Comedy Through the Chaos: You Can’t Do It All (But You Can Repot a Plant)

Black tea. Oh, goodness. Hello, Cadre Sphere. Happy Thursday to all of you. I am Ms. Shannon. Happy to be joining you for this Thursday edition of Comedy through the Chaos. Here in the Cadre Sphere I normally talk about a variety of things that include overcoming your imposter syndrome as a caregiver. Just to bring you up to speed on who I am. I am a comedian. Hello, our stigma. What a lovely name. Amar to see you. A thank you very much. Welcome in. Welcome in everybody. I was just bringing people up to speed on.

I am Ms. Shannon. You are here for the Thursday edition of Comedy through the Chaos here in the Cadre Sphere where I normally talk about. Good afternoon to you as well. I talk about a variety of things that usually include overcoming our imposter syndrome as a caregiver and giving ourselves space. I want to say before I get into a little bit more of the introduction, Happy Juneteenth. Seems weird to say happy Juneteenth. So I usually have a tendency to more like let's celebrate Juneteenth. But happy can also be appropriate if you're feeling in a happy mood.

If you're feeling in a reflective mood, that makes sense as well. But glorious Juneteenth celebration to everybody. Today I help out of the great state of Minnesota. I'm a comedian, a corporate speaker, a voice actor and event MC and a benefit auctioneer by trade. But I am most proud of the fact that I am a autism mom to an adorable 17 year old kiddo that happens to be high supports on the autism spectrum who is right now 17 year olding himself out in his room. I'm calling this Vampire Summer. That's what I'm calling it is that he has decided to spend a great deal of his time in his room with his shades closed.

So that is what he is doing this summer. So we will see if Vampire Summer continues or if maybe it's just something that we are doing for the beginning of the summer and then we transition into something else. So everybody out there, please finger cross for me on my behalf of getting him some organic vitamin D and not just the supplements that I also give him. So speaking to everybody who is either giving care to someone that they care about, whether they are older or younger, or any place in between whether you are the person that is having care given to you.

Hello Trey. Hello Trey. Not a Tremaine, is it? Tremaine? You can let me know in the chat if it's Tremaine. Beautiful name. So thanks for joining us. So I want to talk to you about the concept of. And I know we've heard this adage, you can do everything, but you can't do it all at once. And I've heard that so many times that I don't even remember who to attribute it to. But it's something I have to remind myself all the time. You can do everything, but you can't do it all at once. As much as I'd like to convince myself that I don't have to do everything, that is not how I am wired.

It is not. I'm one of those people that tries to do probably a little bit too much and then consider myself a champion when I manage to not fall apart after I have over crammed my plate. And that's how it's been lately. And so anybody that checked in with me last week I was traveling for a business trip. I was in Louisville, Kentucky. So shout out to Louisville, had a lovely time and the conference that I was at was wonderful. That's why I had the opportunity to check in with you from the airport last week.

And I'm really proud of my kiddo. I'm really proud of my girl. Yeah, see, you know how, that's how it goes, Amara. Just doing too much, doing too much. And then have to make yourself proud of the fact that you did too much because otherwise you'd be like, dang, that was dumb. Give yourself a badge. So last week I was just really proud of everybody because traveling and finding coverage for my kiddo when I'm traveling is stressful. It's one of my biggest pressure points. And I'm just not to the point yet that I'm very comfortable in that setting yet.

We are building that we're doing better. His village is growing and it's something that I'm working on and figuring out how to give myself enough space to continue to build my tether. As that happens, I. But they did a great job. There was, it was one of the least drama ridden, long term things that I've done in a while, you know, kind of thing. So I was very happy that he did great. Didn't have any, you know, serious episodes, didn't have any serious meltdowns or stressful points. And so that was good for everybody.

So that I didn't come home to a, I don't know, volcanic eruption. So that was good. But of course after you're traveling, you come home and then the to do list can continue to grow. So I've got my suitcase that I came back last Thursday night and it's still not unpacked. You know, the catching up on the laundry and the things that I couldn't do while I was out of town, the projects that I had started before I left, and then now they are still here and they are projecting themselves, and I'm trying to figure out how to prioritize them.

But it made me just really appreciate the fact that sometimes it's the little things that you keep putting off that you go, okay, this is something I can roll. This is something I can roll. So the story I wanted to tell you, these palms that I have. So a month or so ago, I did an event here in town. It had a pool party theme, so a pool party theme. And so it had a lot of set pieces on the stage. It was a conference, so it's not anything that they would use for another show. And so what they included were a variety of different little mini palms that they had.

So at the end of the day, as we're wrapping and we're like, hey, great job. Talk to you all soon. The stage manager goes, hey, do you want one of these palms? And I was like, well, yeah, I actually kind of do want one of these palms. And that turned into, would you like to take more than one of these palms? So I ended up with two mini palm trees. And my sister, I brought her one because I knew she wanted one too. So we got these palms here, and I was pretty happy with them because they were gonna get thrown out, and that made me feel worse.

And so they can just come here and be part of our ecosystem at home. So I brought the palms home, and they were doing cool for a while. And they sit over here next to that window, so they're doing cool for a while. And they looked all right. And I don't know if you've ever had palms in your house. They're one of those plants that's kind of finicky. They are not one of those plants that you just set it and forget it. They're one of those plants that you have to, like, minister to. And my sister is the current plant.

