Babbling About Turkey, Traffic, and Trying to Be Social

#200: Holiday magic rarely arrives tidy, and that’s exactly why this week felt so good. I switched my usual Nashville trek to host my aunt in Huntsville, crammed a work sprint into a pre-holiday marathon, and wrestled a nine-foot tree into a gold-and-pink glow that made the whole house exhale. One guest room makeover became a full-blown decor spiral—because once one corner shines, the rest of the house starts asking for equal treatment.

We chased the Galaxy of Lights on a clear night, and my aunt—fresh from two knee replacements—crushed a walk through the botanical garden like a champ. The next day, we tested D-Box seats for Wicked and discovered that vibrating, tilting chairs plus a musical equals chaotic amusement with adjustable settings. Between laughs and leaning seats, I took her to my go-to Huntsville gems that feel like community: small rooms, familiar faces, and food that tastes like someone’s watching over the details.

Midweek, a family health scare turned us into advocates. Without airing private details, we sat at the table where care plans are decided and remembered how heavy it is when no one knows a patient’s wishes. That’s why I’m asking you to have the hard conversations now: CPR or not, intubation preferences, hospice versus rehab, who holds medical power of attorney, and where those documents live. Plans can change, but clarity spares families heartache when time is short. After a reset drive home, I did a double Thanksgiving—early with family, late with chosen family—and listened to my body when it said to sit down.

Also, a PSA for the loyal listeners: I’m selling chairs, not retiring. The podcast room is getting a glow-up, and the stories aren’t slowing down. If you love holiday recaps, cozy decor talk, candid health wisdom, and a little chaos with your cranberry sauce, you’ll feel right at home here. Tap follow, share this episode with someone who needs the nudge to plan their care wishes, and leave a review with your spiciest D-Box seat take.

Follow me on social: https://www.instagram.com/babbles_nonsense/

Chapters

• 0:00 Holiday Setup And Intentions
• 2:45 The Nine-Foot Tree Saga
• 5:10 Guest Room Glow-Up Spiral
• 6:50 Galaxy Of Lights Walk
• 8:45 D-Box Seats And Wicked
• 10:45 Favorite Huntsville Eats
• 12:05 Family Health Scare And Advocacy
• 14:25 Tough Conversations About Care Wishes

