Summer Nostalgia: "I Just Think About Grass"

In this episode, we're taking a trip back to the summers of the early 2000s and reminiscing about the sights, sounds, and simple joys that defined those long, carefree days. From riding bikes, to neighborhood adventures, pool days, and backyard memories, we share the moments that instantly transport us back in time.

As we swapped stories, we noticed something interesting...nearly all of our favorite summer memories happened outside. That realization sparked a conversation about how much time we spent outdoors as kids, and how easy it is to lose touch with that part of ourselves in a world filled with screens, schedules, and endless distractions.

Join us for a nostalgic walk down memory lane and a reminder that some of life's best moments are still waiting just beyond the front door.

Sip of the Week: Peaches & Cream Mocktail 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey, I'm Noelle.

SPEAKER_02 0:01

And I'm Marissa, but Noelle calls me Pete. True. And welcome back to Take It Home. Thanks for joining us another week. Today's actually Memorial Day when we're filming it, but not for you guys when you're listening. So happy belated Memorial Day to you guys and happy Memorial Day to us. Yes. And luckily, neither of us are working today, which has not always been the case in Memorial Days Pass. Thank Gord. I actually was like maybe gonna work today, but I've been so burnt out that the people around me have been concerned. And um, Pete confronted me. The other confront you. You said, Am I okay? And I said, Honestly, I think you're maybe not. Confront is the wrong word. Pete expressed her concern. So I think it's a good thing. We're having a very chill. Yes, in a way, podcasting is like but it doesn't feel like it's like fun. Which I'd like to be spending my time. Exactly. And the thing that's also great is I mean, you could look at it one of two ways, but it's rainy and the weather's not that great, which would have been nice to have like really great weather on Memorial Day, but it also feels like an excuse to just like stay inside and not do anything, you know? Yeah, because if it was like great weather and I was staying inside and then I would be like, oh, I should be out enjoying it. But sometimes you just want to be home. Yeah. You know? I've been feeling the need to rest. Same. I've had like a self-care weekend to the max. I'm jelly. Starting Friday night, and then even though I worked Saturday, I feel like I still did things at night to like rejuvenate, and and then I had yesterday off and I have today off. So you're a rejuvenating Pete. I um that's one thing. I think you said this to me the other day, but like I have been going, going, going so hard that when I finally get a chance to rest or a moment to myself, I'm so exhausted that I sleep. I slept for 12 hours last night and I slept for 12 hours like three days ago, which probably is not normal at all. And I was upset the other day because I was so excited to wake up and go to yoga in the morning, and then I slept through it. And that's when Pete was like, I'm concerned about you. And I think it's because I've been doing so much that when I finally get a free moment to myself, I'm just too tired to go to yoga or to do anything. So I'm kind of reevaluating my life right now because yeah, I mean, I've expressed on the past few episodes that I have been feeling burnt out, but I think it's to a a bit of a more extreme point than I would like for it to be. I just feel so exhausted. So I feel like I need extra time. I need time to rest and get my sleep in order, and then I'll be able to incorporate more self-care. Like going to yoga. I did it yesterday. I did yoga yesterday, and it actually was so great. The thing that is so crazy about burnout is it's such a vicious cycle because, like you were just saying, you are so burnt out and tired that the second you get a moment to yourself, all you want to do is sleep. And sleep is important, but then it's like you don't even have the energy to do the things that give back to you like anything that's rejuvenating that's not sleep. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, and that's I was just so sad the other day. I was being very down on myself because I was very excited to wake up and finally have a morning free to wake up early, make my breakfast, go to hot yoga, come back. And then I slept through all of it. I literally and then I was sad the rest of the day because I kind of had a realization after Pete texted me being like, I'm concerned about you, and then I started feeling concerned about myself, and then I was like, wait, I'm so sad because I'm spending all of my time working and doing random favors for people and whatever that I'm sleeping and then sleeping. Like that's like my rest. Yeah, I just can't I can't live like that. I had a couple of really bad days, Loki. I like sobbed yesterday um just because I was like feeling so depressed, or not yesterday, two days ago. Yeah, I just think that almost five years of working a million jobs and auditioning and trying to do this grind has really started catching up to me. And if I don't make time for myself, I'm going to not be good. Yeah, it's important, it's just as important as anything. Yeah. Anything else. So don't make the same mistakes I do. You know what's funny? Because I'm always so I'm such an advocate for taking care of yourself, making time for yourself. But I haven't been taking my own advice recently. I gotta do it. Don't follow in my footsteps, you guys. Don't go, go, go until you crash out. Make time for yourself throughout your daily life. Yeah. For sure. Okay, anyways. Sippy of the weekie. Sippy of the weekie. Slippy of the weekie. So this week we have a peaches and cream mocktail, which I made. So I bought some peaches from Trader Joe's, of course, sliced them up, froze them yesterday, and then today I blended them up. So it's like a little peach PLA, which low-key, I don't think I needed to freeze them. I think it would have been fine, not frozen, because then I put it over ice, anyways, and then put coconut milk on top. And I did use some squeezed lemon and maple syrup in there as well. The peaches were not as perfect as I wanted them to be. They were maybe a little too ripe when I cut them up, which is why I had to add more maple syrup. But honestly, if you get peaches and they're the perfect taste, the perfect amount of sweetness, you probably don't need to add any lemon juice or maple syrup. They're probably perfect the way they already are, which is what I was hoping for, but I had to adjust a little, and that's okay. Well yay! Well yay. Stone fruit season is here. It is uh happy stone fruit season, y'all. Blackberry is a stone fruit, which we learned the other day. Mm-hmm. Yum. Yum. Um, yeah, and I guess that makes sense. Why black it's also blackberry season, so yeah. Which I found out recently, and then I guess it's a berry and a stone fruit. Yeah, I guess. I didn't know that a fruit could be two in one kind of fruit. Smile of the week, smile, smile of the week. Smile of the week, smile, smile of the week. You go first because low-key, I don't know what I'm gonna say. Okay. My smile is I've talked about acupuncture a few times on this podcast, more so in the earlier episodes. If you'd listened, you've heard me talk about how I started going for my headaches, migraines. And I'm just circling back to say that after almost a year of going, pretty much monthly, I think I've truly noticed a difference. And I think I'm a I think I stand by acupuncture. Because at first I wasn't sure, you know. Um, first of all, it takes a long time to start working. Like you have to go multiple sessions, um, I think until your body starts actually reacting to it. But I kept going because regardless, it's a relaxing experience, and I had hope that it would start working. And over some time, I realized that my headaches became way less frequent. And when I would get them, it would be much more mild. I could easily get rid of it as opposed to like kind of waking up and having to call out of work because I literally can't do like do anything or take anything to help it. And slowly over time, I just noticed it got better and better. And I wasn't still 100% sure if it was acupuncture because I also started taking magnesium. I also started like drinking more water and doing other things that could could have been supporting my headaches too. And I think it's probably a combination of everything. But I will say I stopped going for I haven't been in two months because my schedule was just so busy that I couldn't find a time to literally book at all. Within those two months, towards like