May 27, 2025 • 14 mins
Summer has officially arrived with Memorial Day weekend, bringing with it a mix of challenges and simple joys in Southern California's unpredictable weather patterns.
• Constantly postponing car washing due to intermittent rain cycles
• Questioning how people working outside the home manage to keep up with daily tasks
• Using delivery services for groceries and meals to save time
• Marveling at backyard wildlife including voracious hummingbirds, huge raccoons, and various critters
• Planning ambitious Halloween DIY projects
• Discovering the rabbit hole of DIY and home organization videos on YouTube
• Self-identifying as "organizationally disabled" when it comes to household management
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tracy (00:00):
I wasn't born with that gene in my body.
Welcome to the Only ChildDiaries podcast.
I'm your host, Tracy Wallace.
Have you ever felt like youdidn't receive the how-to
brochure on life, that youdidn't get enough guidance about
major life issues?
So did I.
(00:21):
You don't have to be an onlychild to feel this way.
In my podcast, we'll exploresome of the best ways to better
navigate adulting, while doingso with humor and light.
Welcome everyone to the OnlyChild Diaries podcast.
(00:50):
Today I'm going to talk aboutthe beginning of summer.
It's Memorial Day weekend,right, and that signals the
beginning of summer, oh, mygoodness.
It also signals the first timethis year that you can
officially wear white.
Or is it white shoes or a whitepurse?
(01:11):
I always forget.
I think it's white shoes.
Well, here in SouthernCalifornia we can wear white
anytime, so it doesn't reallymatter, does it?
I mean not that you'd wearwhite shoes, you know, maybe in
December around Christmas, thatwould look kind of tacky, but
(01:32):
anyway, yes, the beginning ofsummer.
It's been kind of an odd weatherpattern here recently.
Well, we started off in Januarywith the fires, so it was super
, super windy and then it wasvery dry, and the last couple of
(01:53):
months, I would say.
We've gone between having somevery hot days and then having
some cold days and having rain,intermittent rain, some cold
days and having rainintermittent rain, and I don't
remember it ever being like thisbefore, with such a buffet of
different weather patterns allmixed up together.
(02:16):
I've wanted to wash my car now,for I've kind of lost track.
I want to say close to, or overa month, but every time I think
, oh, I can go wash my car now Isee that there's rain in the
(02:37):
forecast, and maybe not a lot ofrain, because if there was a
lot of rain I wouldn't have toworry about washing my car.
But there's just enough rain totake the dust that's on my car
and make a big mess of it and tomake it look worse.
So then I think about okay,then it gets warm.
(03:01):
And then I think, okay, well,I'm going to take it and get it
washed, but no, there's raincoming again.
So I don't know, I just kind ofgive up on that.
I guess I should just bite thebullet and get all the dust off
the car and then, if it rained,maybe it wouldn't look so bad.
(03:22):
But the windows look bad anyway.
They're kind of spottedirregardless.
I don't really have time, myevents coming up this week and
it's been a very, very busy timefor me.
I don't know and I wonder how Iever did what I did working
outside of the home, being busy,because I know then that
(03:47):
everything in my life wouldsuffer.
You know, I wouldn't be able toclean, I wouldn't be able to
pick up, you know, or do errandsright as well or as efficiently
.
I wouldn't be able to dolaundry.
It was like an emergencysituation.
I would do laundry on anemergency.
You know I need this now kindof status and get food that we
(04:14):
needed, but not be able tolollygag around and I've tried
to do things that cut out thatextra time for things like I get
groceries delivered usually allthe time, because the time it
takes to drive to the market,which is a couple miles away, go
(04:36):
through the store, pick outwhat I want, go through the
checkout, put it in my car,drive home It'd be like an hour,
an hour and a half.
I feel like I don't have that,which is silly, right, but it's
true, I feel like I don't havethat.
A lot of times we have food,like dinner, delivered because,
(04:56):
again, because I don't have thetime or I don't have the energy
to go pick something up or goout whatever.
Get it myself.
It's not that much moreexpensive because I've
subscribed to the differentdelivery services, so that works
out okay.
But some things have to be done, like buying the dog food,
(05:20):
buying the cat food.