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

What is up, everyone? Welcome back to another episode of the Babbles Nonsense podcast. The show where my life makes zero sense, but somehow y'all keep listening anyway. So I love you for that. On today's episode, it's going to be short, sweet, sassy, and a little chaotic because let's be honest, that's how my Thanksgiving break was. We're going to recap the Galaxy of Lights, The Wicked Movie, Hours of Driving, Aggressively Good Food, and me being so exhausted that even the thought of a workout had my muscles filing a complaint with HR. So let's get into it. All right, guys. So let's just jump into it. Um, this year my aunt came to Huntsville. Normally I drive to Nashville the night before Thanksgiving, but this year we flipped it and had her come here, um, which is hilarious because I claim I want to get out of the house and do things. But the reality is me in pajamas, horizontal, watching whatever the TV gods decide is actually perfection to me. I do get a wild hair every now and then I'm like, let's go out, let's have fun. But chances are, if people are not inviting me out till eight or nine, you can just hang it up. I want to be that person so badly and I'm working on it, but it really is just being cozy in the house for me. But, anyways, so since my aunt was coming, I had to pre-do all my normal life things like work, cleaning, decorating. Despite my home, you know, doing everything in its power to stay in litigation chic, I just wanted to get it together a little bit. And of course, I had to get the Christmas tree up because I wanted her to see like my decor and all of that. Last year I didn't decorate with everything that was going on with the house. But this year I was like, you know what? I'm not gonna let this steal my joy. I'm going to decorate the house. So the Christmas tree that I have is nine feet tall. And I was debating there for a while, like, do I really want to put this up? Because it can become cumbersome, especially, you know, when you have to get ladders to decorate it and like put it together, and it has a little lean to the left a little bit. Um, so since it's nine feet tall and I refuse to let it look anything less than home and gardens audition ready photogenic moment, it took me like two to three hours to get it ready. And that was before I had the realization that I didn't have enough decor. Like I was like, you know what? I probably need some more because I do a lot of like um, like my Christmas tree is always very like gold, um, champagne, um, pink, little light pink colors. And I typically will always get a new ribbon each year. And this year the ribbon that I chose was just fabulous because it was whiter, much easier to do. Because when I had the thinner ribbon, it was just so hard to make it look like that, like put together someone decorated it for me type vibe. And I know, shocking, I can be creative sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes. Um, but anyways, since I had this realization that I wanted more decor, I naturally had to make multiple trips to Hobby Lobby, which I don't know if anyone has ever been to Hobby Lobby during this season, like Thanksgiving, like pre-Thanksgiving, after Thanksgiving, right before Christmas, but it's peak Christmas season there, and it is not for the week. I'll just say that. You know, I saw some things, I aged, no, I'm just kidding. But if you've never been, it's it's literally like what's the word where people are just like running rampant. It's almost like what Black Friday used to be when people were just running through stores and trying to get things because you know they put everything 50% off for the holidays, and they have really cute decor. So it's just so many people, the lines are long, but nonetheless, we made it through. I got the tree up, it's beautiful. But when I was doing that, I was like, hmm, should I decorate this guest room? Because she always calls it her room because we always like we're very close, and she's like a mother figure to me. And we talked about the house when I bought it and stuff. She was like, that can be my room, which I mean obviously it was basically like a basic decoration, like there was furniture in there, there was a bed in there, some old decor that I had from like my old apartment days and stuff like that. And I had never decorated it because I just couldn't get inspired to find a theme for it. Um, and I was just like, I need new furniture and all that stuff. But I wasn't planning on decorating recently because of everything that's going on with the home. But once the vision started visioning, it turned out so cozy and cute, which immediately sent me spiraling because then the guest bathroom wasn't cozy. And then the podcast room next to that also didn't feel as cozy as the guest room. I think it's just when you have something new, like everything else that you have just feels old. So I was just like, now everything else needs to be redecorated on this side of the house. So now I'm in decor purgatory until further notice. Someone take my credit card from me. I don't need to be decorating anymore. Um, but, anyways, back to the actual recap of last week. Um, my aunt did get here on Monday night, and I did have to work a half a day that day, but we had to move um the galaxy of lights that we were going to do from Tuesday to Monday night because it had predicted to rain all night on Tuesday, and I just didn't want it to be gross and wet and not as beautiful. If you don't know what the galaxy of lights are, if you're listening to this and you're not in Huntsville, I'm sure in your area y'all have something like we have a botanical gardens where they just decorate everything in immense lights, which this was my first year actually walking through that. So it was also nice for me to go. But here's the kicker. My aunt has two brand new knees. So she had two knee replacements this year. The last one was done in June. So she's kind of been prepping for, you know, um, she as she calls it like a holiday marathon because she always comes to Tennessee, um, Nashville for Thanksgiving. And so she was kind of prepping for that. Plus, she's trying to get back into travel and stuff like that. So she's been walking and getting ready. She's also a physical therapist, so she can kind of do that on her own. And she did walk through airports that same day that I decided to change the galaxy of lights. And I wasn't thinking about that because typically when I'm flying, I try my best to do direct, but there's not a lot of there's not a lot of direct flights into Huntsville, so she had a layover, and it's not funny. It's funny now because we can talk about it. Um, so then I had her doing the nighttime nature cardio walk through the 1.5 to two miles of Christmas lights through the botanical gardens, but she did great. She had her cane with her, she was able to walk the whole thing. And actually, while we were walking it, it was funny because she was like, I don't think I've ever done 10,000 steps in a day. And I was like, Really? She was like, Yeah, I don't think I have. And when we looked at her watch after she said that she had done 15,000 steps, I was like, Glad I could be here first. That's one thing I will do is walk around all the time. But it ended up being perfect. The weather was perfect, it was cool, it was crisp, and it was dry, no wet rain. Um, and the plus side of that, she didn't cuss me out once. So we'll consider that a win, even though she doesn't cuss, anyways. But in your mind, you know, she probably could have. Um, no, but it was beautiful. She had a great time. We took breaks where there needed to be breaks. So if you're in Huntsville, highly recommend the walking nights at the Botanical Garden for the Galaxy of Lights. Um on Tuesday, we decided to make this rest and movie day. So we went to see the wicked um wicked for good part two. No spoilers here, don't worry, we're not gonna give that away. But we did sit in these seats called D-Box seats. And when I purchased the tickets, I saw that it said that, but I had no idea what it was because I haven't been to the movies in forever. And um if you've never used