S01E32 — Year One Review [SPECIAL]

SPOILER ALERT: This episode and transcript below contains major spoilers for any books we have talked about this year.

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Featuring hosts Timothy Haynes, Donna Haynes, Rebekah Edwards, and T. Josiah Haynes.

It’s been a year since we launched this podcast, and we wanted to start our Season 2 off by telling you what we learned and how we’ve grown so far.

Plus, we answer a TON of listener questions!

Final Verdicts

If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, we recommend waiting to read our verdicts. (But you’re probably grown, so do what you want!)

Our first year was an adventure full of laughter, learning, and connection. While some episodes stood out for their fun (Twilight, Planet of the Apes), others were a challenge (Oppenheimer), but each one brought us closer and made us better storytellers.

Tim: Favored nostalgic episodes like Jaws and Planet of the Apes.

Donna: Had the most fun with the Twilight series episodes.

Rebekah: Loved revisiting Planet of the Apes and reflecting on the podcast’s origins.

Josiah: Enjoyed the surprise hit of Dune II and recording it fresh off the premiere.

Full Episode Transcript

Prefer reading? Check out the full episode transcript below. It’s AI-generated from our audio, and if we’re being honest… no one sat to read the entire thing for accuracy. (After all, we were there the whole time.) 😉 We’re sorry in advance for any typos or transcription errors.

[00:00:00] Rebekah: Well, welcome to the book is better podcast. Uh, this is a clean podcast, typically comparing book to film adaptations, but we decided to do a little something special as we completed our Harry Potter series. Before we get started, get started on maybe what we’ll call season two. I don’t know. It’s, it’s kind of fun.

I don’t know what we’re going to call it. Uh, we decided to do a year in review. You see, it was about a year ago, give or take a few days that we released the first episode of this podcast. And we thought it would be fun to talk about what we’ve learned, our favorite episodes, answer a bunch of questions about ourselves and our thoughts, and, and And yeah, so we’re still going to go ahead and introduce ourselves with the fun fact as usual.

Um, I’m Rebecca, I’m the daughter slash sister of the pod. And today’s fun fact is which of the episodes that we have done this year is your favorite? Um, Oh, I say um way too much. That’s something I’ve learned about myself. I really enjoyed Planet of the Apes. It’s the one I’ve gone back to a lot. I feel like we laughed quite a bit.

I thought there was so much to talk about because the book was good and the one of the films was so good. It’s decent, and I loved watching all of the new ones, but it was just a lot of fun to record that particular episode, and it’s one that I feel safe recommending people listen to as their first episode, um, because you don’t really have to have read the book or seen the film.

Like, it’s an entertaining episode regardless, and it’s, it’s not on a lot of people’s, like, to read list, so that’s my favorite. 

[00:01:37] Donna: My name is Donna, and I’m the wife and mom. Of our family. Hmm. Favorite. Favorite episode we’ve done. Not necessarily favorite book or favorite film. Um, I enjoyed doing the twilight series.

Well, that was a fun one because even though we, we recognized that there’s a lot about the book and film that aren’t really good booking books and films that aren’t really good. We somehow still like them, like Rebecca and I still re watch them. And so I think the fact that we could look at them critically and say, Oh, this is that problem or there’s an, that’s an issue.

We would still go back and watch them and we found them. Then we began to find them funny, uh, and entertaining. I think doing those episodes was fun. And at first I thought it was just that I came across butt crack Santa accidentally, but then just remembering those and I will go back and relisten to those episodes more often.

Then some of the others I would just pick I’ve relistened to all of them, but that particular set was just fun. We had fun with it. We laughed. Um, the stuff we did for intros was fun. Writing those stupid lyrics was fun. So I would pick those. 

[00:03:06] Josiah: My name is Josiah. I am the big old brother diaper of this.

Steaming pile of deliciousness. And there’s a lot of episodes I really enjoyed making with you guys. It’s hard to choose one. But, I guess, something that stands out to me is the Dune II episode. 

[00:03:35] Rebekah: Nice. Why? 

[00:03:36] Josiah: Dune II was such a pleasant surprise that it was even better than the first movie, I think most of us agreed.

And we recorded it very soon after it came out, maybe the day after it 

[00:03:51] Rebekah: came out? I think it was within a day or two, yeah. I think 

[00:03:53] Josiah: we recorded it the day after it came out. And I was glad I got to do it with Fam. 

[00:03:58] Donna: We were all really pleased with the movie. And so it made the episode easy to do. I agree, I think it was.

[00:04:06] Tim: My name’s Tim. I am the husband and dad. of our, uh, crew, and I’m really glad to be here. It’s been fun doing, doing these episodes. I’ve had several that I really enjoyed, uh, some that I enjoyed more than others, some that I enjoyed less than others. Two of my favorites, sorry, are Planet of the Apes, which Rebecca took already, um, for the nostalgia.

Uh, as well as Jaws. I enjoyed both of those episodes, I thought they were, they were enjoyable to do and it was nice to take a look at something from, from my earlier years and kind of bring it into the present. So, that was fun. 

[00:04:47] Josiah: One I didn’t mention was Cathi 

[00:04:49] Tim: Logan and Die Hard. 

[00:04:51] Donna: Oh, definitely that one.

[00:04:55] Tim: That was fun to listen to Rebecca AI that couldn’t pronounce a few words. 

[00:05:02] Rebekah: I thought it’d be fun to start with a couple of fun like stats of, uh, episodes, downloads, all that kind of stuff. So our first episode came out on August 10th, 2023. Um, for comparison, this episode comes out somewhere around August 16th or 17th, something like that, of 24.

So it’s almost exactly a year. Our total number of downloads, uh, is 1, 709. And so that counts like multiple listens over the same episodes, obviously. Um, so, yeah. That’s not necessarily 709 separate people, but the date that we had the single most downloads in a day was August 25th, 2023. And if I recall, there was something special about that day.

[00:05:52] Tim: My birthday! 

[00:05:54] Rebekah: Yay! It was. So that was also the day that we released the second episode of the Hunger Games and the second, which was the second episode of the podcast. Um, we had 44 downloads on that day alone. And then the second most downloads in a day was 31 on June 29th of 2024. Uh, that was the day right after Prisoner of Azkaban came out.

Summer of Potter. 

[00:06:17] Music: It 

[00:06:18] Rebekah: was during Summer of Potter. It was the week that we had to release. Chamber of Secrets and Azkaban came out in the same week, um, like unplanned. And so I thought it was kind of cool that we had a lot of downloads on that day as well. Um, our best month so far was November of 2023 when we were releasing Twilight Episodes.

We had 207 downloads total in that month. I think June 2024 was a close follow up with like 203 downloads or something like that. People 

[00:06:45] Josiah: love vampires. 

[00:06:47] Rebekah: They do. They seriously do. Okay, so I do want some of your thoughts as I go through these because some of these were a big surprise. So here are our top episodes by most listens first.

You ready? Hunger Games one, which is the first episode blows everything else out of the water. It’s at 140 listens, which makes sense because if you’re trying to figure out if you like a podcast, you listened to the first episode, right? That makes sense. After that, we have the first Twilight episode.

Hunger Games 2, Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which I think it’s interesting that three of the top four are literally Hunger Games related. But Ballad was also a new movie that we covered right after it came out. Uh, The Shining. 

[00:07:29] Tim: The Shining is an interesting one to me. That was one of my favorites. It’s so high.

[00:07:33] Rebekah: That shocked me because I thought it was a really fun episode, but it is an older book and an older movie, and I was, it’s also pretty niche because it’s a horror thing, and so it’s a smaller audience of the people that normally listen. 

[00:07:48] Donna: I think that we probably have high number on that because people started hearing that I talked about Shelley Duvall.

Rest in peace, Shelly. 

[00:07:58] Josiah: Yes, rest in peace. And so if she didn’t get 

[00:08:01] Donna: to listen to the episode before she died, Hey, 

[00:08:05] Josiah: I’m safe. 

[00:08:06] Rebekah: She died in sorrow because she heard the episode and knew what you thought of her. Oh my gosh. 

[00:08:11] Josiah: Well, let’s pray for her soul. 

[00:08:14] Rebekah: Um, so that was top five. Next in line, this one shocked me, but a lot of these are just from our early episodes.

So maybe it’s people going back and starting over. Number six is Oppenheimer. 

[00:08:25] Tim: Hey, I think that was pretty good. I thought we did a fairly good job. The episode was great. 

[00:08:30] Rebekah: We had agreed to disagree. Um, I 

[00:08:34] Josiah: hate that it was nonfiction. 

[00:08:37] Rebekah: No, I did, but I did, I just. I don’t know. That was probably the one I thought is our least strong episode, just listen wise.

But that’s my personal opinion, obviously. 

[00:08:47] Josiah: Maybe it would be the one you would least want to listen to. 

[00:08:50] Rebekah: Yeah. Number seven, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Number eight, The Moon in Eclipse. Number 9, Hunger Games 3, so all 4 of the Hunger Games related things are in our top 10. And then number 10 is Ready Player One.

And I should also say that like, The Shining, Oppenheimer, and Hitchhiker’s Guide all had almost exactly the same number. of Downloads, like they’re only a few apart at that point, um The Least Downloaded Episodes Okay, so these ones really got me and I’m going to be saying these from Least Downloads And as I talk about them these 1 have more as I go along Planet of the Apes The 

[00:09:26] Josiah: lowest one.

Because isn’t that the one you were like, recommending to people to start on? 

[00:09:33] Rebekah: Yeah, and I think that, that just happens. It’s an easy one 

[00:09:35] Tim: to start on. 

[00:09:36] Rebekah: It happened a few weeks ago that my friends were like, listening to it and they were like, I think people should start with this if they’ve never, if they want to like, read the movie, read the movie.

Yeah, if they want to read the 

[00:09:46] Music: movie. 

[00:09:47] Rebekah: If they want to read the book and watch the movie before listening, Planet of the Apes is one that a lot of people just don’t have the book on their to read list. And so it’s like an easy one to listen to and it’s fun. So that was a bummer to me. So it’s only had 20 total downloads, which is wild to me.

