It’s Me, Hi: Meet Your Podcaster
Hello Disaster Pod Squad! Since we are a few episodes in to the Disaster Queen Podcast, I thought maybe I should do a proper introduction. If you’ve listened, you probably have gleaned a bit of info about me already, but let’s do a deeper dive without getting into TMI, shall we?
Like most women born between 1976 and 1984, my name is Jenny! LOL. BUT SERIOUSLY THERE ARE SO MANY OF US!!! I’m a lifelong Ohioan, and I’m married to my high school sweetheart. We are so boring, we might as well be a cliché but we looooove each other so it’s all good. We have three great kids, one of whom is a whole grown adult and college student and is the editor of this podcast! (It’s a family affair as my husband is my audio engineer and also did the original theme music.) We also have one kid in high school and one in junior high. No more babies in this house! It’s kind of wild because I still feel like we should be “young parents” but we are most decidedly not.
Oh, and we also have two cats, Midnite and Fawkes that we are totally obsessed with!
In my former life, I had a mom blog with my cousin Emily and it was great fun. We were mediocre successful and had some fun trips and freebies that went along with that. But, as our kids got older, their stories became…not ours to tell anymore. So, for awhile there I was sort of stifled creatively and I’m thrilled to have started this podcast to get my creative and storytelling juices flowing again! Though I am a writer by trade, writing for others doesn’t always allow me to tell stories as much as I’d like to, so I love doing the podcast and telling the stories of the events and that happened and the people who experienced them in just the way I want to. Doing this podcast has been a gift to me, from me, and it makes me sooo happy that others enjoy it as well!
I mention my anxiety disorder frequently on the podcast. I have generalized anxiety disorder and panic attack disorder. It’s super fun! Some of triggers include being trapped (think traffic jams or really long, slow lines in a drive-thru) and technology not working (like my phone not texting correctly or an app crashing).Talking about it is important, I think, to break some stigmas about mental health. For instance, I’ve grown up in a Christian community and have gotten comments that infer that my anxiety is lack of trust in God or lack of faith or “living in fear”. It’s of course, none of those. It’s an illness just like diabetes or multiple sclerosis, it’s just in my brain. So I treat it with medication. Of course I still believe in prayer and have faith in God. But sometimes God uses the miracle of medicine instead of a straight up inexplicable miracle. And sometimes you just have to live with crap. Though I am well-medicated, I still experience reactions to certain situations that are abnormal thanks to anxiety. I have ways of coping, but this is just something I live with. Sometimes I do great with it, sometimes I don’t. It’s not a linear thing, for sure. But it is very much a part of who I am, and not a fault or flaw that I have.
Part of the reason I love telling disaster stories is that learning about them actually makes me feel safer. Yes, disasters happen, but the actual odds of me being in one are low, and the more I learn about them, the more I find this to be true. Plus, there are always lessons learned from disasters that help make the world a safer place.
Ok let’s wrap this up with a random fact about me, shall we? Let me think…ok, here’s one: I was a theater kid and played Grace Farrell in “Annie” when I was a junior in high school and Snoopy in “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown” when I was in college. It was super fun and now I love watching my daughter perform in productions, too.
THE END! Want to know more? Have a disaster story suggestion? Feel free to shoot me an email at disasterqueenpod at gmail dot com! And thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening! Please help me spread the word by leaving me a rating and review, and telling a friend or two!