the end of that timeline, I started feeling headaches like waking up with them similar to how they felt when I before I started taking doing acupuncture. So two months without acupuncture, my headaches worsened and got and came back in the same way that they, you know, were before. So that kind of proved to me that acupuncture is doing something. That's really interesting, actually. Yeah. Is all that okay, so is the purpose of acupuncture to increase blood flow? So it's not just it's like you're unblocking energy pathways, is kind of the Charlotte used to do this thing on me called qi gong, which I feel like it's also a Chinese medicine practice to help relieve tension. My friend Charlotte is a dancer. Charlotte, if you're listening to this, hi, I miss you and I love you. Charlotte is a dancer, so she had to take a lot of anatomy classes in college and stuff, and just learned a lot about the body. And it was a really interesting way of releasing tension. She would have me stand up and she'd like hit my body at certain parts of it and do all these weird things to me. And it was so relaxing. Yeah. We should do qi gong after this. Yeah. So there is a concept called qi in traditional Chinese medicine, and I am no expert on this whatsoever, but it's uh what it means is like your vital energy flow, I guess, and it can get blocked. Kind of like similar, I feel like it's similar to the concept of chakras. Um, where like your energy can get blocked. So it stimulates muscles, connective tissues, and nerves, and it can trigger the body's natural painkillers like endorphins and increase blood flow and unblock your your energy blocks. So yeah, I don't truly know, but I'm very interested in it, especially now that I can kind of say that it works for me. But all that to say, I went back this morning and I had a wonderful appointment. Um it's also so relaxing. Like, not only do I feel like it has long-term effects for like pain and whatever you're dealing with, but the actual experience of laying there is so it must do something to relax you as well. It's so meditative. Like, especially the the place I go to, like it's just nice. You lay on like a heated little bed. Oh, they give you like a weighted eye mask and then headphones, and they play like a sound bath. And I today, like when she came to kind of like take me out of it, wake me back up. I had like a feeling of was I sleeping or was I not sleeping? I love that feeling. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, if you get into like a very deep meditative state, it's almost like you're like half awake, half asleep, like not truly sleeping, but like you feel like you just slept. Oh, I was just so relaxed and so zen after. And I'm just happy that it I I think I can truly say that it works for me. So is my smoke. You've reached the point of being able to say it works for you. Yes. For a while you weren't quite sure. I wasn't sure. Even though I noticed things getting better, it wasn't until I stopped for a couple months and then noticed negative side effects of that, you know? Mm-hmm. That I was like, okay. Obviously, if my headaches are like getting worse and I haven't gone to acupuncture in two months, seems like there's a correlation there. That is crazy town. Acupuncture works, you guys. I want to go back. I want to start going again for, I probably won't until I'm I'm making a little more moolah, but I want to start going back for my shoulder tension because my shoulders be tense AF. Yeah. I've been same here, John. What's your smile? I guess my smile. Oh, that was so loud. Yeah, I know I said a few months ago, you guys, that this is my year of not traveling at all. Because every single year I've some well, not a couple years ago, but I I just love traveling. You guys know that about me, whatever. And I was like, you know what, this year I really need to be on top of my shit and my finances and work and not travel. And now Rodney, my boyfriend, is going to Germany for three months. So obviously I have to visit him. But last minute, my so my mom started a study abroad program in Florence, Italy, because she's a queen and she's an opera singer and a voice teacher. And it was her lifelong dream for a very long, I mean, I guess a lifelong dream because she loves Italy so much to start a program there. So every single summer she gets paid to literally teach opera in Florence for a month, which is amazing. And of course, sometimes I get to reap those benefits as well because she has a free place to stay in Florence, Italy every year. But she's been saying to me for so many years that her other dream is to do the musical A Light in the Piazza in Florence, which, if you're a musical theater person, you know A Light in the Piazza, one of the most beautiful musicals ever, stunning music. Shout out Adam Gettle. And it's about two girls or a mom and a daughter from North Carolina, which is literally me and my mom, who travel to Florence, Italy, and have this Italian experience, which is so crazy. It feels like this story of me and my mom. Just two girls from North Carolina going to Italy. My mom has been saying for years, the a light in the piazza has never been done in Florence, and I want to be the first to do it. It has never been done in Italy. That's crazy. And so this year, my mom is finally making that happen. So sh the a bunch of Elon Musical Theater students are doing a light in the piazza in Italy. She also hired um Gianni, who was there during our time. He's not at Elon anymore. He's an alumni, but she hired him to go to Italy. And he's playing Fabrizio, the lead guy. And so apparently it's amazing. And my dad and my sister both bought plane tickets to go, and I was going to be the only one in my family not to go just because I need to be here and save money and not spend money on a flight. And my mom called me a couple weeks ago, and she was like, Noelle, this is a really, really big deal for my career. I'm realizing the composer of the musical is possibly going to be there. Adam Gettel and the mayor of Florence, and all of these people are flying over. A bunch of my mom's friends, my family, and I was gonna be the only one not really going. And my mom and I found a cheap flight, and my parents were very, very gracious and are helping me to go over there. So actually, in a couple of weeks, I'm going to Italy, which I was not planning on doing at all or expecting. And it is very ironic because this was supposed to be the one year that I don't travel, and now I'm going to do two trips. People are helping me. Rodney is also like, I'm helping you get to Europe, which is so nice. Because I cannot afford to do these trips on my own. So I feel very grateful. And I also feel I feel like it also came at a really perfect time because I've been kind of drowning in life, I feel like, recently. And now I have this random thing pop up that I will, I'm not gonna work for a couple of weeks, which is gonna be so nice. And it just feels very needed. I feel like that sounds so privileged because I'm like going to Florence and it's like, oh, this is so needed. And the average person doesn't have that experience. But I I guess I'm just very grateful and very excited for that. And I'm also just very proud of my mom for doing this awesome thing. She, it's gonna be in the Medici Palace. It's literally in a palace and a full-on production of A Light in the Piazza in Florence, which is where it, the musical literally takes place. It's gonna be so cool. And I'm excited that I get to go and celebrate my mom and just be there with my family and all of my mom's friends. I mean, yeah, there's so many people going. So I think I would have been really sad if I weren't there. And my dad and my sister and all of my mom's like besties who I also love were there. So I'm just very grateful that my parents wanted me to come so badly that they were willing to help me out. And we found a very cheap flight, too, which is well, cheap for getting over to Italy. It was like 700 round trip. It's pretty cheap. So yeah, that is my smile. I'm I guess that's not something that's happened yet, but something that I'm very much looking forward to. I almost even feel guilty talking about it, which, like, I don't know, maybe I should reflect on that, but I am so grateful and I feel like the universe just wants me to travel, honestly. Because I don't know, I just love it so much. And of course, the one time where I'm finally like, you know what? I'm not going to. All of these things are happening, and now I am. So it's like maybe, maybe I was destined to just travel the world, you guys.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Well, yay! Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