Um, yeah, if you haven’t listened to that, you really should. It is a hilarious episode. You do not need to have listened. Or, sorry, watch the movie or read the book. You’re gonna listen to the 

[00:10:17] Donna: book and read the movie. Reading 

[00:10:19] Rebekah: the movie, listening, watching the book. I mean, that’s what she does, audiobooks and 

[00:10:22] Josiah: closed captioning.

[00:10:23] Rebekah: That’s true. I guess if we’re looking at it that way, it does happen. Um, then the D& D movie review that was a little different outside of our norm was second. It was 

[00:10:36] Tim: outside of the norm, but I thought it was a fun, it was a fun 

[00:10:40] Rebekah: Oh yeah, and I liked the episode because I’m a D& D nerd. Uh, Percy Jackson is number three on the least listened.

Uh, Die Hard is number four. Man, Die Hard. And then our interview with Josiah was number five with 25 downloads on that. Yeah, and you’re not 

[00:10:57] Josiah: last place. 

[00:10:58] Rebekah: Woo, that was good. So, but that shocked me because I really enjoyed, like, Percy Jackson. And the interview was about, 

[00:11:04] Josiah: was about the heirs of history, a nation from nothing available.

On Amazon. Amazon . Mm-hmm . 

[00:11:12] Rebekah: Yes. Download it today. Or wait, you don’t have it downloadable, do you? You have to order the physical one. The 

[00:11:18] Josiah: Kindle? No, it’s Kindle. 

[00:11:20] Rebekah: Oh. Download it today. Or order a copy today. Uh, so I thought that was interesting. Um, way far and beyond everything else. Most people listen on the Apple Podcast app.

Uh, Spotify’s in second place, but like Apple is 916 of the downloads and Spotify’s 265. So I thought that was just kind of interesting. I’m part of the 

[00:11:40] Josiah: other. 

[00:11:41] Rebekah: You’re not because iHeart. com is actually on its own section. I didn’t include all of the listeners, but iHeart is its own separate thing. So the third place is 172 on quote other.

I think those are ones where it cannot track what you’re using or it’s like a lesser known podcast app. Yeah, iHeart’s its own thing. iHeart had like 20 something. And, um. Fun, exciting announcement, our website will be launched soon. The only reason it’s not launched yet is my fault. Um, so I’ll get better and do better.

You don’t have to promise. Aw, poor baby. Listen, but when I launch our site, one of the cool things about it will be, you’ll be able to just go on and listen to episodes directly on our site without going to one of the others. And you can just listen in your browser, but there will also be links to all of the podcast apps.

So, we make it really easy. I just haven’t been able to finalize launching it. Uh, mom, would you like to talk a little about the countries and locations that people have listened from? I would love to do that. 

[00:12:47] Donna: At this point, as of this morning, actually. We have been, uh, listened to in 26 countries, which is so fascinating to me.

94 percent of our listeners are in the U S um, which is cool. After the U S we have, uh, Belgium. We’ve had 24 downloads, Singapore, 23, France, 19, cool. And then there, Canada is tied with New Zealand and downloads. Then we follow up the list with Germany, Russia, and Russia. Austria, Ireland, Sweden, Australia.

Yeah. And then after 

[00:13:32] Rebekah: we 

[00:13:32] Donna: have Ireland 

[00:13:33] Rebekah: and Sweden. All right. If you’re not in the discord, stop being lame. Join the discord so that you can ask listener questions like the one from Abby Lou who all right, family. Which of our episode reads slash watches, which was your least favorite book to read or film to watch?

So not the episode itself. Right, not the episode, because we’ll talk about that in a second. I’ll go first, mine is probably pretty obvious, uh, because we’ve already mentioned it, but I did not enjoy the read of American Prometheus. On which the Oppenheimer film was based on. I did like the film a lot, and I thought it was excellent, but I, you know, the biography format and the fact that it was way too long and told us way more than we needed to know about every person who was relevant in the story, like where they were born.

And you, you listened to that film and. I, I listened to that explicitly. No, I did not read physical book for that. That’s like one of the only ones I haven’t read any part of the book from the physical pages. I’m 

[00:14:37] Donna: sure that was why it was harder for you to because the recording of the biography, the edits weren’t great.

Oh, I remember that. 

[00:14:47] Rebekah: Remember? That sounds familiar. Yeah. 

[00:14:49] Tim: Well, um, Oppenheimer was, was tough to deal with. to read. I get that. I enjoyed the historical part, but I think that it was written in such a way that it bounced back and forth too much. So I struggled with that as well. But actually, the books that I’ve had the most, the least enjoyable for me to read have been the Order of the Phoenix from Harry Potter.

And the Half Blood Prince. The Half Blood Prince was better, but the Order of the Phoenix was very difficult for me to listen to. Is it dark? It’s just, it’s dark. And it’s like, okay, I want to listen to something. Do I want to listen? It just keeps depressing me, and it’s just more depressing and more depressing.

So, that was difficult for me. That’s a 

[00:15:34] Josiah: good answer. 

[00:15:35] Tim: I don’t think any of us 

[00:15:35] Josiah: will 

[00:15:36] Tim: have 

[00:15:36] Josiah: it. 

[00:15:36] Tim: What was 

[00:15:37] Josiah: your least favorite movie to watch? I 

[00:15:39] Tim: didn’t like watching The Shining. I generally avoid horror of any kind. Now, that wasn’t super horror, but it was that kind of thing, so. 

[00:15:49] Rebekah: I did not answer the movie question when I answered it about the books, but since Christian doesn’t really listen to this, I don’t feel bad in saying I really hate watching The Polar Express.

Oh 

[00:15:58] Josiah: my gosh, Rebecca, you were taking all of the answers. 

[00:16:02] Rebekah: I’m telling you what I think. You just ask whatever, you guys answer however you want. 

[00:16:08] Josiah: Josh, actually put these out of order so that I’m first.

Yes, the Oppenheimer book was, was too long. And I will say that the amazing movie that came out of it was amazing. And I understood the movie better. Because of the fragmented bits of information I remembered from the book. Yeah, that is true. Oh, that name goes with that face now. Okay. So even though it was a really laborious read.

It improved my movie viewing experience. I mean, I’ve, I like watching bad movies personally. So it’s hard to say like, what movie did I like the least, but yeah, polar express is not a, it’s not a good movie. I don’t think, but it was fun to watch with family, you know, after reading the book, ready player one is kind of hard to watch.

You know what I mean? Because they’re so 

[00:17:09] Tim: different. Yeah. 

[00:17:10] Josiah: The book makes so much sense, and I remember liking the movie first, but then going back to it, it’s like, yeah, this movie, does it take place over the course of like four days? Whereas like you get the sense of time in the book. You get the sense of how much of a journey this is.

And the Jaws book was another weak one that started out okay. It started out pretty good, but it just devolved into, they didn’t understand what the fun part of the book was. And they, they, the author just focused on some weird stuff that didn’t matter and was hard to follow and not very interesting. So that’s kind of my, yeah, that, that, those are my thoughts.

Bottom ones, I guess. I mean, it’s always fun to engage in, in bad content for me, but if you’re, you know, putting a Glock to my head, then no, that’s what I’ll say. 

[00:18:09] Rebekah: Hopefully no one ever does that. 

[00:18:11] Donna: I agree with most of your estimations. The ones you’ve given, I think that it is interesting that where the ready player one book and movie were so different, I also watched the movie, but I agree with you after.

reading the book, I watched the movie and think, Oh, you could have been better. Yeah. And that’s kind of hard. Um, but then the shining was like the opposite where I watched the movie and it’s such an iconic movie, you kind of assume they’re great. Just like, yeah, I think we’ve mentioned this before when I watched Greece when I was young.

Oh my gosh, it’s the greatest movie ever. And I can still go, Oh, I love the music. The music’s so fun and poppy, but the movie is, is raunchy. And so the music’s raunchy. The lyrics, if you really know all the lyrics and you read through them, it’s raunchy. Now, I’m not going to tell you I’ll never watch Grease again.

No, I’m not going to say that. I probably will. 

[00:19:13] Tim: But you probably won’t watch it with a 12 The 

[00:19:14] Donna: Shining was a little bit like that. But not 

[00:19:16] Tim: with children. Yeah, I didn’t watch 

[00:19:19] Donna: it with my young children. Yeah, when you 

[00:19:21] Tim: become a parent, it changes the way you look at things. 

[00:19:22] Donna: Yes, and if I’ve discovered anything through this experience, it’s been the decisions a person has to make.

I would assume you read a book, you love a book, and you want to recreate it if you’re doing an adaptation. But that doesn’t mean that the screenwriter And the directors and the producers are going to recreate that book. You just don’t see that very often. And so I’ve really learned a lot from that. And I will definitely agree.

I don’t care for animation. So Polar Express was hard. Um, besides the fact it was creepy motion capture that kind of added to the hard, but then, then the experience of. Knowing that is so important to Christian, it made it worth it to do it. And, you know, to do that with my grandson and to, to have that experience, watch and talk about it and hear him recount things about it that I didn’t catch or that were memorable to him.

So, so there again, I could find something good in it. I could find something interesting in it because of the experience it was. And isn’t that what. It makes movies so amazing. When you know a lot of people in the world have gathered, you know, they’ve all taken to a book series. It’s a great sense of community.

I don’t think that’s the best way to say it. 

[00:20:45] Josiah: Okay, but none of us have mentioned the 2001 Planet of the Apes being really bad. And I you were going to say 

[00:20:52] Rebekah: it. That’s why I didn’t. 

[00:20:54] Josiah: Wow, but you wanted to, didn’t you? 

[00:20:56] Rebekah: Yeah, it was so bad. I was also shocked at how much I did not enjoy listening to Nothing Lasts Forever.

[00:21:04] Josiah: Yeah. 

[00:21:05] Rebekah: That Die Hard’s based on. That one and Jaws felt very similar in terms of like, I’m so glad they turned into classic, iconic movies, and I do think that the movies definitely seem to stand the test of time, but the, the original stories in both of those cases were like, you know? The premise was cool, but you really either didn’t care if people in the book died or you kind of wanted them to die a little bit.

