 Hello everybody. Welcome to a very special episode of Esoteric Atlanta. Of course, my name is Bryce and I am joined here with a new friend that doesn't feel new, Angie, who is also from the South. She's just like a couple hours down the road for me in Athens, Georgia. And I'm going to say Angie, you won for the Athens for the town tarot that we were going to do with Stephanie. But I started watching your channel. I've been talking to you off-screen. I was like, I have to get this girl on because we need more Southern women voices in this movement that we're in. And Angie, like we were talking off-screen. I was like, I got to hit the record button because these stories are just too great. But before we go any further, though, I want to go ahead and show you guys Angie's channel so that when we're done, you guys can go and hit subscribe because Southern women, I've said it before, we're the most savage human beings in the whole world. But we do it with a smile on our face and our lipstick on. So if you guys want a great channel to watch with Angie, go and subscribe, subscribe to her channel. We'll get more into what you're putting on your channel in a little bit. But welcome to the show, Angie. Thank you so much. I've been so excited. I've been very nervous. You know, it's funny how we we think that we're not worthy. You know, a lot of us like will think, Oh, I can't believe Bryce, you know, has invited me to do this because like, why is she even interested in mayor finds anything that I have to say interesting? And then I'm thinking, like, I was telling you earlier, like talking to my best friend yesterday, and she was like, stop it, stop it. Yeah, that's that. And I know what you're saying. That's that, like, you know, we're so conditioned in the matrix to think like, there's this group of people and that group of people, but I'm just a normal person and I wouldn't even have a platform if it wasn't for David Zublik. And so I kind of learned that right away with the YouTube game that in our corner of the of the Internet, I think it's important that we showcase each other, especially since I do have a bigger platform, I can I can showcase other people's work because it is hard to catch those algorithms. It is hard to get your story out sometimes unless you can catch it with another channel that can help you. And that's what we're that's my whole thing. We're all just walking each other home, and we're all here to help each other. And and your voice is important. Everybody's voice is important. Your voice is very important. I was watching one of your videos the other day about religion and spirituality, where you talked about how like, and we're laughing. I was laughing about that with Angie, because, you know, down here in the south, the church is such a staple part of our culture. And it's not even for a lot of cases, it's not even about the religion. It's a social center as well. And I told I told this story before, but before you get into it, I told Andy, I tell this story on on the show. So my mom's family, the the brices, my mom, my name is my mom's maiden name. They moved to Georgia from Charleston, South Carolina, the brices are all from my grandfather was a surgeon, and they got moved to Atlanta. And back in the day, whenever you may may still do this in small towns, I don't know, whenever you moved the church ladies from different churches would come to your house, bring you casseroles, introduce you to the neighborhood and invite you to the church. Well, my grandmother at the time had just moved to Atlanta. She had four children, four girls, the youngest was a baby. And my mom said they were playing in their house. And all of a sudden my grandmother yells, Girls, go hide under the bed. The church ladies are coming. So they all got under the bed with my grandmother to hide from the church ladies knocking on the front door. And so my mom said for years, she was terrified of the church ladies. She didn't know who the church ladies were. She just knew she had to hide from them. And I just find that hysterical because that's so Southern culture. And so let's start there, Angie, let's talk about that video because you were talking about an astrology book you've gotten. And what your relationship is like now with the divine, she's come into this great awakening, especially kind of moving out of that cultural conditioning into more of a more authentic place of understanding God or the cosmos or right? Well, it all just it all just really makes sense. It's not anything that I'm trying to even figure out anymore. I mean, there are, I don't know everything, but everything that I do learn that I do discover immediately clicks. It's not like, Oh, I don't know what these words in this King James version mean. And I don't I just don't understand the Bible. I'm supposed to understand it, but I don't, you know, it's not like that. It's just like everything just makes sense. Yes, it does. Going back to the whole thing about the church ladies that just brought back a memory of I grew up in Albany, Georgia, and I had country grandparents and then a city grant. So I had like both. And my country grandparents, I stayed with most weekends and they lived out in Sylvester, like out in the country, they had farm, they have cows, they had people came in and paid to pick beans and by the bushel and they also had fish ponds where people paid to fish, you know, that kind of thing. So I grew up like weighing fish, shelling peas and all