I'm Drea.

I'm Meg.

I'm Tina.

And I'm Jess.

And this is Pardon My Stash.

Welcome back to Pardon My Stash, a podcast about crafting fiber arts and how awesome it is.

Yeah.

I was sorry.

I'm adjusting the sound.

That's okay.

She did it enough for both of you.

was i supposed to go to no usually you do usually you both do the woohoo a hearty hurrah to you sir apparently she did enough for both of you we have gotten 30 seconds in oh yes we have um before we launch into today's topics let's talk about what we're working on andrea you ready bananas yeah you are That's legit.

I'm making bananas.

It's literally bananas.

It is bananas.

It's totally bananas.

I have frogged the entire Bananasaurus and started anew.

The whole thing.

The whole thing.

The whole thing.

The whole thing.

Is this one smaller?

It looks a little smaller.

It is smaller.

I am using a smaller hook.

It looks like more sturdy.

It looks better.

It looks way more sturdy.

Like the legs look sturdier.

It's standing on its own and everything.

Yes.

I am learning crochet as I go.

One stitch at a time.

I love it.

I'm just, you know, I'm really taking my time with it.

So this is the Bananasaurus crochet pattern by Emerald Rose Crochet.

I think I bought it on Etsy.

I think you did.

I vaguely remember that.

I think I did.

I'm using Big Twist Baby Bear.

And I think the color is sunshine.

That also sounds familiar.

Or lemon drops.

I'm not sure.

I think it's sunshine and lemon drops and yellow.

Are you done?

No.

Ew.

It is yellow.

It is bright yellow.

It is.

Fantastic.

It looks like a banana.

It's lovely.

Yes.

But since we last recorded, I have also made several octopi.

Octopi.

Octopi.

The octopi are very cute.

They are so cute.

And do you know what?

Frank's mom has taken every single one of them.

I love that for her.

I do too.

Where is she putting them?

I don't know.

Oh, you don't know.

I thought she was like, they're in her collection.

All right.

They are in her collection.

And every time she sees me working on them, she's like, oh, is that for me?

Sure is.

I do like purple.

Sure is.

Love it.

So if I finish one while I'm there, like, how can I say no?

Oh, yeah, I know.

She's just so cute.

So Norma is getting all of.

the octopi right now oh uh tina i have zero zilch nada i got nothing for you or me i just felt like singing it i thought it would make it more substantial of a segment okay that's it congratulations all right i'm happy for you thanks it's good to take a load off your plate Jess, I'm distracted by a cat in the box, but I am working still on the cat knit pullover by Andrea Rangel, and it's taking me forever, but I'm still trucking along.

I've got almost a full cat.

Almost a full cat.

That's pretty good.

I'm using Critical Hit Dye Sorcerer in the colorways, Displacer, and Embers.

It's getting there.

It is getting there.

What's going to happen when you get past the yoke?

Oh, God, who knows?

I know.

The yoke is taking you this long.

What's going to happen when you have the miles of blue stock in it?

Well, no, I haven't split for sleeves yet, so I feel like that might make it go a little faster once I do that.

So we'll see.

We're getting there.

It's slow, but it's happening.

Meg, what are you working on?

A whole lot of not much.

I mean, I've been working, quote unquote, on Winterlight by Meg Gadsby.

I really do like this pattern.

It's quite simple.

But I'm kind of maxing out at maybe half a row a day.

And that's like the norm.

When I have to take the kid to gymnastics, I generally get a little bit more done because I actually have time to just sit and do nothing else but knit.

I haven't really been going as fast as I would like, but it's a decent pattern.

It's a good pattern.

The yarn that I'm using is Fiber Optics Cashmere Gradient in Texas Blue Bonnets, and it's really the perfect pattern for it because this yarn does not need anything fancy to really shine.

I love the way that it's moving the gradient along.

I can't wait to get to the really bright blue part because that's my favorite part of the yarn, but that's going to come at the end.

So yeah, it's going.

I'm just not spending as much time knitting as I previously had.

Same girl, same.

Me too, because I have picked up more hobbies.

Yeah, same.

Have I told you about my bread making yet?

No.

I've got a sourdough starter sitting on my counter now.

Noise.

Man.

Soon.

There will be lots of sourdough.

You got to do sourdough pretzels.

I'm going to make sourdough bagels.

I'm very excited.

But yes, pretzels too.

She brought dinner rolls over for Easter.

And my goddaughter probably ate half of them.

She did.