Um, so I thought that that was kind of an interesting thing. Um, 

[00:21:35] Tim: they were written about about the same time. So this the late 60s, early 70s. Perhaps authors were trying to push the boundaries of good taste and things, and that’s what happens to both of those books. There’s some things in them that you’re like, Hmm, that sounds cringy today.

So 

[00:21:54] Rebekah: yeah. I know that we started the episode off with our favorite podcast episodes, but, um, in relation to Abby’s question about our least favorite book or film, uh, that we’ve kind of reviewed, what was your most favorite book or film to watch? Like book to read, film to watch. Not related to whether or not you loved the episode or whatever.

I was really impressed with how much I enjoyed Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Like, I thought I would like it, but after the experience of the Harry Potter books coming after the original series have been so bad, I was kind of like, uh, like not a big fan. And that one was a surprisingly enjoyable read.

So what did you say 

[00:22:35] Donna: about the original series was bad? 

[00:22:38] Rebekah: No, I’m saying like after Harry Potter had like books and films come out after the original series that were bad, I didn’t have a lot of hopes. I thought it was going to feel the same where like Hunger Games was good, but I didn’t like the stuff like afterwards.

And so I was really pleasantly surprised that she did such a good job with a ballad. So. 

[00:22:56] Josiah: I did feel bad that it seemed like book readers, really enjoyed the movie, but non book readers were kind of mid on the ballad of songbirds and snakes movie, which I thought was something you don’t really often see.

[00:23:13] Rebekah: Yeah. I feel like it’s usually the opposite. 

[00:23:15] Josiah: Yeah. I think 

[00:23:16] Tim: this some detail and connection. 

[00:23:18] Josiah: I think it’s because Coriolanus is internal dialogue. is so pivotal and the actor basically does it where you can understand what he’s thinking, but for new watchers, it’s just not on the front of their mind. They just think he’s like, Oh, he’s a guy.

He’s kind of nice. Yeah. Whereas like, you could also see it as, Oh, but you can see underneath how evil he is. I really loved the Martian book. And I thought that that was one of the best adaptations. From book to movie that we’ve covered too. So it was, uh, The Martian was just an overall wowzers for me.

Very enjoyable. 

[00:24:00] Tim: I agree with that for sure. 

[00:24:03] Rebekah: It’s, uh, one of my favorites for sure. 

[00:24:05] Donna: So I really liked the, I like the next question. I think it’s something we haven’t. We’ve said a little bit about in the beginning as we were getting started, but for listeners who might’ve missed that or maybe you’re just getting in with us, what inspired the start of the podcast?

[00:24:23] Rebekah: Ooh, I should probably talk about this. Rebecca 

[00:24:26] Tim: inspired the podcast. She said, we’re going to do it and you’re going to love it. 

[00:24:33] Rebekah: So I think it was in 2015 when the final Hunger Games film came out, and honestly, it’s been nearly a decade since this happened, so maybe I’m wrong about this, but I feel like this is correct.

I think that we all watched that one together. I think we were in the theater together for the, the last one, and we walked outside and got in the car, and as we do, we got in the car and just started talking about what we liked, what we didn’t like, and those of us who had read it, what we thought about how they changed this or changed that.

And growing up my whole life, I’ve heard people say, Oh, your family should have a TV show or like things like that. And I think that podcasting is obviously like the 2024 version of your family should have a TV show. So back in 2016 or so we were living at gosh, several apartments ago. place that we were at.

And the family was in and I said, Hey, let’s just record a pilot. Let’s see if this would like be anything. And so we recorded what, honestly, I don’t think we still have the audio for anywhere, but we talked about doing this podcast. I think we talked a little bit about the first Hunger Games book and film, but I believe that our focus was really just testing it out and seeing what we would be like in that format.

And I have a very happy memory. I couldn’t tell you specifics of our conversation, but it’s a very positive memory because I remember laughing a lot. And just, we recorded for two hours and it was Well I was there. Of course, and you’re hilarious. Of course, 

[00:26:06] Josiah: yeah, of course you’re, you laugh. 

[00:26:07] Rebekah: Obviously. I just had this really positive experience with that first test episode.

Like I said, we never did anything with it. That was in 2016 and life is always busy around me for some reason. I’m, I’m one of those people that always says, Oh, I’ll be less busy next month. And then I’m just never less busy. And I keep adding things on. And so I had had a rough couple of years with just the process of adopting teenage boys, which is overwhelming and difficult, even though they’re fantastic young men.

It was just a brand new experience and I’d found myself really striving for finding, like, the positive, happy, laughter parts of my life. And so I thought back to that and I was like, man, I’ve wanted to do this podcast forever. And I know my family’s into it. I think it’s just that I have to drive it because it’s like my brainchild.

And so I wanted to do something fun that would give me a reason to spend more time with them and get to talk to them more. And that’s, that was how this whole thing started. And I’m really glad that it did. 

[00:27:15] Josiah: And she’s the driver of the family, the driver of the family. Well, that’s true. 

[00:27:22] Rebekah: Literally horrible passenger.

I’m a terrible passenger. That’s why I bought, That’s why I bought a vehicle that can fit every single one of us all at once, so I can just drive it. And you can all get in it. So easy. That 

[00:27:37] Music: way. 

[00:27:37] Rebekah: We’ve talked about this before, but I do think it’s funny that in a family of drivers, like dad’s a pastor, mom directs her department, Josiah is like literally a stage play and musical director and producer who runs a theater.

Like, and I own a business and so all of us are leaders in our own way, and I love that In this podcast I get to be the driver 

[00:28:01] Tim: like mm-hmm And you still push forward. Yeah, 

[00:28:05] Rebekah: I am still . 

[00:28:07] Josiah: She wins amongst winners, I suppose. 

[00:28:10] Rebekah: We’re all really smart and successful, in my opinion. We are. And so the bar’s really high and so to, we are allowed to be allowed to leave stable geniuses.

Yes, and to be allowed to lead in this circumstance is very, it’s an honor, uh, and a, and a, and a privilege. 

[00:28:27] Donna: Well, the contrasting question then, you told us what inspired the start of the podcast and we could all probably, maybe we could all speak to this in some way. What has been the hardest part? I don’t know that I have a.

Hardest part for me personally, like I pull a lot of the, the trivia information and do research on that. And I, at first I thought, Oh, can I really, can I really do that? And I doubt myself in a lot of areas if something’s new, but I’ve really had fun with it. It’s been very enlightening to go back and look at backgrounds of things and what went on when something was filmed or if you find.

Some, you know, random struggle that went on when the writer was doing the book and they’re trying to publish. And a lot of those little details, I don’t think that’s really been hard though. Um, 

[00:29:19] Tim: One of, one of the hardest parts for me has been, has been the tech part. Um, aside from the fact that we’ve had to change programs and there are some strange things and my equipment is a little older than it should be to use.

But the other thing is to try not to talk over each other. We’re used to talking and discussing things, but in order to record them and edit them properly, we need to try not to talk over each other. And that’s not really our regular style. There’s usually three of us talking at once until one train of thought kind of pushes forward.

So that’s a little different. That’s kind of hard for me. 

[00:29:59] Rebekah: And I get to be in the room and Josh is like, Why were you all talking at the same time? 

[00:30:06] Tim: He’s like, Rae, That’s really kind of our norm. 

[00:30:08] Rebekah: Yeah. We do try. We’re on a video recording because we’re often not all in the same room. Three of us today are.

But, um, Yeah, yeah, way to 

[00:30:18] Josiah: exclude. 

[00:30:20] Rebekah: Yeah, well, I’m the better child and the favorite, and you know it, so it’s okay. 

[00:30:23] Josiah: No, no, no, you’re older. You’re haggard. You’re merely older. 

[00:30:31] Rebekah: Um, but I, I tried early on and we still do this occasionally, but I tried to have a rule where it’s like, okay, if you have something to say, but you don’t want to cut the person off so that we can speak one at a time, raise your hand and just wait until the, that person and then like the next person can talk.

And that works about 5 percent of the time. Listen, hold on, I am gonna, I am going to light somebody up here. If you all had to say, on the count of three, who’s the worst at seeing the raised hands? Who are you gonna say? Okay, I’m gonna count. Are you ready for this? Oh, no. One, two, three. Me.

[00:31:13] Music: It’s just so 

[00:31:14] Rebekah: funny because she gets so passionate. She’s raising her hand. Like all of us, you talk with your hands, but I think a lot of times you talk with your hands and look away from the screen when you’re talking. Doing it and so you don’t notice. Oh, she does have her hand 

[00:31:27] Donna: up. Yes, mother to divert attention So that shade you just cast on me We would be remiss If we didn’t mention that Tim has also been under two lightning strikes, like one knocked him on one, knocked him on the ground and knocked glasses off his face.

I mean, and he had ringing ears, so we do kind of occasionally pick on him a little bit, just a little because technology does stuff happens when he 

[00:31:59] Josiah: touches it, that people. Experts, IT people say, we’ve never, never seen that before. I don’t know 

[00:32:08] Rebekah: how that happens. I’ve never even seen this. We’ve never had that 

[00:32:10] Donna: happen.

[00:32:11] Rebekah: And then today, this is my favorite today. So dad and I went yesterday and I replaced my laptop at the Apple store, which was awesome. And we were talking about what he needs to get. And he’s like, well, this computer died and this computer, and he’s got like all these machines that have passed on. And he, he currently has.

A MacBook Pro that is like almost a decade old that is flickering all the time like he needs to replace and he has this like Windows laptop that’s a, it’s one of the ones that’s like a touch screen and a laptop and the touch screen. part stopped working last week. And then today he was trying to open things on it and it only scrolls properly like half the time.

And the other time it just doesn’t scroll like that, that, that gesture doesn’t work from the trackpad. And it was just so funny. He’s like, what is happening here? But listen, mom, you are not separate from this because earlier she opened a screenshot I sent her and she goes, I can’t get out of it. And I said, what do you mean?

She goes, it made it full screen and I can’t escape. And I had to come over and find the little X button. 