this. But I can remember so many times, my grandmother, Gertrude, Grandma Gert, she'd say, Angie, they're coming down the driveway. She had this long driveway. It was straight. And you can see like when the church people were coming, whether it be even even her friends that just went to church with her that were coming over to play cards, which she also had to put the cards away. She couldn't have her they played setback and pinnacle and canasta. And she had to hide the cards if the church people were coming, except for certain church people that were her friends that played cards with her. I was always there. So I just remember all these things. But she I remember one day she's saying, run back to the closet and put on your cool locks. She had made me these ugly polyester elastic waist long. You know what cool locks are? Yeah, that's what she called them. Yeah, they were baggy. Like, well, that that we said that that reminded me of my because even I think my childhood some 39, I think I was like the last generation to experience like a true southern like childhood. We had to wear satellites for shoes with lacy socks. Yeah, we had our love now. Like, I see my nieces and my nephew down there like play clothes all the time. Like we had to wear like our hair was always like pulled back in a bow. You know, it was always very prim and proper grow like the stuff that and so I could under when you said that your mother would yell at I could hear my parents yelling that go, you know, I'll tell you okay, see, do you know the piglet wiggly, right? The piglet. Yeah, it didn't eat there. But yeah, shot. They're all the time. So I was this is when I was in college and I had come home to visit for I don't remember if it was summer or some some some holiday. And I was I was a runner at that time and I'd gone out to run a trail early in the morning because we know in Georgia when it's that hot, you got to go early in the morning. So my way back home, I stopped by the piglet wiggly to grab a bottle of water. And I walked into my mom's house in my sweaty running clothes with a bag from the piglet wiggly with water in it. And my mother freaked out. She was like, I hope no one saw you. You can't you did you really go into the piglet wiggly with those sweaty clothes on? I hope no one saw you. I was like, well, first of all, it's like seven o'clock in the morning. I'm like, Mom, it's just the piglet wiggly. But that's that southern like, you know, got to have your mask, your lipstick. I'll tell you my mom will probably kill me for saying this. But one time, she was having a very serious conversation with me and she sat me down and she said, you know, with my sister, girls, if I'm ever in a coma. And I thought she was going to say, you know how much I love you or this is where, you know, the money's buried. I don't know. She goes, just make sure you got my roots in my face done. Well, you saw I just did my roots for you. Just make sure you get my roots done in my face done. I was like, okay, well, so that's very that's that's still magnolias. And I tell people a time that's one of the most beautiful things about growing up in the South too is I like, watch still magnolias. That's like how you grow up. You know, that's how that's that. And I say all the time Southern women, you know, I think Southern women do rule the roof in most houses. They are the kind of the head of the house, even though in a lot of homes, it's the man that's making the money, the wife kind of runs everything. My husband used to say, we've been married 25 years now. So I remember in the beginning, he would say things like, I rule the roost, but you rule the rooster. Like, you know, you know where he's going. I my friend Catherine Edwards sent me a meme once of this Southern girl looking out and it was like the Southern women ask you if you do know Jesus there. I can't remember what it said. They're not asking for politeness. They're asking you because you're about to go meet him, you know, like that you don't you don't that Southern mother can give you that look right at the end right before he died. He accepted. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Always the stories. It is like and my grandparents to my grand, my mom's mom was from Charleston, South Carolina. So she had that like South Carolina accent. I should never say sugar. Sugar. I never saw her in pants. She always wore dresses and high heels. I can remember when we started kind of wearing pants. I have an aunt growing up that her husband was a deacon in the church, you know, the Baptist church and then and she, oh, I remember when they got divorced and she started wearing pants. You know, it's just so scandalous. So scandalous. I get my mom's mom. My dad's mom wore pants. My mom's mom. She always had a beautiful dress on. She always had her jewelry on. She always had her high heels on and she was a housewife, but she would have girls, women come over and play bridge. They would play bridge together and you're right. That's what's so funny to me. Like I laugh about the Tyra cards and like how many Southern women have a deck of Tyra cards hidden in their house from their husbands. Lovely. Like how many daughter and I have a daughter in Brooklyn, New York. Can you believe? I mean, yeah. And so she just told me the other day that she's a friend of hers gave her a deck and she's trying to learn. So I don't have one. I really don't. But I find that kind of fascinating and fine. My dad's mom, I've told