Welcome to the Parenting Roundabout podcast. I'm Terry Morrow and I'm Catherine Hileco.
Every Thursday, we're bringing you a library find, a pick from our archives,
and a parenting or pop culture tidbit or two. Let's start with Catherine's
library find of the week. So this week's find is a novel called glass
Works by Olivia Wolfgang Smith. And this is definitely a noticed it because of
its cover book. Okay, it has this bright orange kind of stained glass
looking cover, and so I hitched my I saw it, and I read
the blurbs and I was like, this sounds interesting, and so I did.
I actually listened to the audio book and I'm not I can't one hundred
percent recommend it, but because it was very uneven. It's basically four step
four connected stories about four kind of generations of peeling panes in a window.
Yeah, and they all are connected to glass in different ways. There was
a bee on the cover, which would cause me to want to put it
down, or yes, that there's a bee that stinging insect of some sort.
The bee is important, obviously, I would hope. So if it
made it to the cover, made it on the cover, yeah, So
I mean, some of the of the four are more interesting than others and
just better told stories. And some of the reviews I read agreed with that
said the same thing that especially the first one was was my favorite, and
was a lot also mentioned in other reviews. And the first one was set
in nineteen ten, and I just, yeah, I liked that one as
well, you know, I'm I mean, I always like historical fiction.
And even the other two out of the three remaining ones were also you know,
one was nineteen thirty eight and one was nineteen eighty six, so it
wasn't like they were set in the present. But but anyway, it was
still it was still worth listening to and thinking about, you know, this
motif of glass that went through it. The first the first story was about
a glass blower who made like scientific models, and then the second one was
his son who kind of wanted to be a priest. This poor, sad,
little little teen he was raised with completely no no religion at all and
basically very little parenting. I mean, he was kind of left to his
own devices, and he would go to church and he felt at home and
he started to feel like he belonged, even though he would never like talk
to any He just he just liked being in churches. And he finishes high
school and he thinks he can go to seminary like he's he's probably never been
to again. And he tries to go to seminary and they're like, honey,
you this isn't going to work, you know, like they try to
let him down easy, but you know, so anyway, he goes to
work for a maker of stained glass and thinking like, maybe I can kind
of, you know, work in a church. I just won't be a
priest, you know. And then the next story, the person is a
window washer, like in high rise you know, skyscrapers. And then the
last one, the main character works in a business that takes people's ashes,
people's cremains and puts them into glass blown like orbs. Oh my goodness,
but you're not allowed to call them paperweights. That's like a thing in the
story. You don't call it a paperweight. So anyway, that's that's kind
of how the glass goes through it. So you can think of all the
different ways that glasses is used. I mean there's more. They didn't even
cover all the ways of glass. I will say that the ending, it
just stopped like, oh, and it was one of those things where because
I was listening to it as an audiobook, yes I roughly knew that,
like it was getting close to the end, but I wasn't fully paying attention,
whereas if you were reading a book, it's very clear that the end
is coming, and this one it just got to like, oh, thank
you for listening to like, what did I skip a trap? I get
something accident like, yeah, so that was alarming. But it does allow
you to think, well, okay, this is what I think happened.
Yes, you know, and finish it in a way that feels suitable.
Here's what I miss about audio books is the signposts that you get with the
paper book, right, uh, you know, and the fact that you
can kind of flip ahead and see where is this going and just ending like
that, oh, well shocked. You shouldn't do that. Don't do that,
people, I completely do and always do. And if I don't like
where it ends, I possibly don't read it. But so maybe that's all
your books are good punishment for me, because you gott to listen all the
way to the end to find out you don't like it. Yeah, yeah,
And I can't say it's not that I didn't like this, It just
was a very mixed bag. I would say, okay. But then just
as I as I was listening to it over the last few days, then
it showed up on the staff pics table at the library. Oh wow,
from someone else. So we've now had several conversations about it, and they
were like, well, after I read that, I had to read like
sort of a self helpy like affirmations and you know, like short little poems
and peptas, because there was quite a bit of gloom and sadness. Oh
my gosh, you're really selling this thing. I know, I know,
but you know, sometimes the library find is that's true. It's not necessarily
what you expect, not always, not always uplifting. Yeah, you know,
if you've if you've watched the show about the guy locked in a hotel,
and you've watched a show about the people trapped on the island, and
you want a little something to light in your mood. This is not it.