Plant whisperer in our relationship. So she looked up what to do with it and what it meant if it was kind of wilty looking. And so mines were starting to get wilty. And so I did a Google search as well. And what it sounded like is that they needed to be repotted, so they needed more space, which makes sense because they were living in the pots that clearly were where they had been hanging out at whatever plant store. The stage manager and everybody got them from. So I'm like, okay, I need to repot these.

So I ordered the pots, these lovely plastic doodads from online. They came to the house in a very efficient manner. And then what did they do? They sat here, they got here, they. The travel, they didn't do. That wasn't the fault. The delivery people, they did their job. I ordered them, they delivered them, they sat here. And then I was like, okay. So it added into the list of you need to do that. And then I hadn't yet. I already had the soil outside because I've had some gardening projects. I had all these things prepared, so I had the work parts to get this done and didn't.

And then when I looked over at the plants, they continued to look even more wilty. And I moved on to other things that seemed more important, more ominous to do list things that seemed like, oh, you should handle this. This should be a priority. And it finally occurred to me on the list of you can do everything, that I was neglecting these pots and these plants. And if I didn't handle that soon, not only are they going to wilt, they were going to wither and possibly expire. And that's not what I wanted.

So I took time out of my schedule day before yesterday, and I repotted them. And it wasn't a cumbersome task. It wasn't the most complicated thing to do on my to do list. I actually just took them outside to the backyard, had all of the work parts to do them, and it didn't take me that long. But if I hadn't taken the time to prioritize this little thing, this little thing would have completely withered and fallen apart. And I think we have a lot of those things in our life, those things that seem small, those relationships, those things that are for yourself, where they don't seem like the biggest priority.

There's something that you can continue to roll down your to do list. And they are never going to be the most important. I will say goodbye in a moment. They're never going to be the most important thing on your list. But if you don't take care of them, will they eventually wither to the point that you no longer have them available? So give a little bit of priority to some of those little things. You know, what is it? Is it a relationship? Is it some me time? Is it just something silly like your skincare routine?

Is there something that you're supposed to be doing that. Thank you very much, Amar. I appreciate that. Is there something that you're like, hey, I just keep pushing it down the list and then one of these days it's gonna take itself off the list because we just keep moving. So give yourself a little space today. Give yourself some time to let some of those little things, maybe some of those five minute tasks. Go ahead, reconnect with some people. Maybe reconnect with yourself. And all of that is important.

And so I'm very happy that I took some time to these plants because they seem to be thriving better now. They seem to be letting their little rooty legs just. Just reach out. And they do look much better. They don't look nearly as. Oh, they were looking. They're looking poorly. They're looking poorly. And I was like, oh, my gosh, you are gonna murder these plants. That was not the goal. If you were gonna murder them, then you could have just left them to expire at the event. So maybe do a little self check in, everybody, see what those things are.

Some things that you're putting away. Ah, thank you so much for sharing that. You want to reconnect with your mom. Yeah. Yes. Ah, that totally makes sense, you know. You know, absence makes the heart grow fonder. Good for you. I appreciate you doing that. So let me know how that works out for you. I had some friends that I was like, you know what? When's the last time? And you go back through your phone and you're like, wow, I haven't texted them in a while. It felt like yesterday and it's been months, so been doing some of that.

Knocking some little to do lists off. When I get off of the phone with y' all, here's my next project. I thought I'd keep it close to you so I could show you my next little project. That'll make me feel good to have it off my plate. Thanks for tapping that screen. So this is one of my favorite bags that I take with me when I'm on location because it's just big enough and it has, you know what I liked about it is it had handles, but it also has a shoulder strap which you see is not attached. And the reason it's not attached is this is not the highest quality.

It's really mostly shows for look and all this stuff. So this you can actually see the needle that is attached to it right now is my sewing project for the next 10 minutes is that this attachment had came off and so I wasn't able to use something that gives me joy when I use it. So it's not the professional bag that I take. It's not the bag and the briefcase that I take when I'm like, oh, I gotta show up and show out at a women's conference. It's the thing that I like walking in and going, hey, this set a statement and it states the tone for how I want to feel at this event.

And I have one of those events coming up next week. So do that reassessment, give yourself some space. Maybe this isn't something that you have to write down. Maybe something you could just tick off the list today and just being surprised how much it'll give you that chance to just take that weight off your shoulders because it's one less thing that you have to do and something that maybe didn't seem important, but it was important to you. And that's what matters. So thank you for joining us here in the Cadre sphere.

It's always great to be able to check in with all of you. This is a complex time of the year for me because we are on summer break. But my kiddo, he's doing well, so I, I'm hoping that that is where we continue. I have a variety of shenanigans for him, so you get to check in. One of our goals for the summer, I used to get him to come help me do some push ups. And so my goal is to get him to attempt to do 20 push ups by the end of the summer. And I'm not so much worried about his form or function of the push up.

It's more if I can get him to stay with me through a task for that long. So again, another little thing that you can check in with me about and I can check in with you and we'll figure out how this is going to keep going. So I always appreciate all of you. Let us know in the chat, let us know in the community what we can do to support you here in the Cadre sphere. That's what we're all about, is building this community and finding a variety of ways to support you along this mental wellness, mental illness, mental health journey.

And sometimes that just means, hey, I release you from feeling guilty about not doing this. Spend your time with your plants, spend your time with your mom. Amar, I appreciate you doing that and let us know how it goes. So I'm off to get the vampire team, see if I can get him out of his room. I'll check in with you guys next week. It.