Transcript of AE 1192 - Pete & Kel Sum Up 2022

Look up, Peaches..

He's just gone ballistic. What are you doing there, Peaches? What are you doing? Peaches? You're good. Oh, she's getting frisky.

I guess we're talking about the cat to begin with.

Frisky?

Yeah, that's frisky Peaches! So?

Oh, my God. Look at her face. She's like, 'Oh, I'm on fire!'

Yeah, but as soon as you get near, she grabbed my hand and she just tapped me. Didn't you?

She's so frisky.

So how are you going, guys? Welcome to this podcast. And it's been a while since I've dragged my wife on here.

Yes, it's been a long time.

Talk up, Kel. Talk up.

It's been a long time since I've been on the podcast.

Where have you been, Kelly?

Just working.

Hiding.

No. Working really hard. Just tired.

Well, yeah, I guess we can recap 2022, right.

Jesus Christ.

How's the year been for you? What have been some of the biggest events that have been life changing? Worth mentioning?

Look at ... she's just after the ball...

I just threw the ball on the ground, the cats after it.

Definitely getting a house. Buying a house.

We can go through these stories one by one.

Yeah.

What else?

Going back to work after having Joey.

Mm hmm. You did that first?

Yes. Well, in order to get a house, I had to go back to work. Yeah, that. That's a lot.

What else?

Already.

Cat. We got a cat here running around in the background. Good old peaches. She's frisky Peaches, calico, cat. Orange, brown and white. It's almost a grey, brown black in some parts, like a tabby pattern, but white orange and yeah, the browny black. She's a beast.

Hmm.

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Okay.

Okay.

All right. So how was it getting back to work?

It was really, it's still very hard. Like, I think every day. I think am I? I ask myself if I'm making the right decision.

Why is that?

Because I'm like, Oh, my God, my kids are so small and I want to, I want to be with them. Like I want to, you know, just be home when they come back from work- from day-care.

Can't send them to work yet. That's probably illegal.

When they come back from day-care and just. I don't think one day goes by without me thinking and like, just wondering, am I doing the right thing? It's really hard. Like, as a mom, your instinct is to be with your kids, I think. Some women find it easier, and I do respect to that, don't get me wrong. I'm saying my- but my personal experience is like it has a lot of guilt. It comes with an angel. I love my job, but I do feel like I'm sacrificing time with my kids.

Well, I guess we can mention first, we didn't necessarily want you to go back to work.

No.

It's definitely made my life more complicated. Although, you know, for better and worse, there have been definitely pros. I get to spend a hell of a lot more time with the kids than probably the average male my age.

I think for us as a couple, we didn't know that, but it was a good thing to have you experiencing being home with the kids.

It's definitely been a shock to the system.

And just feeling like you want to stay. Now, when I say this is a full time job on itself, like it's you don't get to do anything. You know, sometimes I get back from work and I'm like, Oh, he hasn't done the dishes or whatever. I'm like, okay, I remember what it feels like. I know.

Well, I used to. I used to shit on you. I'd be like, Kelly, God damn it, You've had the entire day to do the dishes. And you'd be like, Mate, I was with the kids, and now it's like, you're coming home and you're like, Dude, you know, the dishes aren't done. And I'm like, Mate!

It was so good from- I can only speak for myself. Like, I personally, I think that I understand how you felt when you had Noa- when we had Noah and you were like, I just, I just want to work. I wanted to do things and I want to house to be quiet and everything. And I was like, I just want to get out of having this kid on me all the time. And it's I don't know about how you feel, but like, I feel it was such a good thing for us to experience.

Yeah.

What the other one was feeling.

Yeah, 100%. I mean, I'm definitely, I definitely understand more. And I see the sort of unfairness when I was just pumping hard, trying to just keep doing what I was doing with work and provide for the family and, and just leave the childcare up to you, you know, 90, 95% of the time. And how I remember thinking at the time, like Kel, all we have to do is just make sure they don't die.

Like just, just make sure they don't, you know, put a knife into the power socket or, you know, fall off a cliff or something like that. That's all we have to do.

That would definitely work if it was a pet. Like, I just have to keep this thing alive. But as a human being, it's like it's so much more. And as they get older, you see, with Noah, you got to engage, and the emotional toil, it gets, it- it's just-

I think that's the biggest thing, the abusive relationship. Emotionally abusive relationship that you end up in with your kids. Where I think, like the biggest thing with Noah at the moment is he'll be crying and whingeing and having a tantrum because he wants something and then you'll give it to him and then he'll have a cry and a tantrum because he doesn't want it.

Oh, it's not the right colour...

Dude. Yeah, I know. He'll be like, I want this thing. I want this thing and crying and screaming and running around. And then you're like, Ah yeah, I don't want to give it to him because he's having a tantrum. Because then he'll learn I need to have a tantrum to get this thing. And two, if you do give it to him, he quite often is just like, I don't want it, I don't want it. And you're like, okay, so it's not really about the thing, it's..

No...

He's just wanting attention and..

It's always about connection. Every tantrum is a call for closeness. And like, I want to, I want you to see me.

And it's one of those things, though, where as much as you can rationalise it and intellectualise it after the fact, or even during the fact, it's still stressful.

It's so triggering. It is.

Like the amount- yeah, it used to be funny. You'd walk around and you'd see. You'd see kids losing their shit publicly and the parents would seemingly have no patience and would instantly, you know, snap at the child. And I remember thinking like, Jesus, these people are psychos. What's your parents like? But you don't understand that that child has been probably doing that 50 times that day. And the parents like had- it's the final straw, and it's just like, Oh my God. And then just snaps. And he's like, Fine, we're going home. You know, we're not doing this thing. Screw this. All right, whatever.

And so but I totally understand that trying to control that urge to, and maybe not everyone's like this, but for me in particular, you know, lose your temper at your kids, scream at your kids, yell at them. Even just sometimes. Yeah. Like, just swear in frustration, you know, having to put a lid on that and hot and control that is so difficult. And it's like you really have to just get your Buddhist monk.

It's- the thing is, once you have a child, you are facing your own childhood issues. Like you, it's almost like you regress to whatever you experience as a child in a sense. So you got to heal your own inner child in order to raise your kids. And there is a reason why this is so triggering. Like, why don't I have patience with my kid? Like, I was actually chatting to my psychologist the other day saying, when Noah hits Joey, I don't know why, it's such a big trigger for me.

Yeah, you were saying.