I mean I go online and I can dothat.
But other things, like right nowI'm looking at the hummingbird
feeder outside on the back patioand these hummingbirds are
crazy.
Now they have been eating likeit's their last meal for the
last week or two and I fill thething up and then in two or
(05:45):
three days it's empty again andI don't know what they're doing.
But they they're out therefighting with each other.
They're out there, you know,doing their little.
What does it look like?
Their air acrobatics flyingaround each other.
(06:06):
I mean it's really great towatch.
But come on, guys, so I have torefill that every two or three
days now, which is fine.
I mean I think about themicrocosms, the little micro
worlds that are on our regularsize lot for our house, that
(06:30):
we're supporting the squirrels.
There's always squirrels, justlike there's always weeds,
there's always squirrels.
And the hummingbirds, the birds, squirrels and the hummingbirds
, the birds, I guess the feralcats although I haven't seen the
feral cats recently, but Ithink it's because I'm in here
with my computer all the time Ihave seen the raccoons.
(06:52):
We have some of the biggest,healthiest looking raccoons that
you'd ever want to see.
These guys are big.
They must eat a lot.
I don't know what they eat ingeneral, but they come and they
scarf up the remaining bits ofthe cat food that I leave out in
the morning and they're outthere at night and they're just
(07:14):
wow, they're like big vacuumcleaners, eating anything that
they can find.
And they're big.
I wouldn't want to go upagainst them.
I really wouldn't.
They're very yeah, they'rehealthy looking.
And then there's the lizardstoo Lots of lizards, and the
(07:35):
birds and snails.
We have a lot more snails thisyear, but anyway.
So when I think about all thelittle colonies, oh, and the
birds and snails, we have a lotmore snails this year, but
anyway.
So when I think about all thelittle colonies, oh, and the
bees, the bees are great.
There's lots of bees because Ihave a lot of flowers this year
and the bees have been buzzingaround.
I think I have seen the skunk?
(07:58):
Not as much.
I haven't seen the skunks asmuch as I did last year, but we
still have skunks, so that'sgreat.
But yeah, there's at leastthree hummingbirds out there now
.
Anyway, I digress.
I love summer and I've alwaysloved summer, but as I've gotten
(08:22):
older now I don't enjoy theheat anymore.
I enjoy the air conditioning,but I don't enjoy the heat
anyway.
And I've noticed, because wehave had a few hotter days.
We had a couple of 90s lastweek and we had some 80s.
(08:43):
What's more challenging is thatsome of my plants are a little
borderline because I have to goout and water them every day,
otherwise they're going to notmake it.
That's a little tougher.
That's.
One good thing about the rainis you don't have to worry about
(09:04):
a plant dying because it's dry.
You have to worry about themgetting too much water, sure,
but that's not usually a problem.
Anyway, welcome to summer.
It just seems like a morecarefree time, doesn't it, for
some reason for me.
But I am now.
(09:25):
It's the end of May, right?
So it leaves June, july, august, and then we have September,
and in September I'm excitedbecause then I can start
decorating for Halloween.
I know it's, I know it's alittle early to even think about
it, but I'm excited.
(09:46):
I'm excited because I'm goingto try to make a new display all
on my own.
It's a DIY thing.
I wanted to do that last year.
I didn't do it.
Um, it wasn't this particularthing, but I saw a picture of
this great kind of circle ofghosts with a burning thing in
(10:11):
the middle.
Thing is one of my favoritewords, by the way, and and I saw
it and I've seen, I've seen itdone now in a couple, three,
four different ways on YouTube.
By the way, if you haven'tchecked out DIY videos on
(10:31):
YouTube, I could sit in a darkroom with a TV and a remote
control and I could go through.
I could spend the rest of mydays looking at DIY videos on
YouTube.
I never realized how many DIYvideos there are on YouTube, and
(10:52):
I'm not just talking aboutHalloween decorations.
We're talking about Christmasdecorations, we're talking about
gardening things.
We're talking about I mean andthen I start to kind of blank
over I'm sure there's other DIYthings that you know.
I watched a woman.
Here's the thing.