[00:33:21] Josiah: So it is funny. Escape should always work. I hate when programs don’t let escape work. Yeah. 

[00:33:28] Donna: Oh, it’s nice when sons stand up for moms. 

[00:33:31] Josiah: That’s right. Mariana R. Faxad is, is who I’m standing. With ham and dirigible plums.

[00:33:38] Rebekah: Ham and dirigible plums. That’s her, it’s her name and title. 

[00:33:42] Josiah: Also, I guess it’s fortunate for Dad that he does have like a dozen computers right now. 

[00:33:49] Rebekah: No. 

[00:33:49] Josiah: If you count iPads, not anymore. The rest 

[00:33:51] Rebekah: of them have all died. Only the ones that are mine. What about iPads? 

[00:33:56] Donna: It’s about 74 tablets that he uses for different things.

But now, now, 

[00:34:02] Tim: now, now, you work, you work in accounting, you should be able to count better than that. 

[00:34:08] Donna: Okay, you have 

63. Do any of your tablets still work? Yes! One is our rain machine at night. One is his Kindle. 

[00:34:16] Tim: Oh, 

[00:34:18] Donna: I mean, I 

[00:34:18] Tim: actually have three. I actually have three Kindles, two of which I bought for the church for check in stuff.

No, no. I bought it for children’s check in. Get this. I bought it for children’s check in in January of 2020. Oh, when we stopped the world and we didn’t, we didn’t come back together in any way for a year. So. You just 

[00:34:42] Rebekah: kept it. 

[00:34:43] Tim: Yeah, well, I’ve still got them. They’re still working. You have three 

[00:34:45] Rebekah: Kindles. 

[00:34:46] Tim: My iPad is a first generation, so it’s, it’s not great, and the other two that I have are years and years old.

[00:34:55] Rebekah: What generation are iPads on now? 270. 

[00:34:58] Tim: Uh, 10, I think. The one that I have is on generation 10, and I have generation 1.

[00:35:06] Rebekah: It still works to some degree. I mean, that’s 

[00:35:10] Tim: good, but the tech is a hard part, you know, 

[00:35:12] Rebekah: okay, I will go back to this question. By the way, I don’t know if we mentioned this, but we’re now in the list of questions from Kalina cave on to 12 in discord. So that’s been the inspiration one. And then the question we’re talking about now, um, hardest parts.

This podcast has been an amazing experience. But I think because I keep trying to take on the responsibility for lots of it because it was my brainchild, like I said, um, I feel like I’ve also experienced a lot of like things that are roadblocks or stand in my way. It’s been difficult to try getting the website published.

It’s hard that my brother and dad just left their seats as I started talking about these vulnerable issues just now. That was hard. Um, I think it’s been, it’s been hard to hear things that we had fun talking about or like discussed that Josh, because he’s a good producer, has cut because they needed to be cut for the episode to be better.

I was getting anxiety. I was getting anxiety. 

[00:36:14] Josiah: about the oatmeal bowl that was solidifying in front of me. I had to soak it. 

[00:36:21] Rebekah: Okay. Man. It’s hard to, because this year I’ve really discovered that I knew that I loved to read and I’ve loved to read for a long time, but I had been reading audio books for a pretty And I realized earlier, earlier this year that I just, there’s something about holding a book in my hands and just setting everything else aside, tuning out the world and just immersing myself in fiction in that way where audiobooks I try to use as I multitask.

It’s been different. And so, one of the hardest parts is that I realized I wanted to spend more of my time reading. And so now I have to split my reading between things for the podcast and then stuff I just want to read that’s separate. And so I’ve been, I feel like there’s this like constant mind battle of what book I pick up.

Cause I’m like, do I read the thing that I’m like in this really interesting part for? Or that we have an episode on in four days and I need to finish. You know what I’m saying? Um, so that’s been interesting. And for some reason. This surprised me a lot, but recording the Harry Potter episodes, it was so challenging.

And I’ve, I mean, I have the audio books half memorized, so it’s not like I needed to reread them, but I tried to re listen through them and I got through about the middle of book five and it was so overwhelming because we were trying to record once a week and, and just all of it together to watch the movie record.

Or like, it was so crazy that I ended up just saying. I have these books memorized. I don’t need to reread them. Like, and it was hard for me to do that because I want to be super prepared for episodes. Um, I’m the one that usually puts a lot of the like changes notes together. And I would say that’s honestly one of the funnest parts.

And it’s one of the most challenging because to do it well is time consuming. And I, like I said, I’m busy all the time. So it’s been interesting, like prioritizing this because this is the one thing in my life that is completely devoid of financial benefits so far. We make zero dollars from this podcast.

And so that’s something I would like to talk about as we discuss future plans and stuff. But it’s definitely been challenging to take a lot of time and know that it’s okay to prioritize this, even though it’s not like part of my income. You know 

[00:38:44] Josiah: what I mean? Any hardships that we go through, you know, they, they make us better.

So they’re not really hard In the long run, right? So, you know, I don’t want to wake up at 7 a. m. on a Saturday, but then I get to see my family. 

[00:38:58] Rebekah: Exactly. Well, we had an interesting, uh, I think this was a fun one from Kaylina, too. She wants to hear from Josh, who’s our editor and producer and my husband, about what it’s like behind the scenes.

And so we’ve invited Josh to come in and, Give us his take on what he does. And so Josh, what are the, like, how do you edit the podcast? What are some of the things that you have done with it that you were surprised by? Like, give us the nerdy stuff. What, what programs you use. You can even talk a little bit about what mics we use and how we record and all of that stuff.

[00:39:36] Josh: Yeah, for sure. Hey, everybody. I am Josh. I am the husband slash in law slash nerd of the family podcast unit group and, uh, at the beginning of the podcast, we definitely had less than ideal equipment. We had horrible recording circumstances for instance, when we started, we only basically had the most intro soundboard with no processing for, or from like Amazon.

And, uh, we had a few condenser mics cause that’s what we owned and we just had them lying around. So in the early episodes, you definitely could hear every mouse click and car driving by the house. There were reflections all over the place because we still to this day even have no sound treatment, but we had like, rented and met all in one place in Nashville, just at a friend’s house who like we were in this tiny living room with no sound treatment or anything.

So definitely less than ideal. 

[00:40:46] Donna: I can’t sit through a number of hours of recording. Without having a little snack, so I’m sorry if you hear me chewing or smacking my lips or something. 

[00:40:58] Josh: Yeah, I’ve definitely heard it. Hopefully the audience has not. And I come from a live sound background in mostly churches and, uh, concerts and stadiums.

So the controlling of an environment when we were recording and a lot of the post production was very Unfamiliar to me. It just wasn’t a world I lived in but yeah, we definitely learned a lot this first season I can also be the type of person not to release something until it’s perfect. But Rebecca has definitely helped me grow in that area a lot.

So we just didn’t fret about it. We used equipment that we had laying around and got the ball rolling on the podcast. But because I love new toys and gadgets, I upgraded our soundboard and purchased a few plugins pretty quickly. I definitely didn’t realize when we recorded those few, uh, first episodes in a batch, how crazy and unruly the room sounded.

So after I like heard the first episode and post, we immediately bought some dynamic microphones, which helped a ton. And so I, I mean, I like to troubleshoot. An experiment so not every episode sounds the same in the first season but I hope people can hear little improvements throughout and Let’s see for my nerds out there I use a Rodecaster Pro 2 mixer.

I have the ever popular Shure SM7B microphone. You’ve definitely seen it all over the place, I’m sure. We have different tech in different homes because we don’t live in the same place. But we’re slowly getting everyone’s gear to the same level. Okay. Old man. Old tech. I 

[00:42:52] Tim: get it. 

[00:42:53] Josh: Yeah, I mean, I wasn’t pointing any fingers, but If you feel bad about it, I won’t correct you.

[00:43:00] Donna: Tim is amazing. Josh, stop saying bad stuff about it. 

[00:43:05] Josh: So anyway, Rebecca sometimes uses my favorite USB microphone made by beacon. It’s really the only USB. Microphone I recommend if I was on a budget and I needed a place to start, I would just use that beacon microphone to start a podcast. It does all of the processing on the microphone.

It has like compressors and expanders and gate and all that built in noise suppression for any of you that don’t know what expanders and gates are. And, um, yeah, you can plug in headphones into it and control so much with the software that they. Definitely put a lot of effort into a shout out to Harris Heller who, uh, it was his recommendation on his YouTube channel.

Senpai gaming. Uh, Rebecca likes it because it has a rainbow RGB strip in it and spin pretty colors around the microphone. But yeah, the podcast is pretty fun to edit. I like using studio one by PreSonus to edit everything. It typically gets edited down from about three to four ish hours to, my goal is about an hour and a half per episode.

[00:44:22] Tim: I’m certain that anytime anybody says, cut that out Josh, that’s gonna show up in the final product. 

[00:44:30] Josh: Yeah, for sure. It 

[00:44:32] Donna: definitely makes it extra tempting. I can’t believe that you hear these things and can put them together like this, because I could not, for 20 seconds, do this. 

[00:44:42] Josh: Well, thanks. I, I love it.

It’s fun. And I love you guys. 

[00:44:47] Josiah: Kvon212, that’s 

[00:44:49] Josh: hard. 

[00:44:50] Josiah: One of our listeners. Well, you, oh, you haven’t heard the question yet.

Now, one of our lovely baby listeners, Kvon212 asked, hardest or least fave podcast this year? As in, I guess, the, the actual recording, not the reading or watching of the media. Very interesting question. 

[00:45:19] Donna: I think I found super interesting that, and I alluded a little bit to it before, but we all re okay. Some of these reads I’ve already done before, like before we prepare for the podcast, Some of the books I’d already listened to some, I hadn’t, I’ve found that the ones that I’ve listened to and, and maybe whether I liked the book or didn’t like the book, and then we listened to them and get ready to do the podcast and watch the movie feels like, Oh, we hated the movie.

For example, in the shining, I had read that when I was younger and it was captivating book. It really was reading. I read it again. And, looked at it from a different light, because I did, it was, I was much younger when I read it the first time. But then, I’d seen the movie, maybe once or twice before. But then reading the book and seeing the movie and the contrast between them.

