It’s tough for me to hold down a job when I’m not used to working. Now that depression has loosened its grip on me for the moment, I’m going to make the most of it while I can. I’ll do what I can, when I can, so that when I can’t, it won’t be such a big deal.
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Job Challenges, Personal Growth, Shopify, SEO Strategies, Marketing, Communication, Boss, Website Optimization, Title Tags, Alt Text, Images, ChatGPT, User Engagement, Modernizing, Outdated Elements, Work-Life Balance, Morning Routine, Weight Loss, Family Dynamics, Entertainment, Technical Struggles, Computer Upgrade
Full Transcript:
00:00 – James (Host)
Welcome to Outliving Depression. I’m your host, james Kennison, reminding you that depression is a liar. You have value even when you’re broken, and you are stronger than you feel you are. This is my audio journal where I am striving to outlive depression. I always like to start with a weekly update, and Jen told me yesterday I don’t know we were just sitting there talking and talking about grocery bills and she just happened to mention that she spends so much less money on food than she used to, solely because of my surgery and the fact that I don’t eat nearly as much anymore. I don’t drink sodas, and sodas have apparently almost tripled in price since, uh covid. She doesn’t have to buy snacks and ice creams and all kinds of stuff like that, and that is a blessing to me, because I didn’t always have a job and but you know, because of the depression, and I always felt like I was a leech on the family, and so not only um do I have a job, but even if I didn’t, I would be benefiting the family because I’m taking up less resources. So that’s really neat, and I usually like my weekly updates to be funny. Let me try to make them funny. Let’s see, I used to be a fat monster that ate everybody else’s meals, and now I’m not. It’s not funny. It’s funny to me.
01:44
All right, our main topic today is I want to tell you about my job. Finally, I think I’ve found a job that I can enjoy and see myself staying at for quite a while. I told you about it last time. It’s such a random thing that within an hour and a half’s time two hours I went from unemployed to fully employed. It’s really good. It’s really good.
02:10
I never thought I would ever work in web design again, but I’m actually really good at it. I’m running a Shopify website and there has been quite a learning curve, if only because there have been so many hands in that pie, so many cooks in that kitchen, that you can’t depend on something being done the same way twice. So there are some pages that need to be edited through an app that was installed God knows when. Sometimes the web pages that need to be edited are hand-coded and thank God I know how to do that. Other times, I don’t know. You have to get in and edit the theme, and that is stretching it. For me, is coding Just anything beyond basic CSS and HTML? I am a lost cause. I don’t know, I just have a mental block against it.
03:06
But you guys know my history. I’ll recap it for you. My first job after just coming up for air from 10 years of depression was at Chick-fil-A and I did that job solely to see if I could handle a job, and it turned out I could. It was a bit rough there for a while and you guys that go back through and especially episode my Pleasure I think I talk about it a lot. It was hard to wear a uniform. It was very humbling.
03:41
You know I was working for people that were much younger than me. There was, you know, it was mostly a people that were much younger than me. There was, you know, it was mostly a good experience but there was some stress involved. Then I stepped from that into a job trying to do coloring books for a guy that turned out to be crazy. I worked there for a day and I got a job at a hat manufacturing company and I did a month of training and learned how to design caps and it was one of the most fun jobs in the world, except for my boss was a bully and I basically told him that and he fired me. Then my next job I got more recently was at Fast Signs and it was a wonderful job. I loved the mixture of being active, you know, producing and installing signs, getting to run errands and drive and do things, but also getting to sit down and design things. So it was a good mix. Plus, it was a new shop and I was putting in shelving and doing a lot of handyman stuff that I hadn’t tapped into for a while.
04:50
But the boss was borderline personality disorder and he would scream at my coworkers and every now and then it would bleed over to me, but most of the time I would try to step in between him and one of my good friends and I quit because he told somebody that he could get an effing robot to do his job. As he was screaming it and, matter of fact, me and those guys, we had a little party when they finally were able to quit. They called me and I came and we sat down in a bar and they had their drinks and I celebrated with them with my water. So anyway, now I’m at a printing and digital printing, a screen printing and digital printing supply company here in St Louis, and I just finished my third week and everybody is nice. Still, there is one lady that I’ve heard go off on other ladies, but she doesn’t seem to go off on guys and she seems to like me. So that’s always good, because I don’t like getting yelled at.
06:10
And then my boss is the VP and I work very closely with him. I get all my orders directly from him onto what to do on the website and stuff like that. And, um, I had a couple of moments this week where he got a little testy and you know, I knew it would happen. Eventually. You know, the honeymoon phase is over, but it’s just, it’s all having to do with communication and me either misunderstanding or him not giving enough information, or him not giving enough information. So, rather than blame him, though, my tack is I’m going to start asking better questions and learn how to communicate with him better.