This is not it. But maybe you have something that that well,
I am going to recommend something that, as I'm talking about, is not
yet out but will be by the time you were listening to this, and
that is the latest album? Do we still call them albums? Is album
still a word that we use? Sure? I'm feeling old because I think
album and I think big round, black thing made out of wax in a
huge hardboard cover with lots of pictures and lyrics, And that is a thing
that, if it exists at all, exists barely collection songs. There's people
digital assemblage. I mean, Taylor Swift sells five thousand different variations on physical
merch but I don't think that's how people completely consumer stuff. I think they
just buy those to put on on their shelf. Yeah, I mean there's
definitely people who collect vinyl and who yeah, enjoy vinyl. Yeah, but
she does them in all different colors. Its supposed to be black anyway.
I love you, Taylor anyway. One of my favorite artists who I've spoken
with about here before is Hardy, who is sort of partially the way through
his morphing from a country artist to a hard rock artist, and he's kind
of just just mixing the two in a way I find delightful, especially when
I'm in a mood to listen to something really loud and screamy with lots of
f words. So he has a new new album out. I'm an old
lady album out called Quit with two exclamation points, and it's inspired by apparently
he was playing in a bar in his early days and when he went through
his tip jar, somebody had written quit on a napkin and put it in
there, and Sam Harsh, so he has a song really more of a
rap about that. And then a collection of songs, about five of them
have already dropped, and I've listened to them and enjoy them. So I
am looking forward to listening to the whole collection, which you can do right
now as you're listening to this. And I am jealous today recording me is
jealous because I cannot yet. It's coming out tonight actually tomorrow as we record
this. So go take a listen to that. Especially, you know,
maybe if you've been feeling a lot, reading a lot of gloomy stuff and
you just want to be able to scream again, this would be a good
one to do it. Do it too, pretty sure, there's lots of
screaming. I enjoy that. I enjoy a good scream. He does it
well, So yay Hardy, congratulations on the new collection of musical selections and
Also last week I mentioned my sub stack, which we'll be dropping every Thursday,
and one just dropped as we're recording this, and another one will have
dropped by the time you're listening to this, so go check that out too.
I hope it does not make you scream. But you know what,
who knows you wanted to you know, prompt discussion and entertainment. Right,
Yeah, the one we're dropping is I as we record this today, is
about obnoxious things being on in a doctor's waiting room when you're captive. So
I pretty much felt like screaming when I saw the news was on. But
and you can relate to the protagonists of both Lost and Gentlemen in must right,
because there are captives, that is true, But they don't have the
news on, so they're they're a little better than me, but still and
they're not getting needles stuck in their eyes yet better yet. Well, what
are we going to talk about this week? From our extensive and ridiculous archives.
This week we are throwing it back to July of twenty twenty. Oh
my goodness, remember those days. I remember those captives speaking of being captives.
So we did an episode called Simply Refusing to simplify. And we were
responding to a video about minimalism which was saying that there were ten things that
we should simplify. Oh my goodness, we can't even man, you need
to simplify your yes, absolutely, because you just these are the things.
Okay. Were they off giving a new option to just pick one or did
this individual really think we were going to do ten? I believe they were
suggesting that we speaking to people who need to simplify. They imagine that these
people can handle ten things. Yeah, all right, so right away we
see a problem, right exactly, we see if you stand your audience,
l Yeah. So these these ten things on in this video were possessions,
Okay, I mean that's like what you think of first, Yes, right,
that's what we all need to know we need to do when we don't
okay, Time commitments like well sure, I mean, quitch job, sell
your children, just stay home. The third thing is your goals, you
know, I like, I guess that's what's driving your time commitments and your
possessions. Is can I trim the goal of simplifying? Can I get right?
I would like to get rid of that one negative thoughts? You know,
no problem they're easy. PC just like stop doing that. So this
person's writing an annoying article and they're saying, don't you have negative thoughts?