This iconic film. That was, and still is a famous film that a lot of people, you remember the name, that picture of Jack Nicholson with his mouth open. Here’s Johnny. Um, that’s, that’s kind of a timeless, one of those timeless memes things that you have some reference to. But when we saw them, I saw the movie after reading the book, it was like, Oh my gosh, this, what is, what was he thinking?

What was Kubrick thinking? And then as we talked about it and saw. When they made the film, there were stark contrasts between what King, Stephen King wanted to do and what Stanley Kubrick wanted to do. And so some of those got weird for me because generally I want everybody to get along and, and being a non good or bad, it’s hard when I see that, read about those things and try to imagine some of the conflicts.

And it was kind of weird, like. I almost make it a personal experience of, Oh, this happened in that they, Oh, how did they even get to this point? How did they agree to that? Or. Um, so those were weird for me. Um, the flip of that would have been Jaws where we read the book and we saw the movie and almost think of the movie.

Oh, it’s like a B movie, but it really isn’t. It stood the test of time, but the book has so much issue and, and trying to kind of work through those without making the whole episode just kind of a downer. Because we’re so frustrated about some part of it. I think that’s probably the biggest challenge is we want To get to the end of the episode.

And even if we weren’t crazy about it, we want it to have been redeeming or enjoyable. We still want the entertainment to be there and not just an, you know, an hour, hour and a half of us whining about it. Um, and so that’s been, that’s been an. Interesting thing to me, 

[00:48:21] Tim: for me, one of the, one of the least favorite pod experiences has been the few times where we’ve tried to record multiple episodes.

I think once we tried to record multiple episodes in the same day, or at least awfully close together. And it, and that’s very hard because there’s a, we talk a lot, it’s, it’s lengthy. And then it takes, Josh does a great job of, yeah, it takes hours. And Josh does a great job of cutting that down to a, to something that’s palatable for the audience.

Trying to do more than one of those in a day or one night and then the next morning, that’s a little, that’s difficult. That’s just physically difficult because my throat gives out after a while. 

[00:49:08] Rebekah: I know what you mean. We did, uh, I think we recorded Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban in the same day, and we were originally going to do that with more of the Harry Potter episodes, and we ended up not, because I think by the time we were done, we were all like, uh, like it was just exhausting.

I think my least favorite ones to record, or like least favorite episodes, like I said, Oppenheimer. I didn’t like the book, but also I was, I felt like I was so distracted by worrying that we would get into like too much political stuff. We all have very strong and similar political opinions in general to one another, but we specifically didn’t want our podcast to become something that was like political in nature at all.

And so because that story had so much about it that was political. commentary. I, I think I was like distracted because I was so worried that we would get into stuff that was distracting from the point of what we were doing. Um, not that I think it’s bad to talk about politics. I just, that’s not this podcast.

Um, also I will say I have this really random memory of when we recorded the Willy Wonka episode, we were recording it in person together, but there was like a technical issue where we, we couldn’t do it together the way that is best. And I don’t even remember what it was. I just remember we were at the Mountain House and, uh, I was so annoyed at the tech problems and I didn’t feel like we ever really resolved them that it was really challenging for me to like focus on what we were doing.

And so it’s interesting that stuff behind the scenes because Willy Wonka, the book was delightful. Loved the movies. Like, you know, those are all wonderful. But, um, I also think that The Martian ended up being, it’s one of our favorite book to film adaptations. We love the book. We love the film. All four of us really enjoyed it.

And I think that was one of the episodes, I didn’t dislike it. It wasn’t like a not, it wasn’t a, Oh, don’t listen to this. But I found it to be one of the least interesting because I think sometimes what makes a good episode is when we have very differing opinions or like, when we really don’t like one of them, like the book or the film.

And so it was interesting because when we both like, or when we all four liked both of the works, it was like, Just a love fist and it was a little less interesting to me, which I thought was a fascinating experience 

[00:51:29] Donna: and when for example of that You know when one of us doesn’t like Snape that I mean of 

[00:51:36] Rebekah: us two of us 

[00:51:38] Donna: Okay, two of us Two of you.

[00:51:42] Josiah: I’m disgusted by people who don’t like Snape 

[00:51:44] Donna: Interestingly enough we have not mentioned the other nonfiction book we read, which was Jesus Revolution. So isn’t that, it’s fascinating because, Oh, I did like that. Well, yeah, the book was not the easiest read because it was still in that biographical form.

And if you’re not 

[00:52:05] Rebekah: with it until it got to the point where they started the movie part, the first intro where they did the biographical stuff, it like way more heavy. It was definitely hard for me, like the beginning of Oppenheimer, but I think that was one where I said the book was better because I felt like learning the story and like seeing it, you know, shape my own faith and, and all those things, like, it felt like I was changed by reading in a way I wasn’t changed by watching, but yeah, that was a great episode, but definitely on the edge of It wasn’t super 

[00:52:34] Josiah: hard for me to read the beginning of that book just for You 

[00:52:37] Rebekah: like biographical stuff though, right?

I 

[00:52:39] Josiah: like historical stuff. And I think that more than Oppenheimer, the, the tone of Jesus Revolution’s history and the reading in the audiobook were both, uh, better, were both easier to experience. 

[00:52:58] Tim: I agree with that. And I like biography, history kinds of things as well. 

[00:53:03] Donna: But I’ve realized as we go along, we all have likes and differences.

that make us, that make it interesting to talk about together. 

[00:53:14] Rebekah: Well, speaking of things we learn about ourselves in reflection, Seth126 asks, what have you learned from doing this podcast about your taste in books and films, and what have you learned about yourself? And so I have an easy answer to this one.

First of all, I like fantasy and sci fi, and I think doing this podcast for a year has made That’s okay. I can buy all fantasy sci fi books that I want to read. It doesn’t mean that we’ll only cover those on the podcast, but I don’t know why, but I felt like some weird pressure from nowhere to have some well rounded taste.

And I was like, actually, I like this. I like other things that technically don’t fit in those genres. I like some horror things and I like post apocalyptic films and books. Um, I’m in the middle of a great series of those, but 

[00:54:06] Josiah: it’s a little sci fi sometimes. 

[00:54:08] Rebekah: Yeah, but I found that that was just my taste is this and when we do stuff, that’s not this it’s harder for me to engage What I learned about myself is I really struggle with vocal fry and I have to constantly think about not talking like this because this Is my go to and I hate that that that is my go to and so I’ve also learned that I really am I’m glad to have the time to with my family and I would like for the podcast to be monetized someday, but I think something that I learned was I feel safe and okay with the fact that we do this and don’t make any money from it because I wanted this to start as not a job.

I wanted it to be something we enjoyed together. And so I’ve really enjoyed it. that, you know, I had a conversation with a friend of Josiah’s, um, Brian, that was incredibly helpful. Would love to send you along to him if you’re interested, especially if you’re doing a business podcast, like hook up with him, have a zoom call.

He’s great. Um, but we talked about that for a little while and he said, you know, if that’s your intention is like to have fun and just spend that time, then do that. And don’t, you don’t have to worry about everything else. You can do those things, but you don’t have to. And so that’s been a cool. There 

[00:55:29] Donna: is a military commercial that the, it’s, it’s years old now, but the slogan was, it’s not a job.

It’s an adventure. I think that sums up kind of what you said. I like that. I’m not. Usually one to go, Oh, I’ve not, I don’t know. That’s this brand new, uh, uh, I question, I’m not afraid of changing, I embrace change, but when it came to reading some of these things, I’m like, Oh, I wouldn’t have just picked them up because I tend to just hang on to familiar, but I’ve learned that, um, reading some different genres and different things.

I’m, I’m glad that I’ve had to do those things because it’s, um, It’s given me, you know, grade one appreciation for, for reading. And I do listen, listen, I do not read physical books or I haven’t so far I’ve been doing audio books, but, um, I’ve, I’ve enjoyed the challenge to do that. I’m learning that I can disagree with you all about some of your opinions.

I’m the one that tries to bring everybody’s opinions all together under some strange roof. Again, I’m a nun with a wing and an entire Separate building nine. And so, um, I’ve had to let myself listen to us to disagree and be okay and not think, Oh no, there’s something wrong with me because I blah, blah, blah.

Uh, and I know that sounds silly, but I really, um, I really found that out and I’m enjoying. new books and experiences with them because it’s more of my, it feeds more of my, my hunger to understand people and why they think the way they think and why they make decisions. So. 

[00:57:21] Tim: One of the things that I’ve learned about myself, uh, taste in books and things like that, I, I’m very eclectic.

Um, I’ll read. some historical biographies of famous people every now and now and again and I’ll read, you know, historical, uh, other types of historical biographies or I’m not sure it’s a biography. It’s about if it’s about a period of time or a group of things as opposed to a person. You like 

[00:57:50] Rebekah: nonfiction, like historical nonfiction.

Yeah, 

[00:57:52] Tim: I do that. I do enjoy that. Um, but I’ve learned about myself that I have to be able, I have to be able to shift. Uh, back and forth from what I read when we’ve been doing, uh, the Harry Potter, uh, series for the summer. We’ve been reading, reading and watching those movies pretty quickly in succession.

And I’ve had to take breaks from that and listen to something else. I, I get, um, I just have to have, I have to have variety. In all of, in all of those things, even when we’re doing this, um, for the podcast, I need to be prepared. I need to, you know, know what I’m talking about because I’ve actually read it, uh, or watched it.

And so, I still have to have a lot of other variety because I get, I get bored quickly with things like that and get kind of stuck at, you know, that’s kind of like we’ve had friends that said, Oh yeah, we, we cooked such and such a meal and we had it every day until it was done. And I’m like, Oh my goodness.

I couldn’t do that, and I’m not sure I could do that in all those other ways either, so. 

[00:58:57] Donna: Be careful, you’re talking to Leftover King. 

[00:59:00] Tim: Oh, I know, I, you know, TJ does leftovers till the leftovers are done, and I can do leftovers, but, you know, Rebecca doesn’t do leftovers at all, and I do leftovers some. But yeah, the variety, I have to have a variety of things to listen to and to, to read.