She had like a thing of butter next to her and she's just like.

yes had rolls on rolls all right so in that vein of talking about other hobbies and things we've been doing we've had kind of an unofficial hiatus for the last couple weeks um things have been happening probably noticed we were not releasing episodes um and as we've not discussed publicly, but we've definitely discussed privately.

There's a lot going on right now in the United States and the rest of the world.

So tonight we're going to talk a little bit about how we are dealing with that, what we are doing, how we are coping, what we are thinking, and we're going to take it from there.

So we've already started talking about Drea, Drea with her bread.

Bread.

What else is going on, Drea?

Crochet.

Crochet and bread.

That sounds beautiful.

Isn't it?

And I have also been playing...

What is that noise?

Ice Maker.

And I have also been playing...

They released for the PS5 an HD version of the Okami game.

Oh, my God.

That's a blast from the past.

I heard that was coming out, but I forgot when the date was.

Do you know what they're also doing?

They're making a part two.

Ooh.

I know.

Like a sequel?

Because they did like a prequel at some point.

Two.

That's exciting.

That was a beautiful game.

That was so long ago.

I have also been enjoying quite a lot watching Frank play God of War.

Which one?

God of War is just...

The first one.

First one's pretty decent.

Do you know who the voice actor is for Kratos?

You should know this.

I should know this.

You should know this because I pegged it immediately.

No, but you're going to tell us.

I am going to tell you.

It is Christopher Judge.

That's right.

And do you know what we're watching now?

Yes.

Stargate.

Stargate.

Nice.

Stargate.

Nice.

It is so good.

It is so good.

Like, oh, Christopher Judge.

Man, what a treat.

I heard it.

And I was like, yes.

Nope.

Yes.

And Frank was like, what does that mean?

Yeah.

Well, Frank, now you're going to know.

Here's the entire lore of Stargate.

Nope.

Didn't even do that.

I was like, man, do you know what you got to do?

You got to turn that game off because bam, movie.

Yeah.

You got to get through the movie.

You got to get through the movie first because it sets everything up and then you can watch the series.

That's how it goes.

And the movie isn't that bad, even though the actors are different.

Yeah.

It's enjoyable.

But the series is better.

Richard Dean Anderson was a glow up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My dad and I only watched the series.

We didn't start with the movie at all.

We started with the series and we watched it all the way through.

I cried and laughed with my dad through that whole series.

I had no idea that your dad loved Stargate.

My dad was obsessed with Stargate.

Listen, the nerdiness didn't come out of nowhere.

Okay.

It definitely wasn't my mom.

It was my dad.

I feel like I missed out on so many nerd conversations.

Oh yeah.

My dad, my dad watched like every spinoff, every single, like he watched more than I did.

I watched the original series with him, but there were like spinoffs that like I would come into the den and he'd be like, well, I'm like, is that Stargate?

And he's like, Oh, this is Stargate.

Atlantis.

Yeah.

And I was like, Oh, okay.

I actually never got into Atlantis.

Yeah.

But.

Oh, my dad did.

I've seen all of OT Stargate A plus.

And you listeners should also watch Stargate because it is absolutely A+.

Now that we've nerded out about Stargate.

So sorry.

But those are like all of my new things that I'm very much into right now.

Fantastic.

I am making sourdough.

I'm making rolls.

Rolls on rolls on rolls.

Actually, what's really good is like the focaccia bread.

frank needs to stop asking me to make the cinnamon roll focaccia because i want to make other stuff and i have like this strawberry one lined up and man he's in for a treat if he stops asking for cinnamon rolls he's got to suspend his uh What's the word I'm looking for here?

I was going to say suspend disbelief and that's incorrect.

No, he needs to broaden his horizon.

That's what I was looking for.

That's what I was looking for.

It's tough though.

Like if you, you know, you can go to the same restaurant and you're like, I could order something new or I could order this thing that I love and that I know I'm going to like.

You mean like every time I go to Sabadee and I get Pad Woon Sen because it's like the best.

Yeah.

It's hard.

Sometimes it's hard to branch out because you're like, I know this other thing could be good, but I know this thing is really good.

good exactly so yeah it's hard the internet's been a hot mess hasn't it though yeah and every time i hear of a another closure you know with yarn saver i enjoy getting like talking with businesses helping them out when they want to liquidate but i don't want to see it as often as i do there's a lot of people closing down there are it's just uh turned into an expensive mess well there's not a lot of um what's the word stability right now no there's not a lot of stability like if you were kind of you know making ends meet type of thing and then this all went down um i just every time i get you know a contact with that i always feel like i i feel like it's a duty on my on my part because like i want to help you know i don't want them to i want them to get something back for what they got but um But it's not something I enjoy seeing a lot of.