I watched a woman the other day, and I'm not sure why, but I
(11:17):
watched her ironing her clothesand she was talking about how
she irons and how she does herlaundry and how she organizes
all of her daily householdchores.
Now, am I that detailed?
Now do I have my dailyhousehold chores?
(11:39):
No, did I feel like I was crazyfor sitting there and watching
a woman iron her clothes?
Yes, I did.
She had a lot of views.
This is the thing.
She had a lot of views she was.
I mean, I get, maybe I'm just, Idon't know, am I weird?
(12:00):
Maybe I get distracted, but Istart a project like I want to
clean out an area, right, andI'll start.
I get kind of stuck on things.
Or I could do a load of laundry, but if I had to iron let's say
if I had to iron five shirts, Iwould.
It would take me the rest ofthe afternoon.
(12:21):
When was the last time I ironed, you could ask?
I can't remember because Idon't iron.
I'm a bad ironer.
I'm a bad organizer.
I've learned to be a little bitbetter, but I wasn't born with
that gene in my body.
I wasn't.
(12:42):
I'm a I'm, you know, I'morganizationally disabled.
I just I really am.
I watch other people who are sogood at it and I'm not good at
it.
So I think about organizing mygarage, because now we have so
much, so many Halloweendecorations and so many
(13:04):
Christmas decorations and it'sabsolutely overwhelming and it
needs to be organized.
I did, actually I did prettywell with the Halloween stuff
when I put that away, but theChristmas stuff is there's too
much and there's too much otherjunk in there, but it's kind of
(13:24):
too much for one person.
Do you ever feel that way?
Yeah, I do.
Anyway, I'm rambling, but maybethe summer is the time for me
to do this.
After my event, I'll have lesswork, and that's a good thing,
hopefully.
Anyway, I hope whatever you'redoing for the summer, it's going
(13:49):
to be fun and it's going to beproductive.
So that's all I've got fortoday, folks.
Next week we'll tackle anothertopic together.
I hope you'll join me.
If you like this episode,please follow the Only Child
Diaries podcast on ApplePodcasts or other platforms you
(14:10):
might listen on and considerrating Only Child Diaries and
writing a review.
It helps others to find us.
Please share it with a friendyou think might like it as well,
and visit my Instagram page,only Child Diaries or Facebook
Only Child Diaries Podcast.
Thanks for listening.
(14:30):
I'm Tracy Wallace and these arethe Only Child Diaries.
I wasn't born with that gene in my body.
Welcome to the Only ChildDiaries podcast.
I'm your host, Tracy Wallace.
Have you ever felt like youdidn't receive the how-to
brochure on life, that youdidn't get enough guidance about
major life issues?
So did I.
(00:21):
You don't have to be an onlychild to feel this way.
In my podcast, we'll exploresome of the best ways to better
navigate adulting, while doingso with humor and light.
Welcome everyone to the OnlyChild Diaries podcast.
(00:50):
Today I'm going to talk aboutthe beginning of summer.
It's Memorial Day weekend,right, and that signals the
beginning of summer, oh, mygoodness.
It also signals the first timethis year that you can
officially wear white.
Or is it white shoes or a whitepurse?
(01:11):
I always forget.
I think it's white shoes.
Well, here in SouthernCalifornia we can wear white
anytime, so it doesn't reallymatter, does it?
I mean not that you'd wearwhite shoes, you know, maybe in
December around Christmas, thatwould look kind of tacky, but
(01:32):
anyway, yes, the beginning ofsummer.
It's been kind of an odd weatherpattern here recently.
Well, we started off in Januarywith the fires, so it was super
, super windy and then it wasvery dry, and the last couple of
(01:53):
months, I would say.
We've gone between having somevery hot days and then having
some cold days and having rain,intermittent rain, some cold
days and having rainintermittent rain, and I don't
remember it ever being like thisbefore, with such a buffet of
different weather patterns allmixed up together.
(02:16):
I've wanted to wash my car now,for I've kind of lost track.
I want to say close to, or overa month, but every time I think
, oh, I can go wash my car now Isee that there's rain in the
(02:37):
forecast, and maybe not a lot ofrain, because if there was a
lot of rain I wouldn't have toworry about washing my car.