[00:59:15] Josiah: I mean, I’ve learned that I’m perfect in every way. So that’s what Josh keeps telling me. I, something I think that Rebecca, what you said about, you know, it’s okay. I like sci fi fantasy and some dystopian, but that’s okay. That’s what I like. I think that as I get older, particularly with video games, it’s kind of like I see these trailers and I think.

Okay, that looks like a good game, but it’s not a game that I want to spend hours on. I will wait for a game that speaks to exactly what I want. And I haven’t felt that, I haven’t found that pigeon hole with books quite yet. But I understand for sure that sentiment. I do think that reading books for this podcast has pushed me to appreciate first person perspective.

[01:00:13] Rebekah: Oh, I like that. 

[01:00:14] Josiah: And strong voicing because so often what I had heard from first person perspective was, Twilight, whiny, unlikable, but then you get into some stuff like Ready Player One and The Martian. You get into some really strong first person voices. Now it’s not lost on me that both of those are male characters, but I also like Katniss.

So I’m not a misogynist. I don’t think it’s just 

[01:00:44] Rebekah: because they’re male that you like them. No one was worried about that. 

[01:00:47] Josiah: Well, I don’t know. Young adult, young adult females. is a common first person perspective, and I’m not saying that it’s, uh, one way or another, but I’m saying that maybe authors should do a better job of making their characters a little, uh, more likable in several ways in those young adult works of fiction.

And Josh, you can cut that if you want, if it sounds too sexist. Well, here’s a listener question from Nathan. Kiss, marry, date, Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, or Ted Cruz. Why? Why? 

[01:01:20] Donna: Ew. And I didn’t know Ted Cruz was supposedly the Zodiac Killer and so I have a whole Michelle Obama, 

[01:01:28] Josiah: Joe Biden, and Ted Cruz parenthetically Zodiac Killer work 

[01:01:32] Donna: together to be the Zodiac Killer?

[01:01:34] Josiah: No, no, no. 

[01:01:35] Donna: With clever makeup and camera tricks? 

[01:01:37] Josiah: So I would kiss Ted Cruz cause that’s the shortest amount of time of exposure that is allowed by this question. I would marry Joe Biden because I could inherit as soon as possible. And I would date Michelle Obama, process of elimination and the clout. 

[01:01:53] Tim: One of the things I’ve learned in doing this podcast is that TJ sometimes likes to throw out monkey wrenches just so people will react.

[01:02:02] Rebekah: One thing I thought was interesting was that there’ve been a few episodes that I’ve tried to schedule or we’ve talked about at length and then ended up not doing. And I thought you might be curious what those are. So, for instance, Pitch Perfect was one, we actually had it on the schedule, and we’ve, I had a really hard time converting the book, uh, through that AI thing that we did with the Die Hard book, like the inspirational book.

And so, I had a really hard time with the tech of it, and so then, I was like, trying to get it to work, and then I started reading it, and I thought, oh my gosh, I hate this. Like, it’s biographical format. I think. I liked it a lot. Yes. Josiah liked it. So it was not like bad. It just is not my cup of tea. But as we were reading it, it also was something similar to, um, gosh, what was the other one we thought about doing that I cut?

Oh, World War Z is very similar where the book, inspired the film, but they don’t actually have anything in common. Like, so we would have been talking about the book and then the film. We would not have been talking about comparing the two. So that was an interesting one. We discussed potentially doing Gone with the Wind, but the audio book is like, what, 48 hours long or something?

Yeah, 48 or 49 hours. So it would take up so many weeks. Same with Don 

[01:03:16] Josiah: Quixote for future reference. 

[01:03:17] Rebekah: Yeah, it would take up so many weeks to read that at this point, especially without monetization, it’s like, it’s a pretty hard sell. I also had a movie from, um, Netflix on here. And I think. The movie on Netflix is just Love at First Sight or something like that, but the book is called The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight.

It’s a really sweet rom com. It’s about math, but I realized that there, the based on who wants to listen and how many listens we get on certain episodes, it usually is not a good idea to do something for a book and film that no one’s heard of. So if you’ve heard of the film. or the book, it’s worth covering, right?

But like, the more obscure ones we find, they’re usually a lot more complicated. It’s hard to find information. It’s not always possible to listen to an audiobook, so it creates confusion. Um, so anyway, I just thought that was an interesting little tidbit. 

[01:04:13] Josiah: Also, you know, hype up that Mickey 7 slash Mickey 17 will eventually come out as a movie.

I think all of us loved the 

[01:04:23] Tim: book. 

[01:04:23] Rebekah: I know, we read it. 

[01:04:25] Tim: We read it knowing it was coming out, and then they delayed it. 

[01:04:29] Rebekah: It’s great. I actually think I might buy the first book, and there is a sequel um, that I’m interested in getting into, so I thought about buying them, but I really enjoyed the book, Mickey 7.

The movie will be Mickey 17. So that comes out in January. I think it releases at the end of January. So we will probably cover that, uh, right after we cover the Lord of the Rings. So let me give you a couple of things upcoming. And then I have a question about what you’re most excited about. So keep that in mind.

I’m not going to list everything on the calendar. I’m just kind of talking about some that stick out. Devil wears Prada. I’m really excited about because I think that that’ll be a very different type of listen for us. It’s not in our Yeah, it’s not in our traditional genre, but it’s I’m excited about it.

Um, we’re gonna be covering two Movies coming out this year. One of them is a cartoon wild robot for whatever reason the young men in my house are all very excited about this. So it’s based on a children’s books. I’m excited about that. Um, we are also covering wicked and we’re covering it right after it comes out.

So I knew Josiah would be excited about that one. It’ll be fun because you’re the only one I think that’s seen the musical live. 

[01:05:43] Josiah: Correct? Interesting. Have you guys not seen it? 

[01:05:47] Rebekah: And you saw it on Broadway? 

[01:05:48] Josiah: I saw it on Broadway. No, we have not. It’s pretty fantastic. 

[01:05:51] Rebekah: Um, and then after that, we are going to be covering, um, Starting with the brand new animated one that is directed by Peter Jackson, we will be beginning the Lord of the Rings series.

So, we’ll cover the War of Rohirrim first, which comes out in mid December. Uh, our episode for that will come out as the first episode in January. And then we’ll be covering the original three Fellowship, Two Towers, and Return of the King. And I’m not a big Lord of the Rings fan. And so, maybe that’s because I haven’t read the books.

I’m getting into more like adult fantasy, not adult like smutty fantasy, just like complicated and not young adult or middle adult, middle, what is it? Middle grade is the other word. 

[01:06:31] Josiah: Yeah, middle grade. Um, so I’m 

[01:06:32] Rebekah: excited about those. Um, we’re going to be covering Jurassic Park, which dad has asked about a lot and I love the original movie.

Um, so I’m super pumped about that. I’m debating on whether or not to cover it as the 2025 Halloween episode, although I I feel like I just am going to be torturing my father anytime we decide to do that. So who knows? Uh, other stuff I’m excited about, I am going to make you do something obscure, but it is a kids or middle grade book.

So I think if I’m not mistaken, it’s like a short read, but flatland romance of many dimensions. Uh, was a re, is a listener request from Nicholas. So we did have a listener request. I’ve heard about 

[01:07:11] Tim: that one. 

[01:07:12] Rebekah: Yeah. So that’ll be a really interesting one. I’m also really excited about Minority Report, which we just realized was a book, like not that long ago, which means I expect the book to be bad, but we love the movie.

Yeah. There’s just a couple of things. I’m in the middle of reading the, the silo series, which is a series on net or sorry on Apple TV. And I think that we are going to do that next year cause I’ve been kind of screening it cause I didn’t know content wise if it would be good, uh, like clean and stuff.

And it’s been amazing so far and I’m in the first season. So we’ll, we’ll maybe cover that. So which ones of these are you excited about? 

[01:07:48] Tim: I would really love to cover Artemis Fowl. It is in that list. You know, I’ve read it. I don’t think any of the rest of you have read it, um, but it’s, it’s a really neat series.

I’m really looking forward to the Chronicles of Narnia. It’s in, it’s in that upcoming, perhaps, list. I, I really, I know the first three are the ones that were made in, made into films, but the entire series, I absolutely loved the, the way that it all ended. Uh, in the last of the books, so I’m really looking forward to that, I think it’s, it’s, it would be a lot of fun to cover.

[01:08:28] Josiah: I am interested if we actually do IT, the Stephen King novel, that is one where I may, I may figure out where to tell Rebecca and Dad to skip. 

[01:08:43] Rebekah: Oh, I’m not worried about it, but 

[01:08:45] Josiah: I’ve watched it, but I’ve movie, all the movies cut out certain things. Yeah, but it’s, and it’s long as well. I like it. It’s a very epic tome.

I’m interested to see what the drastic park book is like. I’ve heard. That it reads like it is pitching a movie. To be mainly a movie. But I’m also interested in if the Godfather book is anywhere near as good as the Godfather movie. And also the Blade Runner book. Do androids dream of electric sheep?

That’s something that does interest me because Blade Runner is so cool. I don’t know if I would say it’s good. I think it’s really good. But that’s, uh, it’s for people’s personal taste. It’s certainly interesting and revolutionary. 

[01:09:35] Rebekah: The new Narnia film, it’s not a TV show, started filming this month in August and it may be released near the end of 2025.

So I want to kind of keep an eye on that because I think it’d be cool if we could cover. The original film and the Greta Gerwig, like, first film. I like Greta Gerwig. And then we could also do episodes on, um, the other two, if we want. Mom, what about you? Are you excited about any particular upcoming stuff on our schedule?

[01:10:00] Donna: I am. I, uh, see Minority Report down there, which I, um, really like. I love the movie. I didn’t used to like really involved sci fi that, that would, you know, mess with time or mess with perspective of things, um, but I found as I’ve gotten older, I love them. And Christopher Nolan probably pushed me over the edge with those.