I think that'll be good for you. I think so too. I'm very, very excited. We have a little break from New York.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Shall we get into our topic? Yes. So this sewed is coming out in June. And it's summertime, and it's summer breaking. It's time for us to take it home.

SPEAKER_02 18:49

Um, yeah, even though it's gloomy today, we do have brighter days ahead. And we are stepping into the next season, and we have had some hot. The weather has been weird here. Like it was 95 degrees for like three days last week, and then suddenly it dropped to 54. It's just like so back and forth. It was cold the other day. No, really. Yeah, and it's been like rainy in like 50s. Um, and then it's gonna get warmer again this coming week. So it's that time of year, you know, springtime when weather is just kind of all over the place. It's fluctuating. But pretty soon I think we'll be consistently feeling like summer. Ugh, it's the best. Um, but Noelle had the idea to do an episode on summer nostalgia, which I think is just light, light and perfect for entering into the season. Do you ever see those TikToks? That's like, yes, I already know what you're gonna sell. Like, how do you describe them? Photos of things that were in like the late 1990s and early 2000s. And it's like calming music, and it's just photos of things like from your childhood that just like take you back. And that's how I'm kind of imagining this episode. I want this episode to feel because I feel like I mean nostalgia comes in all shapes and forms. Um sometimes it feels bad. Yeah, well, I think nostalgia is such like a I say the word nuance so much, and I'm trying to think of another word to like remember. Multifaceted. Like it's like a multi thing. Like it's like you I feel like the the the thing about nostalgia is like it's bittersweet because I think it has a positive connotation because you're if you're feeling nostalgic, you're kind of remembering something good. Something good, but then you also like are kind of longing or yearning for that thing. It's like, whoa, that thing is gone. Yeah, and it's like whoa, like yeah, so it's like a bittersweet feeling. Something about summer, especially though, like as a kid, um, brings back such nostalgic feelings because it's like summer and the holidays, you know. I mean, for so long, we had three months off during the summer every year. Yeah, adults don't really get that. That's a reason, actually, why my mom loves being a professor. She says it all the time. She's like, I need breaks. So my mom gets summer break, spring break, Christmas break. She's like, I can't imagine having to work through the summer. I mean, the thing is we kind of get that with nannying. We do, which is really cool. Like, I still get obviously I work another job, so it's not like you get a full break, but it still feels like it. Yeah. Because you're not doing your full, full thing, but I do miss like summer break. It always made the year feel weird. Like I always felt like September was the first month of the year. Right. Because it was like my gosh, remember back to school shopping? Yes. Oh my gosh, going to Target buying a new pencil poll. That could have been something that on our on our list. That could be. But maybe let's just talk about weird for a second because back to school shopping was one of my favorite things to do. And my mom. And I kind of made it a thing every year. Like, we actually went to the mall and like went to different stores, and I'd buy new sweaters from Abercrombie Abercrombie? Abercrombie? Abercrombie. And like Airpostel and Hollister, new jeans, and like you know what's a nostalgic feeling is putting on jeans for the first time after summer. And you're like going back to school and then you wear because I never wore jeans like as a kid in the summer. Yeah. I took I would always wear skirts or shorts or dresses. And these days I'll wear jeans in the summer because sometimes you need to wear long pants. But being an adult, I guess. Putting on jeans like for the first time and like remembering what it felt like to be in jeans. And then they're usually like a new pair of jeans. Oh, the smell of Abercrombie. Like I don't have that experience, which is weird because for so long I had. Oh my god. All of elementary school, middle school, not high school, but I had I went to school with a uniform. Technically it was a dress code, but we had to wear a collared shirt and like khaki shorts or a khaki skirt. So I never I wasn't allowed to wear jeans, which is so weird. Yeah, I didn't have a uniform. I went to public school, so it was a free-for-all. And every year I would go shopping with my mom and get all these new clothes. And like wearing them was so exciting. Oh yeah. That's so cute. The Macomb Mall. Wait, oh my god, I had people on my tour on my food tour yesterday from Macomb, by the way. I forgot to tell you. They didn't know you. They were from Macomb. That's crazy. They were like, we're from Michigan. I was like, oh, we're in Michigan. They said Detroit area. I said, Macomb? They said yeah. How do you know what that is? And I was like, my best friend's from Macomb. And I said, I said, do you know Tommy and Kelly Mayhaws? And they were like, no. And I'm not sure. Surprisingly, like the odds of them knowing my parents is probably pretty high, honestly. It was so funny. I was like, I had I know that it's a a city. Is Macomb a technically a city? County. Okay. It's one of those places where it's a county, but like it is the city, I guess. I don't know. But I I forgot to tell you about that. That is so funny and random. I mentioned Macomb to every single person from Michigan who takes my tour, but they're not always from there. I'm just like, I know about Macomb. And they're like Macomb. Because Macomb is kind of random. It's not like a it's like a county. It's like a suburb, suburban county, you know? It's not like Detroit. But I don't meet people from Michigan that often, but when I do, it's always so exciting. And usually they're from like a suburb of Detroit, honestly, of like some sort. But yeah, uh nostalgia. So we thought we would just kind of go back and forth about like certain things that take us back um to different points of our summers growing up. And I guess back to school shopping was a shared one. I'm imagining now like a giant cloud and fog appearing in the camera and dreamy music. And now we're back in the early 2000s. So close your eyes and imagine that. And now we're back. Okay. What's your first thing? My first thing, slip and slides. Oh my god! Yes. Slip and slides, but also just like that kind of thing in general. Playing in the sprinklers or like Yes! We actually had a blow-up water slide too. So it was like this big ass water slide, and then at the bottom there was a pool. Of course you did. But I think just the feeling of like do you remember those sprinklers that would it almost looked like a rake kind of and it would spray like a bunch of lines up and then it would oscillate, like and then you'd like jump over it? Yes, and it would feel kind of sharp. Like doing that, running through this, like the lawn sprinklers, do using a slip and slide, playing with the hose. Do kids do that nowadays? I don't know. I don't know what world city kids don't get to do that. Yeah, unless they have like a house somewhere else, which a lot of people do. But that is fair. Running around like in the grass with like wet, it's like wet and squishy because there's so much water all over the place from playing in the sprinklers and the slip and slide. Slip and slides were so fun. Uh like you would just run and slide. Slip and slide. Literally, oh my gosh, I love slip and slides. At Camp Churio, which I'll talk about later, there was this giant ass hill, and they would create a giant slip and slide, like a tarp that was probably like 30 feet long or something, and they'd put all this dish soap on it. Yeah, and spray a hose and then go to Loki. Sometimes those could hurt though. Because at the end, you go into the grass and get grass burned. It's kind of like, yeah, kind of dangerous, like so slippery, but fun. Also, like water balloons. Oh my gosh, water balloons. Those hurt because rarely would they break if they hit you. It would just like hit you really hard and then fall on the grass and break. That's so true. Like those actually hurt, like getting hit with a water balloon. Wait, I want to have a field day. I want to go play in sprinklers.

