Latest / Nick and Kristen in the Podcast / World of Whittling

Transcript

World of Whittling · Nick and Kristen in the Podcast

• 0:11
  Hello and welcome to Nick and Kristen in the podcast.
• 0:14
  It's Monday. We had a eventful weekend.
• 0:16
  We got a lot done today. By the way, I'm Nick.
• 0:18
  That's Kristen. We are a married show that used
• 0:21
  to be on a radio show and now we're just doing a podcast
• 0:23
  hoping to find our next place. We have a daughter that's seven
• 0:27
  and she's going to be talking about a lot because that's kind
• 0:30
  of all we're doing right now. It's.
• 0:32
  Kind of the only thing we have going for us.
• 0:33
  Yes, other than Kristen's new hobby, which is whittling
• 0:37
  spoons. So we talked about this on
• 0:40
  Friday. She had a six hours.
• 0:42
  Was it 6 hours? It was from 3:50, so yeah, six
• 0:45
  hours. But there was an hour lunch
• 0:46
  break, so technically five hours all.
• 0:48
  Right. So five hours whittling a piece
• 0:49
  of wood and I'm just going to let you tell us about the
• 0:52
  experience of what it is. It's for all the future
• 0:54
  whittlers out there that are like, man, I've always wanted a
• 0:57
  whittle wood. What's the process like?
• 0:59
  So explain, break it down for. Us.
• 1:00
  Well, first I have to give some context because, like, I have
• 1:03
  been trying to find ways to add like, more fun and whimsy to my
• 1:06
  life. So I booked this before we lost
• 1:09
  our radio job. And they there's this place in
• 1:12
  Portland called Wild Craft. And they do all kinds of like
• 1:14
  crazy crafts. Wild crafts.
• 1:16
  Yeah, like wild crafts, like a basket weaving, all kinds of
• 1:20
  like legitimate basket weaving. It's, it's nuts.
• 1:23
  And so I saw this like, you know, whittle your own kitchen
• 1:26
  spoon. And I was like, fabulous.
• 1:28
  Let's I love kids at Spoons. So went down to Portland and we
• 1:32
  first learned all about like splitting logs, how to like
• 1:37
  break up the wood, what kind of wood we need.
• 1:39
  And then she gave us all like knives and stuff.
• 1:42
  And we learned our, the grips on how you use the, the whittling
• 1:46
  spoon. And then she gave us blanks.
• 1:48
  So like imagine this like 2 inches bigger and kind of in the
• 1:52
  shape of a spoon, but really thick.
• 1:55
  So they gave us a blank. To take off.
• 1:57
  Shaped for so it wasn't just like a hunk of wood, but it was
• 2:00
  like really thick and so there was a lot that had to be taken
• 2:03
  off of it. And so we had to kind of like
• 2:05
  draw on the piece of wood and and start curving from there.
• 2:09
  And I it's been a couple of days since when did I do it Friday
• 2:15
  and my arms are still burning. It is like I couldn't move my
• 2:21
  left arm this morning. I'm already having trouble with
• 2:22
  my left arm for other things, but this I was like because
• 2:27
  you're you're so tense the whole time.
• 2:29
  Well, I don't know if you're supposed to be.
• 2:30
  Well, maybe not, right? Like when you get better at it.
• 2:33
  You see those old people sitting on the porch whittling wood, but
• 2:35
  they have months to, like, whittle this piece of wood.
• 2:38
  So yeah, I guess you did it in a couple hours.
• 2:39
  Although you were saying that you have to have fresh wood,
• 2:42
  right? Yes.
• 2:43
  And so that was my thing because I was like, am I going to be
• 2:45
  somebody that makes wooden spoons?
• 2:47
  Is this who I am as a person now?
• 2:49
  And it's like, yeah, you can buy the knife.
• 2:51
  You can buy all the tools, but like, you need fresh wood, like
• 2:54
  within a couple of days of being chopped down.
• 2:57
  And that to me is like the hard part.
• 2:59
  It's like, well, where are you going to find that?
• 3:00
  Like well. You can find people on
• 3:02
  marketplace that are always chopping down their trees.
• 3:05
  Who's always chopping down their trees that?
• 3:06
  Never always offering sale. Well, they have firewood that.
• 3:08
  You. Yeah, but that's not the same.
• 3:09
  It's. Not, but it's wood, you know,
• 3:11
  that they've chopped. I don't know if it's chopped
• 3:13
  recently. You know, you have to, you have
• 3:15
  to ask the nerd questions like, excuse me, when was this wood?
