Day To Day: Calm Conversations with a Friend

#1 Table Tennis Fails and 80s Thrills

• Jacquie Joy • Season 1 • Episode 1

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Ever tried to fold a table tennis table and ended up with a piece of modern art instead? Jacquie kicks things off with a relatable tale of just that kind of chaos. And if you’re feeling a bit nostalgic, jump onboard as she gears up for an 80s-themed party, complete with vibrant costumes inspired by legends like Olivia Newton-John and Flashdance. It's a blend of laughter, creativity, and a touch of wistfulness, guaranteed to leave you smiling. Through music, friendship, and a love for greenery, this episode embraces life's simple joys while offering a blend of heartwarming stories and practical insights.


Jacquie:

Welcome to the Day-to-Day Podcast, Calm Conversations with a Friend, spoken by Jacquie Joy, and you are listening to Episode 1. You decide to check your messages. One new voicemail it's from one of your friends. You decide it's time to sit down, make yourself comfortable and have a listen. Hey, what have you been up to? I think you said you were going to the workshop and I hope your presentation went well. I just chilled.

Jacquie:

I had a very, very quiet day, which was so lovely, but I did visit my neighbour. She was the one that helped us out at the party last week. She was the one that made super fresh, amazing fairy bread you know the stuff that you had when you were a kid and my brother loved it. He was posting photos of it on Instagram and yeah, so that was a real hit. So I had to return her table tennis table, which we used for beer pong, gave it a big clean because, as you could imagine, it had a little bit of beer on it and stuff and sticky stuff, so took it back over and she didn't even recognize it because it was so clean. So that was good. But then we tried to set it down again and release the hinges on it, which shouldn't be too hard, release the hinges on it, which shouldn't be too hard. So I couldn't work it out and gave up. But she was determined to open this hinge on the table tennis table and so she gave it an extra push and the whole hinge broke and came off. So we were in stitches laughing you would have found it super funny and didn't go down after all. So we just left it as is and wandered upstairs. I felt a bit bad, but I mean, I did return the table tennis table in one piece.

Jacquie:

So I dug up some very old cupcake trays. Well, they're not that old, they're just not well used. She was needing them for a batch of cupcakes she's making. She's making 48. And she was showing me all of the little goodies she'd bought from a local shop that is actually a cake decorating shop, like they just sell cake decorations, cake decorating shop, like they just sell cake decorations.

Jacquie:

And the coolest thing she got was like this gold spray. It was like golden glitter dust so you could actually spray it into the air. I got her to test it for me. Spray it into the air and it just glittered everywhere and expanded and it was. It was magic. So I think I'm gonna have to get some for myself to spray on my face or, you know, uh, my neckline next time I go out. It'll be easy to come off. It's obviously non-toxic because you can eat it. That was an amazing find. I have to send you the link. I don't know if there would be a store near you that would sell it, but I'm sure you can get it online. I think it's pretty cool.

Jacquie:

And she also had magic icing, which is and it looks so good. It was thick, it felt, felt so good. The packet was actually like the icing, so you could squish it and you just added butter. So it's good for allergies, because you're going to add the non-dairy butter and water and mix it up and it's like instant beautiful icing, though it had real body to it. So that's a very good cake hack to know about.

Jacquie:

As well as the spray, she was also putting on little u sprinkles, but they weren't just normal sprinkles. These are the new sprinkles where you can have every shape and color. So they had heart sprinkles, um, star sprinkles and they had that's right the little blingy diamantes. What were they called? I think they're called is it cashews? They're like little pearls. You might have seen them. They used to be on cakes many years ago. Yeah, they looked like little pearls, so you can sort of almost place them on top of the cake. It'll be a lot of work, though. I think I would prefer just to use the sprinkles and then you can just get it out or the spray.

Jacquie:

Anyway, I must say it was super nice to be able to spend that time chatting about not much about cakes and not feel girly about working or doing housework or something like that instead. So my New Year's resolution is still with me after all these months. You know, trying to look after myself and getting that work-life balance. I've always admired how you make that time each day for yourself, whether it's going for a walk or doing a little bit of exercise, stretching Every day. You prioritize that, and I think that has just become so important for me and I'm so grateful to have someone like you as a friend that I can learn these valuable life lessons from. I'm feeling super happy about that. I'm feeling now like I have a lot more energy. I just feel a lot more inspired and creative and certainly my body is very happy that I'm spending time daily on stretches and just relaxation and I'm getting so many less headaches. So I'm now thinking why didn't I do this earlier? Anyway, better late than never. They say this earlier. Anyway, better late than never. They say You're asking me how that live music set was going.

