Episode 7: Unicorn Leather

Episode Seven of Lady Jupiter Podcast brings up an upcoming birthday again, chats a bit about yesterday's most popular blog post, gushes about my actually shiny new jacket, and thinks out loud about Poshmark. Happy first of the month!

❀❀ Click here for the full transcript & recipe notes ❀❀

Here are today's links:

• mealtrain.com
• What I Wish I Knew About The Second Trimester

Transcript

Episode Seven: Unicorn Leather

Welcome back! Lady Jupiter Podcast is the audio accompaniment to LadyJupiter.com a lifestyle blog where I write about my family’s military life, also travel, home stuff, and very casual fashion. I’m happy that you’re here with me. 

Today I’ll share an update on our life as affected by the military, follow on with a little blog talk, then we’ll wrap up with my most recent domestic diversion. 

Today in our military affected lives I have nothing new to report.

Well, mostly nothing. I mentioned in an earlier episode that Mister Jupiter will be home for my birthday and I’m not used to that. Local restaurants are still slowly waking up, so fish and chips are off the table for a bit longer. Instead I decided on having an old favorite - breakfast for dinner. 

I’m going to try one of those modified monkey breads so the main dish will be a bundt pan full of quartered biscuits, crumbled sausage, and cheese. Plus coffee cocktails of course. Otherwise Mister Jupiter will be working and flying all odd hours, so Kid Jupiter and I will kind of pretend that he’s TDY for the week.

This means that I’ll have some good time to think about my next two Meal Train contributions. For those who haven’t used it - meal train, that’s m-e-a-l-t-r-a-i-n dot com is a platform for organizing meals and other care for people. This is popular with the military community because most of us don’t have family nearby when we need casseroles - so instead we set up Meal Trains. 

After recording episode six I set up two meal trains for two different families. Right now I’m thinking about making chicken spaghetti for for both families, but not sure because I like sharing my fancy spice blends with people, but chicken spaghetti isn’t exciting like that. Oh well - I’ll figure something out because I like supporting my friends and need to sign up for some dates tomorrow.

Oh - that website is good to organize potlucks also. The organizer can declare a theme, or otherwise make specific requests to…say, prevent ten people from bringing the same thing, or the potluck turning into a cookie buffet because everyone thought that everyone else was bringing the real food. Meal Train brings clarity for those who choose to use it.

For today’s blog talk I want to dive deeper into yesterday’s most popular blog post. This is something I want to do regularly, so this will be a recurring dive - but the specific blog post will change. Today I will talk about yesterday’s most popular post, and the next time I bring it up, I will talk about the next most popular post and so on.

So Yesterday's most popular post, is titled What I Wish I Knew About The Second Trimester. As the name implies it is a pregnancy related post (which is categorized as family on LadyJupiter.com). You’ll notice that at the top of the show I don’t specify family as category, because it is intentionally my least populated section. 

This is because I’ve never wanted to be classified as a mommy blogger, I just happened to be a writer that had a child. So the category exists because I feel like I can contribute, but I’m not even trying to compete in that space.

That said my trimester posts follow the same format. I talk about three things that I wish I knew, then I touch upon two things that I accidentally got right. Here is a quick skim, for those who want to actually read the post it’s linked in today’s show notes, at LadyJupiter.com/podcast - scroll down to episode seven. 

I write about what I wish I knew about back pain, because mine was physically very limiting. Also foot pain, I know a lot of it had to do with Alabama in the summer, but I could not be on my feet for very long even if my spine could handle it. Also I wish I knew about my unpredictable stomach capacity. 

Some days I barely had room to eat three french fries, and other days I would have an entire meal, plus Mr. Jupiter’s french fries, and need to swing by sonic on the way home. Then I talk about what I got right. One was borrowing a pregnancy body pillow, borrowing was perfect for us because those pillows are very large, and I don’t like buying uni-taskers (that is items that have only one purpose), then the second thing I accidentally got right was keeping a dedicated notepad for doctors visits. It’s really simple, and definitely inspired by the German mothers passes where pertinent information is written down and handed to the pregnant woman. Versus the American system where we are expected to take the initiative, but few choose to do so (at least from what I saw). 

And to be honest I could stand to revive that notepad because I know that I have questions for my provider that I will surely forget before I see her again.

And now for my most recent domestic diversion - 

Well, the dryer is empty because Mister Jupiter is amazing and folded the clothes Saturday morning while I slept in. So without laundry to neglect I started thinking more about selling my closet on Poshmark. 

Since I like to over-think everything, I think I will set up a routine where I do one thing each week. This week I’ll donate old stuff to my local Goodwill, then add new items to my closet. Next week I’ll change my bundle percentage rate. The next week I’ll lower prices, then repeat. Maybe not that exact sequence - but similar. 

Things feel more in control when I have a plan, and this plan is good because I have the time and space to be leisurely, but the sooner my closet is lighter - the better. So I guess now is a good time to tell you all that I received the most amazing birthday jacket the other day. I didn’t know that I needed a holographic leather jacket until I saw it, and now I cannot wait for cool days so I can dazzle Central Arkansas with my leather jacket collection. Too bad all of the fun beer festivals were cancelled - that holographic jacket is perfect festival wear for petites like me who easily disappear into a sea of shoulders. 

Oh - maybe Oktoberfest will still go on…my friend who usually loans me her spare dirdl is actually in Germany, so I won’t have appropriate garb anyway - so I might as well claim to have slain a unicorn. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see! 

In the meanwhile - Poshmark. I now have 4,417 followers, and am 45% qualified to be a Posh Ambassador. Good thing I have no intention of being a Post Ambassador - so if you strive to be one, I wish you the best of luck. I’m going to stay out of your way while I try to lighten up my closet. I need to find the motivation to take more photos of clothes, and more importantly I need to decide on the future of my soft jersey dresses. 

I gained a collection after Baby Jupiter was born because I didn’t shrink down like I wanted to, so I wore jersey dresses and leggings for a year until I was able to fit into structured clothes again. They’re still comfortable, and don’t look bad on me - I just don’t know when I’ll wear them again because walking over the baby gate is significantly easier in leggings. Also most of my leggings have pockets…and that’s a requirement for me. 

So for now I will wish you well for the week and hope that you find the decisions that you need also. Show notes will be available at ladyjupiter.com/podcast, and if you enjoyed today’s episode, share it with a friend! 

I’ll be back next week after my birthday and will likely gush about the thoughtful little things that my friends and family have done. Also I’ll tell you what it’s like to wake up and be 36. I suspect that it’s alarmingly similar to being 35 - but I will let you know if it isn’t.

Talk to you next week, bye!