Get rid of those negative thoughts. I know what you're thinking right now,
But that's simplify, simplify. The next one is we should simplify our debt
okay, like okay, sure, no problem again, like these are at
odds with one another because our time, yes, committed to our earning money.
Yes. Another and next one is words. This is where we start
getting into the listical problem. You should simplify your words by keeping your speech
plain and honest, mean what you say, avoid gossip, like what how
does that simplify your at least many words in that? In that? Yeah,
and I think you're reaching like stay in your lane, yes, you
know it really is. And how many words was this listical? I think?
Well it was a video. It was a video. Yeah, listen,
take your own advice yep, yeah, I mean ten things come on.
Yeah. The next one. The next one is artificial ingredients. Again,
so making all your own food so you don't have the artificial ingredients is
going to solve your time commitment problem. How I think you're just a debt
problem, your debt problem and your negative thoughts problem. I think that would
create many more right and your possessions because you have to get all the different
gadgets that would allow you to make things you could just pick up in a
box much more easily. Right, oh my. The next one is screen
time, which is rich coming from a video video, not miss screen.
We don't mean this screen, we mean those other screens. The next one
is simplify your connections, like and I had to write down what it said
about this. Relationships with others are good, but constant distraction is bad.
Focus on the important, not the urgent. This is word salad, Like,
what are you talking about? Really? How does this simplify? Realistical?
And the deadline is coming up and you're like, oh crap, I
don't have anything to say. I do not stand. I'm sorry, Aunt
Mary, I'm simplifying my relationships. Please never contact me. I can't.
How do you do that? Exactly? You're just going this is ghosting people,
is what they're saying. Right, Yeah, yeah, I think you're
right, And so negative thoughts will be coming at you for sure, whether
you have any or not. Yeah, goads, but you know, we'll
cut down on your commitments because you won't have any friends dispendal and uh oh
yikes. And then the final one was simplify your life by not multitasking.
That's the one I think that we talked about a lot on our past episode,
Like, yeah, sure, easy for you to say. I mean,
if you simplified everything else, then I guess you wouldn't have that much
to do other than you know, make your own everything. But don't don't
be watching a screen while you're making that apple sauce scratch because you know,
to any podcasts Nope. Yeah, yeah, Well I hope that this person,
who was obviously amish except for somebody must have secretly recorded it is a
gift to be simple, you know and all but no, thank you,
no. Yeah, and the thing that enjoys my overstuffed life and the task
of simplifying it is more trouble in its world. Yeah. And as we
talked about last time around, and every time I I review these things,
it's like, you could, you could do this, but you your entire
family has to be fully on board, yes, which no, which no,
it's certainly not happening at this address. So yeah, like I would
be fine with cutting down some possessions, but right, they're not mine.
Yeah, cut down and again on the topic of listical disease, any one
of these individually, I would be interested in reading about it. Yeah.
I think it is good to limit your negative thoughts, and let's talk about
how we do that. What are some negative thoughts would be good to get
rid of? Perhaps there are toxic relationships in your life that it would be
good to let go of. The you know, certainly let go some of
those connections. How do we evaluate our connections? How do we go about
gracefully withdrawing from them? Any of those by itself would be an interesting article,
but it would take a depth of thought about that topic that this this
format or this creator clearly does not want to expend. Yeah, the entire
video is either two minutes or four minutes. Like, it's very short and
full disclosure. I say this to somebody who's been writing all my life,
and there are definitely times when you're going to write about one topic and you
think, oh, man, I don't know what to say about this.
It's gonna be too much work. I was gonna make a list of ten
things and this will be one of them. Absolutely understand how this happens,
but it's kind of a you know, simplify. Perhaps you could simplify and
just present one of these right and say something useful about it instead of word
salad. Don't be expecting that from this podcast. By the way, I'm
just saying generally exactly, thank you for listening. You can find all our
episodes on Spreaker, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your
podcasts. You can find recaps, links, and an opportunity to comment on
our website at parentingroundabout dot com. You can also talk to us on our
Facebook page, on Instagram or on Twitter, where you'll find us at roundabout
Chat. And please visit our Amazon shop at Amazon dot com, slash shop
slash mamitude, but you can find links to a lot of the things we've
talked about over the years.