SPEAKER_03 27:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:38

Okay. My first one is the pool, which is so basic, but I went to the pool literally, probably every single day. A public pool? I went to I went to the Greensboro Country Club pool, which is it's such a Greensboro. I don't know. Looking back, country club culture is so weird. The Greensboro Country Club. Yeah, it was like I would go every single day, meet my friends there. When I was little, I was on swim team. I was on swim team up until like sixth grade. So I also had swim practice most days and would have swim meets and stuff. And I was just at the pool all the time. I would I used to be so tan when I was little. Same. I bet you were. Like I yeah, just from being outside in the sun at the pool every single day. I had crutches on all of the lifeguards when I was little. Oh my gosh, it was so fun. And I would always get ice cream by the pool too. Oh, I miss, I want to go to a pool. I miss the pool too. I miss like going to a pool and then it's like lunchtime. And you order like chicken fingers or something. And then you like eat them by the pool and you're like wet in your bathing suit. Stop. I need we need a pool here. I'm like, how do people in New York have pools? I feel like you either have to go, there are public pools, which that kind of scares me in New York City, quite honestly. And then all of the nicer pools are probably so expensive. And like, like I know Soho House. Do you know what Soho House is? Yeah. I think it's near where I work. So it's like, for those of you who don't know, it's this bougie place where you have to like get initiated, I think. Or and like the membership fee is really big. I don't really get it, but it's pretty much like uh an exclusive club, and there's a pool there, but it it's really expensive and um yeah, so Hawhouse is interesting. I'd like to hear more about like what I feel like celebrities and stuff go there. Um, but they have a pool there, so you could go and use that, but you have to be a member, and I'm not, but I miss going to the pool. Yeah. I actually like I went on a family trip uh to Tennessee last summer, and we spent like it we were like in the mountains and we stayed at like a cabin, but the place had a pool outdoors, obviously, and I actually got like a little pool fix last summer because we spent half of our time there just laying out at the pool every day, and it was so hot. Uh it's just so just something about it. What do you oh you could I was just gonna say it reminds you of vacation, like whether you're vacationing or not. Like I loved swimming as a kid, so every time I was at a hotel or every time, you know, I went to like Florida a lot. I just loved being by the pool. So it kind of reminds you of that. What do you like better? Pool or ocean? Well, I think they're different, like it's hard for me to compare them. That's like if I had the I don't know, like I like both, but for different reasons. Like if I had the choice, like if I was somewhere tropical Tropical, if I was somewhere tropical, I would prefer to be at the beach because it's the beach, you know, and you can't get that everywhere. Whereas like a pool. But if I want to like swim and like kind of like chill, I don't know. Like I like being at the pool. Because I get that. I like swimming in the ocean a little bit, but it also scares me because the ocean is terrifying. And I I don't know, I like being at the beach, but I like swimming in a pool. But I also like swimming in the ocean, so it's just like I don't feel like you can really compare them. That's fair. I feel like if I had to choose I am such an ocean girl, I would choose the ocean, but I also love pools. I don't know, that's my short answer. Yeah, I just feel like they're different vibes. That's fair, and I like them both for different reasons. But I like the ocean and the beach because it's like you're actually in nature. And like if you're in a place that has the ocean, like you better be taking advantage of that. Dude. Like, I wouldn't want to go to like an all-inclusive resort and only be at the pool. Like, I would be back and forth on the beach to the pool, to the beach, to the pool. Like, you know what I mean? Sarah's at Lake Tahoe right now. Oh my gosh. Gorge. Lake Tahoe is so pretty. It is, yeah. Do you feel safer swimming there because there's no sharks? Um, yes. And it's not as like dangerous as the ocean. True. Like the ocean, the waves, there's like riptides, there's sharks and scary creatures, and the ocean is just like massive and tumultuous. Is that a word you can use for it? Tumul I think so. Um, but lakes aren't as I mean, I this could be like another one for me. Um, I'll just go into my next one since this is a perfect segue. Lake life. Oh um it was a huge thing for me growing up because especially in Michigan. Yep. I live in Michigan, so we had the Great Lakes, but also not even just that, we have we have a smaller lake kind of near which you went on. Um it's not as big as like one of the Great Lakes, but it's big enough to where you can boat. And some of my friends growing up had boats. So even though I live like in them, you know, I don't live on a coast growing up, I would go on boats a lot and just have like a boat day. And I also used to go up to my like family friend's cabin that was on a lake. So I grew up swimming in lakes a lot and just being on the lake and by the lake, and it was so fun. So, okay, there aren't actual beaches with ocean in Michigan, not ocean, but there's lake beaches. Wow. Yeah, that's so interesting. To the beach all the time, but it's a lake beach, but it's lake, but like the Great Lakes are huge that they it seems similar to the ocean. That's so giving like tropical vibes, but yeah. Well, I guess beaches in North Carolina don't really give tropical either, even though they are the actual beach. Right. I haven't been to a North Carolina beach in years, and I used to go every summer. Did you go tubing at your lakes? Yes. Oh, I love tubing. Yep, I did that a lot. What else did we do on the lake? I just my one of my best friends growing up, her family had a boat, so we would always just like go on the boat and what is it called? Like not dock it, but like anchor it somewhere and just like swim and like be in the lake. We'd go on the boat and like eat lunch. And I want this right now. It was just very fun. And then also like driving in a boat is fun. You know what's