• 3:18
  Particularly kind of what is this and when did you chop it
• 3:21
  down? And you have to like test it to
• 3:22
  see if it's still wet inside, like, 'cause it's like you need
• 3:25
  like fresh wet wood. And they were saying like, oh,
• 3:29
  they gave us a blanket to take home.
• 3:30
  And they're like, by the way, like if you leave it out, it's
• 3:32
  going to dry and it's going to be impossible to like shape.
• 3:35
  So you have to keep it in the freezer.
• 3:36
  So it's in like a little zip lock bag in my freezer.
• 3:39
  We have wood in our freezer now, so right, So you got the shaped
• 3:42
  spoon. What was the process of shaping
• 3:45
  the spoon like? You used all the different
• 3:46
  knives and things like that so. There's only two knives, so like
• 3:48
  there's the straight kind of like curved knife.
• 3:51
  You do that for pretty much everything.
• 3:53
  And then there's a hook knife that kind of looks like a
• 3:55
  Captain Hook, and that's where you do the center.
• 3:58
  The the deepness. Yeah, and boy, like it didn't
• 4:02
  come out great, right. It's.
• 4:04
  Fine, it's. Spoon it's.
• 4:06
  Not smooth like well, it's the smoothest.
• 4:08
  The spoon is smooth, but like the like you have Nicks in it,
• 4:11
  you know, like it's not level. Yeah, you can.
• 4:13
  See, it looks like you carved it out of wood, so it's like, which
• 4:15
  is. Kind of cool, and that's like
• 4:16
  the whole point, right? Adds.
• 4:18
  To the the uniqueness of it. Yeah, I am not good at this
• 4:23
  because I have a tremor in my left hand and most of the time
• 4:27
  it's spent in your left hand, like kind of going like this,
• 4:31
  right. And so like my spoons like this
• 4:34
  and I'm like trying to like. And so there's all these little
• 4:37
  Nicks in it. And my teachers like, maybe you
• 4:40
  could study it like, because one of the positions is holding it
• 4:42
  against your sternum and moving it towards you.
• 4:45
  Yeah. And I was, it was like all like
• 4:47
  this. And she was like, maybe don't do
• 4:49
  that position. And I was like, OK, so I felt
• 4:51
  really silly because a lot of times she kept coming over to me
• 4:53
  going, OK, we're going to have to modify this for you
• 4:56
  specifically because you basically don't have the, the,
• 4:59
  the left hand to work with. She you're going to be the one
• 5:01
  she tells stories about. No, I know.
• 5:03
  That she's going to be like she got home from work that day,
• 5:07
  went to her significant other was like, I had a girl in my
• 5:09
  class today with a tremor and it made it very difficult.
• 5:14
  Or she's like, if you have a tremor, speak up now.
• 5:16
  Like you're going to be the ongoing.
• 5:18
  I think I'm going to be the inspiration because I think that
• 5:21
  instead of it being because I was like very kind about it, I
• 5:23
  was like, I was like, but her, her name was Rose, my
• 5:26
  instructor. And at the end we had to all
• 5:27
  show our spoon. And I was like, by the way, this
• 5:30
  is Rose's spoon because she pretty much did it for me.
• 5:33
  Like showed me how to do it and like, ha ha ha, right.
• 5:37
  But I feel like she's going to walk into her next class and be
• 5:39
  like even a girl with a tremor in her.
• 5:42
  And. Whittle a spoon because I walked
• 5:45
  away with a usable spoon I. Mean it's a spoon I still have
• 5:47
  you used it yet so it's been 3 days yeah we were you wanted me
• 5:50
  to use it for cooking Friday yeah which I was like still feel
• 5:53
  soon it's fresh out the fresh out the.
• 5:55
  Ground wait a couple days for it to like get hard.
• 5:58
  Now it's hard. I've I sanded it all down and
• 6:01
  then I put some wood finish oil on it so it looks like a wood
• 6:05
  spoon. Now it's got the you can see the
• 6:07
  grains in it. I like.
• 6:08
  The grains, it's a cool. Like it's a cool looking spoon.
• 6:11
  And by the way, my instructor was like, by the way, you got
• 6:13
  the hardest piece of wood because of the way that it has.
• 6:16
  It had like a knot over here. And I was like, of course, but
• 6:20
  yeah, so like, I don't know which should be the the
• 6:22
  inaugural spoon use. Yeah, I feel like you have to do
• 6:26
  it, obviously. So I'll make you.
• 6:28
  I'll make you something that's scoopable.
• 6:30
  Well, it's like we have to make a soup.
• 6:32
  It's like a soup spoon. Yeah, it's.
• 6:34
  It does. Look like.