Because I loved his stuff, but on the first watch, I noticed I was more interested in the cinematography and the music was so overwhelming and I genuinely, generally liked the characters. Then I started digging into his time, his, his timey wimey, timey wimey, yeah, the way he winds time. Um, and so I’ve gotten more interested, so I think Minority Report would be, Really cool.

I was the one that, uh, asked for one that’s on our coming, not scheduled yet, but I asked for The Great Escape after I realized how long Gone With The Wind was. I was afraid Great Escape, which is a black and white war movie. It is 

[01:11:13] Tim: not black and white. It is color. Oh, they have colored it? Okay. Well, good. It was a color film.

[01:11:18] Rebekah: It’s historical fiction about war. It’s about war. But it’s about a real thing 

[01:11:23] Donna: that happened. But the great part about it is the audio book’s five hours long. 

[01:11:28] Rebekah: Okay. If, you know, I can probably get through that. I’ll survive. That’s just a lot of things I don’t like in one movie. But you know what? This podcast isn’t just about what I like.

[01:11:38] Josiah: That’s right. 

[01:11:39] Donna: Um, I noticed, I see one on our. I’m going to be covering our first anime, 

[01:11:48] Rebekah: which I think will be fascinating. 

[01:11:50] Tim: Okay. Uh, last question from cave on to 12, uh, future goals for the podcast. What are our future goals? Well, one, that we continue to be able to do this and that we have more episodes and find more movies that, um, books and movies that people find interesting.

I think Rebecca has a little more in store for that. And I know that Donna would love for us to have some bits and pieces of merch that we’ve only pseudo seriously looked at, but we’re probably going to look at even more. So. 

[01:12:27] Rebekah: Yeah. Mom, what are the merch pieces that you want the most? Tell us. Buttcrack Santa.

She wants it on a shirt so bad. Here’s the problem. If we do it and then it’s very popular, then she was right and the rest of us making fun of her were wrong. And I don’t like to be proven wrong. So. 

[01:12:46] Josiah: I never mind to be proven wrong because I am the better Hanes child. Oh my goodness. 

[01:12:56] Rebekah: So let me tell you a little bit about what I see for the future, and then we will wrap up our episode.

I would love to launch a Patreon this year in 2020, sorry, in the next year of the podcast. So probably in early 2025. We talked about it at the beginning of this year, and to be honest, we just didn’t have the listenership to support it. Um, our listener base is still small enough that, you You know, statistically, we might not have that many people sign up, but we want to make sure that if we do it, that we’re releasing, um, enough extras that it’s worth it to pay the money to support us monthly.

Um, it would allow us probably to expand into having additional editors. Josh is about to start a job as a chef, a sous chef at a local restaurant opening up. And so. As his time dwindles, you know, one of the ideas we had was, Oh, what if we do bonus episodes? And it’s like, if we prepare well for them, it’s a, it’s double the work and, you know, including double the work for him.

So it’d be nice to have, uh, some money to put towards editing. I, like I said, I’m excited to launch our website and I, uh, once we get that launched, I want to start doing some things to promote the podcast better. I literally work in digital marketing and. To date have barely used any of that skill to, uh, help market this podcast in any way.

So, um, I’d like to start. 

[01:14:14] Josiah: That’s fine. 

[01:14:14] Rebekah: Yeah. I’d like to start doing that. I would love to grow our listener base, uh, a bit. And I agree. Merch is probably a good idea. I like the idea of like Patreon subscribers at certain levels. I’ve seen some Patreons where once you’re in for three months at a specific level, you get A piece of merch of your choice at no additional charge, um, working that into the Patreon.

Um, I would love to have some listener only Discord chan er, Patreon only Discord channels where you can like, you know, do chat sessions with us and ask questions. Um, I’ve had a lot of people ask about doing live episodes occasionally. So the software we’re now using to do that, which is called Riverside, um, it’s called makes that a lot easier to do.

And so we could have like live episodes with live chats. So we’ve discussed maybe even doing like a live react to Lord of the Rings or a live recording for the first one and see if, you know, that would be fun for Patreon subs. So I’d like to do some things like that to monetize and grow. And then I would say, this is, Maybe random, but we have started listening to a podcast.

We like that. We mentioned earlier haunted cosmos It’s been really cool. And one of the things I realized it’s us. It’s not us but one of the things I realized I like about that is that they’re pretty unashamedly Christian and I think that I Have avoided talking much about my faith. Just trying to make this a podcast accessible for anyone, but I like talking about how my faith informs the way that I look at fiction and it informs what we choose to listen and watch.

So there’s certain things that we’ll never cover on the podcast because of that. Um, and so, yeah, I think it would be, it would be cool. So that is my. My future goals. All right. Well, I’m so glad you joined us for this year in review. I have really enjoyed getting to just talk about and think over what we’ve done and how much we’ve learned in it.

And, uh, just the ways that it’s allowed us to have so much fun together. As always, if you enjoyed our episode, please rate or review us. Five star ratings and reviews are incredibly beneficial. They’re probably the number one thing you can do to help, uh, us spread the word. You can find us on x Instagram and Facebook at book is better pod And if you have feedback want to ask us questions like the ones we answered on this episode Or just have fun with us.

You can join our free discord server at the link in the episode description until then See you next year, I guess 

[01:16:50] Josiah: See you next year. 

[01:16:51] Rebekah: Yeah, 

[01:16:52] Josiah: I will see you next year. You can guarantee it. I’d love to ask this Question from Kvon212, thank you for the many, uh, listener questions that you have provided us.

Yeah, which is great. Mom and Dad’s love story. Now, I want to quickly say, copyright T. Josiah Haynes. Yes. It’s on my short list. Of things to write a book about. 

[01:17:20] Rebekah: You cannot have the story. We will sue 

[01:17:22] Josiah: you. But you may listen to Mom and Dad’s love story. You may listen and enjoy. Oh wow, 

[01:17:28] Tim: that’s nice. You’ve copyrighted my life.

Kvon212 

[01:17:32] Josiah: specifically says, I want to hear about it. They’re so sweet. 

[01:17:37] Donna: I’ve thought about this question because I did see it in our discord community and I wanted to be faithful to the question. The problem is I could genuinely talk for the next seven hours. About this because so many different pieces and parts of it make it all work together.

Um, But maybe let’s not talk for seven hours. Yeah, I don’t I guess I don’t have seven hours How 

[01:18:05] Tim: about if I start with the very first part of it that before we ever met? 

[01:18:10] Donna: Yeah Yeah, maybe starting there would be a great idea 

[01:18:14] Tim: when I was 15 years old. I remember kneeling beside my bed Um, and i’m not sure exactly what I was going through You But the, but what I remember is I knelt beside my bed.

To say my prayers and I said, God, I, I want to be a husband and a father. I don’t know what else I want to be or what I’m supposed to be, but I want to be a husband and a father. And, um, I have a lot of friends that have had a lot of goals, you know, they’re gonna, Do this by this age and do that by this age and those kinds of things.

That’s never really been my particular personality and I can’t say anything against those that have that as their personality, their personality. But, um, for me, those were my two biggest goals in life. Um, beyond, you know, besides being the Christian God wanted me to be, those other things were the most important.

And so, when I went to college, I was expecting that college, college would be the place where I would find the person that I, That I wanted to marry and after four years of college, I was dating and even engaged to a young lady that I had known at summer camp and we had a volatile relationship. And so, um, that was a, I was.

Nearing the end of my college career, and nearing the end of what I considered my prospects for being a husband and a father, so. 

[01:19:49] Rebekah: So mom, what was it like the first time that you saw dad before you met? 

[01:19:53] Donna: Well, is it okay if I back up just a short before that? Um, 

[01:19:58] Music: No, 

[01:19:59] Donna: never. No, we’re kidding. Go ahead. Uh, so I, I, I’ve shared this before on occasion here and there, and if you know me, I’ve probably, probably heard this more than a few times.

Uh, my parents relationship was not good. Their marriage was not good. They stayed married until my dad passed away. So they were together for over, uh, 54 years. Um, but their relationship was not good. And that’s a whole nother novel series of its own. But Also copyright that. As a teenager, I couldn’t ever imagine a good marriage.

I couldn’t imagine having children. My mom was a great mom, and my dad was a great dad, as separate individuals. And even their re even their child raising of the two of us, my brother and I, when they did those things together, it was pretty good. They had solid beliefs about marriage. Child raising, but their other, the other part of their relationship was what was so bad, but I still just couldn’t see.

My way through being a wife and a mom, um, I dated a few, few guys through high school as I went into high school. And then I had a long term relationship, uh, as I, that took me as I got into college and when I went to college, uh, I had literally no ambition. To further my education. And as, if that sounds rough, it just is rough, but my best friend in high school went to Truevecca in Nashville, Tennessee, and he went a year ahead of me and he wrote me every week.

We wrote back and forth. He just begged me, you’ve got to come. This is amazing. He had friends of ours. Right in the letters, he had the band director because he knew I’d end up a band nerd or I was a band nerd. And he had the band director right in one of the letters. I don’t even know if Steve remembers that, but you know, just, Hey, this is the band.

I’m the band director. And Scott says you should come blah, blah, blah. And so I, through the year I told my mom, I’m like, maybe this is God’s thing to me that I need to do this because he knew I really wasn’t motivated to go and like further education. And so. Getting there was almost getting to the college, to the college.

It was almost an afterthought. It was just something I thought I could do this for two years, get a two year associate’s degree. You know, maybe I’ll have some fun for a few years. And I hate that that sounds so immature and stupid because I could have, you know, could have thought farther along there, but I went and, um, in October.

Uh, Um, 1983, I was in my, the lobby of my dorm at, in Tennessee and that, at that time at Trevecca and it The dorm name was Tennessee. The dorm name was 

[01:23:06] Rebekah: also in Tennessee. Yeah, the 

[01:23:07] Donna: dorm name was Tennessee. At that time at Trevecca, it could be the same now, the, the girls in the Johnson dorm were the girls you dated, but the girls in Tennessee were the ones you married.

And I, I always thought that was interesting. Thought I’d shout out to Trevecca there. Um, but I was standing in the lobby of Tennessee dorm and I was waiting for a friend to come downstairs and we were going to walk to class. And I looked out the window and across the road from the dorm was the Johnson dorm.