So much. Like, I just feel like I'm, I can be having the best day ever. And when he's, he pushes her or he does something..

Violent.

Violent, towards her, it just triggers me so much. But if you look at it, it's like the hardest part of parenting is dealing with your own emotions. It's not about the child, anyway. It's about your reactions and how you cope with in a very stressful environment.

And that's a big part of it, right? Like the fact that you have something that is externally making you angry or frustrated repeatedly every single day when those emotions and feelings aren't inherently enjoyable. So usually you try to avoid feeling those ways because they're very unpleasant and you can't, you can't really avoid that with your kids. So you have to confront the fact that..

You've got to confront..

And you can, when you get angry and frustrated and everything, it's like they don't understand. They don't know why you're doing that. They don't realise that it's a causal thing, that you're reacting to them putting stress on you, and which can then lead to them getting more stressed out and everything, but..

Yeah, yeah. It's really..

Sorry if I cough a few times, guys. I have had a chest infection for the last week.

It's really hard.

So that aspect of it is brutal. And I guess I yeah, totally understand that now where I barely can do an entire day with them by myself before wanting to get to the point of just being like, tap out. And I remember thinking like, when we first were like having, having Noah, we were like, Oh man, we're going to be the best parents. We're not going to use nappies. He's not going to watch TV, we're not going to get sugar.

Everyone is an amazing parent until they have kids.

Till the shit hits the fan. Oh man, I remember having Oh, okay, we'll do this and this and this. And you do just realise that all of those things make your life so much easier.

And I mean just the acceptance of like every parent. I mean, most parents are doing the best they can. It doesn't make- people look at parents in a restaurant, for example, with a kid watching something on a tablet or cell phone and like, Oh my God, horrible parents. Like, you don't know how hard it was to get their child out of the house and you just want to have a nice meal. Child is fine. It's one little thing. You can't take one. Yeah, like little sort of moment of someone's life and say they are horrible parent. Like you, do you. That's the thing I've learned is like 'you do you'. Like, whatever it takes.

You just be aware. Like as long as you are doing your best, you are conscious about your own wounds as a parent, things that you have to heal as a as an individual so you don't pass it on to your kids. That that is a lot for me. As long as you're doing that, you're doing a great job. Kids are fine. A little bit like, I mean, honestly, I've been watching things and like, it's not going to..

Well, the amount of stuff I was so surprised at, the amount of stuff that Noah in particular has learnt through watching shows, the amount of language he's developed. Even in Portuguese, we've shown him Portuguese shows, as well as English shows. And although it is kind of a babysitter TV and you get some downtime, one, it's a- it's a tool that you can use as a parent. But two, it's like the learning continues for him and the amount of phrases that he's whipped out that he learnt from, say, Blippi or something. Well, remember, we were sitting in the back of the car one day and we're sitting at the lights. I think it's just me and Noah know maybe you were there. And when the light went green, Noah just yells out, Fire in the hole! And I was like, Where the fuck did he learn that?

I don't know!

Like, where on earth? Because this is a phrase that you would use when, say, firing a cannon or setting off an explosion or something. Fire in the hole. Right. It's probably an explosion thing. When people were mining and they were setting off the explosion in a hole right in a mineshaft and they would say fire in the hole.

And it was fucking Blippi! It was damn Blippi on bloody YouTube! One day we're watching it and Blippi is just like doing a thing on Pirates or something and was firing a cannon. And yelling out,

Yeah, I know that one..

Fire in the hole! And I was like, Oh my God, yeah. And Noah learnt that and just whips it out randomly when he was like, The car's about to go because the light went green. He's like, Fire in the hole!

No, thank you, Blippi.

I know.

.. a magazine.

And one thing that I've noticed with him is he says words with an American accent, something.

He does! Fast!

No, he'll say "that's a fast."

Yeah, he'll say 'fast' instead of 'fast'.

"That car is really fast."

"That car is really fast!" So cute.

Yeah. So.

But in the same way, he comes back from day-care saying, I want me socks! So, you know, it's, whatever is around, they just are sponges. Sponges?

Yeah. He absorbs. Yeah. Incorrect- oh well he does, I've noticed him doing a lot of the past tense verbs, the irregular ones. He'll just make them regular.

He definitely..

Like you did, "Did Mama come to day-care" or something? Yeah, "she come to day-care?"

I wind!

"I came."..

He said "I wind, I wind!" Instead of "I won".

Yeah. It's funny.

The other thing he said "otherwise" and was like, Whoa!

Yeah!

It's like ...a conjunction, Mommy.

Otherwise it's almost like, Oh...

But I think that was one of those things that's really taught me a lot about language learning. Just watching your kids learn a language and seeing how many errors they make, but that they just take it in their stride and they don't let it slow them down. They're not consciously thinking about it. They're solely focussed on communication. That's all they care about. They don't give a shit about being correct, about making mistakes, about being, you know, seeming stupid and- oh my God, Noah. I remember initially we were like, Oh, he's going to be delayed because he's learning two languages, so he's not going to be as good at either one of those as if it was a single child just learning one of those languages. And seriously, he does not shut up!

And every single person is like, Oh my God, He's like, the girls at day-care. His language is so good.

But I think a big part of that is that he is so social and he is so, he just never shuts up.

He does.

He's constantly talking and just filling the silence with with him, just like he doesn't even know what he wants to say. And he'll be sitting in the counter and be like, "Dada, Dada, and then and Dada, and we'll go.."

"And next week.."

"And, and, and next week,and when I was a baby and then. Oh, Dada, ah Dada, ah Dada..". And you just be like, just finish your thought.

He goes like this, "Mommy, did you know, when I was a baby, next week, I, I was, doing this, (babbles)" I was like, "Yeah, honey, you couldn't say anything, but now you can." Then it's like, "Oh, Mommy, when Joey is a big girl, next week.."

Yeah, I just don't..

It is so good.

I think the most brutal thing is to you notice how much they are only interested in having the conversation, but not actually interested in listening or learning from you. Like the amount of times that he'll ask something or he'll be chatting to me about something and you can just see or hear. He'll just interrupt me when I try and reply and he'll be on to the next thing. And you're like, You don't give a shit about what I have to say, or actually even learning the answer to the question. You just want to talk! And so he'll be like, Dad? What's for dinner? And I'll be like, Oh, so I think we're going to have..

The he'll be like, Dad, it's cold outside, isn't it? And I'm like, Yeah, that's because.. Then he'd be like, Dad, can I watch TV? And he'll just be like, Fuck Noah, finish your thought and let me reply to you. He's just excited all the time! I'm just..

