That's What We Said

Most of the time, we want to lighten your load by bringing you our daily mishaps, funny memories, and guests who lift us up and teach us. This week, we're checking in with each other after five months of life during the coronavirus pandemic. Where are we? Well, mainly at home and tired of it. We're worried about our children as they go back to school. We're fretting about the ways 2020 has changed...

This week, it's time to reveal the Real Housewives drama behind the podcast. You've heard the laughter, seen the camaraderie, shared the #relish. But now it's time to peek behind the curtain to see the controversy that divides our friends. It's time to get real about food. It's time to bicker about salads that are not salads. Katie and Jenny are on Team Jello Salad while Becca and Kelly are champi...

This week we welcome two Kentucky rock stars to the show - State Representative Attica Scott and Berea City Councilor Emily Ladouceur. These two extraordinary women share their stories about what it's like to run for office as "normal" people, and talk about the challenges of holding down full time jobs and being single parents while also legislating. Emily explains the struggle of trying to pass...

We're sure we're not alone in reaching a new level of pandemic distress this week. It's a rough time as we try to cope with surging cases and deaths in the US and here at home in Kentucky. So we thought we'd take a week to talk about new pandemic experiences that AREN'T making us weep. For exercise, Katie's been paddle boarding at our local reservoir. Her sunburn may have made her cry, but time ou...

It's time for a monthly roundup of what we've been watching, reading, and listening to during this month of staying at home. As we get deeper into the pandemic, we find that we're doing one of two things: seeking out books and movies that teach us something and seeking out the familiar to soothe us during uncertain times. Katie alerts us to an article about why people return to favorite shows when...

Building on last week's discussion about toys of our childhood, we talk about the 70s and 80s TV landscape that allowed for a show like "Small Wonder," the tale of a robot girl and her life in a suburban family. We contrast wholesome family fare like Family Ties and The Cosby Show (!) with Three's Company, where a man and two women, none of whom were married to each other, lived together in the sa...

This week we take a break from life during a pandemic to remember the toys of our childhoods. There's nothing like a good trip down memory lane to take your mind off presidential tweets and fights over masks, especially when memory leads you to the very weird time in pop culture that was the 1970s and 80s. We discuss the frailties of Barbie hair when exposed to swimming pools, hair dryers, and ine...

We expand on our Episode 25 discussion about port 'o potties. From the logistics of port 'o potty rentals to Katie's fancy horse party port 'o potties to the port 'o potty bonding experience of a lifetime that some of us shared at the Women's March in 2017. Recorded via Zoom in Berea, KY | Edited by Kelly Smith | Music composed and performed by Elly Green | Artwork by Jessica Holly

The nation got excited about Kentucky's primary election on June 23rd, and the women of That's What We Said discuss what it's been like for our state to take a rare moment in the spotlight... and not in a good way. From well meaning folks offering to drive basic supplies to Kentucky to celebrities weighing in on our absentee voting primary, from the influx of outside cash into our races to the his...

This week, we're all back together to record, at least we're together on zoom, and we're ready to talk about everything after a month apart. Joining us is our friend Wil Bayne, and he's game to answer all of our questions, including telling  his Berea Story. We talk about the similarities between the theatre and the restaurant business. We think about our mental health challenges of long term isol...

Katie and Becca chat with two amazing Kentucky community organizers. Martina Jackson (Richmond, KY) and Christian Motley (Lexington, KY) talk about their recent experiences & share reflections on current systems and policies. They discuss the effect of these policies on rural and southern communities and call for coalition building during this current climate of a (hopefully) sustained push toward...

Over the last two weeks, as it seems like the moment for a national reckoning with over 4 centuries of systemic racism may have finally arrived for America, we at TWWS have been taking a step back to spend some time listening, particularly to Black women. As we go forward, we're talking amongst the four of us about what we want a humor podcast hosted by four white, middle-aged, middle class, rural...