• 6:36
  Totally that's what pasta we'll make our own pasta sauce that's
• 6:39
  the perfect pasta sauce spoon. So how are you going to be the
• 6:43
  widow master now? Because some things arrived from
• 6:45
  Amazon today and I wanted. To talk to you.
• 6:47
  We talked about that because I was like, well, I have this
• 6:50
  blank in the freezer. I don't know what to do with it.
• 6:53
  And you were like, just buy the stuff and like make it.
• 6:55
  It's like $30. Yeah, it wasn't.
• 6:57
  It wasn't expensive material. And I was like, is this who I am
• 7:00
  now though? Like, am I somebody?
• 7:02
  And you're like, well, at least do the one, the one spoon that
• 7:04
  you have. That way we can have two spoons.
• 7:07
  And I was like, OK, so I I did buy the knife and stuff because
• 7:12
  it's like, yeah, it's just going to sit in my fridge until I do
• 7:14
  something about it. It's true.
• 7:15
  Or or I was like I would in my fridge and you also have like a
• 7:17
  bar and you every time I suggested that you make
• 7:20
  something out of it, you've looked at me like I'm ridiculous
• 7:22
  because like you want to make just a spike out of it, like
• 7:25
  just like a. Well, they gave us a big chunk
• 7:28
  of wood right fresh off the log, right.
• 7:30
  And they, so we're practicing our, our holes of the knife and
• 7:34
  everything. And she's like just whittle it
• 7:37
  down into like a rod. And she's like, this is what we
• 7:39
  call a do nothing spoon or a do nothing rod.
• 7:42
  And she's like, and like a lot of people carve things in it.
• 7:46
  And it's like, it became like the talking piece.
• 7:47
  If you held the rod in the hand, like that's what you're the
• 7:50
  opportunity to talk. It was like, it was very like,
• 7:52
  whatever. And so like, yeah, it's like
• 7:55
  this really nice shaped rod, wooden rod, and I don't know
• 7:59
  what to do with it. And you were like, well, file it
• 8:01
  down into a stake like you would attack a vampire with.
• 8:04
  I'm like, what the heck am I going to do with that?
• 8:05
  Well then I was like, chop it in half, make chopsticks.
• 8:07
  So like. I don't know how to make
• 8:09
  chopsticks. They're just.
• 8:10
  Two pieces of wood Just make them the same length.
• 8:12
  They teach a six hour chopstick class.
• 8:15
  Do they really? Yes.
• 8:16
  Like it's a whole thing. Like I I couldn't possibly.
• 8:19
  It's got to be the same concept, right?
• 8:21
  Like if you can make a spoon, you can make some chopsticks.
• 8:23
  Chopsticks is so much thinner. Yeah.
• 8:26
  Like I had trouble with this. Like it's going to be.
• 8:28
  It's basically the base of a. Snap it in half.
• 8:31
  We get, can we get like the big ass chopsticks?
• 8:36
  But yeah, like I had to ask myself several times, like, is
• 8:39
  this fun? Am I having a good time?
• 8:42
  Do I enjoy this? Yeah.
• 8:43
  Am I learning something about myself?
• 8:45
  I think I did have an interesting time.
• 8:48
  I like knowing that I acquired a new skill.
• 8:51
  It's. True, you know how to whittle
• 8:52
  way better than I do. Yes, I I if somebody has any
• 8:55
  wood questions on how to make a spoon, I might be able to answer
• 8:59
  it or I have a better shot than Nick does.
• 9:01
  But I will say this is probably of all the things that you've
• 9:03
  tried because like this was the year of whimsy.
• 9:06
  You're going to try new things. This is kind of the first one
• 9:08
  that you didn't enjoy or that you didn't love right away,
• 9:11
  'cause everything else you've tried, you're like, oh, that was
• 9:13
  great. I, I now acquire that skill.
• 9:15
  That's going to be cool. And now you, you're facing
• 9:17
  something, you're like, oh, what's that fun?
• 9:20
  Well, do you know want to know why I I it?
• 9:22
  It wasn't immediately fun. Why?
• 9:23
  Because I wasn't immediately good at it.
• 9:26
  And like, yeah, everything else you've tried, you've already
• 9:28
  kind of had a base. For I had a base for it.
• 9:30
  Like I've been getting better at sewing and I've been getting
• 9:32
  better at all these other things.