Well, we don't often think of like knitting, crochet, crafting, et cetera, as like a luxury hobby.

But when push comes to shove, a lot of times, especially nowadays, it is like most of us are not doing knitting or crocheting.

You know, we're not making things for survival.

And in times of uncertainty, luxuries are the first things to go.

That's when people start to.

kind of pare down their shopping pare down their their hobbies um and that's i think that's really is causing the the entire crafting world to be upheaved and it's really unfortunate You know, for me, I've actually noticed I'm sewing more because I'm mending more.

And when I'm knitting, it's to create like patches and stuff.

Like I'm literally making like little patches right now to go on the knees of a pair of jeans that I really love.

But the holes have gotten so ridiculously big and I look like a...

13 -year -old teenager in 2006 who's about to talk about how her life is terrible and, you know, have my chemical romance in the background.

So I don't want to do that as a 37 -year -old.

So I want to patch up the holes.

But the jeans are really comfortable.

Anyway.

I've actually been doing a lot of patches on the ladies' sweaters at work.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like picking up the stitches and creating new stitches there, which is fun.

But difficult sometimes.

Well, I feel good about it when I like fix something because I can wear it again or use it again.

But it's definitely like you said, it's not this like, oh, I'm going to make a luxurious shawl or something like now I need to do practical stuff right now.

Right.

That's what we're down to.

I love how I'm sitting here agreeing with you as I'm making a Bananasaurus.

No, no, your Bananasaurus is so necessary right now, it's not even funny.

Well, I don't think it's the crafting itself that is a luxury, but the buying of crafting materials is the luxury.

And I think a lot of us recognize that we do have substantial stashes.

Not anymore.

You should see my stash now.

You've downsized a lot.

No, I think I'm down to about a quarter of what I had before.

Yeah, no, like I'm...

And if you don't know, like my stash was literally, it was a substantial amount for a single person.

But at this point, I can fit it into like a six by three, not six, five by three cubby.

Good for you.

And it's not packed.

Good for you.

I actually have room to put like my project bags and like a couple of sets that I picked up.

Allow the yarn to aerate.

Yeah, like not like how I had it before where it was like, where is it?

I don't know.

You have to look behind the 20 pounds in front of it.

But it's, yeah.

No, I definitely, yeah, it's not.

Definitely not as big as it used to be.

And that's between selling and also just using.

I've been using a lot too, so.

So it is.

It's, you know, I think it, I mean, we've definitely, downgraded we made announcement with critical hit about two months ago that we were going to stop using i think more than half of our bases um simply because we don't know what's going to happen with the tariffs we don't even know what's what's happening now i mean we're kind of hovering and hedging our bets but certain bases were not lucrative people were not buying them so we and it was also really hard for us to keep up with trying to oh you know have everything on 13 different bases a lot of yarn so i mean we downsized for that reason but there's also been a lot of like apprehension about you know how how is this going to affect us all of our bases are um you know come from overseas so how is this going to affect business and i think a lot of other businesses are in the same boat yeah at least when i'm getting uh the Small companies that I have talked to, you know, small batch dyers and stuff like that.

It's a lot of that.

It's, you know, my base is overseas.

My dyes are from overseas.

I can't afford to bring them in anymore.

And I just can't do it anymore.

And some of it's just in shipping now, too.

Right.

And if you're raising, you have to raise it.

Well, you also get to a point where it's like the market's not going to stand for it.

Like if to sell something, you have to raise the price.

To a point where people are just not going to buy it.

It's not a business model that can hold.

Well, it's hard to buy things when you can't afford them.

Exactly.

Well, if your customer base can't afford it.

But also if you can't afford to create the product without spending so much money that it's cost prohibitive to make it.

It gets really tough.

I had one of those dyers show me an inventory sheet.

The price of the base didn't really change that much.

But then she showed me the tariff that got applied to it.

Say it was $2, the tariff was like $3 .50.

Yeah.

So you're paying more in tariffs than you're paying for the actual product.

Yeah, it was like, and then it's like for her, she's like, if I raise my price to cover this tariff, people are going to say my yarn's ridiculous.

Right.

And I'm like, yeah, I don't know.