He is. Excited to participate. It's really cute.

It is. It is so funny. Just watching all these things and knowing that you've gone through them too, when you were a kid and you're such a different person now. But that, yeah, I would have been, you know, probably very similar to Noah. I think I was a little quieter. I wasn't quite as sort of, I don't know, chatty as him. And it's so funny. My niece is really chatty, Izzy, and she's five, about to go to primary school next year. And..

Primary school? Really?

Yeah.

Jesus.

Prep. Prep. Preparatory, the first year of primary school. But so she was sitting in the car with Noah, and my dad was taking her to the. I think they were all going to the storage unit to get some stuff there. And, and Dad's like Izzy is normally chatty as, but she couldn't get a word in. Noah wouldn't shut up. He's just constantly..

.. he really, really talks..

.. and he's so comfy when he's around Izzy, you know, all these mates. Yeah. Yeah. So the kids, it's been fun. How's Joey been?

Jojo's?

Yes. Jesus Christ, She's an animal, guys. She is a fucking animal.

Oh. Oh, my God, Joey.

She has been such a big part of why Aussie English's been going slow this year.

She's such a big personality. Like she really. She's not what I expected. Like having a baby girl would be like, I thought- honestly, as much as it sounds, you know, cliche, like I thought it would all be about..

She'd be demure, quiet.

.. a little bit easygoing, sort of like really cute baby girl. Like all about. I would dress her like I'm really, really cute clothes on her and just be like, really? And she is not. That. Kid.

Oh, my God. She is absolute animal. Guys.

She's really full on. She's really, it's sort of like you can't have one side without the other. Like she's, when she's happy she is so- it's contagious. She's so amazing. She laughs and she runs and she's like, Doesn't shut up either.

She's so chatty.

.. Doesn't say a word, a word. But she's just like, (babbles) so funny, so funny.

And she'll do these things like she'll just run up to you and be like Aaugh! and smile at you with this evil smile.

She puts on faces like she's really. But the same way she's that intensity when she's happy, she has the same intensity when she's upset and she's so loud and like.

Well, you had hearing loss for a while..

.. violent and she throws things and she's, it's like,

She throws herself on the ground screaming and just bashing the ground. And you turn around and she'll look up and then be like, Oh, okay. And just forget that she was angry.

Like she, you offer her something like, Do you want a, do you want a piece of toast? It's like, she doesn't want it, but she'll take it anyway so she can throw it on the ground.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

And then she'll smile at you. And it's sort of like this power move. This, this subtle Fuck you, Dad. You're like, Oh, my God, this is so brutal. You'll be like, Oh, Joey. So I made this egg for you. And she'd be like, Yummy, yummy. And then you give it to her. And she'll just look at you and then smile with and sort of squint her eyes and then just be like, Aaugh! then throw it on the ground. And you're just like..

It is hard to take her. Like with Noah, I can literally I mean, he's older, but even as a baby, I would take him to places and just be like, Fine, you can play with whatever you want, just like, just be fun. And I can't do that with Joey. First thing, we go outside, she wants to run into the road.

Oh, man.

And she runs away. Or like, she, she's getting into someone else's house. And just touching everything. It's..

Yeah, yeah.

It's crazy. Take her to the beach. She just runs off into the water and just keeps going. She seems to have no self awareness.

No fear!

.. like, like risk. She's just, like, not risk averse at all.

Whereas Noah is like, Mommy, hold my hand?

Noah is, yeah. And he's really, he's very anal about being clean. Right. He has this very weird attitude towards getting water on himself or being dirty. And that's been an interesting thing this year where he toilet trained himself within a few days. It was insane.

All of a sudden he didn't want to wear nappies and within like literally a week he was pulling and weighing on the toilet. And it was because he was so disgusted. If he ever peed his pants or pooped his pants, he would be like, That's yucky. Oh, gross. Yucky, Dada. I want to change it. And but the good side and the bad side of that, the good side is that, yeah, he trained himself to go to the toilet really quickly and he rarely has accidents. The bad side is that any time he spills something on himself, where he gets a little bit dirty, he's so anal about cleaning up like he'll, he'll be in the middle of playing outside and he'll get a bit of dirt on his hand and he'll be like, Wet wipes! Where are the wet wipes? I need to clean it!

He's having breakfast. He's literally eating it. He's like, Mommy, can you brush my teeth?

And you're like, Yeah,

You haven't even finished, honey! But it's like, I feel like he's a bit anxious about it. Like he just doesn't relax. Whereas most kids would just be playing and getting that little Joey would be eating Play Dough, eating sand. And he's like, Oh my God, my hands are dirty.

So often we have photos. You go back and look at these photos with them playing together and Joey will look like she's been through, you know,

She's seems like..

..a grinder. She's got, she's covered in crap, her hair's everywhere, her clothes are ripped. And Noah will be like, sparkling clean, standing next to her. And she's the one that's been, like, in the mud puddle, just dancing around and everything. And he's just like, Yeah, that's nice. Sitting on the side complaining because he got a drip of it on his leg.

He would never. Never.

Yeah, it's pretty funny. It's pretty funny how those personalities come out so early and you have- it seems like you have no control over it. And we notice that with Joey, like, we went out with a friend when- our kids were at day-care and we went out with Kat and her daughter, and her daughter is about a month younger than Joey, I think.

Yeah.

And I couldn't believe we went out to a cafe and Kat just put her in a little baby seat.

Yeah.

And she just sat there quietly for an hour.

Ohh!

And didn't make a noise. Literally, didn't make a noise. Didn't cry. Didn't didn't talk. It just sat there and was just happy eating her food and playing with whatever it was in front of it. And I was like, Are you fucking kidding me? There are girls out- there are daughters- there are children out there that do this? Like, Noah never did that. But Joey, good God, you..

Good luck getting her to sit down.

She would lose her shit after..

And he would like..

2 to 5 minutes. If she didn't have anything to do or had no food, she would be throwing herself out of the chair, trying to get to the ground and then just running around the restaurant like a nut job. Yeah. And so it is that's one of those interesting things. I'm like, there are so many parents out there who don't understand how easy they have it when their children, how that kind of kid that just sit still and eats their food and chills out. And I think it is one of those things where quite often where like as much as you'd wish Joey to be like that, we kind of love her personality, but good God, is it full on?

It is. You sort of like, have to play, to plan everything. Everything you do with her. Like you can't just wing it like, Oh, yeah, let's go. It's sort of like Okay, Joey can't sit on a restaurant.