this story before. She was kind of the she was from Quitman, Georgia. You might know where Quitman is. Yeah, that's where you're from. Yes. Right. By Valdosta is the big city, but she used to do a festival there called the skillet festival. Oh, really? I haven't been to Quitman in such a long time. My great grandfather died when I was four. So it was the last time I went to Quitman. But I do remember the house and I do remember the property because it's a huge property that's old like plantation house. In fact, I know this is probably going to be, I mean, well, people watching us are away, but my grandmother had a painting of her house. She grew up in that's very big in the South to have paintings of your house. And she would tell everybody the house behind me. Yes, that's so normal, right? My grandmother would tell people they come in. She'd like, now this house is so old it was built by slave labor. Like she would that would be the first thing she told people about the house that she grew up in the painting of the house. But yeah, my grandmother from Quitman, Georgia, she was very much into the metaphysical and she went to church every Sunday. She even played the organ at church at one point. But she had her books on reincarnation that she hid under the bed from my grandfather. She loved meditation. She always wanted to know what I was learning in India. So there is and I think too. And you know, Angie, we were talking about before we bought a book on the ghost of Athens. But I saw this before in the deep south here. This land breeds. Yes, it does. I want to know what's happening here on the land I built this house on because because this is a newer home we built. But there's just things happening. Like what what is this land hold? Like what what history does it really hold? Yes, it's my my good friend Cindy, who is families from Peru. We were talking about it off in Atlanta. She's my friend offline and and she was saying to that the south is the most magical place in the world. There's just something mystical about the land down here. And she goes down to the Okipa Noki swamp a lot to do stuff. And we know down in New Orleans by you like there's just this element of nature. And I don't know have you heard of since you're from that area of Georgia. Have you heard of the Georgia werewolf? No, I've covered it on my channel before, but actually it hit me. Maybe we should do another deep dive into the Georgia werewolf because it's near that area of the legend of the Georgia werewolf of the shapeshifter. So and since you're from that area that might be I think if I had seen that video maybe a year ago, I wouldn't have believed it. And then now I'm like, oh, yes, I covered that story a long time ago on my channel. And I actually heard I was something told me like Angie and I need to go back and we look at that story because you're from that that vicinity. So you know more about that land and about what what's going on in that area of and Georgia's for those who aren't from Georgia, Georgia's an interesting state because North Georgia technically kind of where Angie and I are, it's at the base of Appalachia. And so it's very green. It's a lot of hills and low mountains. But then you get south and you're getting close to Florida. So it becomes like plains. It becomes very low land. And so the different areas of Georgia are going to give you different feelings just from the environment. But but where we Angie and I are because Athens is what like an hour and hour and a half outside of Atlanta. Yeah, not that if that maybe an hour or two minutes. Yeah, it's easy. We go there our friend. Well, the guy who does my opening song for for Esoteric Atlanta, Josh McKay. He lives in Athens. I was telling you he's there. A lot of music in Athens. Athens is a cool town. It is. I mean, it's been a really fun place. You know, I wasn't originally from here. I've been here since 91. But so I guess I am, you know, I've been here a long time. But yeah, I mean, shows all the time. I mean, and the opportunities that have come our way, you know, just like, you know, Alabama Shakespeare years ago came through and the drummer had our pickles, you know, and I want you to talk about your pickles too in a minute. Yeah, crazy over him. And so he's like, Oh, you know, emails me. He's got to have more. He needs them on the tour bus. And when you invite me to the Hangout Festival and, you know, and I looked it up online, I was like, I'm not going to that thing like shoulder to shoulder with all these sweaty people. But then we weren't anywhere near those people. That is up. I'm like, oh, we're in a cold tub, like bubble in cold tub, looking over the fence. They're looking at the sweaty people. So anyway, things like that, like I do know we've been very, very blessed just by, you know, honestly just blooming where I'm playing it. Yeah, right. Because I mean, I have the adversity. Like when I first started pickles, I had just joined Facebook. And that was scary. You know, like, I wasn't supposed to my husband's like, I don't think you should do that, you know, whatever. He went on a hunting trip to that place, that house back there. South Carolina. And he and while he was gone, I had that big, you know, monster of a computer and I logged on and there was an invite to Facebook from an older lady friend. And I thought, well, if she's on it, then it can't be scary. So I joined and my very, very first post was I'm pickling beans today. I didn't even have