06:56
So, for instance, my Georgia instincts is to come into his office and start giving him context for what I’m about to ask him, you know. And then I ask him well, he has flatly told me he wants me to get to the point, and I said well, I’m trying to give you context. He says, if I need context, I’ll ask for it, and I’m like okay, that’s great, you know. So, again, not a bad thing. I want to be of. Uh, you know, I want to be the best I can be, and if he needs me to speak more plainly than I’m comfortable with, it’s actually less work, right? So I’ve just been going in and saying, hey, I need this, and most of the time it’s just a fine thing, it’s a wonderful thing.
07:39
This is the same guy that came by later that same day and said you know, I thanked him for he got me a keyboard, a mouse and a desk pad and I said thank you so much for this. This has really been great to have these new things, because I told you, my old stuff had dust and dirt and grime all over it. And he got me new stuff and he says do you need anything else, a desk or anything? I was like, no, no, I love this old desk. Thing’s older than I am. He says, well, if you do need anything he leaned in If you do need anything, please let me know. And I’m just like, wow, and I think I’m having a. I think slowly. Well, I’ll just say it this way jen says that I’m probably the smartest person that they’ve had in that position for a while and now I don’t. That’s. That’s jen being generous and being nice. Um, they probably hasn’t haven’t had anybody that cares as much as I do in that place and that knows enough about what people I know.
08:47
Seo, search engine optimization I know how to run a website. I’ve been doing it for years and I’m so eager to learn that I can find anything I don’t know, and I’m pretty smart in that I can solve most of my own problems, or at least I can find out what needs to be fixed, even if I can’t fix it myself. Like I said, with code and stuff like that, so far there hasn’t been anything that needed to be changed on that website that I haven’t been able to track down and figure out how to do, and that’s saying a lot. Like I said, there was a lot of people that have messed with this website in various ways, whatever was most comfortable for them, and I’ve had to memorize. If I want to change you know such and such a page I’m going to have to go through this app or I’m going to have to weave in and find out how to edit the code directly, and it’s been good. But I’m constantly kind of concerned that I’m going to run out of things to do on this website, but I find myself pushing myself and pushing myself and going through the pages and going through the articles. And he even sent me a page full of SEO stuff. They had an SEO quote. Unquote guru. Go through their website and most of it’s bull crap. Got an SEO quote. Unquote guru. Go through their website and most of it’s bull crap.
10:13
He says there’s two text or title tags in each web page. And yeah, that’s just the way Shopify sets it up. There’s a title page or a title tag for the title at the top of the browser window, but then there’s something called a Twitter title that is used for Twitter and that’s totally fine and not redundant and anyway. But he does have some good points. Like, every image on that website has over 100 characters in the alt tag. Now, alt text tag is supposed to be for folks who use screen readers, so if there’s an image, the screen reader will tell them oh, this is a picture of a dump truck, you know, and it’s a picture of your mom, your mom’s butt. But in this case it also works a little bit in an SEO way you know way, because there’s keywords in there. Way, you know way, because there’s keywords in there.
11:08
Well, these guys went in and chopped it full of law of, of, of keywords, of the business name and the products they give, and totally at the expense of what the image actually is. And so I uh, on this SEO report. It says you know that so many of the images have over a hundred characters. And so I have started in the multimedia part of this website and just systematically, image by image, going through and updating the alt text tags and mostly just deleting so many keywords and getting them down to where they belong. And it’s a tedious job and there are thousands of images. So I set up about an hour a day and I keep track of what date I got to, because all the images are sorted by the date they were uploaded, and then what file I stopped at so I can start with the next one. So it’s not all glamorous. But I also add products and it’s a big deal. Every product we add is like me adding an episode of the podcast to the website. There’s so much I do when I create a website or a podcast. You know it’s not just editing the audio, doing audio compression, and I also set the volume so it matches with the commercials, so that there’s not a volume difference between the two and you don’t have to turn up or down your radio.
12:47
I upload it to a website. I have to give it a title, a description. I have to post on social media all this kind of stuff. We have alt tags that we used in our images. I have to create images for the show. There’s a lot that goes on and it’s even more so, I would say, with a new product. So he’ll casually just email me. We need to put this product. Here’s a link to the distributor, not the distributor, but the manufacturer’s page.
