reality changes. And I was like, that is pretty effing profound.

Sarah:

Awesome.

Chris:

that is cool. That is something that a nerd like me can hang their head on, rather than going kumbaya all the time, and trying to figure out more of the fluffy stuff. I'm like, and even like talking about consciousness, I was like, what kind of hippy dippy bullshit have I wandered into?

Sarah:

Yeah.

Chris:

the beginning of me arguing with it was like, no, that's a Christmas tree, I can clearly see it.

Sarah:

Yeah, it's hot. It's tough to get past that.

Chris:

I don't know. It's awesome. I'm

Sarah:

But once you do it's. wow, how cool is that?

Chris:

popped up like multiple times this week. Like this morning I'm in the yoga class and I'm like, I'm going to put my foot down that my foot's tired. Like I'm tired. I'm not gonna be able to hold this pose. And I was like, no, that's just your brain. That's just an interpretation of your reality. So why don't you just live in the reality where you keep your foot up? Lazy ass.

Sarah:

Yeah,

Chris:

I was like, there's no need for name calling. I'll just keep my foot up.

Sarah:

Yeah. See here, I'd be like, eh,

Chris:

my foot down like five of the other times, but it was just realizing

Sarah:

But use your brain, like you think about it now. It's not just a, Oh, I don't, I'm not

Chris:

Put my foot down, put

Sarah:

I'm gonna put my foot down. That's fine. You think about it instead of just resigning yourself to oh, okay That's what's happening. Boom. No, but why is that happening? Why am I thinking that what's going on? So there's much more of a thought process and that's why they talk about Controlling that reaction. It's not just immediately reacting. It's back and saying, why am I going to react that way?

Chris:

It was so it was really interesting for me. I will say that I haven't meditated since then. So

Sarah:

that's okay. again, daily ish

Chris:

I'm building a

Sarah:

man, Dan Harris says all the time. Daily ish. So you just have to, you know, do

Chris:

a practice. I have to give it another hook. Like taking my medicine gets hooked to drinking the coffee. Cause that's something I literally do every day. And It used to be like when I was doing the yoga at home in my living room, I would just sit there for another five minutes because of inertia. I'm like, if I just sit here, I can do the meditation. Now I gotta find, I gotta find a better hook for the meditation.

Sarah:

Yeah. I think that's where I am.

Chris:

brushing my teeth? Is it just sitting down in my office chair and literally spinning it around away from the monitors and cameras and shit and looking at my Hogwarts castle made out of Legos?

Sarah:

Fun.

Chris:

that wouldn't hurt anybody. Maybe. I'll have to go back to my atomic habits and see if I can build one, around this meditation practice.

Sarah:

That's what I was going to say. It goes back to the habit stacking.

Chris:

Man, we covered a lot of territory this year.

Sarah:

We sure did. And I thought of something earlier that I was like, Ooh, I want to talk about that as part of our 2024 review that I think I just decided that we're doing, but I can't remember.

Chris:

Is it letting go of enough of the feedback that we get that isn't awesome and positive? And being able to show up every week and continue to do this, even on some weeks where I'm like, this is the dumbest thing we've ever decided to do. No one listens. No one wants to hear this bullshit.

Sarah:

I think that's pretty fucking cool. What I wanted to do, like how many we've done an episode every week

Chris:

Every week.

Sarah:

March

Chris:

Mhm. April.

Sarah:

pretty effing awesome, right?

Chris:

It is pretty cool. we are amazing in our consistency.

Sarah:

and we're going to get amazing in every, not everything, but in, in other shit too.