a company or anything. Just like, that's what I'm doing. Well, that's the let's say so where Angie lives, just you guys understand her connections at the University of Athens is where the University of Georgia is located. And the University of Georgia is like one of the turned into one of the most prestigious universities in the United States. It's both of my both of my parents went to Georgia. My dad went to veterinary school, veterinary school in Georgia, which is now I've learned the best veterinary school in the world is in at the University of Georgia and Athens. It's also where bands like REM is from and B 52s are from Athens. There's a lot more bands from Athens. There's a lot of cultural stuff that goes through Athens, Georgia. And it definitely is very much the college town in the sense that you can feel the influence of the university around you when you're there. But there's so much else that's happening in Athens. That's very, it's very eclectic. And there's also that old Southern too. I mean, you were telling me your husband's family is like generational. So you have that. That's when you're driving through Athens, you're driving through all the old neighborhood with like the old beautiful antebellum homes. And the houses were named like the Fennesey House and the Fennesey Hamilton House and the Fennesey Secret House. I mean, they're all over town. Yes. Yes. So do you want to give anybody a bit of the background of your family since we're going to be covering Athens in a future episode? So your husband's family is like a big deal in Athens. A big deal, you know, and and I'm from like nothing. We always said like I married like the Silver Spoon, even though that doesn't mean that you're not you can't lose it all, which we did, you know? But so it just a completely different thing. Me coming from South Georgia, no money really, you know, from from that and just always like kind of knowing how to work like my grandparents with their farm and you know, all that like we just that was just normal to be sitting under a tree like shelling peas for other people to purchase and you know, just picking potatoes or planting, you know, taking your big toe and putting seat, you know, using your toe to dig a hole to put a seed in to plant potatoes and things like that. I just grew up doing that like always dirty. And then in the Mary into this family, I've I've I've learned a whole lot, but I've also have learned and maybe the past five or so years that I am good enough and that I that might but my me trying to fit into some mold isn't going to help anyone and we all need to be our true selves or else, you know, it's just bakery. Nothing ever changes. Like you just keep repeating, please keep repeating the same curses or gender, you know, whether they call them generational curses or whatever. But yeah, my grandmother on my mom's side, my mom's mom told me when I was very little, she's the one that named me Angela. She said heavenly messenger. And, you know, she said that she just knew that I was going to be the one to break the curse. And I never knew what it meant really. And now every time I've learned she was the oldest of 14. Children in very South Georgia, like Amiga, Cairo, near equipment area. Yeah, yeah. That's right. Your equipment where a Cairo's are. Yeah, I've said that if this is the real Egypt, and it's not Cairo guys, it's Cairo because I probably say I like syrup syrup. What about my grandma, my grandmother was a valedictorian over college class would say Panner, Winder. They were by the Winder. Yeah, yeah. It's true about the door in our calendar. Yeah. Yeah. So you're growing up like, I mean, that is down South Georgia to me. You are. I remember being on the property. My grandmother, my great-grandfather died. I have memories of being on his property equipment and just the gnats everywhere. Yeah. You just got used to it. It was just normal for them to all be like, all in your eyes. I still can see like little babies at the family reunion just with gnats all in their eyes. And it was just nothing. You didn't even swat them away. They were just Yeah. So freaking hot and muggy. I mean, it is literally like being in a bowl of hot soup all the time. It's funny, my grandmother said that when she was alive, she said that's how she thought she found meditation was when she was a kid, there was just nothing to do but just sit there and stare. Yeah. Because it was too hot. I carved soap. Yeah. Now I'm like, it's just too hot. It's too hot to do anything else. So you move. So you what brought you to Athens from South Georgia? I am my parents moved up to Atlanta, Atlanta. That's what my father said that moved up to Atlanta. They're not even part of our family anymore. You like for a job that my dad had at the time whenever I was 12. And then they bought property right down the road from here in Bostwick and Morgan County near Madison. And so we moved there. I went to Morgan County High School in Madison, very historic town. Great cemeteries, great old homes. And so I graduated high school there and then I never went to college. I had a dream of being a journalist. And that's really what I wanted to do. And honestly, like not to play the victim anymore, because I used to say this this way, I would say, you know, my dad was just drunk and asleep my whole life. So he didn't even realize I graduated high school and never even talked to me about college. You know, like, it was just not a thing. I went straight to