funny about Michigan is we had to get our boaters' license in school. It was a part of school. You have your boating license? I do slash did. I don't know. It's probably like expired at this point. I don't know a thing about boating, but I got it, yeah, because it was a part of our curriculum. Fun fact about Michigan, I don't know if it's still like that or you know, if it's like that everywhere. But in my school, I remember doing it during school. It wasn't even like an after-school thing. I had no idea. Yeah. So I learned how to drive a boat, I guess. Not you having a boating license and not a driver's license. I know it's so funny. I mean, that's crazy. But yeah, all learned how to drive a boat in Michigan because so many people have boats there. Wow. Yeah, that is cool. Yeah. Um, what is your next theme? I guess my next thing would be Camp Cheerio, which was or is a sleepaway camp in the mountains of North Carolina. It is genuinely one of the most beautiful places ever. It's on top of a mountain, so it just overlooks all of these other mountains. It was so fun. I would go every single year for two weeks, and then I became a counselor in training and then a counselor after that. And that was one of my favorite parts of the summer, and we just did everything there. It was kind of a more outdoorsy camp. Um, well, I say that, and then people who go to like actual outdoor camp would be like, no, it's not because the cabins were air conditioned and really nice. But um, I would do horseback riding. There was a lake there. I would do canoeing, kayaking, fishing, rock climbing, all of these activities. There was a little pool there too, and it was just so much fun. I don't even know what else to say about it. How long? How long would you go each summer? I would go for two weeks. And then when I was a counselor in training and a counselor, I would go for five weeks, which is crazy town. And being a counselor in training was one of my favorite years. It was so fun. A CIT, it's where you go and you're kind of in between being a camper and a counselor. You have to pay to do it, and but you're getting evaluated the whole time. It's actually kind of intense, but also very fun. It's like you have class every day on how to be a counselor for five weeks, and then you're assigned to a cabin and you have your special like CIT duties where you're still helping the kids, and you're like assistance to the actual counselors, but you're still a kind of a camper in a way, but you're also not, you don't get any of the benefits of being a camper. You're pretty much the CITs are the ones cleaning up everything. We cleaned all of the trash all over camp. We would have to clean the dining hall every day, kind of doing the bitch work of Camp Cheerio. But yeah, at the end of the summer, you get evaluated and you pretty much either get asked back to be a counselor or not. And it's kind of intense because there are a lot of there are a lot of counselors and training, and everybody is like dying to be a camp counselor at Camp Cheerio, and there's a very small amount of spots. And low-key, I was asked back. Um, and that was just oh my gosh, such a fun summer. The CIT one? Yeah, it was so fun, even though it was so much hard work and stuff. For some reason, it was still so much fun. I feel like you're with the same group of people every day doing the same work, and we all just became very close, and it was just a really fun time. Uh, but yeah, I'd go to Camp Cheerio every summer and camp. It was just so special. I miss those days. So yeah, sleepaway camp for me. I never went to camp as a kid. Do you wish you did? No, not necessarily, but yeah, it's just like an experience I didn't have. I went to camps like in high school. I did like a leadership camp and then I did like a theater camp, but like I never went to like sleepaway, like nature-y camp. My next one is bonfires. Oh my gosh! Um, I love bonfires. Such a nostalgic thing. I mean, like, it's a very suburban thing, I feel like. But especially like middle school bonfires, it was like the thing to do in the summer with your friends, and that's when I feel like the boys and the girls started hanging out together. Oh my gosh. It's like so-and-so is having a bonfire, and then it's like, is this person going like my crush, you know? Um, and then we'd all just like sit around the bonfire. That is some suburban tension shit. Or like, even just I don't know. We were just always having bonfires. Like, and anytime there was a sleepover, it was like having a bonfire, making s'mores. Um do kids do this stuff anymore? Or are they just on TikTok? I don't know what kids do. I know what some New York kids do, but I feel like it's not the same. No. Um, it's actually funny about bonfires because I saw someone on TikTok recently. She is from Ohio and she has a friend who like grew up in the city, and she was talking about how um her friend went to visit her, and she was like, We should have a bonfire. And her friend didn't know like what that was or had never had one. And she was like, the concept of that was so crazy to me because not knowing what that is, like it was such a thing. Also, like putting bug spray on to like go sit at the bonfire. Yeah. Oh missed that. I love an outdoor fire, roasting marshmallows, just sitting around in like a folding chair. I feel like I would be drinking like a pop soda or something. I'd be drinking lemonade because I don't like soda. I um I guess moving into my next one, every single year my parents had a 4th of July party growing up, up until high school. But it was like the party of the year. Shout out Polly and Perry. I didn't know this. Yeah, even I forget about this. Up until I was probably in high school, my parents would have an outdoor party. My backyard used to be so fun at my old house. They would have a big 4th of July party. They would put off like mini fireworks in the backyard too. And just so many people went to it. It was so fun. Me and my friends would just hang out and be silly outside. Fourth of July parties growing up were just so fun. I loved the 4th of July. Me too. Now I feel like I don't celebrate it as much. One, I'm not feeling very prideful of our country. Um, but either way, I feel like you can still use it as a holiday just to have fun or whatever. But I don't celebrate it like I used to. I used to run around in the grass with my shoes off outside, watch fireworks, laugh with my friends. All of