Don't they get it. They don't get it. I mean, talk about ungrateful. Welcome to the Only Child Diaries podcast. I'm your host, Tracy Wallace. Have you ever felt like you didn't receive the how-to brochure on life, that you didn't get enough guidance about major life issues? So did I. You don't have to be an only child to feel this way. In my podcast, we'll explore some of the best ways to better navigate adulting, while doing so with humor and light. Welcome everyone to the Only Child Diaries podcast.

Today I'm going to update you on some things and talk about some other things. How general is that now? Last week we had some kind of heavy, heavy discussion points. I was talking about my friend's cremation. I'm not going to go there again, but I did tell you about my unfortunate fall onto some stairs and for the most part I'm doing okay. My rib isn't fractured, although if I hadn't gone to urgent care that day, if I hadn't gone to urgent care that day, I would tell myself that I questioned if my rib was fractured because it's still pretty painful. It's, yeah, it's still pretty painful, I'm going to say. But I know I did take a pretty hard fall onto the edge of that stair, so maybe I have a bone bruise, but yeah, that's, yeah, it's a good part, um, so, trying to take it easy, not lift anything with that side, and what I found out is that sleeping on that side is well, I can get comfortable, but, um, getting up and moving off of that is, oh, it's not good, it's just not good. So I'm going to try not to sleep on that side.

Now it's August and that means that I'm narrowing down, or winding down the end of my third year of podcasting for the Only Child Diaries, which is kind of awesome and a little bit scary at the same time to think that I've done this many episodes, this many podcasts. Right, I don't know how many episodes you've listened to, but yeah, it's kind of exciting to me. Now I'm going to tell you at this point that right now I have listeners in 54 countries, which is pretty exciting, and the total number of cities is 593. So maybe by the end of the month we'll get up to 600. I don't know, but yeah, that's crazy. I think about all the people listening to me all over the world and I say Hello, thank you. It's been a great journey for me. It really has, and I hope that you've enjoyed listening to my stories, whether they're funny or sad, or I just hope that you get something out of them funny or sad, or I just hope that you get something out of them.

Now. I want to tell you up front that my interview on another podcast came out this week. I'm very excited because this is the first time that I've been interviewed anywhere, and the podcast is called Lead From Within with Michelle Thompson, and the episode is 120 Fostering Emotional Intelligence with guest Tracy Wallace. That's me. It's very exciting. We recorded it almost two months ago and so I listened to it. I think I did. Okay, you'll have to tell me what you think and I'll post links on my socials for you so it's easier for you to find. But Michelle is great. She was a lot of fun to spend almost an hour with and I think you'll really like it.

Now, if you've listened to any of my episodes, you know a little bit about me already, but she asked some really good questions and I pulled out some information that maybe you don't know about me. She asked about my past. You might learn something about Tracy that you didn't know before. Even if you do know me right, you might learn something. So that's new and I don't think that in this past year of podcasting, I really I really meant this tells you how fast time goes by I really meant to do some interviews myself and I have three or four people that I have lined up that I've been thinking about scheduling Leslie in particular. We had talked about scheduling it and then she had some family issues, so we had to put that on hold, and then I've had some issues and so I was thinking I should just take a day and not do anything else and just interview everyone, and then I can work on editing the episodes. That's maybe that's what I should do, because everybody's in a different time zone also. Well, the three, three other people that I want to interview are not in my time zone, which makes it more challenging. But that is my goal for for the rest of 2025.

Let's just put it out there. Let's not say the next year, let's say the rest of 2025. Can't believe it's August. So we have August, september, october, november, december. We have five months left in the year. It's crazy. What else? Well, now it's August. Okay, do you know what I'm going to say? Maybe not, but it's August, which is? The next month is September and the next month is October. That means it's less than three months till Halloween and I've been thinking about Halloween for several weeks now, if not at least a couple months, because it's getting time that I'm going to be able to start decorating the front yard again, and I've been thinking about my approach.