work. I worked at the Bank of Morgan County in Rutledge. And then I ended up getting a job at Athens First Bank here downtown, which huge blessing. Like, I met so many people. I was the downtown girl was actually in a newspaper. Four years in a row. Best bank teller in Athens. That is so southern, that is I love it. I love it. I'm like, where are these newspapers? I don't know where they are because I want to just frame that. I know, right? Like that. I love it. That's in the New York. That's what we need to go back to newspaper, having those articles. I love it. That is community pride, right? That's like community, you know, and that is even though Athens is a pretty international town with the school, I think there is kind of still a little bit of a small town feeling from the families that have been there for a very long time. It's like, you know, I'm there for a very long time. Yeah, it's very, they're all very connected. And, you know, yeah, it is a very small town actually when the school's not in. It's very small. We can park anywhere downtown. You always know when the students come back, you happen to be driving through downtown the other day, we'd gone to the cemetery. I was like, what is going on? And we're like, oh, yeah, it's moving day. People are not from the South. I've said this all the time. We party in cemetery. Going to a cemetery is a huge part of Southern culture. That is an activity you do. And I don't think people believe me when I say that, but it's true. You go to the cemetery, you go explore cemeteries. You have a name of a person right here that I met that day at the cemetery. And she was from like Carrollton, Georgia. She looked like a good day to go explore cemeteries in Athens. That's what I love about the South is that here, Angie and I are two Southern women. We went to church on Sundays but we'll go write some candles in a cemetery. We'll go talk to some people in a cemetery. And that's what I was telling Stephanie off before we were filming with Stephanie and Salem. And the way they went to the cemetery is you couldn't touch the graves. This would not fly in the South. Does the grave have to happen in place in the South? People would be given the middle finger and sit on top of the grave and light a candle. This is not putting pennies on top of the graves. We were saying before how we take our ghosts very seriously here in the South. I grew up in a haunted house. I grew up in a haunted school. It's just I remember one of my friends when your friends first started having children and seeing them with their children, the people you grew up with, one of my friends when she had her daughter, who was like two at the time this was years ago, and she lived in a haunted house and I remember her talking to her daughter and being like, now if you see the ghosts just say hello. No big deal. Just say hello. It's just how it is down here. It's like that Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil if you watch the movie they show the guy with the ghost dog walking and it's like that's normal. Walk your ghost dog. Actually that uncle in that movie or the man in that movie is the uncle of a girl that my husband dated in high school. Oh really the one that killed the kid the Kevin Spacey character? Mm-hmm. Yeah, he was not from Savannah. He had moved to Savannah because he was like an architect or something or a designer and he was going because Savannah kind of went through like a revitalization period where they like revitalized a lot of the old homes. Savannah's had it's track Savannah is definitely the revenge body of all the southern cities because it's had its heyday of being very violent, very got really run down but then that time period came in where they brought it and revamped it up and brought back those houses to life and that's what I think that's what he did, right? He brought a bunch of those houses back to life and got caught up in some I'm glad you study so much you absorb it all and you should be you're like Professor Bryce I'm just a nerd, I'm a nerd I'm literally, I did a whole playlist on Savannah when I first opened my channel and I was like it just it's just interesting to me it's like the story of and why people choose to stick around like why entities choose not to like move forward like why do they choose to stick around do they know their debt like you know there's difference between like and it's just like the concept of like what free will really looks like even after we've left our physical bodies like the fact that we have that choice if we want to stick around we can it's just fascinating to me and I do know that people that do go into the light they can also come back if they need to to help their loved ones and it's just it's fascinating to me and it's not something they cover in vacation Bible school even though everybody in that vacation Bible school they don't talk about it at church so and actually you know saying that I went to church every Sunday I did pretty much with my grandparents my country grandparents my city grandma was very charismatic and you know she went to a different kind of church they were loud and her church and ran up and down so that was just that was just you know well too much a little too much so I did go to the Baptist church my country grandparents and I have memories of standing up on that pew and I was little everybody all the elders would come around and I would sing Jesus loves me this I know now it makes me think of like