Well, and that's the thing.

It's like, it doesn't matter how beautiful your yarn is.

there's market price.

There's what people will afford.

It's the same way like if say you're going to a seafood restaurant and you want to have a good lobster.

Like there's a certain point that you can say market price for lobster, but there's a certain point where people are going to be like, okay, no, I don't want it that badly.

And that's the way it is with anything.

Like if it gets to the point where it's cost prohibitive, like it's costing you so much money to make it and people are not buying it.

yeah so market cannot hold this is an economics podcast now correct which is terrible because let me tell you that was my lowest score on my praxis too.

I take, I absolutely, no, I don't like that.

I only passed the praxis because I had stellar grades in us world and government, but my economic score was dismal.

I can hear my dad now just looking at me with so much shame.

We are only mentioning economics to the point that we have actually experienced.

Yeah, pretty much.

Pretty much.

This is, yeah, no, no, absolutely not.

Disclaimer.

here yeah this is just what the number of times my kids have asked me about tariffs and i'm like oh dear god please make sure i'm not messing this one up because economics and it's not my strong suit on a fortunate side yarn saver doesn't get affected by tariffs because i don't import anything i'm you know everything's domestic um but on a negative side when you know that it's hard to price items too because um the cost now that i might not have to buy you know deal with tariffs but everything else went up right my electricity went up i joined a uh collective it was like a fiber business collective and they she had a thread on there and she was asking us what are like the invisible costs that we're dealing with and i was just like electricity the cost of ziplock bags yeah you know like people don't think about that because like they're like oh yeah you just take a picture of the yard and throw it up i'm like no i have to like power my freezer your mailer bags like the mailer the labels the mailing labels the printer ink like people don't realize the amount of money that goes into running the water we spend more water oh god our water bill yeah the ziplock bags though i don't think you quite understand in my business i need so many because I have to separate fibers.

And on top of separating fibers, I have to, before it's like officially assessed, I'm separating people's collections so that, you know, nobody gets mixed up.

And it's, there's, and I, do I like using that much plastic?

No, but it's a cleanliness thing.

Like if somebody is compromised, I don't want it to compromise all the other fibers that I've got going on.

Right.

So I look at it as a health kind of like, I'm just trying to keep things clean.

But.

I was like, OK, I need to go get more gallon Ziplocs.

Right.

And I, you know, man, I was like, where do I buy these things?

And then it's like I'm and then I'm sitting there going, I'm pricing Ziploc bags like I don't I didn't used to.

I didn't used to because it was like relatively the same.

It was relative like it was maybe.

50 cents difference.

But now it's like, okay, like if I go over here, it's going to be, you know, like this much and I'll save this much off the top when I get this many.

And it's, yeah.

I'm definitely being a lot more conscientious.

I can't say that word.

Conscientious.

That.

the smaller thing like i know i was always about the bigger things but now it's like okay the electricity went up like 200 bucks so now i have to like cut from somewhere where am i going to cut so that i don't have to like necessarily raise prices or like or which i absolutely never want to do is reduce the amount of valuation i give when i'm paying out to people um so far my you know the method works but like If I can't get to a point where me, like, you know, I have a formula showing me how much it costs me to get this skein up to market.

And when that exceeds what I'm making off of it, it's, you know what I mean?

It's not going to end up being worth it.

And I think a lot of people are making a lot of hard choices and we're seeing the results of that.

We're seeing it on social media as different companies are either taking hiatuses or closing or changing their business models because the market is unstable.

I had some collab shut down on me that I had from influencer marketing that I don't do like I don't do it like that's not my main source of income, but it was a nice side cash, right?

No, I got like probably three of the ones that I was dealing with paused our campaigns because they don't not that they don't like me.

They just can't afford to pay out influencers right now, you know, like it's affecting and then like, you know, you see these little changes here and there and.

You know, if you don't have, like I said, if you were already skirting the line of being profitable, like it can really get you to a point where you're shutting down.

And that sucks.

That really sucks.

Yeah, it is hard.

It's really hard.

Also, you know, in general.

uh besides besides my wallet you know my uh general well -being well -being is great i'm probably going to be on 18 lists but other than that you know life's grand i fit i check a lot of boxes folks and i don't care about talking about it because i already know that i'm on 20 lists so it's okay i love how the number just like exponentially grows every time every minute a number yeah every every minute that we talk um there's another list being generated and it's most likely something about being like some kind of different and i fit right in i mean it's like okay i mean i feel like this is not how you want to find your people no not really um but you know if you want to hey Join the club, baby.