Yeah!

We gotta find some way outside. We take turns. So you eat first. I'll eat- like it's just.

And it's so funny when we do go out with people and the kids will be at day-care or with our parents or my parents or something, and they'll have their kids there, chilling out at a restaurant or whatever, eating food, and they'll just be like, Why didn't you guys bring Joey? And you just like (laughs). No chance!

No chance.

Like, have a look at your child. This is not, this is not how it is for everyone. Like, and they just won't get it. Both of the parents will be sitting there having a chat, drinking a beer, eating their food, and their child will just be quietly sitting there eating for like an hour or so. And you would just be like, there's this is not the norm. Like not everyone is experiencing..

No chance. With Joey, no chance.

There's no way. You'd have to give them Valium. You would have to give her tranquilliser. She'd have to be asleep. And that's the only way I would be able to manage this.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I don't know. It's been a ride and I think as much as I love Joey, good God, like, and that's why I think we were thinking of having three, maybe even four kids initially. Right. But Joey definitely put a nail in the coffin of our dreams to have more children because it's just- I think it's sort of like a baby Russian roulette, right? You'd be like, the next one could be totally cool.

My God, if we have another Jojo's..

I think our marriage would probably end with one of us killing the other.

We would just be on the edge, just like, I don't know. I think we've got it pretty good. We've got one each. A boy and a girl, and they're very different. So I don't know. Unless Joey changes, and I do not wish. I don't know. I don't want her to change. As I said, you can't have one side without having the other. Like she's either like very intense and happy and then she'll flip. But.

I think she's, she'll be amazing until she's a teenager. That is what horrifies me.

Really.

I think her as a teenager scares the shit out of me. Yeah, I have nightmares about that. That's like, like I'll just be in the shops doing my own thing and I'll just start crying.

Jojos just going to be good..

She's, she's going to be so full on when the hormones start kicking in. Oh, my God. I think the theme, her musical theme will be Rage Against the Machine. With the Bulls on Parade. 'Fuck you. I don't do what you tell me.'

And one side of me is like, Fuck, it's going to be so hot. But I do wish, I hope she's rebellious. I hope she is like, she questions things. And especially, don't get me wrong, I know Noah will be whoever he's going to..

.. Be careful what you wish for.

..I'd want her to be questioning everything. So be like I don't like..

Skeptical.

Yes, I want her to be strong and just like, just assertive because that's in today's world. It's like if you have a girl who is has such a big personality, you got to celebrate that. You don't want to, like, cut her wings and like, feel like she's she can't be herself. She takes too much space. No, I want her to be loud and to be, you know, herself.

I want to clip it wings..

But it does. It does make me, that does make me tired.

Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. So, yeah, that's what we've been dealing with, with the children and it just being brutal.

But I have..

I only have to handle them twice a day, twice a week for entire days by myself. And then the other times it's just the evenings, and that's just. It's freaking exhausting. I think the main thing is that you just can't, you can't get a slice of time. Like a significant slice of time to be able to sit down and do what you want to do. And that's the most brutal thing. Even, I remember you used to say like, Oh, but you're you're home by your home here. I've got the kids. And you're like, Yeah, but I still can't think, right? Like, 'cause you can hear them, they're screaming. You'll be like, Let's go out and do something or Noah will be like knocking on the door. Where's Dada?

And you don't want to just ignore that. And so it is so difficult trying to balance working from home and having two small children. I don't know how people do it and how they are so productive at times. And I think that was one of the things I sort of had to give myself permission this year, to just not be as productive as previous because, oh my God, it was just mental health wise and my, my God, it was so difficult. And you feel, you get into these spirals of like, feeling bad about not being good at either, Right. So, oh, God, I'm not doing enough work. Or as you were saying, like, God, I'm doing too much work and I'm not spending enough time with my kids. And it's pretty easy to feel not good enough or feel like shit and punish yourself. But you have to kind of also give your self permission to be what, less than ideal for both, right? Not necessarily the perfect worker and not necessarily the perfect parent. Because life's hard. Life's-.

Good. Good enough is my goal. To be a good enough parent. To be a good enough worker. And that is all. And anything above that is a bonus.

It's pretty much a survival for now. I'm just like when they go to primary school, my God, it's going to be so good. And when you have like five days a week of just solid.

But you have all the issues-

I know-

How to sort of..

But I think they'll also be more independent at that time, too. They're not going to be crapping themselves and, you know, not unable to feed themselves and unable to sleep in their own beds. That's the other thing. The amount of disrupted sleep, which some of which is self imposed, because I'm like, okay, I'll stay up late and get work done or I'll, this is, finally they're asleep, I'll chill out and watch Netflix for a few hours. And then you're like, It's 2 a.m..

No, and..

I know it's brutal. I think that to that amount of lack of sleep or just disrupted sleep, the fact that you just don't have say, 10 to 9 sleep every single night and it's just always changing because the kids will regress or Joey will be up one night at midnight and the next night she'll be up at 4 a.m. and then the next day she'll sleep through, but Noah will be up. And then he'll be down. And then it's just like, Oh my God, I can't wait to have a normal sleeping pattern again. That's, that's probably one of the biggest things that I think I miss. And I think you feel me there.

Yes. I don't get to nap. Like during the day. I'm either at work or I have the kids. So it's never like unless I'm really sick, like it happened the other day, I do not ask, how can I have a nap? It's just like on the go all the time. Kids, work. Kids, work.

It is so funny how often now I nap. I had two naps the other day, like I have one in the morning and then I have one in the afternoon. Wow. And it's like you just need it because you don't. You don't get proper sleep.

I just drink a lot of coffee.

Pretty much.

And I just. Yeah, Yeah. Otherwise I just can't do it.

So we've bitched about our kids for the last half an hour. What's the next topic?

The house.

House.

So, yeah, well, and a job. They're sort of connected, right?

Yeah. So I had to go back to work so we could get a house.

And the reason for that?

And..

The reason for that was that even though I make, it's not like if you were to earn what I earn as an income from a job where you were employed by someone, we would have easily been able to buy a house just on my wage alone. But because I'm self employed and I'm not employed by someone else, that's a business. Which is ironic, right? Because I could employ someone on the wage that I'm getting, and simply because they're an employee of my business, they'd be fine to get the loan. But because I'm self employed and I'm the only one at the top of the business, they wouldn't give us anywhere near enough based on my income. So we needed like an extra 25 to $50000 a year from another job so that you could. So the loan would be increased that that would allow us to get a house around where we wanted to get near my parents, on the Bellarine Peninsula here.