This year I've got to do something different. Right approach. This year I've got to do something different. Right Gosh, I mean, even since last year I found and I don't know why I did this. I mean, honestly, I don't know why I did this but I found a picture online I think it was on Facebook that somebody pointed out and they said oh, look what I did, look what what I made, because if you go on youtube, there's a lot of diy videos for everything and I think I talked about this before a few weeks ago, but but there was this picture of somebody made these ghosts and then they put, like a fire, a fire tree almost in the middle, a fire tower Maybe that's a better word and it looked really easy and it looked like something that you could do relatively cheaply.

So I've been looking for some of the parts, buying them. As I find them, I went to the dollar store. I bought some things. At the hardware store I found parts for probably one of the witches, like the tablecloth and the ribbon and everything the felt for eyes. I was thinking, oh, I could just use paper. Then I was wait, wait, it's going to rain and then your paper's going to, you know, dry up. What are you thinking? So I have, I'm going to try to make one of the witches or one of the ghosts. That's a ghost. I think it's a ghost.

What I got confused on was how to make the head, because if this doesn't turn out well, I don't want to spend a fortune and I was going to just go and buy styrofoam balls. But styrofoam is really expensive and the size that I want there'd be like $15 or more a piece. That didn't seem worth it. So then I was trying to find. I was like want they'd be like $15 or more a piece. That didn't seem worth it. So then I was trying to find. I was like, oh, I could find, like a kid's ball Can't find four or five of the same size balls. I mean seriously, I found some that were bigger, like if they were, you know, huge heads, it's not going to work. I mean, usually you go somewhere and you see all these balls all the time.

I guess I started too late in the summer. I should have started in the spring, thinking, you know, thinking about that, but I didn't anyway, behind the mark. But I think I have everything, I'm going to do it, but now it's hot. So I was trying to be outside yesterday and it was. It was just too hot and I don't like being too hot anymore. My body doesn't like it. Um so anyway, but I'm really excited, and every year it seems like I buy one new piece, like an animatronic or a decoration piece, and I have my eye on what I'm going to buy this year, if I can get it. It seems like there might be a lot of competition to buy it, but anyway, we'll see, we'll see. But I'm going to run out of yard, I really am. Anyway, it's going to be a lot of work, but it's going to be a lot of fun, and fun is good. Remember, fun is good. Okay, so that's what I'm talking about today.

And what else can I tell you? I have been helping my friend who lost her mom. I think we've all been helping her. It takes a village, but just trying to catch up on things at home. If you have a house, you know there's always something to do. If you have a house, you know there's always something to do.

I had felt that I was kind of ahead of the game in the yard and now I feel like I'm not. I just feel like I'm not. I feel like I'm behind. I also bought there's a certain part of my yard that gets a lot of sun and it gets very hot, and I've experimented over the last four years with what kind of plants I can have there that will survive and I haven't been very lucky. So when I was at the nursery recently, I bought some cactus or succulents.

I'm not sure there's a difference, but I did buy some things and put them there and I was surprised and not pleasantly, I might add to see that some of these succulents succulents is just it's such a funny word it's like succulents, like can't you just say cactus? Is there a difference between succulents and cactus? Like succulents. Succulents just seems like such a fussy word to me. I don't know. Yeah, succulents, it's like mocktails. I have an issue with the word mocktails because I think it's. I mean yes, I know there are mocktails. I mean yes, I know there are mocktails. When I was growing up it used to be like a virgin, like you'd call it a virgin margarita or a virgin daiquiri or whatever, and now they call it mocktails. But I just think it's too fluffy of a word. And succulents is the same thing, succulents is the same thing, succulents.