But I've seen it even with like, you know, doing like different outside of like fiber stuff.

I work with NAMI and we do and I do presentations in your own voice to like talk about in our own voice to talk about like what people with mental health challenges deal with.

Just, like, without revealing any kind of privacy, but we had, like, probably a dozen or so people doing it, and it is a quarter or maybe even half of what we were doing because people dropped.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's what happens.

I think you're going to see a lot of that in the next few years of people who are afraid or, yeah.

Oh, definitely.

Or tenuous positions.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah, you're going to see people pulling back or.

Which is unfortunate.

It is.

All the algorithms are changing, too, on that front, too.

It's kind of getting harder.

You're seeing more, like, more things mentioned, more things.

getting kind of like falling off of the algorithms like i because i notice a bunch of people i follow um a lot of their content doesn't show up on any of like my for use or anything like that whatever like on my instagram feed on anything like that i kind of have to go onto their page and find it and it's like they're kind of being pushed off to the side that or they're using less tags to keep themselves kind of out and i think you're gonna see a bit more of that as well so if you haven't seen stuff from your content creator for a while maybe check their page because they might actually be posting yeah i can understand posting less so I think my knee jerk reaction when everything happened was like, I need to delete everything and I need to like protect myself and my family.

And I don't think there's anything wrong with having that as a knee jerk reaction.

You know, all of us here identify as queer.

All of us are some kind of neurodiverse.

So I don't think like we want to necessarily like, you know, I think it's hard to like.

to sit here and just be like oh it'll be fine because like we're here guys we're here and we have we have lovely things going on that are making that um more and more difficult to be in those categories but um i just think um in my boat anyway i went from knee -jerk reaction of i i don't want to you know i want to be as quiet as possible to i don't want to be quiet anymore i was very much on the quiet boat i was and i But, you know, I saw I was seeing some folks that are less privileged than I am.

And I say that in a sense of like I'm a white woman and I present in a heterosexual relationship.

And there are certain privileges that come with that.

And I was seeing people not in that position who were still speaking out.

And I thought to myself, well, if I'm not speaking out.

even though i feel like i could be probably in a better position or better protected i'm only just opening up people in less of a position to be more ostracized and targeted so no come on come on down i'm available to this but like i just don't i don't yeah i'm it's It's crap, guys.

It's crap.

The amount of stuff that I'm doing in the background to make sure that I feel safe or that my family feels safe is ridiculous.

Steps that I never thought I would need to take.

Things that I never thought about because I had, you know, this quote unquote safety of like, oh, we live in a country that respects laws and stuff.

I guess we don't do that anymore.

We used to.

We used to.

But yeah, I just don't.

And this is and it might sound political to you, but like it's there's no there's no politics when we're talking about like just being a person.

I don't give a hoot.

I don't give a hoot about what quote unquote side you're on.

But I think if everyone realizes there's no more sides anymore, we just need to like we need to all come together as like a community.

And we all need to support each other because I'll tell you what.

People are stressed.

Yeah.

And I think being quiet stressed is the worst kind of stress.

Oh, I agree with that 100%.

It is.

So it's the worst.

It doesn't do anything for you.

Your stress is that stress hormone goes through your body.

The cortisol just goes through your body and destroys you in more ways than one.

Is there an easy way to make it go away?

No, not unless drastic things happen.

But I think, you know.

I don't know.

I'm talking a lot.

I just don't.

I've been so frustrated just feeling like I'm, you know, initially in the beginning when everything started to happen after this election, just like, OK, well, you know, I got to delete everything off here because it identified me in these groups and I got to delete this and I have to hide that and I have to take this down.

And no, nope.

I don't want to do that anymore.

I'm not going to shrink myself so everybody else feels comfortable.

Well, I think, too, there's something to be said for, like, I don't know.

I've always been pretty vocal about my political leanings.

I'm a government teacher.

Like, I keep it out of the classroom, like, how I feel personally, although my kids can probably guess.

But at the same time, like, I don't think any of the things that I say are super radical.

Like, if you're going to be mad at me for saying that all people deserve respect, all people deserve rights, you know, regardless of who they are, their backgrounds, that's on you.

Like, you can be mad about that and that's fine, but I don't personally believe what I'm saying is that radical.

I don't believe what I'm saying is bad.

I mean, I don't know.

Well, we grew up being told to respect everybody else.

The golden rule.