Jacquie:

So I'm still working out what music to play and the selection of music and the theme. And I think I've worked out that I'm going to do 10 songs from female singers or songs that have been made famous by females, and that will be my theme. So isn't that great. I get to choose to sing some of my favourite singers' songs. So, of course, number one on the list is Alanis Morissette, so you'll be happy to hear she's in there. And it's a bit hard to choose which song to sing, but I've chosen. Ironic, I know that one goes down. You know it's a crowd favorite. People sing along to it. It's a lot of fun to sing. So that's probably number three or four on the list.

Jacquie:

The first two tracks have to be more country focused, because the other girls who are doing the set are playing country music. So I'm not sure if I told you that or not. So Nashville style. So I thought well, I love that TV show, Nashville. I don't know if I've talked to you about that.

Jacquie:

It has an excellent soundtrack. I mean it is about country singers. It is about six seasons of it. The female lead in it is Connie Britton. Female lead in it is Connie Britton, who is an actress but can also sing, and my voice is fairly similar to hers.

Jacquie:

So I had to choose a song from the soundtrack, and the standout song for me is a song called A Life that's Good that Raina sang earlier in the series, and this song is repeated throughout the different seasons where the different characters, her daughters, end up singing it and her boyfriend ends up singing it. So I thought, well, that's the obvious choice. And it does sound great acoustically and my voice suits her voice, so hopefully that sounds good. So we'll kick the set off with that or another country song or country pop song I think we'll try and sing is Shania Twain's If You're Not In it For Love, and that's a lot of fun to sing. We're going to try and do that acoustically as well, so we'll see how that goes.

Jacquie:

I was surprised. I thought we would be doing these songs, you know, with backings, and I'm obviously used to playing with the band, but the guitarist he's an excellent guitarist. He hasn't played for a few years either, but these songs are sounding full and energetic acoustically. So I mean, as you know, I haven't played guitar live for a little while either. Anyway, surprisingly it's sounding pretty good. I'll tell you a bit more about the rest of the songs next time, but they're the first two songs and the Alanis song, so I think you would approve.

Jacquie:

You would be interested to hear that I have received a new pot plant that I'm going to do try and do my very best to keep alive and in good shape. It's from a friend. It was for my birthday and she. It's a little bit of a different style pot. It is a giraffe pot. She got this for me because I used to have a zebra that used to. It was a paper mache zebra that I had in my house and it was quite iconic and came out at every little party or gathering we had. It was just like one of the friendship group. It was just like one of the friendship group. She's planted, hopefully, a very hearty white-flowered plant inside of this giraffe pot and so far, so good. Most importantly, I have to keep this giraffe pot plant away from the dog. The dog got a bit excited the other day and sprinted and launched himself across the garden and caught the edge of my gnome. So the gnome went flying, flying. He did land on the concrete, stayed in one piece. However, his hat is a little shorter than it used to be, so we do still have our garden gnome and now we have a garden giraffe.

Jacquie:

Speaking of plants, I know you love your succulents. Speaking of plants, I know you love your succulents and my two favorite outdoor succulents are thriving again. Yay, I'm very happy about this because they apparently bring a lot of good luck into the home, so I wouldn't want them to not be there. Fun fact about feng shui and succulents I still am not quite sure how to pronounce that word. Apparently. I looked it up and it's feng shui or feng shui. So I have sort of got a hybrid of feng shui and would be interested to hear how you think it should be pronounced. So fun fact is that if you place them either side of your front door or at the entrance of a home, they can attract good fortune, prevent negative influences from getting inside of your home, for example envy. Somehow they protect a space from negative energies as they come in the front of the house. So I'm not quite sure how this happens, but I must say these plants, I mean they've been there for about 15 years now and they've brought us a lot of good luck, very happy about that, and I would highly recommend placing maybe a succulent or two at the entrance of your house, if you already haven't got them there.

Jacquie:

So how we look after them is we put them in the rain. When it does rain, because they're out on the deck, we have an uncovered section of the deck, and when it does rain because they're out on the deck, we have an uncovered section of the deck. And when it does rain usually every two or three weeks here, if we're lucky we'll pop them out on the deck in the open area, and it does make a huge difference getting. I mean, they say rain is the best type of water when you're watering the grass or plants because it has a lot of extra nitrogen in it and these nitrates, apparently, are absorbed straight into the leaves and I mean everything looks greener after rain, doesn't it? So it makes sense.