Ring Around the Rosie for the Bible tells me so and I'm like that is so creepy yeah that is so creepy if you have to have a book to tell you that you're loved by God right that's the big thing about the Sophia text that like touch me so much is the fact that Sophia code it was repeated over and over and over again that you were born with the Holy Spirit inside of you that is not something you have to invite into you it's already there it never left you it never will leave you and that was so impactful because then I started and I laugh about the southern churches because you know as my family people say when they get real hot I'm sweating like a horn church and that you know it's funny but there is a southern culture to it as well but that whole mind trickery that they do whether intentionally or not really bothers me because human beings are so much more than that and they don't you know you don't have to be you don't need a book God's not bound by a book especially when it's been edited a lot and that's the I didn't really even know this until I started watching you so yeah and now I'm just like I told you the other day I was like I kind of moved them all around and put them in a cabinet it's like I had them everywhere almost like if I just had one in each room and that meant I was I was safe yeah yeah growing up I wasn't allowed to get dust on it or like if my Bible sat on my dresser you know and it had my name on it you know given to me at birth probably yeah and if I just set like a trinket or a rock or something down on I was in trouble like if it had to stay like anything on top of it or you know you know you say that my friend Stephanie and I was going to do the show that's where we love watching this girl on YouTube called Rachel Photon she is a I love her yeah I just remember her because of you she's amazing and she has a backstory where she had kind of had like Rachel if you see this I apologize if I'm telling your story wrong but when I remember she had maybe a near-death experience or something where God had told her like you need to start to walk away from some inconsistencies in the Bible and I need you to help people understand the greater it's time basically it's time anyway um, I forgot oh yeah so the Bible when I'll have to tell a funny story of someone I know that used to use Bible paper to roll joints and I think God has a sense of humor with that I think God probably thinks that's really funny but the Bible has been very much manipulated and people say you know Rachel this was Rachel was saying that you know they they'll tell you you shouldn't have any idols or worship no gods before me but people in the Christian faith will worship the Bible sometimes over God yeah and the Bible and that's just a fact that the Bible has been changed that's that's not conjecture that's not speculation that's a literal fact that that it has been changed um and and that's and it's not it that's okay in some sense because the whole relationship with God is with you anyway you see a two-year-old you have children at two years old they know who got it yeah they do they don't even buy the Bible this daughter we called it being saved oh yeah oh yes so um let's see she was about she was like nine I think nine and um my husband I were downstairs we were having an argument and she could hear us arguing and I went up to kind of let her know that everything was okay you know and when I went up she was crying but she was like she was mom God was just in the room with me yeah yeah and so she's the one in Brooklyn and she said God wasn't just in the room with me so of course we had to have her baptized immediately like you know because she got saved right I mean get the baptism sound images yes yes yes it was very sweet we went to one of these kind of new churches at the time where they do the video thing and they did a whole like interview with her and she said um it's all because of my mom my mom talks to me all the time about God so that that was a very sweet you know I should remember she was wearing these little pigtails so cute but um so still still just is still the same is still real yeah but I don't think she had to have had to be baptized I always see baptism as like ceremonial and like culturally anyway like I don't think that dumping a person in water putting water on a person's head is going to determine whether they're going to go to heaven or not I think our I think that God we worship is a little bit more discerning than that but um everything's your your intuition intention right exactly exactly your heart's desire and I often thought like if I had a child would I baptize them and the answer is even though I'm I'm so against a lot of what the church does I probably would just because of the family you know because it literally is just a cultural thing even though I don't know if I would even raise my kid in the church I probably would do it just just for the family just for cultural just because that's that's you know just something to have pictures of you know and you know and the way we baptize in the I grew up as a criterion so we baptize as babies so you don't that's right and like christen babies yes I mean you don't even remember it you have a baptismal gown that's like passed down from generation that's like disgusting by the time you put on your kid because it's been worn by so many different babies I mean about this church at least where I came from you weren't baptized until you were you were for sure