That's out the door now.

It's a different type of golden rule.

I know it sounds cliche.

I've seen it like a million times on every single social media platform, but I'd rather be ostracized for who I include than included for who I exclude.

Part of my job is making sure that everybody that walks through my door feels included feels accepted feels wanted regardless of who they are what they look like how they act and i try to do that in all walks of life so if someone's gonna be mad at me for that or say that i'm being political or i'm being divisive i mean okay that's on you like I can't change that.

How dare you be nice to people?

I can't change that.

Did you just say you want to care about everybody?

How dare you?

That's against law B -6 -7.

And in the clause, we should hate people that don't fit this paradigm exactly.

No, but you know what I mean.

It is.

It's like, I don't know.

I don't find that divisive.

No, it's not.

And that's your, you know, again, it's the whole idea of like, you know, we all love the idea that we must be inclusive.

be kind but but then it's like but not to those people but not to that person but not put it in practice but not that and I agree with with what Drea said before like oh we were not raised that way like like we babies of the 80s and probably the 90s and probably beyond we were all taught that you know love everybody be nice to everybody regardless of who they are but to be to be told that and then you know all of a sudden now we're adults and it's like hearing from from other people well not like that but not those people but those people don't count and no you know it's no guys i just want to exist like the worst part is is like the worst thing i'm ever gonna do in my life honestly is you know if i don't take my meds is i will not be able to find anything i will forget what i was doing about 10 minutes ago I'll also probably make a lot of doom piles.

Also, I already do all those things.

Like, long story short, it will all not affect anybody else.

It will probably help the economy because I will randomly buy stuff and then forget that I bought it and then buy it again.

Yeah, it's not going to, I guess my point being, it's not going to affect anyone else.

It's going to make my life horrid, but it's not going to affect anybody else.

Right.

But that's a really good point.

You know?

It's not.

It's just going to make my life suck.

Right.

You're not going to be making other people.

things harder for society or government on a whole i mean you might upset your job here or there if you forget to do something but again those are these are personal these are personal issues like it's not affecting anybody else like that would be my job performance that would be you know right it's not affecting society at large exactly it is it is right the point is i'm not gonna affect you so like why do you care i don't think there's a lot there's a lot there about you know yeah why do you you know if i if i happen to marry patricia instead of patrick why do you care why do you care yeah you know i'm just saying better health care would take care of a lot of this let's not get crazy Listen, we're already off our rockers, okay?

We've probably ended, I think now I'm on 53 lists if we're being honest.

Tina, are you just doubling it every time we bring it up?

Yeah, yeah.

I feel like you are.

Next it's going to be 106.

You wait.

Well, so in the vein of - Collecting them like Pokemon.

I went through a similar, I kind of went through like back and forth at the beginning of the year because my job is literally to teach government.

I mean, that's four out of my five classes are government classes.

That's a list.

Well, no.

And then because it is, you're like, I have to teach authentically.

Like, I have to teach, you know, what is what is truth.

That's a sub list.

But then, you know, the whole like, you know, report teachers that are are teaching things that shouldn't be taught.

And I'm like, well, what's the standard of what should and shouldn't be taught?

And that was really scary.

I think there is a lot to be said of like, I wasn't sure how to handle it.

And basically what I do at the beginning of every class now is we talk about current events.

I have the kids bring up current events.

But I let them kind of draw their own conclusions.

Like I've always said from the start, I'm not here to tell you what to think.

I'm here to present the facts, the material.

Or to show you where to get the facts and draw your own conclusions.

My goal is always when kids leave my class at the end of the year that they know why they believe the way they do.

And I'm not here to tell them what that is.

I just I always tell them my one answer that I don't want to hear from you is I don't know.

That's just how my parents vote.

Like there's nothing wrong with voting the same way your parents vote.

Like there's nothing wrong with that at all.

But I want them to know why.

Exactly.

And I don't care how, you know, which way that is.

I don't care what your why is.

Exactly.

But I do want you to know your why.

And I want you to understand that, like, we can't invent facts to to suit our story.

Like the goal is if you can't find facts to back up your stance, you should probably start thinking about another stance.

That's the goal.

So and it took me a lot of time.

And a lot of talking to my colleagues to come to that conclusion that like my presenting the facts or presenting them with the materials to find the facts, I'm not doing anything wrong.

And if I don't do that, I'm doing a bigger disservice to them in the long run.

That I need to teach them how to find good evidence and to encourage them.