the grown-ups would be drinking beer and we'd just be doing stupid stuff in the grass. And I miss those days. Yeah, I also attended an annual iconic Fourth of July party growing up. My aunt and uncle would host one, and it was like the most fun day of the year. They actually had like acres of land. Wow. So that's where we did the like tarp slip and slide thing. One year we would have like silly string fights, we would do water balloons. Silly string fights. I think we did shaving cream one year. They would always have like a barbecue, so like hamburgers and hot dogs and all like pasta salad, all that stuff. There was always like a pinata, and we did pinata, and we would eat candy. And my uncle had a four-wheeler, and he would take the kids on four-wheeler rides because they had all this land, and we would just like zoom through all of these fields. We do bonfire. Oh my gosh. And the other thing is um they had so many fireflies. Fireflies are an endangered species now. Really? Apparently, but also once I heard that, I saw TikTok about it, and they were talking about how you don't even see them that much. And I was like, that is so true. Yeah, that's true. If you really think about it, I mean like I feel like you have to be in like a nature-y place. Like, I never see them here, but I did see them in Tennessee uh last summer. And then yeah, my aunt and uncle always had fireflies, I guess, on their property, and we would they would give us little jars and we'd go like try to catch the fireflies, and we'd obviously let them go, but that was fun. Like, yeah, we it was iconic. Wow. Best day, like as a kid, you know. Oh, I want to touch grass. I want to touch grass too. This is making me want to touch grass. I want to go to the Hamptons. I've never been. I know, saying. I mean, there are also so many other places I want to go that aren't just the Hamptons, but I like the idea of it going somewhere that's not too far from the city for like a getaway spot with grass. I want to run around on grass barefoot. Yeah, and that is what I want. Okay, this is another this is really only specific to me, I feel like. But and this isn't something I did every summer, but I just have to tell this story because it's so funny. One summer my mom sent me to cardboard camp and I hated it so much. Yes. Cardboard wait, sorry. Cardboard camp? Yeah, you what is that right? Cardboard camp. What the hell? I spent a week making stuff out of cardboard. And I was so mad. My mom just signed. I'm pretty sure my mom just wanted me to get the fuck out of the house. Cardboard camp? It was a day camp. So it wasn't like I wasn't at sleeve camp, but I would go from like nine to five or something like that for a few days. This one summer, I did not want to go to cardboard camp. My mom was just like, okay. This week you're going to cardboard camp. She just obviously wanted me out of the house. And I hated it so much. I would just go and we would make things out of cardboard for an entire week. What did you make? I don't even remember. I think I made like a little house thing. That sounds so boring. Yeah, it was. I was in cardboard. Cardboard camp. Oh my gosh. Yeah, so funny. This is not, this wasn't a very fun nostalgic thing, but I remember all my friends laughing when I told them I was going to cardboard camp. Yeah, that's crazy. They were like, What is cardboard camp? It's like, I don't know. But that was such a meme for a long time. My mom sending that's such a poly thing to do. Like, of course, she just signed me up and was like, You're going to cardboard camp. Like, what? Hello? But also theater. I guess, okay, going off of that, more nostalgia. I did theater camps most summers when I was younger too, where we just like spend a couple of weeks rehearsing and then put on a big show at the end. And I loved theater camp. Yeah. And then I grew up and taught theater camp too in high school and during college. I would teach for a few weeks as a summer job, which was fun. I did that too. Um, it was fun. And I did it at the same place where I took the camps. So, like that was always like a weird full circle thing. Um my next one is playing on a swing set. Oh my gosh. I had a swing set and a trampoline growing up. The swing set was more like when I was little, and then we had it for a while. But then Lily, when Lily was born, my sister, we got a trampoline like for one of her birthdays, and we just had it. And that is like such nostalgia going down the slide, swinging on the swing and the monkey bars. I love a playground. And oh my gosh, speaking of like a playground and the concept of recess, I saw a TikTok the other day, and this girl was like, She's a nanny, and she was like talking to the girl that she nannies, and the girl was talking about her crush, and the nanny was like, Do you guys like hang out at recess? And she goes, What's recess? And the nanny is like, you know, where you like go outside, you play, you run around, there's a playground, you you know, after lunch, and she goes, No, we don't have that. We go on computers and have YouTube time. Oh yeah. Are you serious? Yeah, I don't know like where that was or YouTube time instead of outside. That sounds terrible for your brain. Yeah. Mm-hmm. That's terrifying YouTube time instead of recess? Yeah, I guess they get like free time on computers after lunch. No. Kids need to go outside. Oh my god, we're all gonna fucking like have short-term memory loss. Scary. I hate that. Oh my god, wait, I actually hate that so much. So grateful me. That we did not have technology in the same way we do now when we were kids because we were just playing outside every day. I would like go knock on my friend's door. Do you remember? Oh my god, I just had like a throwback of like your friend knocking on your door and going, Can you play? Yeah. I don't know if that happened to you, but I had a lot of neighborhood friends. And the way what we would do, I would say, Mom, can I go over to so and so's house and ask if she can play? And she would say yes, and I would walk down the street by myself, knock on the door, and be like, Can so-and-so play? Or like they would do it to my door, and then it would be like yes or no, and then we'd go outside and play. That's like, oh my god, I had not thought about that in so long. I don't have that as much. I only had a couple of friends in my immediate neighborhood, and the rest of them lived like a drive away, even if it was just a