13:16
I have to find, you know, get the images down and give them tags. I have to write, uh, write a description as SEO friendly description and also a what they call a um meta tag description, where it’s it’s with it between 150 and 160 characters, and I’m not gonna lie, I use I use a lot of chat GPT, so rewrite this SEO friendly and under 150 characters. And uh it, it does it. It helps me so much now. Yes, I go through and I cause it’s a tool and I reread it and I edit it when necessary and all that, but uh, it, it’s really helpful. I write uh, let me call them press releases. I’ve written a press release for the first time and put it up as a blog and send it out to some people. I write blog posts and I do all kinds of stuff. There’s never nothing to do.
14:20
I fixed our 404 page. Now you may not know what a 404 page is, but if you’ve ever tried to go to a website and you hit a 404 page, it means the page doesn’t exist anymore. Maybe it was a link you linked to a long time ago and you go to click on it and there’s nothing there, but it does head to the website. Well, there’s a lot of people. It tracks all the 404s that we get. The website does. It tracks all the 404s that we get, um, the website does.
14:49
And so I go through and I see a lot of people are clicking on links from 10 years ago that they they made and the 404 page just said sorry, go back to shopping. And that button would click through to just like every product they had in the entire store. Very frustrating, right. So I replaced that button with a search bar and said 404 page not found instead of 404 error, because I don’t want the word error on my website, 404 page, not found in small print and big print it says didn’t find what you’re looking for, search here. And I put a search bar in there. So if they were looking for screens you know 10 inch by 11 inch screens they can type that into that search bar and, boom, get right back into the website instead of bouncing back to a search engine or something like that. So I don’t know, I don’t know.
15:37
I’m trying to find little ways to fix things. Like, for instance, this website was set up so long ago and this was so long ago, my friends, that you may not even remember that they used to spell email with a dash e-mail. Some people did this when we didn’t know, when we didn’t know any better. Now we do. It’s just email, you know. So I’ve been going through and every time I find an e-mail I change it to email Sign up for our newsletter. It’s join Lawson News and Updates.
16:12
I got access to MailChimp and I rephrased all of their stuff. They have little warnings that pop up on some products that says this has a flat shipping rate of $100. It’s not going to be reflected in the shopping cart, but we will contact you with more information. Okay, a little archaic, maybe a little old-fashioned, probably could be done, but I’m finding Shopify is very limited to people that want to sell stuff through Pinterest and Instagram. It is not made for an industry like ours, but that is a whole nother ballgame. So we put up a little warning.
16:52
Well, the warning was kind of abrupt, and so were a couple of other things, and so I used ChatGBT. Take this text, make it sound nicer, and it did you know, and it saves me time. Nicer, and it did you know, and it saves me time. And again, if it was sounding too robot-y, I un-roboted it, and it’s really, it’s really great, it’s really great.
17:17
So I’m just going through finding things that need to be repaired and fixing them, and they set me up with a Photoshop and Illustrator, and even though they have a graphic designer, he has been more than happy to let me take product pictures and edit them. Now he checked my work. You know, and rightly so he doesn’t know me from a ball peen hammer, but he checked my work and he’s very happy with the way things are going down. So now I just post away and I just got access to our company Facebook page, so that’s kind of a mixed blessing. I had to use my real account, not a work account, and so now I get. I used to just get notifications when it was my personal Facebook account or one of the show pages. Now I get account notifications for the company, which is kind of annoying because at first I didn’t know and I’m like this person does not look like a person that would watch my show. It was a lady with half purple hair and half black hair and I’m like we appeal to a wide range of people but not these kind of people. Sure enough, she was some sort of super creator that prints t-shirts and stuff and sells them online. Super creative person. Yeah, it’s just not our clientele, or not my clientele, it’s the company’s clientele. But I’m doing good.
18:43
I’m learning a lot SEO tricks that I’m now applying back to my own websites. I’m very ashamed to say that I didn’t know about the 150 to 160 rule on meta tags, it’s what? On meta descriptions, it’s what? Uh shows up when somebody searches for your website in google and if it’s over those two amounts, you get uh, it gets cropped and three little dots show, and so you don’t even get your whole message across. It looks very unprofessional. They tell you you can have up to 300 characters, but between 150 160 is ideal, and so part of my job is to write descriptions that fit within there, and now I’ve started doing that for my podcast as well. Now, the descriptions I will put in the post itself can be as long as I want them to be, but with the help of a little chat, gpt and some personal editing, I can get that joker down between 150, 160 characters, and so it’s going to help me out at home too.