Teaching critical thinking skills.

Exactly.

And encourage them that if you can't find the evidence, then that means you got to find a new hypothesis.

Stop it.

Stop putting me on lists.

You just said that you were critical thinking.

I had to put you on, there's a list for that.

I didn't say I was doing it.

That's the name of the episode.

There's a list for that.

There's a list for that.

There's a list for that.

Or a sub list.

There's a list for that.

But yeah, and that's the thing.

It's like, okay, I'm not going to lie.

I've had a lot of sleepless nights.

I had a complete crash out last week, as the kids say.

I cannot make things true that are not true.

But in the vein of Drea with her bread, I've been learning Italian.

That's been my hobby.

That's my hobby right now.

Well, I found out two months ago.

Ciao, come sta?

Nice.

Did that get added to your personal list?

Absolutely.

I have been learning Spanish.

Oh, are you?

I thought you were doing German.

Senior Greg.

I was learning German for a little bit, but that was very hard.

German is tough.

I am learning Spanish through Senior Greg on Instagram.

Oh, beautiful.

Let me tell you, Senior Greg is a blue puppet.

He teaches you Spanish phrases every single day.

Magical.

And you know what?

A plus.

I thought you didn't like puppets.

Do you know what?

This one is like, what a banger.

It is.

The puppets are a banger.

You know what?

We're going to leave that right there.

We're not.

We're not.

No, no, no.

So he says the phrase in Spanish and then he says it again.

But he has this ruler in his hand and he slaps each word as he says it.

It's very forceful.

It's hilarious.

And it helps.

like keep things in my head beautiful I like to go up to Frank and very aggressively say besame which means kiss me yes I know I do remember I did make it to Spanish five So poorly.

So you're learning Spanish with a German accent.

Got it.

I am learning aggressive Spanish.

Well, since you've all been learning different languages that are not English, you're all in lists with me.

So congratulations.

Amazing.

Frank's mom thinks it's hilarious.

I bet she does.

She does.

It is hilarious.

She's like, you know more Spanish than Frankie does.

To be fair, Patrick probably is more comfortable speaking Portuguese than I am.

oh there you go he will look at me and go what did they say and then i'll be like and he'll be like oh okay hola he won't have half the words but he will look at me as a translator just to tell him what they meant so that he could try to say something back I've been using Coffee Break Italian, which is a it's a podcast.

And I listen to them and they're very good about not only just repeating because I hate Duolingo has been pissing me off because they don't explain why I'm wrong.

They're just like, you're wrong.

And it took me weeks to figure things out that on Coffee Break Italian, they're just like, oh, you use a for this and in for this.

And I'm like, that makes so much more sense.

But yeah, I found out a month ago that I qualified for Italian citizenship.

But now I don't anymore because the entire Italian government is.

changing stuff working that out so um i no longer qualify it all happened in the course of a week it literally happened in the course of a week um congratulations i know i was really excited like i even i even was like getting my papers ready to to file and everything and then they're like just kidding new laws um that are being challenged so we'll see if that actually goes through or not but I was like you know what I'm really enjoying learning Italian so I'm gonna I'm gonna keep doing that it's fun I'm having a good time it connects you to your family it really does I found out a lot of things about my extended family that I didn't know and it was exciting so I'm having a good time and I'm like you know what if nothing else comes of this um I'm learning Italian I'm having a good time doing it so well I just sent you in our chat the link to El Senor Greg oh thank god I had his name wrong before.

It is El Senor Greg.

Well, of course.

What did you say it was, Mr.

Greg?

It was just Senor Greg.

Why is El Senor Greg?

The Mr.

Greg.

The Mr.

Greg.

Listen, there can be only one.

There can be only one puppet that teaches you Spanish.

Listen, in Portuguese, we leave off half the words, so I don't understand why there's more words when you could just say Senor Greg.

If you're Portuguese, you understood that.

If you too would like to learn Spanish from El Senor Greg, it will be on the blog.

Oh my God.

It is a puppet.

It is a puppet.

I told you.

Oh my God.

See, I just watch horror Let's Plays.

And they're really fun.

And then, because I don't have time to play games, but, you know, I live vicariously through watching them happen while I do laundry and stuff.

And so I found out a whole bunch of dude bros really hated this new game called South of Midnight.

So I was like, well, I got to check that out because it's probably awesome.

And it is awesome.

It's beautiful.

I need to download the music because it's fantastic.

And so, yeah, so I'm on.