Chris:

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to doubling down and understanding that some of the stuff that we talked about in the beginning, like if you remember performance driven and purpose driven, some of that stuff is really gonna come front and center for us, the two of us, I think, in the new year. When we look at, when we look at why we keep doing this and we look at What do we really want to accomplish? And I think at the beginning, at least for me, I was like, I want to accomplish a bunch of people laughing at what I have to say. I want to accomplish a bunch of people liking what I do. I want to accomplish, having a thousand followers and being able to sell merch and go on tour. I want to be famous. And now I'm like, you know what, it is a lot cooler than that. Like our, when we started, we're like, let's do something that actually has an impact and leaning back on that, it's not about what people think about the podcast. And I like it, you like it. Lots of people have told us that they like it. It's more about what do we want to contribute to the podcasting world? And how do we want to have a positive impact? How do we want to keep Throwing out episodes where at least one person says, Hey, thanks for talking about that. Cause I feel a lot less alone. And that really resonated. And that really gave me something to think about for the whole week. Other than you guys are, you were funny.

Sarah:

are funny. You guys swear a lot.

Chris:

we do swear a lot. Correct. Correct. but I

Sarah:

of it, but I think we help people by being funny.

Chris:

Yeah,

Sarah:

that's who we are.

Chris:

And I think, the. The approach that we take and the interesting thing about us is that we try to Do both those things. We try to be, we try to be funny and we try to approach it with a, with kind of a little, a lighthearted, Hey, let's look at this shit. That's pretty crazy and fucked up and pull out the things that got us through. And a lot of that for both of us was the ability to look at it and at least laugh a little.

Sarah:

Yeah, I can't imagine. Yeah.

Chris:

No, I can't imagine coming home from visiting my child in Western Psych and not being able to call you and be like, they took her underwear and giggle at that. that's just funny. And being able to reset who I am as a person by laughing about some of the things that were happening at that point in my life. Even though, very horrible other stuff was happening, being able to connect with you and connect with David and everyone else who was supportive, that stuff is important in letting other people know that you don't have to suffer by yourself either. you might not be our best friends, but we want to make you laugh,

Sarah:

Yeah, we want to make you laugh and our email is always open for anything.

Chris:

Gastergirls at gmail. com, in case we haven't said it in a couple of episodes.

Sarah:

I don't think we have. I think we gave up.

Chris:

Throw in the towel.

Sarah:

Fuck it.

Chris:

we have, we did get good feedback this week. I will say that I was with a bunch of work people and the work people will occasionally talk about the podcast. And every time I mentioned it, people are like, you should have me on the podcast. And I was like, I definitely should. That would be hilarious. Hilarious. We had, that would have to be a different podcast all about people that I work with, but hilarious.

Sarah:

but cool.

Chris:

But yes, we'll definitely do that. and it's so funny because the as soon as you say what it's about They're like, oh my god. I have had this trauma that I will now share with you and I was like, Yes, maybe you should be on the podcast like legitimately. Maybe you should

Sarah:

Yeah, it's pretty awesome. Pretty awesome. I've, I've been trying this new thing at work where I actually ask people and want to know how they are.

Chris:

Where I'm being actually kind.

Sarah:

yeah, and I, one of the girls, and of course it's not, I work in a support role. I talk to lots of people, not all of them. I'm going to be like, Hey, let's talk. but yeah, one of my coworkers, she was like, Hey Sarah, how are you? And I was like, do you really want to know? I don't care if you want to know, if you want to know, I'll tell you if not, then we'll just solve your problem. Like it's cool. It's totally cool. And I forget whatever it was that I was talking about. And I think mine was just real stupid and brief. And then I said, but how are you? And we ended up talking for 45 minutes maybe and about like serious shit that she was going through and then not just her but some stuff with her daughter and she didn't know we had the podcast. I told her about the podcast and then she actually asked me like a couple questions like for some advice. And

Chris:

Oh, I love it.

Sarah:

it was a really nice conversation and that's the second time that's happened with a coworker just out of saying, yeah, but how are you? And I'm not asking that just because we're on the phone. Like, how are you really? and I just think that, I think that we forget sometimes that we're allowed to do that. And yeah, we're busy with our jobs, but, nothing is more important than taking a minute and talking about what's going on and for real, what's going on, not just, yeah, I'm busy. I'm fine. if that's what you feel you got to do, you got to do, but. If someone wants to open up and talk about, some real life, like we should be there. And we also have the opportunity to open up ourselves.