19:49
So, and like I said, I’m learning to communicate with the new boss. One of the things that I’m going to be asking him because the only other thing that happened last week is he told me about something that needed to be changed. He wanted to start selling this product by the case instead of individually. He also wanted to offer options by the case Pack a 20 for a 10% discount. So I, again, I had to get images made, so I used Firefly, which is an AI generator, to create a cardboard box, and then I took existing pictures of the product and put one product in front of my box and to represent a crate, you know a box of these items, and I I made one for every single color variant. It was an ink, basically and I put the prices in and I did the math to do the discounts and then I did a compare at price where I did the full price so that the customer would see when they click on those items that they’re getting a 10% discount, and I put it all up.
20:51
But when he came out and asked me about it, he used different language. He’s like are you getting those sure colors up? And I didn’t know that it was sure color ink that he was talking about. And I’m like, uh, he’s like like with the stuff we were just talking about, we’d talked about three different things and and I said, oh, the yeah, the inks, uh, in the cases. He’s like yes, he had been using the word set. You know, have you got it with the, the sure color, with the sets? Yet? So, totally different language. I wasn’t following. I felt like a dummy.
21:23
But what I pulled away from that is I need to start asking him what the priority is on the jobs, because when I have more than one thing to do, I need to know what. You know what order he wants me to do them in. So that’s one of the ways I’m going to start learning how to communicate with him, because it’s my job. He pays my paycheck. It’s my job to learn how to work with him. Now, that being said, I do address it. Okay, I addressed it with my big boss at the sign shop and I kind of addressed it with him the next day. I said look, I am so sorry. Oh, because there was a menu.
22:02
Something happened with one of the main menus. Okay, I used this app. I was editing the menu. Apparently, I must’ve clicked on something. It reset one of, the, just one of the menus to a default state with default colors that didn’t match the colors of the website.
22:17
And he gets on the phone. He’s like did you edit the website? I said yes, sir, you got to be more specific. And he says the menu. I say which menu? He says well, I’m on service and equipment and I mouse over. I’m like oh, wow, yeah, that’s not good. Did you do that? I’m like no, sir, you didn’t, not on purpose. I said but I’ll get it fixed in like three minutes and I did, and I went in there and I made sure to let him know, even though he was on a call. I just put my thumb up I said it’s fixed, just so he would know that he doesn’t have to get all riled up menu thing. Yeah, just let me know when something’s wrong and I will fix it. I’ll get it done, basically saying you know that you don’t have to worry about stuff when I’m here, you don’t have to overreact or whatever.
23:20
So you know, I’m very positive. I feel good about the job. Of course, I felt good about all the other ones too, uh, but I feel like this is a place I could stay at for a while. Um, the coworkers are very nice. I’m getting to know them, getting to know their names and stuff. Um, and one of the one of the biggest things is they’re just a little more laid back, like I can take time off when I need it. Now, obviously, I’m not getting paid time off yet. I get that after the first year. But one of the perks is, he told me, after 90 days I’m going to get a $2 an hour raise. So yeah, yeah, yeah, life updates.
24:02
I guess I’m ready for glasses. I had my eye surgery, got rid of my cataracts. I went back and they had to blast the back of my corneas or something because there was still some blur and they just zap it away with lasers. So now I can see perfectly well, except for up close, and I need to go and get some glasses. So I’m actually wearing an old pair and they kind of mostly do what I need them to do, but I can tell my prescription has changed.
24:35
The trick is I don’t want to take a bunch of time off from work, so I have been hesitant to do two things. One is to make a hair appointment at the barbershop and the other one is to get these glasses, because I’m scared. I’ll be honest, I’m scared. I’m scared of my boss. He’s very chill, he’s very nice, he’s younger than me, but I have had two bad bosses and I’m just constantly afraid that he’s going to just bring the hammer down, like I asked him something the other day and he just answered it and I said I hate to admit this, but I’ve been waiting a while to ask you. He says. He says, dude, just just talk to me, it’s fine. And I’m like okay, all right, I just got to get used to it. Uh, but I, but I think, like I said, in the big picture, I think I’m growing on him. I think he’s learning that I’m one of the good guys.
25:26
Matter of fact, he came up and told me about a person that was starting Monday and I think she’s going to be his new assistant, and I said, yeah, I heard your last assistant wasn’t really great and he just kind of leaned down. He said, yeah, we were so glad when she left and I said, Lord, may it never be said about me. He said, no, no, you’re fantastic. And I was like, oh, awesome, you know, so it’s a good thing, it’s a good thing.