So Kel had to go, to go back to work. And it was so annoying too, because we were applying- we first applied just on my wage and I think they gave us like half a million dollars, which sounds like a lot, but you wouldn't be able to buy anything around here for that. That would be big enough for two kids and a family and working from home. It would be probably a two bedroom apartment or something that you'd be able to get for half a million dollars. And so Kel went and started working at the golf club.

I was doing like casual hours sort of thing. Just, you know, if you, if they had any shifts to give me, any hours, it would be nice. But we thought, Oh yeah, that's fine.

When you were on a, you know, a decent amount so you're probably on what, 25, 30 a year..

I was making more than I make now.

Yeah. Because you were casual and you were getting loads of hours and you were getting overtime and weekend time and everything. But the annoying thing was then, so we had that income.

Because it was casual..

And because it was casual and because you hadn't worked there for more than 12 months without taking a month off, we couldn't include it in the loan application. So when we went back to the mortgage broker and said, okay, so my wife's on this wage, it's bumped us up, should we now be able to get more than, say, 600 to 700000 so we can finally get a house? And she was like, no, she has to have had that job for 12 months and she can't have taken off a month off of work during that time. And we were like..

It was really frustrating..

And it was because it was casual, yeah. And they, they couldn't give you part time or put you on part time.

Well..

And you would have taken a pay cut, if they had. If they put you on part time, you wouldn't have been getting overtime or the the weekend hours sort of stuff.

Yes. And also like it was a really good experience. I met a lot of people. I learnt a lot, but I didn't want to be part time or full time in that position.

Yeah, it was physically exhausting.

It was really exhausting. I was like, I'll try and find something else.

Well, you were hustling. You're effectively like a kitchen hand, right? So you were doing dishes and physical work. Constantly on your feet for like 10 hours a day.

Yeah. It was really hot. I mean, I loved it. It was like I learned so much and I met so much, so many people. But I, after two months, I was just like, This is absolutely exhausting. And then I tried to find something else and I found the job I have now.

Do you want to tell them that story, about how you got it and everything?

It is a music school in Geelong. It's been going on for like 30 years. They needed a receptionist, so I was like, I can probably do that.

You have experience in that area. You worked for the Brazilian Embassy..

And I went for my interview, which was really, really nice. I thought initially I was like, Oh, I probably didn't get it. Like they gave me a hard time. Not a hard time, but they were really- I couldn't read him. The guy, it was just like, I don't get any vibes here. I thought I was like, Oh, I didn't get the job. Fair enough. I would just keep applying. But then I did get it, which was really nice. So it's been, what, June? July? Five months?

Yeah, something like that. Oh you got it in June. Then about six.

Late June.

Yeah. Okay. So closer to six.

I love it. It's really nice. I'm exhausted, but it's because I can't just walk home. Like, the golf club was literally next door.

Yeah.

This place is in Geelong, so I have to get the bus and it's really, my bus comes every hour.

Or. Or.

I'll get a lift.

Which is what happens most of the time.

Which is, yes, I know. But it really does take a toll on you after a while. But I love it. I think I'm really lucky. I work in a really relaxed, sort of like, friendly environment. I have the best boss ever.

This job has a chair!

He has. He's so nice. My boss is just the best. He's really funny and friendly and really generous, like. And everyone is so nice to me. I think if the environment wasn't so nice, I would probably be looking for something else, moneywise.

Yeah.

But I really found myself like I love what I do. I love chatting to people and parents and interacting with the teachers and just being, I don't know, I love it. So.

Yeah.

I'll probably stay there for a while.

Hopefully Tony's not listening to this. Being like, How long she's staying for?

No, he knows. He knows what I have. I'm very open with him. Like I'm taking more hours next year.

Why, are you going full time?

Well, yeah. So that is another thing. Like, I'm not cutting so much hours with my kids, cutting off hours with me. It's more like my very- like, the little time I have for myself? That is gone. That will be gone next year. So I don't know how to work around it to make sure I get. The like. I've been slowly sort of like, Oh, I like having my nails done. I like having makeup on. I like going to do, like little things that I sort of had- I had to rediscover, that I would bring me enjoyment and like just-

Well, that's probably partly you getting the job and having more income now to, specially your own income, because I think you found it difficult.

I don't know, like spending someone else's money.

From me. Well, but and you would see it as as my money as opposed to our money. And that was part of the biggest issue. Right. So you would be a lot, a lot more of a tight ass and not wanting to spend money even if you had the same amount of money but it was coming from me. But because you are now earning your own wage and it doesn't have anything to do with me.

Allow myself to do more.

Give yourself permission. To do this,

To like, to buy more for myself and to be like, okay, I worked really hard. I can. And I feel like, yes, it's awesome to earn money, but I will not have the same time and I want to keep doing things for myself and to spend time with our kids..

Like, you just have to balance it and see how you go..

.. we'll have to work around it next year.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I guess there's that and then. Yeah, getting the house. So once you got that job, we were finally able to reapply and it was annoying because this was just as the interest rates were starting to come in and that was so irritating, knowing that the RBA, right, the Reserve Bank of Australia, had said our interest rates won't increase until at least 2024. And then they started doing it early this year, mid-year and they were doing it like month after month, right? So they were increasing it by half a per cent repeatedly and you know, it was, as a result it was reducing the amount of money that you could borrow.

Yes.

As a borrower. And annoyingly, there hadn't been enough time that houses would have, the price of houses being sold, would have felt that kind of impact. And so borrowing potential was, was being reduced whilst housing prices, although they were reducing after the sort of COVID hype, they weren't, they weren't reducing as quickly. And so that was the biggest thing for us. I guess it was kind of shitting ourselves thinking, Oh fuck, are we going to be able to get enough money to be able to buy a house in the area that we're currently living in that we sort of like and that we had been planning on getting a house in for a year or two, you know, aiming for that. And yeah, the good news was like we didn't have a deposit. I mean, well, we'd saved up maybe 10 to $20000, but that was pretty much just going to be enough to cover stamp duty and the legal fees and all that sort of stuff.

Which is ridiculous.

Yeah, but, well, it's just part of it. And the good thing was, though, the only way that we actually ended up getting the house was the fact that my parents..

So my necklace just, it's.. Um..

Magnetic.

Yeah, magnetic. Yeah. Sorry.