Anyway, I was surprised to see that these plants that I bought, that are supposed to be sunny right, were not doing so well in this sunny area. I guess it's too hot. I mean, I'm not talking about Las Vegas, death Valley kind of heat, I'm talking about LA suburbs kind of heat. But I guess there's too many I don't know too many reflective surfaces, too much sun, but the leaves on the cactus or succulents were burning up. Succulents were burning up, and that's in what world is it? The cactus needs to be in the shade. I looked at the tags. They were in the sun at the nursery. I don't get it. So. And then I have this other spot by the window where it's partial shade. Yeah, it's hot, it's. I mean, it's just hot in general now. But I've tried two or three different plants and it doesn't really matter what I put there, they just cook up after a while and and they don't, they don't. Nothing can grow there, so I give up.

Then I bought some marigolds and I was doing pretty good with the marigolds. I put them in different pots, water them every day. Then when I fell last week I did miss some days. When I fell last week I missed some days of watering, just a few. Well, the marigolds mostly died then because they needed to be watered every day.

And then the other marigolds that I put in a hanging basket. Now I have several hanging baskets because we have squirrels and we have ground squirrels, and the ground squirrels are very aggressive. They want to eat everything. Last year they ate all my vegetable plants, right down to the roots. So I was out there watering the hanging baskets the other day and I guess this one basket I put a little bit too close to the fence and I noticed that all the marigolds, the blooms, were cut off at the stem. There were just all these little stems sticking up with nothing on them, and so I'm assuming that the ground squirrels jumped into the basket, ate the blooms and then jumped out of the basket, especially this one, because they're a little.

Oh, and here's the other thing is that last week I think I told you that maybe I didn't, but I think I did that when we were following my friend's mother's hearse down to the cemetery that my check engine light came on. And this completely freaked me out, because my car I keep up with my car religiously, I've taken great care of it. The check engine light only came on once and it went right off again. It reset itself. It was some blip or something. We were going up a steep hill and then it was like okay, nevermind, we're fine. So the check engine light came on and I took it right into the dealer. They were too busy. They said if it's running fine, you're okay.

Brought it back. They didn't have the part. They gave me a loaner which was a new car. Oh gosh, it was beautiful. It's absolutely. This new car was absolutely beautiful. Anyway, got the car back. It was a fuel tank line leak, very expensive, but okay, I haven't put much money into the car because I've kept up with the maintenance and it's been a good car, it's a solid car. So I got back in the car.

After I paid I was looking at the bill and all the details. They give you a lot of details about the car. The car was feeling this way. We talked to the car, it's okay, it's mental, but they do. They give you a lot of details about the car and I saw in there that they had put rodent damage and I was like, wait, what Did I miss something? They didn't tell me this. So I went back in and I said is this right? He said, yes, it was really deep inside, but it was rodent damage. So I don't know. I've never seen a rat around here, but we do have the ground squirrels. We have the squirrels and I know that they're pretty serious about chewing on things. So I don't know. I think I should send those little guys a bill because it was.

I'm an animal lover.

Don't they get that?

I don't think they do. I mean, go pick on somebody else's car, because I'm the one that cares about you. I don't put out poison, I feed you. You ate all the tangerines off my tree this year. You ate all the apricots off the tree. You ate the strawberries that I had. You ate the zucchini plant that I had. You ate the tomato plants. Don't they get it? They don't get it. I mean talk about ungrateful, so anyway. So that's my week. I'm laughing about it. I am, because I laugh at things. I find it humorous. My bank account balance didn't find it humorous, but anyway. So, starting to roll into my fourth year, really excited to have everybody here.

Please go and listen to my interview on Lead From Within podcast. Michelle is great. She has a lot of great episodes too. She's a fantastic podcast host and I hope that you'll check that out If not this week, sometime in the near future, but next week. Well, we're going to tackle more topics together. I hope you'll join me. If you like this episode. Please follow the Only Child Diaries podcast on Apple Podcasts or other platforms you might listen on and consider rating Only Child Diaries and writing a review. It helps others to find us. Please share it with a friend you think might like it as well. Visit my Instagram page Only Childaries or facebook only child diaries podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm tracy wallace and these are the only child diaries.