five-minute drive. But Audrey Clegg and I lived in the same neighborhood, so we would do that kind of stuff a lot. And every single snow day. Sorry, this isn't summer, we would spend together because we could like walk to each other. So we would like meet in the middle, go sledding. Yeah. Oh my gosh. We that's so fun. And bouncing off of that, something else that we would I would do to like spend past the time, I guess, like more so in middle school or like later elementary. I in high school would go on walks all the time throughout the neighborhood with my friends. And I I like knew all the street names. I knew like my neighborhood was so big, and so many people from my school lived in my neighborhood. We would call it subway or not subway, subdivision. I don't know if that was a thing in North Carolina, because I'm somewhere down the line I learned that not not everyone says sub. We live in the same sub. Is that like a thing for North Carolina? Not really, I don't think. So that's like what we would call it in Michigan, like a subdivision, like your neighborhood of houses, I guess, where you can get around without ex going back onto the road. Oh, I see. So like our sub was huge, and so many kids like from my school lived in this sub. And so we would just like walk around with our friends, and like we knew who you know which house was whose, and we'd like walk by our crush's house and be like, Oh my god, see if they were outside. I would do that and like get nervous, and like we had little ponds like in our neighborhood too, so with like trails around them. We would just like walk around the neighborhood and like bike rides. I miss riding bikes. I was thinking scared to ride bikes nowadays. I was thinking that too. I I wouldn't be scared to ride them in the city, but like if I could ride it in my neighborhood, like not on a road, I would love to do that. It's been so long. Going off of that, one thing I had growing up was Fisher Park, the actual park. So the neighborhood I grew up in in Greensboro, Fisher Park, aka the same neighborhood as the Julian Price House, which was featured on an episode of Hoarders. Um, I lived directly behind that house for a long time. But I lived one block away from the neighborhood park, which had this, it was just this park filled with trees, and there was a creek that would go down the middle. And I have I think I went there with you. You probably did. I have so many core memories there. One, me and my high school boyfriend broke up there. Two, my bunny is buried there. Oh my gosh. Low can you like sad things? Also, it was just a very special place for me. And I have a special rock there that's just this giant rock in the creek that I would sit on. And I would just go. Middle school, high school, elementary school. My parents would just let me. But I would just go and be like, bye, I'm going to the park. And I'd go and sit on this rock in a creek, and it was my special place where I'd go. And I'd sit on this rock while the creek would go by. And then sometimes I'd have friends with me too. We used to play trolls. We'd pretend to be trolls under the bridges in the creek. And we'd also walk the entirety of the creek. So we'd go all the way to the end. We'd get in the creek and adventure through the entirety of the whole creek, which is probably like three-fourths of a mile long or something, or like half a mile. It's not like some crazy long creek that's miles and miles, but I was still, it would get really rocky in some parts, and I would just go there every single day, and I would wear my crocs and wear them throughout the entirety of the creek. Oh my gosh, my little rock. I miss my rock that I would sit on. It was so peaceful. I would go there a lot during COVID too. I'd go sit on that rock because there wasn't much to do. So I'd go and just have creek time. I miss it. Yeah. I'll say one more. Popsicles. I love popsicles. Did you ever make them? Yeah. Yeah. When I was like little, little, I remember we had this popsicle maker thing. Same. Whoa, that brought me back too. But I feel like popsicles were such a thing when you were a kid. Like the so many different kinds, too. Like the freezer pops, the OG classic, like the ones that were in plastic and you like push them up. Mm-hmm. And then like bomb pops. I don't know what that is. You don't know what a bomb pop is? What do you mean? No. Yeah, you do. It's like the red, white, and blue one. Oh, maybe I do, and I just don't know what they're called. Bomb pop. Okay, yeah. I've had those. I didn't know it was called a bomb-pop. Yeah. Okay. That was super 4th of July giving 4th of July vibes. Also creamsicles. I freaking love creamsicles. Fudsicles? Mmm. I loved those growing up. Oh, I forgot about fudgeles. Right? Chocolate eclairs, strawberry eclairs. I love those eclairs ones, the strawberry ones. Big boppers. The ice cream truck in general, like coming down the street. I love the ice cream truck. There were these like weird, they were like dippin' dots that, but they were like sour. Oh. I need to figure out what this is. But I went through a phase where that's what I would get from the ice cream truck. Oh my god, it was this. Wait a second. Maybe I do remember that. I guess it's the brand popsicle, and they were called shots, and they were lemon lime. And you'd open it up, and it was it was kind of like dip and dots, like this, just these little neon green lime-flavored balls. Like dip and dot size. And I and that's what I would get from the ice cream truck sometimes. Yum. Oh my gosh. Oh, ice cream trucks. I guess I mentioned this before, but going to the beach every summer in North Carolina. I miss it. I haven't been to a North Carolina beach in years, which is crazy. I used to go multiple times a year. Kindle, one of my best friends, had a beach host growing up in Ocean Isle, so I would go there all the time. And that was just so fun. A little beach getaway. Yeah. It was like three hours, three and a half to four hour drive from Greensboro. Man, I love the beach. Me too. It's like one of my favorite things. I really would have gone to the beach today if it was better weather. Yeah. But it's not beach weather. I really want to try to go to Rockaway like once a week this summer. Take home. Take home is summer rocks. Touch grass. I feel like all of these memories has it has made me feel very nostalgic for being outside all the time. None of our memories had to do with technology.