25:56
But you remember, in my last job I was, I was like, I was like I’m not going to put this boss in a father figure position and that’s not even an issue this time around Like he’s younger than me, I don’t, but I still want to be a good employee. I want to be, I want to have um respect, uh, but mostly I want to be a servant to my boss and my coworkers, and so I actually coworkers, and so I actually I didn’t get in trouble. I just got talked to by one of my coworkers and she let me know how trash works, because they told me that me and Jack are going to alternate taking out trash. So it came at time close to 4.30 and I went around collecting trash from everybody’s offices and putting new bags in and all that. And she says, james, you don’t have to do this. I’m like, no, it’s fine, I don’t mind at all. She says, no, it’s everybody’s job to bring their own trash to the trash can and then it’s one of your jobs to take it out every other week. And I was like I’m just going to take it out every week, I don’t care. So I was doing too much. So I I’m going to chill, but it’s okay, I just want to be a servant, I want to be a good example. So, um, I am down.
27:20
The last time I was talking to you, I was at 205. I’m now down to 202. I was talking to you, I was at 205. I’m now down to 202. This is a wonderful, unexpected thing, because the surgery, uh, at the time of the surgery, I was 300 and gastric sleeve surgery promised to take me down to 230. Uh, my stretch goal was 215. I hit that and passed both of those goals and I’m now down to 202. I will be happy at 200. I’m happy at 202. If it stops at 202, I’m fine. I was fine at 203, but it just it keeps going down.
27:57
I’m not starving myself, I’m not dieting, it’s just how much I eat and I think having a job is really helping because there’s not food all the time. I bring everything that I need to eat for my three meals and, uh, I have a meal at 10. I have a meal at noon and I have a meal at three 30 and I have a dinner. When I get home and, um, there’s not a lot of snacking or the ability to snack, even though there’s a snack machine downstairs. I’m just not interested in sweets anymore. I get my sweets from from fruits and it’s, it’s a complete 180. Anybody that knows me from before and many of you do you just know that doesn’t even sound like me. But 202, probably. If I get lower than 200, I will start looking at eating. I don’t know. I don’t know about eating more, but trying to eat enough to where I stop losing weight. At that point I mean I’m still fine down to 280. If I get below 280, then Jen’s like, okay, we need to go talk to the doctor because I’ve never been lower than 280 in my entire life. I mean, we’re talking about 16 years old, so I’m already thinner than I was when I got married, so my wedding band is loose on my finger. Another thing that’s coming up, really awesome, that I’m very excited about Some of you guys might know my favorite band of all time is a ska core band called Five Iron Frenzy.
29:31
They were really big back in the late nineties and, uh, they, I had all their albums and I never got to see them live. Well, they’ve come back together and they started making new music, which is fine, but it’s not their old stuff. But they are on a tour now where they’re playing all their old stuff and they’re coming to Chicago and I never thought I’d see them live. It was on my bucket list so I bought two tickets and I didn’t even know who I was going to bring with me. I asked my son. He wasn’t interested. Jen said she would go, but I knew she wasn’t going to be as excited about it as I am. So I called my good friend from college and my brother-in-law, anthony, and I told him dude, I got tickets for November to Chicago. If I run frenzy, they’re playing all their old stuff. Do you want to come? And he’s like oh, I’m there, dude, I’m there. We were just like two little girls laughing and giggling about how awesome it’s going to be, so very excited about seeing Five Iron Frenzy and then playing their old stuff. There’s going to be a bunch of old guys like me up on the stage doing their thing and I love that.
30:39
So another life update I want to go to Six Flags and ride roller coasters. You know how long it’s been since I’ve rode a legit roller coaster. It’s been a minute. I’ve been kicked off of several and it’s very embarrassing. And now there is nothing I can’t ride. And I’ve only ridden one thing at our local Six Flags and it was only because I had lost just enough weight for them to get a click out of that bar. And the next time I tried to go on it they had to kick me off. So I’m trying to talk my son into going with me and taking me, and, um, he doesn’t seem to be interested in hanging out with his dad. So I’m going exercising. I’m not. I haven’t been on the treadmill, I’ve fallen off the wagon and I’m ashamed of myself.
31:38
But this new job has taken a lot of my time and I’m having a hard time getting my life balance out. Like like I just got podcasting woven in. Like I have to start prepping for the Thursday podcast on Monday night and Tuesday night, because Wednesday night’s date night, thursday night’s podcast night, friday night is edit night, saturday night, saturday day is is work around the house and video edit time, so it’s it’s pretty stringent. I mean it was hard for me to sit down and do this show because of it. It’s just like it’s more to do, you know, and I’m trying to figure out how to balance the new job because it seems to take a lot of my life. I mean it’s eight hours a day. It’s a lot, and I don’t know. I don’t think I thought this way when I was young, but I’m just like dang, I’m giving a lot of my time, a lot of my life to this job and you know I’m getting grayer between every paycheck, you know.