saved yeah you've made that consciousness you might have to do it again in case you you've slipped and you really weren't saved the first time I watched a stand-up comedian once from tennis how many times he was baptized one summer like it was almost like that get out of jail free card like oops guess I gotta go get baptized again and I'm not making but you know if this is not like picking on anyone's religion or anything because I mean my my parents of course are still you know like it's everybody around me it's just once your eyes are open it's humorous it is and God has I always tell people my teacher in India always says that comedy is the highest sense of spirituality the ability to laugh at the absurd and at yourself in the absurd and I'm saying I do it to my kids too because it's cultural you know but it's it's just being able to laugh at the absurdity of it all listen yes okay talk about laughing at yourself so my daughter's had the same boyfriend they lived together in New York for let's see they're going on about 70 years now so she called him all now I love him so much like he is my son you know like I really love him so much and but the first time was not the first time but the second time he came and stated our house and of course in separate rings and he was stating like we were in a rental house we were building this one and there was nothing in that ring but I was like I am hanging across over the bed like I hung across can you imagine what he must have thought like this I need to talk to him about it it's planning out but like I hung a little cross over the bed this little twin bed with no headboard or anything that I mean really in the rain but I was like so can you imagine I just don't know about this because I don't know if he is a Christian I mean this is this was how I was you know well that's that that that I was the oldest so my mother was I was always I think I got my dad's mom's personality because I was always very laid back about a lot of things like just very like didn't care about certain I mean when I got my first tattoo I think my mother about shatter pants because now I have cousins who have tattoos so it's like I think you're welcome guys if you're watching you're welcome I'm the one that broke that barrier for you guys to go get tattoos but my daughter I think when I was talking to her the other day we were FaceTiming I think she got another one I think I saw another one she you know she got um I have a teacup thing and there's a story about that too so I've got teacups everywhere I'm drinking out of one now they're they're all over my house people give them to me they sign them I sign them and send them to people I'll send you but so she got she just remembers like growing up and it would be me and my friend sitting around with our teacups drinking prosecco out of them and we'd always let her have a little teacup too like a little a little bit of bubbly and so she got when she um my best friend an old I've always been attracted to like older like drawn to older women and you know always had older women friends and Meg she died in 2016 and so she was like really where all the teacup stuff really got big and Kat my daughter would come and have happy hour with us and we just she would share her wisdom you know with us her name was Margaret also you know I've got a Margaret thing going on so um that's I'm going to do a whole playlist on my whole Margaret thing so but so yeah my daughter has right here on her back she has a teacup and it she says what's your favorite cup mama and I sent her a picture of it and she had that cup tattooed on her back and it's got bubbles coming out of it anyway so that was the first one now she's got I think her Gemini sign on her finger and then I think I saw something else on her arm I didn't ask her about yet sorry this is my first one I ever got needs to be touched up it's the Aquarian sign um for me and you could tell it's very old but yeah I I had a friend once that and I have one here as well but I had a friend once that got like a friend of a friend got a tattooed on her her rib cage and my friend was like girl if you get pregnant that things will turn into a bazooka like you're going to scratch out um but no it's so common now and I you know with the whole culture of the south I my mother was like that with my boyfriend for a long time but I'm you know 39 I don't you know the funny thing about me is I think people in the eyes of God this idea of marriage is just like loyalty to the person that you're with and be you know I think you can be married in the eyes of God without being married by the state now that being said there are benefits to being married by the state as far as like you know if your your husband cheats on you you can go and get it um but after seven years you're coming along anyway so you know um because the south does take that I think I don't know now but when my parents are like hang up hang up I can't hang up when my parents got divorced I think my mom got more than half so so I know the south does kind of take take the side of the woman a lot of times but um but um you know it's um it's when that was when my parents got divorced that was now divorced so common but that in the society I grew up in that was not that was not normal people just didn't get divorced in that society you know they just did not get divorced and when my parents did I'm glad they got divorced but that was like a huge a huge wrench in um in southern