Chris:

I can say without a doubt, one of the most positive things that's come out of this year is doing this podcast and appreciating being who I am all the time. Do you know what I mean? there's so much, there's so much less need or, opportunity to mask. Who I am when I have to be, I have to be this. this is who I am because I'm talking to you. And it's really hard for me to pretend to be anything else when we're talking and, and sending that out into the world just gives me a basis for how to approach things maybe differently at work than I would have a year ago. Do you know what I mean?

Sarah:

100%. 100%.

Chris:

that is really, truly the gift of doing this podcast, reading the books that we've read, understanding a little bit more about what makes my brain take the way that it does, actually starting therapy instead of talking about how I should go to therapy. all of that. I feel like a completely different and better person than last year. So I didn't intend to do this like a deep dive introspective, episode. This wasn't like a very special episode of the Gaster Girls. I was like, hey,

Sarah:

a real quick one. And

Chris:

let's call it in.

Sarah:

Yeah. Hey, we're done for the year. See ya.

Chris:

Bye bye.

Sarah:

Here we come instead.,this is what

Chris:

But, what a nice way to wrap up. I appreciate everyone that listens, and even if you're listening because you sat next to me at a soccer game and thought I was funny, I'm in. I love it. I can't get enough of, getting the, getting the real person that I am out there for more people to see. It makes me happy.

Sarah:

Yeah. It's been a great year and I would like to point out that all these great things have happened and we haven't really even of course we've tried, we've put our time in and thrown an episode out every week, but like truly for both of us, we haven't really gotten into it. So I am looking forward to, to next year and years to come. I think that we're onto something here and we should probably keep doing it.

Chris:

Yep, I agree. I agree. Yeah, this has been a whole year of, let me figure out what this is for me, and then let's, yeah, I am really looking forward to like I said, doubling down and putting in more work. into what we're putting out there and understanding that we're enough to do that I think is the big takeaway from this year where? At the beginning of the year. I might have been like, oh, yeah, don't it's yeah, it's no big day it's nothing and I think that the two of us are fully capable and You know at a point in our lives where we can do the work And not feel like we have to self deprecate all the time these days. yeah, I'm gonna do the work, I'm gonna put together a good episode, and we're gonna release that, and you guys are gonna like it. And we're still gonna be true to who we are. So I am really looking forward

Sarah:

gonna be funny and we're still gonna say fuck.

Chris:

Jumbo is still our dad, Nita is still our mom.

Sarah:

don't.

Chris:

we can't I don't know. The part of being authentic to who we are is having these hilarious stories.

Sarah:

Yeah. And we'll continue to have them.

Chris:

so I talked to your mom, or I talked to your dad today, and he didn't quite know where your mother was. So

Sarah:

my favorite.

Chris:

he was like, free range Anita.

Sarah:

Free range Anita. There she is,

Chris:

There she

Sarah:

which makes me like, just think of her as a chicken

Chris:

I can

Sarah:

and not the gaster kind of chicken, like the actual

Chris:

Ew, shut up. Ew. Ew. for those of you who might be new to the podcast, when we were growing up our mother called, our vaginas chickens.

Sarah:

So that's something you won't be able to unhear. good luck

Chris:

There you go.

Sarah:

evening. Sorry. Sorry.

Chris:

ha. Fuh. Cheese.

Sarah:

pull out right there, right? Chicken parm. It has that cheese, the ricotta. Yeah, that might have some ricotta. I don't think it has ricotta.

Chris:

Stop it. Alright, we're done. No,

Sarah:

wanted to talk about today? We're not gonna yeah, it was supposed to be a short episode, but yeah. Yeah.