I don't know the chapter with the giant alligator right now.

The guy is playing.

Oh, that chapter.

Yeah.

There's a giant alligator.

No, it's really, it's like about Southern.

Is that going to get her on a list?

Probably because people hate it because the lead character is a black woman and she's amazing.

And it's about Southern folk tales.

And I'm reporting you to the list right now.

Just to confirm, you enjoy this?

I do enjoy this.

List it up.

No, it's amazing.

No, the music is great.

I mean, I was going to say they were going to be on a list anyway, because I said alligator instead of crocodile.

folk tales are amazing and dude bros don't like it it actually made me look up more of these folk tales because I knew about some of them but not all of them and they did a spin on them obviously for the game but they are really cool and so I'm enjoying that and I'm watching that now find your joy i i actually am considering because it looks like um they have a story mode which is cool because i definitely have no time to be doing hard modes on things but um i i am considering actually because you can get it on pc because i think it was mainly for xbox but which i do not have but i do have a pc so i'm like maybe when i have some time i will buy this game because it looks cool and if there's a story mode i might actually be able to get through it Frank is playing God of War on Story Mode.

See, look.

What I want to say is there's no neurodiversity at this table.

Not a single person here.

We are all neurotypical.

We did not do anything.

Nobody went off trail once, including myself.

I love hiking, though.

I went off trail like twice last weekend.

I did.

I went off trail like 90 times.

I'm just laughing because we do all these side quests and then we get back to it.

I climbed a rock.

As I said.

Jess did.

Jess did go hiking and she climbed something and we were all very proud.

Yeah.

I only fell down once.

Okay, but the size of the rock?

Because that depends on the rock list.

My ankle said no.

Comparative to Dwayne the Rock Johnson, how big was the rock you climbed?

Wait, what?

It was a bunch of little rocks that made up like a bigger rock than Dwayne the Rock Johnson.

I like that.

Yeah.

It had a good view.

It did have a good view.

It sounds like it had a good vibe too.

Yeah.

That was pretty good.

It was nice.

Okay.

Nope.

We're going to, we're going to just, we're going to put that down.

I just wanted to see.

Nope.

We're just going to let that one sit.

I wanted to see.

We're going to let that one cook.

Nope.

You're going to, you're going to let that one cook.

A hundred percent.

Well, now that we're on 347 lists.

Man, you like, wow.

We're going to end at 690 something.

Yeah, in the last two microseconds.

Oh, God.

Is this our combined list?

Wait a second.

Maybe that is actually the best point of action is to make so many lists that they can't keep up with all the lists.

It'll blow up the computer.

We got to make more lists, but like really obnoxious lists.

Like it'll be like the garden venture brothers, you know, the one that they short circuit by saying weird stuff.

Oh yeah.

Because he's a, he's a robot and he's only like programmed to say so many things.

So if you start saying gibberish, it just falls apart.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Pretty much.

Keep it weird folks.

Keep it weird.

Is this a yarn podcast?

Yeah.

Can we go back to tariffs?

No, I don't want to go back to tariffs.

That was enough economics for one day.

No, but keep being your weird, yarny selves.

Yeah.

Be your weird, yarny selves.

Do what makes you happy.

If it's not yarn right now, that's cool.

And if you don't feel like you're in a safe predicament right now, just know that we're here to be a little safe haven.

We are here for you in these trying times.

Right here.

Right here.

Right here in our little stash.

No, that sounds druggy.

Oh my God.

You are going to have to take a hatchet to this episode.

I honestly might do a voiceover that's like.

Due to the prolific nature of this episode, we had to modify and edit in order to protect the identities and the safety of the cast members.

But it all seemed like a voice modifier.

You know, like the Law and Order voice?

These are our stories.

These are our stories.

All right.

And that's all we have for this episode.

Shout out to our sponsor, as always, Jimmy Beans Wool at JimmyBeansWool .com.

They got great stuff.

They do have real good stuff.

I actually just ordered their, what's it?

They had like an Easter bundle.

Like it was a three pairing.

Oh, the bunny bag.

Yes.

And I got the carrot cake.

Oh, it's so pretty.

That looked really good.

It is so pretty.

God, I love carrot cake.

It's just, it's like a, it's like an orange tonal and a green tonal and like a whitish tonal.

Love it.

Love that.

For additional content and opportunities to connect with the cast, be sure to check out our website at pardonmystache .com.

And be sure to tune in next time for more fun friends and fiber at Pardon My Stache.