• 9:34
  And but this is like I started as a beginner's mindset and it
• 9:39
  was really challenging for me. And so there was lots of times
• 9:42
  where I'm like, is this interesting to me or do I just
• 9:45
  not like it because I'm not proficient at it and I'm not
• 9:48
  good at it. And I think that because some,
• 9:50
  I'm a perfectionist, I'm somebody that likes to be good
• 9:52
  at something immediately, which never happens ever in the
• 9:55
  history of human. So like, yeah, the fact that I
• 9:59
  wasn't good at it had me questioning, like, do I even
• 10:01
  want to do this anymore? Well, you got new pieces of
• 10:03
  wood. Yeah.
• 10:05
  So I'm curious to see if we get a companion spoon they like they
• 10:09
  have like a spatula would be great.
• 10:12
  Could you make a spatula instead?
• 10:13
  Of no, I can't, just another spoon.
• 10:15
  Yeah, they have a three day workshop where you can make
• 10:17
  chopsticks. It's gotta be the same spoon and
• 10:19
  a spatula. It's the same basics.
• 10:21
  I know, but it's like different angles and stuff.
• 10:23
  Sure. Well, I mean, yeah, make it look
• 10:25
  like chopsticks. Make it look like a spatula.
• 10:29
  But I mean after that you came home and it was movie night here
• 10:33
  at the Flowers family house. And so we've been drawing movies
• 10:38
  each week. You pick 3 movies, I pick 3
• 10:41
  movies and Lily picks 3 movies. Our daughter, we put them in a
• 10:43
  cup and we draw down like the last one standing.
• 10:46
  The movie we want, this week's is not, and we pull out the
• 10:48
  thing. Yeah, and Lily's been
• 10:50
  dominating. She's been getting all the
• 10:52
  movies she wants, and now Mom's doing it.
• 10:53
  Or Christie. 'S a lot of my picks have gone
• 10:55
  through. The one that you really wanted
• 10:57
  was The Muppets Treasure Island, yes.
• 10:59
  And how do you think it went? I didn't think, like, I realized
• 11:03
  that it's probably more entertaining to me as an adult
• 11:06
  because there's a lot of like, fun little cheeky things.
• 11:08
  I also think you need to know The Muppets well.
• 11:10
  Yeah, so she doesn't. Know anything?
• 11:11
  She didn't know anything about The Muppets, so she didn't know
• 11:13
  who Kermit was. She didn't know that Miss Piggy
• 11:15
  was like always his girlfriend. So.
• 11:17
  When they came out and made their appearance, it wasn't like
• 11:19
  a where she is. It was like, who's the pig?
• 11:22
  Yeah, it was very much like what's going on?
• 11:23
  Why? Are they so?
• 11:24
  Friendly, like what? When they kept saying like, you
• 11:26
  know, Gonzo is a whatever and it's like, that's like the
• 11:29
  running joke. So yeah, I think there was a
• 11:32
  little like, kind of went over her head.
• 11:34
  I was excited because this was like her first Tim Curry movie.
• 11:37
  I love Tim Curry. He's so charming in this movie.
• 11:41
  It's a musical, so I thought it would be fun.
• 11:43
  There's lots of silly moments. At the end.
• 11:46
  I was like, she hated it. And I looked at her and I was
• 11:48
  like, what'd you think? And she's like, I liked it.
• 11:49
  And I was like, yeah. Oh, OK, It was OK.
• 11:52
  It was the first time I'd ever seen it, too.
• 11:53
  And yeah, I'm not a Muppets fan. I am a Tim Curry fan.
• 11:58
  I thought that, yeah, it's probably something you should
• 12:01
  have watched when you were younger.
• 12:02
  And because now the jokes are all run out.
• 12:04
  And play out and. Just like but I enjoyed The
• 12:07
  Muppets movie with Peter or not Peter Siegel.
• 12:11
  Yeah, Jason. Siegel, I thought, I thought
• 12:14
  that was really well done. I don't know.
• 12:16
  It was fine. So yeah.
• 12:18
  Well, whatever. No, I was like, you asked the
• 12:20
  question up on our Facebook page.
• 12:21
  Like what we should we choose for movie night?
• 12:23
  Like, yeah. We're running out of movies
• 12:24
  ideas. Yeah.
• 12:25
  And so give us your favorite kids movie.
• 12:27
  You can comment 1 below if we don't mention it now.
• 12:29
  But some of these made me realize that I watched most of
• 12:32
  them as a kid. Yeah, and most of them are
• 12:34
  traumatizing. I know.
• 12:36
  And I don't know if I want. I'm ready to traumatize Lily or
• 12:40
  if I ever will. So some of this is just like
• 12:42
  first one we got never ending story.
• 12:44
  Like no. No, first of all, it's so
• 12:46
  traumatic is the horse. And then also I have never
• 12:52
  understood that movie. I even to this day, people
• 12:55
  explain it to me and I go what? It's. 9 hours long or it feels.
