This is Joy. And this is Claire. And this is Joy and this is Joy and Claire. A weekly podcast talk show about the things that bring us together. Make us happy. Make us whole. Make us human.

Hey guys. this is Joy.

And this is Claire.

This is Joy and Claire.

How we doing?

It sure is.

How are we doing?

Welcome to the third week of January.

I normally feel like January is the slowest month, but this month I feel like has gone by really fast.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

I genuinely answer that question, everybody. How are you? How are you? Are you? I think objectively, if I look back at the last week, I'm like, that was a doozy. That was a doozy. How was your January going first? Yeah. It's been a dozy. We, so, you know, on our, the last time we talked, Maxine had COVID. She's fully recovered, thankfully. And again, like it never got really that serious for her at all. But serious enough that, um, she was, you know, she was not asymptomatic. She was, she did basically just have like a bad head cold. And so enough to kind of not want to be around small children all day. So she, yeah, so she and also because she had to like kind of isolate. So she was isolating for a week. So I was, Miles was in, it was like the week after winter break. And so Miles didn't go back to school until Wednesday. Then on Thursday, they had a snow day. And then on Friday, he was back in school. So and then I like, I was with Evie while I was also

trying to work. And I know this is a situation. A lot of people have been in a lot in the last two years, but it's so brutal to try to work full time while you're parenting. And so I did that. And so it was like kind of that was my first week of January.

And then last week, um, because Maxine had had COVID,

Brandon was supposed to have to delay his trip to go to Wisconsin to be with his mom who had just had cancer surgery.

So he did that last week and was gone basically from Wednesday until Sunday night.

And then this week he's leaving again early Thursday morning to go ice climbing.

And I'm like, really you're going to go. Well, I guess I mean, it's leaving again early Thursday morning to go ice climbing. And I'm like, really,

you're going to go on a big of. Well, I guess, I mean, it's kind of our own fault. We set them up. It's our own fault. And it's one of those things where like this has been in the works for a while. And so like we couldn't have known that the thing with like that he was going to be gone last week because that trip was supposed to have happened to leave before. And I was supposed to have been

gone last weekend. I was supposed to have had the week before. And I was supposed to have been gone last weekend.

I was supposed to have had that hunting trip last weekend. And then it got canceled. So right now I'm really just feeling like snarky because I'm like, really, Brandon, you're going to go ice claiming after you already left me home alone after I was already alone with the kids because Maxine had COVID. like January has just been the month of like parenting by myself and thank God for Maxine.

I mean, I can't, I don't know how many times I've said that in the last two years. But if you're new here, Maxine is our Opaire. She is from Brazil. She's been with us now for just over two years. And because of COVID, she was able to get a visa extension. So she's probably going to be with us still for quite a while.

She right now we kind of have like we definitely have her through June.

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