32:53
So, trying to figure out, you know, how to fit everything in, and the only thing I can figure out is I need to be getting up earlier, which I have not been doing. I’ve had an alarm set for 6 am go to work at 8. If I got up at 6, and the one time that I did, you know I get up, I do my prayers, I do my Bible reading, I eat my breakfast, I get on the treadmill, I get a shower, I make my lunch and I go to work. But if I get up at 7, I shower, put my lunch together, I do get dressed in there somewhere while I’m eating breakfast, and then I get in the car and I go to work and I’m fine, everything’s great. But what I do is I set that backup alarm for seven.
33:37
So I think what I got to do is delete that seven o’clock alarm so that when it goes off at six, I know I have to get up and I have to quit thinking about the fact that I’ve got to walk 30 minutes. I have to think about something else to keep me awake, to get me to roll those covers back and swing out of bed Because that’s what happens is I’m like you’re going to get up and you’re going to walk for a half hour. Who can do that? I’m not super disciplined. I can’t be like, yeah, that’s better than sleeping. No, I always go with more sleep and it’s never satisfying because I close my eyes and beep, seven o’clock goes off. I didn’t feel anything, I just wasted an hour of my life. So that’s my goal is to get back to my disciplines as of tomorrow morning.
34:27
Oh, let me tell you the worst dream I had. I had it on Friday night. It was just so simple. I remember my kids used to ask me what kind of nightmares do adults have? This is one of them. Talk about your brain hating you. It was so simple. I don’t even remember all the details, but it was just. I realized that it was I had woke up and I thought I woke up in real life cause I was sleeping Friday night.
34:53
I woke up and it was 9 PM on Saturday no, sunday, sunday and I was literally almost in tears because I had slept through the entire weekend and was going to have to start work the next morning. Like it was bedtime already for the next day. And then I got up and I was just wore out. I was like, oh my gosh, it’s Saturday morning. I’ve got two whole days of not working, so it was a good thing. So 6am tomorrow. Let’s see. Let’s see you guys hold me accountable and ask me how I’m doing through the week and hit me up on Facebook or Instagram or whatever. Whatever your, your choice is Podcast wise.
35:39
I’m back to having energy and excitement about doing my shows. You know that story show obviously takes the most, and so it has been getting the most of my attention. But as I learn to manage my time around this new job, I hope to get back to recording with Jennifer. Actually, jennifer and I did sit down and we recorded the better part of a show, but I had hit pause in the middle of it and hadn’t unpaused, and so we lost so much, and that’s so devastating, that we just said you know what we’ll, we’ll pick this up later, you know. So we’re, we’re gonna, we’re gonna get back to doing. We’re both right. Uh, very soon.
36:19
Um, I am working on a series of best of episodes to release for that story show the next time I go down. So if you have a favorite story, I beg you to send it to me. James at nlcastcom, if you can remember the episode it was in, that makes all the difference. But even if you can’t, even if you can’t, try to remember the name of the story or at least what the story was about. So I’ll know what you’re talking about. For instance, I don’t know if you talk about Waffle Stomp. I’m going to know what you’re talking about. You know what I’m saying. This episode, the story to look for is the Yeti, the Yeti mug. You guys are going to love that story. It’s so terrible and it made me and John almost break up. So, anyway, email me your favorite stories and I will put them together in a series of shows that will be released if and when I go down again, so that the podcast doesn’t suffer.
37:25
You know what I’m saying, because it bothers me when I don’t podcast. I’ve talked about this. It hurts me and makes my depression worse when I let you down, and it keeps me from podcasting sooner because I feel like I’ve let you down. You know what I’m saying. It’s just one of those things. So, depression wise, though, I’m probably at zero, I don’t feel sad at all. I feel like my energy is up, I feel like getting back to exercising and stuff is a possibility for me, but I am still a bit tired, and so, if that’s all I got to worry with, though, that’s usually the first thing that starts when I’m going down and the last thing to leave when I’m coming back up. So you know, I have to take like I lay down after I get home from work every day for about an hour, and then I lay down after church, which is wonderful, everybody should do it and I lay down on Saturday afternoon and, um, you know, maybe an hour, but I would rather not, you know, sleep that much. It’s not what I want to do.