Today we had planned to release an episode we recorded last weekend where we reminisced about toys of our youth. But, you can hear our musings on Barbie another time. This week, we have witnessed yet another murder of a black man, George Floyd, by police, we're still reeling from the death of Breonna Taylor, a young Kentucky woman and an EMT killed by police while in her own bed in her own home; w...

Join us for our monthly media roundup. As music lovers, we're trying new ways to "go" to concerts in the quarantimes. Kelly gives us the scoop on attending a Steven Page house concert on zoom. A private concert where all the attendees are muted? Sign us up! We also reminisce about comedic actor Fred Willard, whom we lost this week, with everyone sharing their favorite Willard performances from 198...

We want to wish all our listeners a Happy Mother's Day.  It's a complicated holiday for a lot of folks.  Parenthood may not have come easy to us. Our relationships with our parents and our children doesn't always look like a greeting card. One thing we know: laughter helps.  So this week, we're recognizing motherhood by telling the funny stories about how our own children came into the world. We t...

Guest Martina Leforce regales us with the tale of the infamous Berea Jam Jar Incident. Recorded in Berea, KY | Produced by Troy Price | Edited by Kelly Smith | Music composed and performed by Elly Green | Artwork by Jessica Holly

This week, we're talking to Martina Leforce of Berea Kids Eat about feeding programs, gardening, local chicken laws, and pet ducks. Jenny, who is still looking for new hens for her flock, didn't know that she wouldn't even be able to raise chickens in town if not for local activists' work in changing livestock ordinances from the turn of the twentieth century! Becca speaks about volunteering with...

Recorded on March 1, 2020, just before COVID-19 made social distancing the norm, we sat around Kelly's kitchen table and talked about female friendship. If there's one thing that's helping us find our places in the world, it's our friends. As we find ourselves in our forties, life brings us more and more experiences that only other women can understand, whether those are our oldest friends who see...

This week, during our COVID-19 quarantine, we're taking listener questions from the serious to the silly. Who is our signature Golden Girl? What do we think is going to happen to schools after the coronavirus? We hear about some bad habits our pets have taken up while they're stuck at home with us. We're looking at you, Neva the Dog. And we find out that it's just too bad that Letterman retired be...

Recording again separately in our homes, we're talking about the weird media we're consuming during this time of home isolation. Is it #healthyathome to spend this much time thinking about Green Screen Queen Elizabeth, watching YouTube videos, or hating watching a not so great Jane Austen adaptation? Maybe not, but it's how we're getting through and we're bringing our monthly media roundup to you....

We got together, separately in our own homes this week, to talk about the Age of the Coronavirus. It was just a couple of weeks ago that we were gathered around Kelly's kitchen table with mimosas, so it seemed important to take stock of how the world has changed. We talk about the heroes who've been shining in our community even as we struggle to find the light. We talk a little bit about — okay,...

It's not too much to say that Sharyn Mitchell knows more about Berea and Berea history than almost anyone else. This week, we asked her to join us to talk specifically about the history of African-American communities in Madison County and Berea. Before our talk, we may have thought we were pretty well-informed about the place we call home, but Sharyn helped us see the neighborhoods, streets, buil...

This week, we're talking about what everyone's talking about: COVID-19 and how it's changing our lives. We share some resources in our communities and our lives, but it's not all serious. We ponder the prospects of a COVID-19 baby boom while Jenny wonders if she might have accidentally caused a run on ziploc bags at our local superstore. Katie praises Kenneth, Governor Beshear's tech assistant for...

This bonus episode contains content that is not appropriate for children. Frankly, we can't imagine why any children would be interested in listening to TWWS. But this episode is not just boring for children. We get into some adult themes. We heard from so many listeners about the wild jobs they had in young adulthood, but our friend Amanda presented us with such an incredible list that we knew we...

On a recent road trip, Daughter of the Pod Elly Green asked about all the weird jobs we had when we were her age. Long before any of us had careers with a capital C, Kelly repaired library books and helped the elderly find pictures of their favorite tennis stars, Becca delivered phone books in rural North Carolina, Katie learned the secrets of how restaurants prep boiled eggs, and Jenny faced life...