D-Box seats, imagine a massage chair, a roller coaster, and a heated toilet seat had a baby. They vibrated, they tilted, and they moved with the movie. So, like, for example, when Elpha flew, the chairs leaned like we were going with her, which is a cool concept. Confusing execution a little bit. Um, thankfully, you can turn them down. So there's like you can turn it off, then there's a low, medium, and high setting. So if like you have motion sickness, or maybe you're going with the elderly grandparent or something like that, you can turn them off if like the other people want to enjoy them. Um, but I mean it was interesting. It was definitely interesting. The review is still out on whether the seats enhance the movie if we were just being bullied for two hours. TBD, TBD. Um, I also took her to my two favorite Huntsville spots. We went to the standard and Providence bar for dinner on Monday and Tuesday night. And one thing you should know about me is if I find a restaurant with good service and good food, I become a loyal customer until the universe physically removes me. Which honestly, like I honestly just get tired of the food because I eat it so often, and then I'll just find something else. But the thing about those two and why I love them so much is because it just feels very homey, like little holes in the wall, because it's not a lot of seating. It's, you know, you know people when you go there. Like if you go there often, you're gonna know the same people, and it just feels like a, you know, a cozy hometown vibe. And I wanted to take her there because she's from a big city in Jacksonville, Florida. And so I just wanted to give her something that she doesn't have back there. And of course, she loved the food as well. Um, and then Wednesday before Thanksgiving was our travel day, so I drove her to Nashville so she could spend time with more family before Thanksgiving. And unfortunately, one of our family members was sick with pneumonia and was in the hospital, and there was some discharge planning that me and my aunt had to intervene with, just being the medical people in the family. And obviously, I don't want to, you know, go into their business too much, but it ended up being one of those moments where with like my aunt being a physical therapist and me being in the medical field, um, had to step in and have tough conversations with families. So, with that being said, here's my little PSA as a healthcare provider. And just because we're getting up on the holidays and you know, sometimes unfortunately, tragedy does happen around holidays. Um, this is just a soapbox I'm gonna stand on for a minute. Please, while you're healthy and of age and of right mind, talk to your loved ones about your wishes, no matter, no matter what your age is. Like if you're 16, 66, 96, I don't care what your age is, if you know what you want, or even if you don't know what you want, sit down and have those hard conversations. And I'm talking about conversations like CPR, intubation, hospice versus skilled care, burial versus cremation, who your medical proxy, you, you know, who you want your medical proxy to be, your power of attorney, all those things. And I know that sounds kind of crazy if you're young, but you never know when something can happen. And I know it's a heavy conversation to have, but it's way harder on families when no one knows what you, the patient wants. You know, you need to put it in writing, it needs to be notarized, it needs to be somewhere safe where someone can get to it. And then you just update it as life changes. As you age, as you grow older, as you start a family, as you have kids, all these things can change. They're not set in stone, they're set in stone for that moment, but also they can be changed in the moment too, which that's a whole nother conversation. But I'll step off that medical soapbox because that's not what this podcast is about. I need to do a whole podcast on that. Um, but it's just highly, highly important to have those tough conversations and you can make them fun. Like I know it's easier for me to say that because I feel like most medical providers, especially if you worked in emergency medicine, we can become a little morbid and we have a little bit of morbid humor. And some people are like, oh my gosh, but you know, that's just that's just how we are. But it is an important conversation to have, just so that if when someone's, you know, going through a medical problem or something that's maybe even what's the word? Um, you know, it it may be something that could potentially take your life or something like that. It takes the stress away from the family. And I know for me personally, I don't want my family stressed about thinking about what I wanted or what my wishes were, like when they just have them, they can have them, and they have them while I'm, you know, young and healthy and can tell them versus, you know, if we wait until a medical emergency where you can no longer speak for yourself, if if you will. But anyways, like I said, getting off that soapbox. Um, so that night, that Wednesday night, I ended up driving back to Huntsville because I was truthfully so exhausted. Um, my social battery was blinking red like my iPhone at 2%, especially with these new batteries. It was just drained and depleted. Um, so I just came on home instead of doing Thanksgiving there. Um, and then I decided to get up and drive to my parents' house, and my childhood best friend lives there as well. And I was like, you know what? I can now go visit with my parents, even though they don't really do a big Thanksgiving or anything like that. And I decided I was gonna bring my little elderly Chihuahua cricket, who is sweet, but you know, she's a chihuahua. No, I'm just kidding. She's really good for Chihuahua, and I know you're probably rolling your eyes at that, but if you ask anybody you know, she's just a great chihuahua. And she handled it, you know, better than I expected, like getting to meet Lori's kids and everything like that, because she has a little over a one-year-old and a three-year-old, and they both did so well with her, and Cricket just loved it. She, you know, queen behavior. She ate it up, she loved it. And then um I visited with my parents for a few hours, and then I drove back home um to Huntsville, and then I went to my bestie's parents in Huntsville. Um, I went to her house for Thanksgiving dinner, which has been my tradition forever because my family has always, even when my uncle was hosting, my family has always ate around 12 or one o'clock for Thanksgiving, and her family eats at five or six, so it's perfect. Two meals, no guilt, visiting with my biological family and my built-in family here in Huntsville. Um, and then after all of that, after the decorating, the driving, the hosting, the movie seat vibrating, and being a functional adult, I was spent on Friday. Um, I feel like I'm officially old. My body was saying, girl, go sit down somewhere because I was doing a lot of ripping and a roaring up and down these streets. And I'm just kidding, it was just a lot. Um, but everything turned out beautiful. The decor, the guest room, the holiday vibes, the podcast room is still a work in progress. But side note on that, no, I'm not ending the podcast. Y'all saw me post my podcast chairs for sale and acted like I announced my retirement. But I'm just redecorating. The podcast room is getting a glow-up, not an obituary. And truly, I don't think that I will ever run out of things to babble about. I mean, I'm sure all things must come to an end at some point. And with me going to all the all these therapy sessions, life coaching, energy healing, who knows? Maybe I'll be healed one day, I'll be less dramatic. But I'll always be observant. So people keep giving me material. Every time I'm like, I'm gonna end the podcast, somebody gives me something to talk about. But, anyways, with that, I hope you had the best Thanksgiving. I hope you ate good food, stayed present, made memories, and didn't get into a fight over politics or casseroles this year. And I'm sure we will have more to babble about as the holiday season progresses. Until next time, guys. Bye.