38:33
Family updates Jennifer, my wife, she, uh, we were at a date Saturday night and she it was almost cold out here in St Louis and it’s like it’s on the. She’s like it’s kind of chilly. I said it’s on the fringe of chilly, it’s just barely almost chilly. She says, oh my gosh, are you going to be cold this winter Cause I’m so thin? She’s like I said, yeah, I probably, am probably going to be freezing to death. I ain’t gonna have my, my blubber. And she laughed she’s like you really think that’s what happens, is you’re? You were warmer because you were fat. I’m like, yes, and it was confirmed because I posted a picture of myself on facebook and somebody said get prepared to be freezing cold all winter. And that just confirmed it right there. And then we started laughing because I don’t even own a jacket that I could wear, much less a coat. If I put these coats on, there’s a big chance there’s going to be so much air between me and them that it’s not even going to insulate me. So now I got to spend more money.
39:37
Oh, another thing you’re talking about a non-scale victory is I went to dress up for one of our dates and I went to put on one of the dress shirts that I used to not be able to fit in, and it is massive. They’re double X. I wear still double X t-shirts, but apparently double X dress shirts are a totally different size because I can fold over the front of them and there’s like a good four inches of fold. They look massive on me and it makes me look like a crackhead. So, um, I I need new clothes, I guess. Uh, so, hopefully, you know, just stopping at 200 will get me where I need to be. But even my undershirts are too big, like they’re. They’re wavy, you know. They have air. I want them tight fitting so that they fit underneath my clothes. And anyway, um, it’s just a good thing we didn’t spend any money on clothes. We my, my wife did buy me some new jeans because my old jeans were falling off, but I was wearing clothes that I wore when I lost a bunch of weight. I say a bunch. I lost 20 pounds a couple years ago and then put it back on and I was able to use those clothes for a while, but now those clothes are too big for me and so crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy Jen stuff.
41:03
Also, her dad is coming this weekend with his four dogs. He’s a very political man. He loves to talk about politics and he’s coming this weekend and uh, he’s very excited that my wife gets free beer at her work and uh, he’s going to take as much of it as possible. And then Jenna came home this past weekend with my grand dog. I love that little dog so much. I wish she would take the other two and leave me with Georgie, because Georgie is my dog. Literally I miss that dog. It’s the kind of dog we should have had for the kids all along. These little prissy shih tzus and maltese mixes are just too much, too much. But anyway, jenna’s doing great at school. She’s got her head on straight. She’s going to church good stuff. You know that’s. It’s really good.
41:59
Jay has a heavy load. This. Uh, he has six honors classes, he has a job and he’s doing cross country. I think it’s too much. It seems to be wearing him down, but I think it’s also building character. And nobody signed him up for this, he did it to himself. So if he can hold it together, great I say, go for it. He’ll learn to. Either he’ll learn how to balance it out, like I’m having to learn with my new job how to get work life balance. He’ll either figure it out or he won’t do it again. So, uh, I’m proud of him either way.
42:33
What am I reading, watching, playing and doing? I’m reading the man in the high tower. Um, I know I was reading Lord of the Rings, but I took a break because I didn’t have a book with me and I needed to read. And I have man on the High Tower on Kindle on my phone, and so it’s good. It’s an alternate reality where Nazi in Japan, the Nazis in Japan, germany won the war, the World War II, and they split America. And then there’s some sci-fi elements. So there was a show put out about it and I watched just enough of it to where I’m like I want to read this book first. So that’s what I’m doing.
43:13
I’m watching Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It’s not for everyone. It’s kind of like Seinfeld, but a little more dirty, okay, a little more swearing. Uh, there’s no nudity, nothing, you know. Horrible, whatever. It’s not going to be everybody’s cup of tea, but it’s um. It’s funny to me because it’s like a show about nothing and they’re idiots. These three guys that own a bar and one of the sisters runs the, she’s a bartender and their dad’s involved somehow, and it’s just. They just take on a topic and they get all involved in it and they screw up really bad and it’s just kind of entertaining. They’re about 20 minutes an episode and it’s fun. So, playing nothing because of two reasons.
44:10
One, I don’t have time. I don’t have time to do anything. I’m still working out how do I use my spare time. That’s not work time. But my computer is going bad. You guys, the podcast machine. I rely on it for everything and I knew its time was coming because it’s eight years old and that’s a long time for a computer to last. I’d put a new graphics card in it. I’d put a new power supply in it. I had, you know, patched it up here and there to keep it going.