SPEAKER_00 54:45

No.

unknown 54:46

No.

SPEAKER_00 54:47

Making TikToks with my friends in the summer.

unknown 54:51

No.

SPEAKER_02 54:51

And I think like I'm so scared. All the seasons have such, you know, each one has like a different. What's the word I'm looking for? Like memor different memories. Yeah, I guess like each one has different nostalgic memories attached to it, but summer specifically, it just like so many different things. Being outside. I just think about grass. Me too. That's what I think of. I just imagine running around on grass with sprinklers. Being in the grass. Or the pool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:18

Laying in the grass is all I wanna do. Wait, I Do you know what that is? Yes. That's um who laying in the grass is all I do. What is the melody to my own song? I don't know. Laying in the grass is all I wanna do. That's what it is. I don't know. I'm gonna let it just not be good. Wait, I haven't listened to your song in a while. It feels good. I forgot about that. That's pizza.

SPEAKER_02 55:55

Go stream good. Her song good. It's really good. Anyway, take home is goat touch grass, y'all. Touch grass, and it's kind of nice to reflect on childhood and like think about the things that brought you joy because that inner child is still in inside of you and it probably would still bring you joy to this day. So probably, yeah. Get off your fucking phone. I say I am saying that to myself too. We all do it too much. Um anyway. And happy summer, y'all. Happy summer. Even if you have to work during the summer as most adults do, um, hopefully you can at least take a little bit of time off or go outside on the weekends or before or after work. Try to enjoy the sunshine as sure. Because you know, once it goes away, we're gonna be like hoping, wishing we had it back. So all right, you can follow us at Take It Home Pod on Instagram and TikTok. And if you want to subscribe, that would be awesome too. Share this episode with someone you think would enjoy it. And we come out with a new one every Thursday. We do. So we'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_00 57:05

Love you. Love you.