• 13:00
  Like it feels like it never gets to the point, which I think is
• 13:02
  why. And I think I like never ending
• 13:04
  story too. Better than the first one.
• 13:07
  There's a 2, there's a 2. I feel like 2 was more.
• 13:09
  Well I think there was a girl in the two.
• 13:10
  Maybe that was why. Either way, I don't even
• 13:12
  remember what it's about. I do have a luck dragon.
• 13:14
  That's that's what they said. Another one said land before
• 13:17
  time. No, it's.
• 13:19
  Like Bambi, like the parents die in the beginning.
• 13:21
  Yeah, I mean love that movie, watched it 1000 times as a kid,
• 13:25
  don't want to introduce her to that kind of drama yet.
• 13:27
  My girl same thing like. That's more like a tween movie.
• 13:31
  Jumanji was another one we thought about.
• 13:33
  Jumanji I. Think Jumanji could work?
• 13:35
  I'm I'm curious about like I don't, I don't know.
• 13:39
  She hasn't been introduced to Robin Williams.
• 13:41
  Yet I know I got to find the. First one other than like the
• 13:43
  genie in Aladdin. And she barely watched that
• 13:44
  movie so. He might be like too much for
• 13:46
  her. We'll see.
• 13:47
  Yeah. So I'm.
• 13:48
  Which is a good kids movie. It is it though?
• 13:50
  Like is it not Ten 11/10/11? Maybe not. 11 Yeah.
• 13:55
  Sandlot. That's a teen movie.
• 13:57
  Yeah, she's not. Going to get the complexities of
• 13:59
  adolescence. Right.
• 13:59
  And then Flight of the Navigator is one of my favorite kids
• 14:02
  movies and I don't, I still don't know if I understand that
• 14:06
  movie now as an adult. Yeah, but that's a plot of that.
• 14:09
  I liked it when I was a kid. That's like saying ET.
• 14:13
  It's like, no, that's like for adults.
• 14:15
  Like Kid Stone Fly the Navigator had Pee Wee Herman as the robot.
• 14:19
  And so yeah, Paul Roman, you most people know, and Ben
• 14:24
  Savage, not Ben, no Fred Savage. And so I don't know why they
• 14:28
  were in the spaceship, but I know that it was.
• 14:30
  It landed somewhere and he like he he got it going because he
• 14:34
  was the next navigator. Something like that, yeah.
• 14:36
  And then Homeward Bound is another one that I'm like, she
• 14:38
  oh, we I immediately thought homeward bound.
• 14:41
  I'm like, oh, that'd be good. There's animals.
• 14:42
  Yeah, there's animals. She loves animals.
• 14:43
  She loves cats. That's but I'm like, oh, no, no,
• 14:45
  no. That's also traumatizing.
• 14:47
  Is it? It's it's it saves itself in the
• 14:50
  end. But there's definitely like
• 14:52
  moments of like dread that you dream about for.
• 14:55
  See, I don't need to expose her to that.
• 14:57
  Let her be a kid for a minute. Yeah, there was there was a
• 15:00
  couple ones on there for about short circuit and I was like
• 15:04
  again, like that's such a like 11-12 thirteen year old movie.
• 15:08
  The seven-year old's not going to get like all the jokes.
• 15:11
  I know, yeah. So if you have any suggestions
• 15:13
  for kids that are still innocent and we don't want to ruin and no
• 15:17
  minions. I had a couple of minions.
• 15:18
  I was like, no, no. We're not doing despicable
• 15:20
  minions. She's a minion, I don't need her
• 15:22
  knowing that other people act like.
• 15:23
  That yeah, it's too. It's too much.
• 15:27
  Yeah, we. And like all the Disney movies
• 15:28
  we've burned, so like, don't be like, oh, there's this great new
• 15:31
  movie called Frozen. Yeah, you've.
• 15:32
  Heard it. And if it's anything you think I
• 15:34
  would like, she doesn't want to watch exactly.
• 15:37
  But yeah, thanks for watching. Thanks for listening.
• 15:39
  Kristen hopefully has inspired you to whittle your own spoon.
• 15:42
  Do something hard today. When we make something, make
• 15:44
  some pasta sauce from scratch, because that'll be another thing
• 15:47
  we learned at some point. Then we'll start with the brand
• 15:50
  new handmade wooden spoon. Who else could say they they
• 15:54
  made their own wooden spoon? But nine other people in your
• 15:57
  class. Right, eight other people.
• 15:59
  Thanks for watching.