Jacquie:

I had to move them the other day and the pots are pretty heavy to move the terracotta. So what I do is take the plastic pots that hold the the succulents out instead. They're about 40 high, which is about 16 inches, and I noticed that they are still in their original pots, which is quite amazing. Somehow they haven't become pot-bound. It was funny looking at the pots because there's a sticker on them from Nova Gardens, which is obviously where we brought them from, and they cost $49.98, which is actually pretty expensive for that back then, but we have definitely got our value for money. Actually, that reminds me Nova Gardens is a place. It was a nursery at the Gap, which is where I spent a lot of my years growing up, and it was turned into a housing development, but for many years it was the go-to nursery for a lot of Brisbane.

Jacquie:

I know you will ask me what type of succulents are they? So they are jade plants. I will send you a photo, but I did read a bit more about them. They are called crassula avata. I mean, we've always called them money plants and some visitors that come in also. Apparently they're called friendship plants as well. They're about I'm just trying to think how high they are probably about 60 centimetres high, so 23 inches, and they're pretty bushy. I know they're healthy again because they're a new little like mini jade plants growing at the soil level. They're very cute and also they're looking very glossy green. They look perfect, the leaves happy and full of water, a bit like what's that type of aloe vera. That's it and you squeeze. We used to have the lovely aloe vera plants. I miss them. I should get them again because they're so nice, especially for sunburn or too much sun exposure. It would just cool down the skin. The other things we have been doing for these plants which may explain why there are many plants growing at the base is that we've been using something called osmocote, which is apparently made for cacti and succulents, so it must have something magic and special in in there for these plants, because that has really helped as well. So it's nice seeing as succulents not shriveling and having brown edges and instead they're looking super happy. So I hope yours are doing well.

Jacquie:

And I think I told you about the 80s party that I'm going to next Saturday. Well, I mean, it sounds like a heck of a lot of fun, a bit of a last-minute party inspired by watching MTV with some friends and seeing all of the rather hilarious clips from the 80s. So I had to pick a costume for myself and a costume for NJ. So for myself I chose an Olivia Newton-John style. Let's get physical outfit in the gorgeous 80s colors of light blue and sort of multi-colored leopard skin tights with the obligatory uh, what are they called? Leg warmers. Leg warmers inspired from Flashdance, of course, and they are the gorgeous neon, pink and blue shades, shadings. And then we have the headband and the wristbands in a nice shade of blue as well, with a nice neon pink bum bag.

Jacquie:

So the outfit comes together with a light blue leotard, and it took me a while to work out how to put that on, because the leotard, or the bodysuit, goes on the outside of the tights and that gives it truly a representative, a representative 80s look. I really don't know of any other era that would wear tights and leotards like that. I don't know if you can imagine that. So this should be a lot of fun. I might take along a couple of my pink little arm dumbbells as well, just for effect, and I might need to choose a wig as well from my wig collection, sort of like a ray gun style, big, oversized blue, yellow and green tracksuit. I'm just trying to think of how, what sort of material it is. It is that shiny style material. It's not like tracksuit material and it's certainly something that break dancers would wear, and it does come with a headband as well. I will definitely have to send you a pic of both of us together with these crazy outfits and colors on. It's so much fun even just trying them on.

Jacquie:

We're going to help with a few decorations for the party as well, and also look at purchasing an outdoor projector so they can hopefully project some of these 80s video clips at the party as well. They don't have a TV in their main entertainment area, so having one of these projectors should help solve that problem, and I can't believe I can get one for $100, which is so cheap Well, very cheap for something like that. Anyway, as far as decorations go, I found a silver foil fringe curtain which you can hang off. It's quite large and you can hang it off a doorway or a window and use as a photo background, and it looks shiny, blingy and fun too. Shiny, blingy and fun too. So if you've got any more ideas for 80s decorations or even music, let me know. I suppose I'll have to help them put a playlist together, so that's going to be a lot of fun.

Jacquie:

And speaking of music still. I got the Billie Eilish when we Fall Asleep album on vinyl and it looks super cool because it's a yellow disc, which I love and it sounded surprisingly amazing. For example, the Bad Guy track had tight and absolutely blow-you-way deep subby bass. I just didn't think the vinyl would reproduce it so well. I think it actually sounded better than the digital recording, so that was pretty mind-blowing and heaps of fun to listen to. Anyway, enough about me. Let me know how your presentation went. I can't wait to hear everything and I shall speak to you again soon. Okay, have a great night. Bye for now.