Stop playing with it. And so the only way that we could get the loan was that my parents were happy to go Guarantors, which means that they would guarantee a portion of the loan. I think, like, I don't know if it was 20%, so maybe $150,000. Meaning that if we failed to pay, it would be on them to pay the loan, which sounds horrifying. But at the same time, I was just like, Dad, you just take the house, right? Like, you'll- he's got other properties and everything. So it's kind of like, if we fail, you pretty much get this house that you would hope will have increased in value in that time. And also we've been paying it off until the point that, you know..

And chances are, we're not..

So you can just sell it.

It's sort of like, you know, we work really hard and worst case scenario, we don't have disposable income to do other things. But I feel like we'll be very.

Yeah.

The mortgage is the mortgage..

Ah, it's unlikely to happen. But yeah, it's interesting the whole guarantor thing because I have friends whose parents are like, no fucking way am I doing that to you. And I was like, What? Because I'm thinking, I mean, I would understand it if the people paying the house off were likely to fail immediately, because then it's probably just going to cost you a loan. You're not going to make any money. But like if we hold on to this house for a few years and then would have failed, my parents would effectively come out making money. By just taking the house and selling it straight away as theirs if we couldn't pay the loan off. Right.

So it seemed like it was a no brainer, although obviously it was a bit of extra work for them. And they had to guarantor our house using one of their other properties. And they were probably in a position to do it because they have multiple properties. So they have another house up in the Dandenongs. They were in a position to do it. But I think yeah, it is interesting. Like I've got friends whose parents were just like, No way, we're not helping you with that bit. Stand on your own feet, you know, be a man and everything..

They're going to help the kids..

But the property, the property market in Australia is fucked. It is so expensive and it is so hard, especially if you're not living at home to save up a deposit. Like and I can't imagine what it's like for a lot of you guys listening to this podcast who are migrants here and don't necessarily have parents or family, you know, that that you can lean on and you have to do this all yourselves. So my parents were the kind of people that would be like, especially for their own kids. They would bend over backwards to help us, help us out and get into the property market. So yeah, and I think a big thing too was Dad, because we didn't have the deposit too, something that was really annoying was they still required a deposit to be transferred to the, the vendor, right?

The person selling the property during the period of settlement. So when we sign the contract saying that we would buy the house and we have a settlement period where after I think it was 60 days, rather it was about two months. So we signed, I think in September and we got it at the end of October. I think something like that may have been, may have been Oct- yeah, maybe in October, the start of October, I don't know. But we had to give them 10% of what the house was worth. And so I guess to tell you guys. Like, the house cost us it was listed for 640 to 670. So $640,000 to 670. We didn't like it as much as some of the house- the other houses that we had seen around here, but those other houses had more people interested in them and they were more expensive. And I got the vibe, when we were coming out, looking at this house from the realtor, that the vendor, or the vendors were very, very, very keen to sell.

Yes.

And so Lee, the realtor, rang me pretty much straight away after we'd seen this house and was like, So what do you guys think? Are you interested? Do you like it?

Yeah!

What, you're going to put out an offer?

Very clear that they sort of wanted to.

Sell it.

Fast.

And so I was pretty much just like, Look, we saw some other houses that we really liked, that house that you want to sell, it would do. And if we can't get the others, we would probably buy it. And he was just like, Oh, you know, So what do you think, though? Would you put in an offer like they kind of, you know, we could do it today, we could sign the documents and everything, and I just lowballed him. I pretty much just said, I'll give you 635, I think. I think I said 630 or something.

You did say. You said...

I'll give you 630. 630 and ...

So 10,000 below the..

Yeah.

The, yeah. The bottom line. And that was where, yeah. He was like, Can you do 635 or 640 or whatever it was. And I was like, Okay, done.

It was good.

So we ended up getting it. In fact, it may have been that it was at 650 to 670. We got less.

.. you offered at 640 and they took 635.

No, 635 is what I offered and they took 640.

Oh, okay. Yes, that's right.

Yeah.

So yeah. Anyway it was like I gave them an offer- because again I was in that position of- I'm not, I'm trying to do this as unemotionally as possible. And with the, the thing in mind of this is an investment in the long run. I don't plan to live in this house with my family forever. It's going to be a nice stepping stone for,

Hopefully not.

You know, four or five years and then we'll find somewhere else and hopefully keep this one and have it as a rental. But the thing in my head was trying to not be emotional about the house that we- we'd seen some others that we did really like, but they were just outside our budget and I could have probably pushed, I could have borrowed money off a family member. Or I could have pushed and tried to save as much as possible in a month or something and hope the house was still there. But we would have been at the very limit of our borrowing potential. I think we could maxed out. They would lend us 670 or it may have been 675, and that would have been, you know, a pretty, like, a lot of mortgage repayments with zero deposit.

Yep!

That would have been like 4000 a month in mortgage repayments, which was probably double what we were paying in rent, right. So that would be like 800 and something a week, maybe more. But yeah, so because we weren't that attached to it, but we knew the house would do, I was like, Look, if he's going to sell it for less than market value and less than what they're asking for, I'll take it. And so I just made the offer then. So we literally went looking for houses once.

Yes, we did.

And by the end of that day, we had put in an offer for this one and eventually got it. I think-

And I feel, sometimes I get myself thinking, Oh, did we make the right decision? It's pretty small. We don't have a lot of space outside.

I think, to put that in context, we live in a four bedroom house. It's on a block that's probably about 450 metres squared. I think if, if Kels family came over from Brazil, and heard you saying that it's pretty small, I think they would probably say..

Oh, they do! I tell, I say, I send them photos and I actually- I think I sent the, what do you call it? The..

The format of the house.

Yeah.

The layout, the architectural.

Exactly. And they were like,

Floor plan.

Oh my god, it's so big! And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. You don't understand. It is not big at all. Like, we have just, we just have enough space for everything.

A big part of that, though, is the amount of crap that we have. And the fact that I have a hobby on the side, of plants, which takes up a significant amount of space in my office and in our lounge room, too.

But that is bringing in some money. So, we sort of have to compromise.

Yeah.

And I feel like, Oh, how are we going to do birthday parties for the kids? And it's like, it's a whole adjustment that we have to make because we don't have a lot of space. So I do get myself sometimes thinking, Oh, maybe we've rushed into it like.

Oh, I'm just glad we're in the housing market..

But on the, say, at the same time, I'm like, Wow, how- the other houses we looked at it? Well, much bigger, but we didn't have enough money to buy them.

Or it would have been a lot more stressful.