Chris:

we have to cut out all the pauses in the places where we say, and 10, 000 times. So they usually eight minutes of a 40 minute episode is us going, yeah, but,

Sarah:

And I've realized that ends up cutting out like a word in our last episode. It cut out, there were at least three spots that I was like, fuck it cut out what I actually needed to say. Fuck.

Chris:

you just have to use your context clues, guys. We'll get better at that in the new year too.

Sarah:

It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. All right. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Merry Kwanzaa.

Chris:

Oh.

Sarah:

What else is

Chris:

before we go, I bought all the ingredients to make the Chex Mix, so

Sarah:

I love that Christmas Chex Mix.

Chris:

I will be having Chex Mix for every meal from now until January 5th.

Sarah:

I actually just like the darker Chex.

Chris:

The wheat

Sarah:

like the thinner, darker, if you could just make me a batch of just that.

Chris:

Oh, that is actually a fantastic idea because it is also my favorite. I don't know why I want to continue to put myself on the wheat checks hunt like digging around through the stick pretzels

Sarah:

like you're making it so you can make it whatever you want. and that, those are my favorite. Like they seem to collect all the goodness a little bit better than the rest of them.

Chris:

they

Sarah:

Like everything else. Like peanuts. Peanuts don't collect anything. Like they're just worth it. They just take up space.

Chris:

Yeah, they're worthless see the peanuts are I don't know i'm gonna put cashews in mine because they're tastier so

Sarah:

Ooh. Cool. I

Chris:

Class they should join up a little bit. So

Sarah:

When we were little, when we lived in Elizabeth, one of the snacks, one of the snacks I would make, because I loved the Chex Mix so much, like whatever we had, maybe it was just chips sometimes, I would take the Worcestershire sauce because that's how you, right? And I would take the Worcestershire sauce and mix it in with butter and, seasoned salt. And, exactly. That's the, and I would dip shit in it. that was My dip. I would make a dip out of that. Or I would just throw, Oh, I put it on popcorn.

Chris:

My god. My god.

Sarah:

I used to also take butter and mix it with sugar and just eat spoonfuls of it.

Chris:

I don't know why we'd have a problem with cholesterol or weight in our later years at all.

Sarah:

Mom, I want a sweet snack. Just get some sugar and butter. I'm fairly certain she never said that, but they definitely never stopped me from doing it. I also used to use toothpicks and mommy's lighter to roast baby marshmallows.

Chris:

I don't know what to say to that one. I don't think I was in the home when that was happening. we were feral. I mean, and our parents really cared about what happened to us. We were still feral.

Sarah:

this I mean I may have been doing that shit like late night like when I came home and they were already in bed. So lord knows what I was doing before I came home.

Chris:

Mer, we don't know because we were out in a field with a keg somewhere.

Sarah:

We were my

Chris:

You're a Mount Vernon.

Sarah:

A friend of mine and I were recently talking about the kids just smoking the weed pens. I was like, these kids have it so easy or they're totally missing out. Like they have, they don't know what a resin ball is.

Chris:

Not talking about this. I have a job.

Sarah:

you are no fun, whatever.

Chris:

But kids these days do not understand.

Sarah:

no, we had to work for it back in the day.

Chris:

Oh my God, I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about, but yes, we did.

Sarah:

We sure did. Separate shit out.

Chris:

other Gasser family traditions. I also brought all of the board games upstairs so we can play board games.

Sarah:

Good, good. I'm excited.

Chris:

Yeah, all ready for And I've also talked about the Feast of the Seven Fishes. Even though we're really bad at being Catholic and

Sarah:

Is it Catholic? I thought it was just Italian.

Chris:

no, they're same. Same. I think

Sarah:

Okay.

Chris:

hard for me to separate the two

Sarah:

Like I thought the Feast of Seven Fishes was just Italian, like I thought that was an Italian tradition, not so much just Catholic, but I

Chris:

the Catholic part is, the Catholic part is that you're not supposed to eat meat on Christmas Eve. That's the Catholic part.