But there's just enough rain totake the dust that's on my car
and make a big mess of it and tomake it look worse.
So then I think about okay,then it gets warm.
(03:01):
And then I think, okay, well,I'm going to take it and get it
washed, but no, there's raincoming again.
So I don't know, I just kind ofgive up on that.
I guess I should just bite thebullet and get all the dust off
the car and then, if it rained,maybe it wouldn't look so bad.
(03:22):
But the windows look bad anyway.
They're kind of spottedirregardless.
I don't really have time, myevents coming up this week and
it's been a very, very busy timefor me.
I don't know and I wonder how Iever did what I did working
outside of the home, being busy,because I know then that
(03:47):
everything in my life wouldsuffer.
You know, I wouldn't be able toclean, I wouldn't be able to
pick up, you know, or do errandsright as well or as efficiently
.
I wouldn't be able to dolaundry.
It was like an emergencysituation.
I would do laundry on anemergency.
You know I need this now kindof status and get food that we
(04:14):
needed, but not be able tolollygag around and I've tried
to do things that cut out thatextra time for things like I get
groceries delivered usually allthe time, because the time it
takes to drive to the market,which is a couple miles away, go
(04:36):
through the store, pick outwhat I want, go through the
checkout, put it in my car,drive home It'd be like an hour,
an hour and a half.
I feel like I don't have that,which is silly, right, but it's
true, I feel like I don't havethat.
A lot of times we have food,like dinner, delivered because,
(04:56):
again, because I don't have thetime or I don't have the energy
to go pick something up or goout whatever.
Get it myself.
It's not that much moreexpensive because I've
subscribed to the differentdelivery services, so that works
out okay.
But some things have to be done, like buying the dog food,
(05:20):
buying the cat food.
I mean I go online and I can dothat.
But other things, like right nowI'm looking at the hummingbird
feeder outside on the back patioand these hummingbirds are
crazy.
Now they have been eating likeit's their last meal for the
last week or two and I fill thething up and then in two or
(05:45):
three days it's empty again andI don't know what they're doing.
But they they're out therefighting with each other.
They're out there, you know,doing their little.
What does it look like?
Their air acrobatics flyingaround each other.
(06:06):
I mean it's really great towatch.
But come on, guys, so I have torefill that every two or three
days now, which is fine.
I mean I think about themicrocosms, the little micro
worlds that are on our regularsize lot for our house, that
(06:30):
we're supporting the squirrels.
There's always squirrels, justlike there's always weeds,
there's always squirrels.
And the hummingbirds, the birds, squirrels and the hummingbirds
, the birds, I guess the feralcats although I haven't seen the
feral cats recently, but Ithink it's because I'm in here
with my computer all the time Ihave seen the raccoons.
(06:52):
We have some of the biggest,healthiest looking raccoons that
you'd ever want to see.
These guys are big.
They must eat a lot.
I don't know what they eat ingeneral, but they come and they
scarf up the remaining bits ofthe cat food that I leave out in
the morning and they're outthere at night and they're just
(07:14):
wow, they're like big vacuumcleaners, eating anything that
they can find.
And they're big.
I wouldn't want to go upagainst them.
I really wouldn't.
They're very yeah, they'rehealthy looking.
And then there's the lizardstoo Lots of lizards, and the
(07:35):
birds and snails.
We have a lot more snails thisyear, but anyway.
So when I think about all thelittle colonies, oh, and the
birds and snails, we have a lotmore snails this year, but
anyway.
So when I think about all thelittle colonies, oh, and the
bees, the bees are great.
There's lots of bees because Ihave a lot of flowers this year
and the bees have been buzzingaround.
I think I have seen the skunk?
(07:58):
Not as much.
I haven't seen the skunks asmuch as I did last year, but we
still have skunks, so that'sgreat.
But yeah, there's at leastthree hummingbirds out there now
.
Anyway, I digress.
I love summer and I've alwaysloved summer, but as I've gotten
(08:22):
older now I don't enjoy theheat anymore.
I enjoy the air conditioning,but I don't enjoy the heat
anyway.
And I've noticed, because wehave had a few hotter days.