Oh, it would just be a lot more stress on us. And just like, I think as you said it would, it'll do. It's okay. It's fine. Kids don't seem to be too face about space.

Well, they barely even noticed we moved all the stuff in, sort of like the, the basic stuff in about a day whilst they were a day-care and they came home. And the funny thing is, their house is, it's arranged in the same direction as our other house. It's only about- the house that we were renting, it's only about 500 metres away, maybe maybe a kilometre max. Like, you could walk there in about 4 minutes. So it was just around the corner. And it's in the same orientation. So north is still the back of the house.

Yeah.

And the floor plan is effectively exactly the same, except that we don't have that extra lounge space that we had..

That is a play area they had. Yeah.

Yeah. And the kitchen, which is probably why this feels smaller than the other one because it's, it does have a smaller footprint on the land than the other house did. And had more, more of the land was house, if that makes sense. Yeah. But yeah I'm just glad we're in and I think yeah, it is one of those things where we just had to find a way.

Yeah. I'm just saying it's 3:30.

You got to go.

Oh, I just want to pee.

You going to go to the toilet?

Oh yeah, can we..

Well, we can have a pause. Go to the toilet. Unleash! Do the little hand signals. I'm like, What?

Okay. And we're back. How was it? Feel better.

Yes.

Kel's got snacks, so I'm going to have to talk while she's finishing her little, little thing of bickies here.

No, I can finish and eat later.

You had a high insulin, did you? Or was it low insulin? Low glucose, right? Yeah.

Yeah, we got a house. It's been really nice, I think.

Well, I think having that stress taken off, I constantly was thinking, God, I'm 35 and I still don't own a property. And the news these days seems to be just constantly young people buying ten properties. You know, all these stories about how easy it is and you're just like, God, I feel like a failure. I can't even do it. And I'm, you know, we're on, okay, money on. Okay, wages. We should be able to do this. It's so hard to save money though, whilst renting. So I'm sure a lot of you guys know what the stress is like. And I definitely feel that.

Yeah, although we've done well in the grand scheme of things and we've, you know, we have the security now of having a house, even though it's not, you know, the dream dream place or property or size or whatever. The fact that we've just sort of hustled and made it work and gotten in and it just, you know, that's one of the biggest things I guess I'm proud of through 2022 that we've worked together. And it's been but it's been brutal. Like, in terms of you getting a full time job and everything that comes with that.

All the adjustments we had to make. Like, all right, so you have the kids now I go to work.

Yeah.

I do extra hours sometimes. Or I have to work. It rarely happens, but like, oh, I have to do a Saturday. Or I come back- by the time I leave work, it's 8:00 and then I'm here at ten because I get the bus.

Or if you get picked up, the kids are ratty because they're in the car.

It's so- there's so much work behind making it all work so we can. So I can work. You can see work and take care of the kids when I'm not here.

It is. It is this really funny thing. We could go off on a total tangent here, but you do have those moments of just like, Why the fuck are we doing this? Like, why- like, us, as in people in the modern age, to sort of like, for all of the freedoms that we have, the money that we have, the toys that you can buy for next to nothing, that the cars you can get, that the health care, all this stuff that, you know, it costs money and it feels like we're living so well.

At the same time, I feel like compared to people in the past, I've been watching a few of these docs recently on say, what it was like to live in England, in the Victorian Times or the Tudor Times, you know, a few hundred years ago. And although their their life spans were shorter, their lives were so much simpler. And they were so much more connected to family and everything like that. And obviously, you know, there were all these negative things that came with, say, you know, living in squalor and having to live with pigs in your house over the winter and working in a coal mine and everything like that. It seems like they also benefited so much more from just having a smaller world and a smaller life where you weren't worried about all these existential things. And you got to see family members every day. Like, I'm so grateful that my parents and my sister and her family are so close by. And, you know, they're only ten, 15 minutes away. And at times that feels like it was too far. When we were renting, when we were living in Ocean Grove. We all live within, I think, 150 metres of one another so we could just walk to each other's house. And that was just so much fun because we could just have dinner parties at the drop of a hat. Randomly.

Every week!

Multiple times a week, and just people could get drunk, have fun and walk home. Didn't have to worry about anything. If mom didn't want to come, Dad could just walk down from the house that he was, you know, you could literally see his house from our backyard. So I got a taste, I think during that period of just like, Holy shit, this is what it was like for so much of human history, where families were so close together. But in the modern age, often and again, the guys listening to this podcast, I would say the majority of you probably understand exactly what it's like, if not more so. Like Kel, where your family is thousands of kilometres away.

Yep.

And although you're connected virtually, right, you can talk to them via the phone or the internet pretty much whenever, it's just not the same thing. And you know, you haven't seen your family in seven years.

Seven years. Yeah.

And these are the sort of sacrifices you have to make in the modern day. Modern age. That's, that do feel brutal at times. And you kind of think, why do we do this to ourselves? You know? But yeah, I don't know. It's just something that I've been considering at times. So it's just, yeah.

Awesome.

I guess. Wanting to finish up.

No!

So, how are those? How's the weather?

We, we've, we pretty much spoke about everything. Like kids.

Yeah. Hopefully we're not complaining too much, guys. I feel like I'm, I've been very negative in this interview, so hopefully it hasn't been too bad.

Oh, you're not being negative. You're being realistic.

Well. Where's your microphone, by the way? Is it hiding? You've got it there. Okay. Facing downwards, hopefully like he, well, the other thing I guess that, the elephant in the room, literally or figuratively, and literally here is the the plants that I've sort of gotten into and I haven't really talked about much on the podcast.

Yeah. How do you feel about the plants now? It's not, like I'm always. Not always, but I'm constantly, like worried that one day you just, like, lose interest.

I have those moments. Not necessarily where I lose interest, but where I freak out of like, Oh my God, we've invested so much or I've invested so much in the plants. Time, money wise, and and really interested in this as a hobby and, and hopefully a side business, to just have diversified our income and yeah, be earning a bit of income from something else but. I mean, I think it's like anyone with any kind of job, right? That it could something could change suddenly. It could be worth nothing or you could lose your job or you could get sick and you wouldn't be able to continue doing it. I have those sorts of things at times with the plants. Or I'm like, Oh God, what happens if suddenly they're not worth anything or they all die or I die and you've got to deal with. What the hell are you going to do with these plants, that are taking up a significant amount of our lounge room? But it's, it's still really enjoyable. I think it just went through a phase of expansion where I've, I've got, I guess for the context guys, I have probably about 300 plants in the house.