44:40
But it is now chugging on certain websites. When I try to edit audio, it will just take forever to render, and then, especially when I’m trying to do the video episodes, it’s really acting up and it’s just stupid stuff, like trying to load a website and the website, or Chrome, will say it’s not responding. Do you want to wait? And I know if I just hit wait, it’ll eventually catch up and it’ll start doing what it’s not responding. Do you want to wait? And I know if I just hit wait, it’ll eventually catch up and it’ll start doing what it’s supposed to do.
45:08
But then when I start to export video the last three video episodes that we’ve put on YouTube it has crashed. Not even blue screen of death. Just all of a sudden the mouse doesn’t even move, the computer is completely frozen. I can’t control alt, delete. I can’t do anything. I just have to hard reset the machine, which is the worst thing ever to do to a computer that you love so badly. So it’s on its last legs and I can’t trust it anymore and it’s time to replace it.
45:41
So I know you guys think I’m just rolling in the dough with all this um Patreon money that we pull in, but we have been very uh giving. This year. We gave one of our listeners $2,000, uh to help him through a tough time when he lost the tips of four of his fingers in a working accident. We blessed a lady that I know personally with $2,000, who was getting a double mastectomy to avoid getting breast cancer because her sister and her mother both died of it. I had to put $3,000 out of pocket into my own bariatric surgery. And then there’s the costs of doing the podcast. And so, truth be told, I could go out and I could do it today, but I would have zero in the bank account, and you can’t run a podcast, much less a series of podcasts, with zero in the bank. It doesn’t work that way. So I’ve started a GoFundMe, even though I know it’s kind of ridiculous, but I’m going to put a link in the show description and if you could do a dollar, $5, $10, whatever, I’m trying to raise money for a computer that will last me eight to 10 years. So think about that, pray about it, and when God says no, give anyway. Again, link in the show description.
47:18
I replaced the filters in the AC. That’s what I did. I am the worst about that. I don’t know about you other guys, but I have a thing that tells me when to do it on my calendar, and I sometimes never do it because I’m too depressed and it feels like a lot of work. But I did it. And not only did I do it.
47:37
I I the ones up in the attic, cause I have to get up in the attic for one of them, which is why it’s such a hairy pain in the butt. I have to get out a ladder, I have to open up the thing. I have to get up in there. I have to pull it out. I’ve got to put it back in. I’ve been lazily throwing the used ones onto the insulation and leaving them up there, but this time, not only did I replace it with a new filter, I took down about 10 of them, about three years worth of old filters, and I took them down to the trash. My wife’s like she’s imagining I pulled them all out of the air conditioner. I’m like, no, no, these are old ones that I’ve just been too lazy to bring down. So I made a big mess in the hallway and so I vacuumed, and then I just kept vacuuming. I vacuumed all the way down the stairs, I vacuumed the living room and the kitchen, and my wife was very excited and very happy about that.
48:29
It doesn’t take much, but my little bits that I do help and that’s been one of my prayers is for me to try to find things to do for her instead of having to be told all the time. But ladies out there, men, do not do that by default. We don’t sit around most of us and think up things we need to do for you. You have to tell us and we can’t read your mind, so just let us know.
48:57
Closing thought today is my slogan through this whole 10 years going on 11 years of depression has always been do what you can do when you can do it, so that when you can do it, it’s not that big of a deal. Again, do what you can do when you can do it so that when you can’t, it’s not that big of a deal. Like I podcast regularly and predictably when I can, so that when I can’t, I hope and pray that you guys can be like you know what he would be doing it if he could. He must be going through, and that’s, by and large, the amount. That’s the opinions I seem to be getting from your supportive emails when I go down. My wife has appreciated it because she knows that when I can, I do, I do it. I do the things that I’m supposed to do so that when I am down she can have grace and patience with me, and so I encourage you to adopt that.
49:58
If you’re someone struggling with depression, it’s hard to get out and do social stuff. It’s hard to get up and do chores. It’s hard to get up and take a freaking shower, pick out clothes, all the. All the things that seem so easy and natural become huge, huge, huge ordeals. But do what you can do when you can do it. That way, that day you can’t take a shower, you can’t face it. It’s maybe not that big of a deal because they just see it as a sign he’s not, she’s not doing really well today and they need some grace. This episode is brought to you by our supporting listeners on Patreon, with special thanks to Carrie Wright and Carrie Bernhardt. Join the community. Become a supporting listener today at patreoncom. Slash G-O-K. Email me your feedback, thoughts and questions at james at nlcastcom. Remember we need a new podcast machine, podcast machine two. So check out that GoFundMe link in the description and for everything else, visit outlivingdepressioncom. God bless you guys. Thank you for listening. You’re the.
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