We had a couple of 90s lastweek and we had some 80s.
(08:43):
What's more challenging is thatsome of my plants are a little
borderline because I have to goout and water them every day,
otherwise they're going to notmake it.
That's a little tougher.
That's.
One good thing about the rainis you don't have to worry about
(09:04):
a plant dying because it's dry.
You have to worry about themgetting too much water, sure,
but that's not usually a problem.
Anyway, welcome to summer.
It just seems like a morecarefree time, doesn't it, for
some reason for me.
But I am now.
(09:25):
It's the end of May, right?
So it leaves June, july, august, and then we have September,
and in September I'm excitedbecause then I can start
decorating for Halloween.
I know it's, I know it's alittle early to even think about
it, but I'm excited.
(09:46):
I'm excited because I'm goingto try to make a new display all
on my own.
It's a DIY thing.
I wanted to do that last year.
I didn't do it.
Um, it wasn't this particularthing, but I saw a picture of
this great kind of circle ofghosts with a burning thing in
(10:11):
the middle.
Thing is one of my favoritewords, by the way, and and I saw
it and I've seen, I've seen itdone now in a couple, three,
four different ways on YouTube.
By the way, if you haven'tchecked out DIY videos on
(10:31):
YouTube, I could sit in a darkroom with a TV and a remote
control and I could go through.
I could spend the rest of mydays looking at DIY videos on
YouTube.
I never realized how many DIYvideos there are on YouTube, and
(10:52):
I'm not just talking aboutHalloween decorations.
We're talking about Christmasdecorations, we're talking about
gardening things.
We're talking about I mean andthen I start to kind of blank
over I'm sure there's other DIYthings that you know.
I watched a woman.
Here's the thing.
I watched a woman the other day, and I'm not sure why, but I
(11:17):
watched her ironing her clothesand she was talking about how
she irons and how she does herlaundry and how she organizes
all of her daily householdchores.
Now, am I that detailed?
Now do I have my dailyhousehold chores?
(11:39):
No, did I feel like I was crazyfor sitting there and watching
a woman iron her clothes?
Yes, I did.
She had a lot of views.
This is the thing.
She had a lot of views she was.
I mean, I get, maybe I'm just, Idon't know, am I weird?
(12:00):
Maybe I get distracted, but Istart a project like I want to
clean out an area, right, andI'll start.
I get kind of stuck on things.
Or I could do a load of laundry, but if I had to iron let's say
if I had to iron five shirts, Iwould.
It would take me the rest ofthe afternoon.
(12:21):
When was the last time I ironed, you could ask?
I can't remember because Idon't iron.
I'm a bad ironer.
I'm a bad organizer.
I've learned to be a little bitbetter, but I wasn't born with
that gene in my body.
I wasn't.
(12:42):
I'm a I'm, you know, I'morganizationally disabled.
I just I really am.
I watch other people who are sogood at it and I'm not good at
it.
So I think about organizing mygarage, because now we have so
much, so many Halloweendecorations and so many
(13:04):
Christmas decorations and it'sabsolutely overwhelming and it
needs to be organized.
I did, actually I did prettywell with the Halloween stuff
when I put that away, but theChristmas stuff is there's too
much and there's too much otherjunk in there, but it's kind of
(13:24):
too much for one person.
Do you ever feel that way?
Yeah, I do.
Anyway, I'm rambling, but maybethe summer is the time for me
to do this.
After my event, I'll have lesswork, and that's a good thing,
hopefully.
Anyway, I hope whatever you'redoing for the summer, it's going
(13:49):
to be fun and it's going to beproductive.
So that's all I've got fortoday, folks.
Next week we'll tackle anothertopic together.
I hope you'll join me.
If you like this episode,please follow the Only Child
Diaries podcast on ApplePodcasts or other platforms you
(14:10):
might listen on and considerrating Only Child Diaries and
writing a review.
It helps others to find us.
Please share it with a friendyou think might like it as well,
and visit my Instagram page,only Child Diaries or Facebook
Only Child Diaries Podcast.
Thanks for listening.
(14:30):
I'm Tracy Wallace and these arethe Only Child Diaries.
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