Yes.

And they're they range in value between, I don't know, tens of dollars to thousands of dollars. And the whole point of initially I got into the hobby of just having house plants because it was sort of a nice little break from things. It was a mental health kind of thing, of greening up the space. And it's fun to watch things grow and take care of them. But pretty quickly I was thinking, how do I make money from this If I'm going to have a hobby that costs money, how do I have a hobby that either pays for itself or better, earns an income?

And so I got into the rare indoor plant scene and started going hard with purchasing indoor plants, learning about them, propagating them, trying to sell some of them. And I think too, a big part of it was that I had invested money or we had invested money in those investment apps. Like, where you put in, you drip feed sort of money out of your account each week and they invest it in shares. And it seems like a bit of a bit of a scheme, a bit of a scam where they charge you a rate every month. So you do have to sort of invest a certain amount to actually be able to make enough to cover the rate that they're charging you, the app rate fee. Right.

Because it seems free at first, but it's actually they're taking like $4 a month to be able to.. Yeah, which makes sense, right. They've created the software. But I think that's how they're making most of their money on top of also obviously any interest on the money they make you through the investments. But I realised like I'd invested in Spaceship, that was one of them, which did a lot of bitcoin and a bunch of other things.

And then Raiz was the other one. And both of them just lost money. Like, for ages. Even though I was on I think a pretty conservative investment portfolio in both of them. And it wasn't, I wasn't aggressively trying to earn money from them. They just seem to be constantly going downhill over the period of multiple years and losing hundreds of dollars a year. So I was like, What's the point of this? So instead of continuing to put money into these investment apps, I took the money out and used them to buy plants. And the idea being that the plants would hopefully, even if they were to decrease in value because the market does go up and down, they at least grow. And so if you buy a plant for $1,000 and in a few months it's worth 500 bucks, in a few months it's grown a bit. And you can take cuttings from the plant, sell them off, hopefully recoup, you know, several hundred dollars, maybe even the original price of the plant and just keep growing it and sell more in the future. So that was the idea at least. And a good example was I've once I started learning about some of these plants, you can buy them online from people who sell them on MarketPlace, on Facebook or on eBay. Sometimes people don't know what they have. And I remember I bought one plant for I think $170, and so far we made $3,000 from it.

Really?

Yeah.

Jesus Christ.

That was from four leaves from this plant. So that's what's crazy about it. Like, it obviously, that doesn't happen with all the plants, but this one, the person selling it, had found it at Bunnings, didn't know what they had. They probably bought it for like 20 bucks, but then sold it to me for $170 and they made a bunch of money. Like they were thinking, Great. But then I got it and did the research on what it actually was and spoke to people who I knew at that time who were collectors, and they were like, Yeah, that's a very, very rare form of a mutation that's happened in this plant.

And so I was like, Oh, I'll just grow it out and see what happens. And then you saw me recently chopping it up. So I took three cuttings from it. I cut the plant into effectively four pieces, right. The bottom of the plant with the roots and then the other three parts above it and sold the tip for 1500 dollars. And that was when I was like, Holy shit. We made literally like ten times the amount of the original plant just on the tip cutting. And then I sold the other two parts for about 1500 combined, so. It's, I mean, you know, I've invested way more money than I've made back so far.

Yes.

I've invested a lot more time as well. But it is one of those things where you..

That's alright, so...

Yes. But I guess my point is, it is one of these things where I like the fact that I have this hobby on the side, that it is really relaxing to spend half an hour, an hour a day watering the plants, checking on them, seeing if they're okay, but then also being able to make an income from it. Hopefully, at least that's the idea. So now I've gone through that acquisition phase, where I've bought loads and loads of these investment plans. I've also propagated a bunch of them. So chop them up, turn them into new plants and I'm now growing them out with the plan to sell a bunch of them, hopefully in 2023, instead of continuing to expand the collection.

Yeah.

But yeah, that's been, it's been a very interesting kind of thing to get into. And I think Kel's kind of been, sort of, nervous about it initially, but our little deal is that she gets 50% of any of the income I earn from it. In fact, revenue. So before I even..

Some more!

Before I even pay tax on it, I give Kel 50% so that she can do what she wants with it. Usually, put most of it into our mortgage account, but. But also spend a bit of it so that the plants are paying their rent in the house. But it's definitely not for everyone. But that's also what I've been doing, I guess, on the side. And it's been taking up a bit of my time.

Cool.

Sweet. Okay, so Kel's wanting to wrap up.

All right, So, yeah. Hopefully you guys are going to have a good Christmas. I thought it would be cool to kind of come on here and wrap up 2022 and tell you what we've been up to. I want to take things to the next level in 2023. I am planning to get down and dirty. We're going to release an Aussie English accent course. Like, this would be a listening comprehension course where you guys can go through- I think we've got a 30 day course, where you'll be able to go through 30 different lessons with probably 30 different speakers, maybe even more, ultimately. But the idea is to give you a course that you can complete over a month to hopefully do a deep dive into the Australian accent.

So you'll have access to 30 or more people, 30 or more different accents, people of different ages, professors, bricklayers, all kinds of people from all over the place. Men, women, old people, young people. And you will be able to rapidly level up your listening comprehension. That's the whole point of this course. So we're going to release that in February, aiming to. Yeah, so we're doing that and then we'll be opening The Academy probably in a few days from when you guys hear this. That'll be on the 1st of January, too. So but yeah, I'm hoping to get way more into things in 2023 because I think things are slowly getting easier with the kids and managing our lifestyle and just. Yeah. Becoming accustomed too to, to what it is to be home owners and having you work full time and everything.

And 2 small kids.

Yeah, but I do appreciate all of you guys, especially all of the Academy members who are always chatting with me in the WhatsApp group. You guys are beautiful and you guys who aren't Academy members too. I appreciate your support, so keep it up. Thank you so much. And hopefully, yeah, 2023 is going to be a bigger and better year than 2022. So cheers.

Yay!

And we'll have to get Kel on the podcast more often.

Yes, I'll try. When I'm not tired.

We also didn't talk about the cat drama with Peaches. I'd love to do that at some point.

Yeah, well there's not so much drama. She's here with us.

Oh, she's fine. But the people...

Oh, yeah,

...it's over beforehand.

Oh, that is for the next steps...

Yeah, we'll. We'll save you that story for another one. Anyway, thanks for joining us, guys.

Yeah, bye!

Chat soon!