Sarah:

thought that was

Chris:

are like. No, that's Good Friday. That's Lent. It's also Christmas. Oh my God, you're so much worse at being Catholic than I am. Probably because you converted. Yeah. so I remember the one year your dad was like, you know what? since we're not that Catholic and fish is horrible. And the one year you're the libertini side of the family fed us spaghetti sauce with canned tuna in it. Which I can still, like that was that pause is both of us like tasting it.

Sarah:

was both of us throwing up in our mouths

Chris:

I know and

Sarah:

I would rather eat chicken and talk about and refer to it as a vagina while I was eating it. Then think about tuna fish pasta.

Chris:

And I think they didn't tell us That the pasta sauce had tuna in it until you took like a mouthful and by that point you had a shit ton of it on your plate because it was normally delicious meat sauce and now you're stuck and now you're trying to find a way to get rid of this food on your plate without actually consuming tuna fish pasta but I think your dad came up with the idea of let's do instead of seven fishes let's do seven meats

Sarah:

yeah, I think, that was pretty recent. That wasn't

Chris:

no that was definitely post children for both of

Sarah:

Yeah, that was pretty recent. I should mention, just because Noah loves this story, to real, not real, cause we're really Italian, but to fancy Italians, the feast of the seven fishes is like a really good meal, because they have like lobster and the calamari and like the Fancy fish. I like to call ours. It's the Ghetto Seven Fishes. literally

Chris:

Smelts.

Sarah:

it's a can of smelts. We have the tuna fish pasta, which is literally just red sauce with tuna, canned tuna in it.

Chris:

it's bad in your brain,

Sarah:

it's worse. It's worse. in person. the anchovy pasta, I dig. I like the anchovy pasta, but I like the anchovies, so that works out. And it was really Just whatever daddy could order from market day for a while. It's like the pecan crusted,

Chris:

Oh, tilapia. Tilapia. Tilap.

Sarah:

anything you could like Gordon's fish sticks.

Chris:

Seven fishes, kids. We're

Sarah:

But the, the story that Noah loves to tell is in his mind, the seven fishes was the lobster, the calamari, the really good fish. And I talked about the seven fishes and he was coming to our house. and he, it was really bad. It was a really bad experience. It did not go as he thought it was going to go.

Chris:

did you guys have to stop at like fast food on the way home?

Sarah:

Yeah. I don't really remember cause I'm sure I was drunk when we left, but I'm fairly certain we, got in the car and he was like, what in the fuck was that? What was

Chris:

Hello. Welcome. Welcome to our feast of the seven meats now. And we had like prosciutto and

Sarah:

much

Chris:

spicy ham, capicola,

Sarah:

Yeah, super set. Oh Noah's coming in

Chris:

salami.

Sarah:

us talking about the food or you're coming in to tell us to stop? Noah is telling me it's wrong. I think what are you talking about is wrong?

Chris:

doesn't matter. Oh,

Sarah:

he thought there was still,

Chris:

right. No.

Sarah:

I never said seven fishes. I just said, we're going to go eat Italian food. And he was like, yeah, boy. no. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's what my sister asked if we stopped. Yeah. So I guess we stopped somewhere on the way home. Yeah. Yeah. So there's Noah, everybody.

Chris:

Noah!

Sarah:

So he left now. I love that he's, he, I think he just sits out there and listens to us record. He said, it's the first time I was at home. Okay. Anyway. All right. Let's wrap her up.

Chris:

Yep, I think that's it. you guys, we love you. We appreciate you. we can't wait to, do better next year. Not that we're doing bad, but we can't wait to, really do some good stuff. We're excited about it.

Sarah:

Amen. All

Chris:

Alright, I'm gonna hit the stop button. Love you.

Sarah:

Love you. Bye.

Chris:

Love you. Bye. Wait, I gotta turn my mouse on. Hold

Sarah:

Where's my mouse?

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Christine Kanalis

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Sarah Leibhart

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