And Tim and his then fiance were walking across And I knew his fiance, but they, uh, they didn’t go really run around in our circle of friends at that time. Um, and take it or leave it. Tim had a light around him and I’ve never seen anything like it before. And it was daylight. So it wasn’t as if it was nighttime and he had a good.

It wasn’t a green Martian glow. 

[01:24:07] Tim: I wasn’t radioactive. He wasn’t radio. 

[01:24:09] Donna: I don’t know. You’d already had one of the lightning strikes. So maybe we don’t know. You could have been, you don’t know. Uh huh. But he had a glow around him and it was so crazy. But I just, he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

And, um, it was weird because like I said, he was, he was engaged. And, um, and I was, I was still in a relationship with a guy from home. And, um, so in January I came back to school and, uh, went through registration line with a friend, we go to the lunch, we go to have lunch in the cafeteria. And my friend said, Hey, And there’s Tim Haynes and Stacy, another girl that was in, uh, in music with, with me and the fellow that I was with.

His name was Tim as well. And we went over and sat down and, and had lunch with him. And that, so I met Tim on January 2nd, 1984. And um, We became friends, I think, faster than I’d ever made a friendship before. We just 

[01:25:19] Tim: Just an insertion there. I, at that point, I was already I, we had broken up before I ever met you.

I’d broken up with my fiancé. Right. Um, so 

[01:25:29] Donna: And so, I think it was easy to become friends. Because like I said, I was in a relationship with a guy from home and Tim was not in a relationship and needed to heal. So we were safe, we were safe friends, right? We could get to know each other. And so, it was really, I consider all of that a God thing at this point because, I could be me with him, and he could be him with me.

He, he, we weren’t putting on pretenses. If I knew I was going to see him, if we were all going out somewhere, or if I was just going to see him during the day, I didn’t worry about Ha! God knows I didn’t worry about dressing up! 

Because I wore some really weird clothes. 

[01:26:16] Tim: There were, there were plenty of days when I decided I wasn’t going to shower and I wore my camo shirt and camo bandana.

Yeah, knowledge. And she knew, she knew, uh, yeah, this is one of those moments. No shower days. So 

[01:26:33] Donna: yeah, that’s, we could be ourself. It was funny as we, I’ll we’ll end it here, you know, with this part of the love story. ’cause it does go on quite a bit because 

[01:26:42] Rebekah: get, at this point you’re not yet together in the story.

I, we’re not quite together in this story. We’re we’re, 

[01:26:48] Tim: we have story, become very best friends by this time. So we were 

[01:26:51] Rebekah: besties and we don’t wanna tell you anything about how we’re now married and have to 

[01:26:55] Donna: so . But I will say though. Um, Tim, Tim had his camo outfit, but on usually on Saturdays, uh, cause it was just a lazy day.

Um, I would wear, I had this big, this dress. And the dress had no shape to it. It was a big, it was. They were called tent dresses 

[01:27:17] Rebekah: was a 

[01:27:18] Donna: Oo. Yeah, it had a yes. You know, a little yoke around the Is same around the neckline. Yeah. He’s not calling you a cow, he’s naming the dress. No, that 

[01:27:25] Josiah: would be a, you would think that’s a compliment.

You love cows. 

[01:27:28] Donna: I do. I do. But it, it had this little yoke around the neck and it was all gathered and it. They were literally called tent dresses. I don’t know that they still call them that now, but it just was big and wide and flowy. I think it might have been called a 

[01:27:43] Tim: moo moo, but still 

[01:27:44] Donna: they were, it was, it was considered a moo moo, but I’m just saying.

It was comfortable and I would put that on and throw on some pair of shoes. Um, and my other favorite outfit that I got the most compliments on, uh, I had a pair of red sweatpants that were incredibly comfortable. I had a WVU Jersey, and I don’t know if any of you don’t know this already, but WVU colors are deep gold and navy blue.

And I would wear that jersey with those red sweatpants and a pair of Penny loafers, 

[01:28:25] Tim: that’s a whole 

[01:28:27] Donna: nother story, by the way. That’s why I want to go. I think what 

[01:28:35] Josiah: Kaylina 

[01:28:36] Donna: wants to know is how you got together. 

[01:28:39] Josiah: What you didn’t understand, Rebecca, was when mom said, I’m going to finish here, because the rest of the love story is about what they were wearing.

[01:28:50] Tim: No, the point is just that we were very comfortable with each other and we needed to be, we were both in a place where we needed that person that we could just be ourselves with without putting on any kind of pretenses. 

[01:29:04] Donna: But I can say, and honestly, Kalina, I love this question. because there’s a lot about our relationship.

It was another year from then. Like we met in January, Tim graduated in the spring. He went back to South Carolina, began a youth pastorate position and a music minister of music. I went back to school. And so from the time he graduated, the last time I talked to him then was in June and we’d had a little bit of a falling out.

And so things were kind of weird, but we were still Friends, I didn’t hear from him again until the next February and he just called me one night in my dorm. It was very weird and I won’t go into all that, but he called me one night and he said after we had a few niceties, he said, well, you’re probably wondering why I called.

And he said, I, I don’t want to pastor alone and I’ve been praying and asking God to give me direction. And I always come back to you. And so that sounds so random and a lot of girls would probably go, what? But as serious as I can be from the time I saw Tim and I didn’t think about this every day or dwell on this, but I was just kind of waiting for him to come around.

Um, we, we just clicked in a crazy magical thing and I’ll say magical totally in, in orchestrated by God. But the crazy part about this was nothing about this story should have ended up with us together. 

[01:30:55] Music: I, 

[01:30:57] Donna: it was this, we look back at it now. And I think just recently we talked about something and I said, do you realize we’re together in spite of us, of our personal choices, our, when we were young, I mean, it’s, it’s a crazy thing, but we also believe we can look back at it now and see just a crumb, just crumbs of what God’s done through this.

And, um, sometimes it’s hard to even say that we, I, I mean, I get, I’m sure Tim agrees with me, but I’m going to speak for myself. I live a fairy tale and I, and I’m so sorry that there’s people out there that don’t have that. I’m not sorry that I live it, but I mean, I’m so sorry for so many people who haven’t had great relationships.

I’m so, I, and I pray for people all the time and. Anytime I can encourage people to not give up, don’t give up on what, you know, Oh, is there anything good that’s going to, can I have this good relationship? You can, uh, but I, I, I just am in awe all the time of it’s been this incredible, like 40 years now, almost 41.

Since we met, 

[01:32:18] Tim: I would say that one of the things that we talked about recently was We have a digital photo frame that comes up and one of the photos in it is the two of us walking back into our house with Rebecca as an infant the first day we came back from the hospital. My dad took the picture and we’ve been talking about, you know, those two children having a baby and we recognize that even, even in our very childish and self centered way, We started making decisions guided by the Holy Spirit that turned out to be great decisions.

Um, things that we would do in our life, things that we wouldn’t do in our life. Um, and we didn’t make them because we were wise, uh, we made them because the Lord directed us that way, and we were willing to go that route. Um, and it has, it has been wonderful, um, and not, not that long ago, um, Donna stood with me during the Worst single day of my life, uh, and we were merely there together.

And, you know, it was just a reminder that God knew what He was doing when we didn’t have a clue. Um, but we were trying to be obedient, even in our childishness, so. Yeah, it was funny about that. I’m so grateful that He still was working on us all those times. 

[01:33:46] Donna: It’s that funny thing about that worst day. And there wasn’t anything funny about the day itself.

I don’t even know which day you’re referring to, but Dad had to go to the emergency room and was there for a day. And And after all that was over, and it was probably maybe a week later, um, he said to me out of the blue, he said, you never left the room except one time I left the room to go across the hall and use the bathroom.

He said, you never left the room. And it was so funny when he said it because I said, well, where else would I go? And, and it, I guess that may, maybe to me, that’s kind of the, the crux of it. Like, once you find that and you latch onto it, where, where else would you go? And, uh, 

[01:34:35] Rebekah: it’s been amazing. Can you, I, this story’s gone on a while.

I think it would be really fun to like, I’m going to say, can you kind of close this part of the story by telling us how you proposed? Because that’s a really good part. You’ll 

[01:34:57] Tim: tell him better than me. I had asked, I had asked my dad, you know, for advice. I was living at home, you know, we, Donna and I had been talking on the phone, which at the time, no cell phones.

So it was long distance charges for those of you that don’t know where that is. Anytime, anytime you called somebody that didn’t live locally, it cost a lot of money. Um, and so, you know, we’d been talking back and forth and, um, I had been talking to, to my dad and I said, I really do think Donna’s the one.

And he said, then why wait? You know, There’s no need to wait if, if she’s the one and so, um, I remember one evening after the family had gone to bed, um, they’d gone to bed 10 o’clock or something. I don’t even remember exactly what time it was, but it was late. The rates went down 

[01:35:46] Donna: after 11. The rates 

[01:35:48] Tim: went down, yeah.

The rates went down for calling and so that’s when I called. And, uh, we were living in close quarters in my house at the time, and I took the, the phone, which was on a cord, a long cord, and I took it into the bathroom beside the kitchen. Uh, the cord would reach in there, and I, we were talking on the phone, and I said, Okay, I’m down on my knees.

And I asked, I asked her to, to marry me and, you know, I still choke up about it, but at the time I, I was such a puddle. Um, I was sweating buckets and I was so unsure and, you know, that’s a huge step for a young man. Uh, and, you know, I asked her to marry me after all of that heart palpitation and all that sweating, and her response was, Sure.

And I said, Sure. I’m here, I’m here just about to die asking you this. And she said, I’ve just been waiting for when you made the decision. I’ve been ready to marry you a long time. And, uh, it was, it’s been wonderful. We keep looking back at pictures and things and thinking, Man, we were children making decisions that would matter for a lifetime and we were still so young and immature and, and even selfish in a lot of ways.

So, uh, but I’m really glad that, that God has given us such a wonderful marriage for all these years and two amazing children as well that we’re very, very proud of.