in that southern little town like that that this big prominent family that they're um we're getting divorced and um and I don't I don't know any of my none of my friends parents were I think so my friends from high school their parents are now divorced but back then that was the thing we would say and their parents were divorced or like you know that she's got a friend coming over and your parents are divorced or you know like like about my my children's friends you know all their parents are his parents are divorced yeah that's so always you know church that's you just reminded me you did that like you stand outside of like a Baptist church a Methodist church close to hearing church no not not many Catholic churches in the south but it's all the Protestant churches he's if you're at like noon on a Sunday when church is released um if you just go stand outside and listen to the church ladies speaking to talking to each other you're going to get the best gossip because they'll be like did you see what Susie was wearing yeah I heard she was cheating on her husband we should we should pray for them if you just end it with we should pray for them it doesn't count as gossip and so you will get all the town information just by standing in the front yard of a church on a Sunday you do you get all the town information um I remind you when I was a kid I think I told there was this billboard in the 90s and my parents lived in Rome Georgia which is right outside of Atlanta and so you're driving to like Carter still and there was this big billboard and all it said was your wife knows this was the best marketing campaign because like for a month and I was probably like a middle school or high school so I didn't quite know like what that meant but I would hear my parents talking about it and I'm talking about other friends I knew it was scandalous and they left that billboard up for like a month then the next month it said like your secretary knows and like for another month so people was like somebody's wife is rich wife is pissed because she found out her husband's and then the last billboard said that everybody shops Toyota and Rome it was like the best marketing campaign ever because it that is really good I don't know if it will work in today's society but back in the 90s like that was one of the best marketing whoever came up with that strategy should have gotten like a total bonus because I remember it and I was a kid at the time because it was such a big deal because of the scandal of potential marriage breaking because of an affair you know that was happening and it's just funny that's just that Southern yeah there's so many and we were talking about that before before we went live or not live but on reporting that so 2008 when we had the first housing crisis that's when your life kind of changed drastically right yeah it did yeah we had I had drawn this house on a piece of paper and my husband was a builder at the time he developed neighborhoods and things and he had so many houses that weren't selling and had to get one after another back to the bank and then the last one to go was the one we lived in and you know I think it just sold for like almost a million just the other day and I'm like a year ago or so I'm like I mean we got punched we got punched I know on the side note we did sneak back in it after we sold it and I took a light switch which covered that my daughter had painted it was like it said you light up my life mom my I'm going to make it again I cried and cried and cried because these people had bought this house and they had just taken all the things that meant something to me out of it like the you know the old with floors and the the mantle that we built and the you know just things that I thought were just so important at the time and I remember riding by that house seeing a dumpster out on the street and all the plants that we had transferred from like other places like bread of dendrons from North Georgia and like we're all just uprooted and just sticking out of that dumpster like I thought it was just the end of the world you know so we we went from there we moved into a rental house that we still had doesn't Athens it's such a big rental thing with all the college students oh yeah oh yeah so we moved in there with all the sugar and the cat urine smell I mean that had been left from the tenants before like this is so obvious just very depressing I think we even my husband he was very depressed you know a man's ego when when what he was doing isn't working anymore I mean there's no there's really no income coming in from him and I had started before we lost our house I had started just posting on Facebook that I was making pickles and I'm pickling beans today only make like maybe 12 jars of something per day and then I would set them on the porch and people would come by and leave money in a cigar box and then and then the paper did a story and then it just grew and grew and grew and then finally one day my husband comes home and I was just like really stressed out that day and I said I can't do this by myself anymore I'm gonna need help I said Bell's food store has just now ordered like 40 something cases he had no idea but he just had no idea was just we were doing all this me and the kids you know like I was still like making a steak for him but I was going up the road to the Wendy's the chicken nuggets were 99 cents for four I would go it's been 99 cents I'd get ahead of broccoli and I would cut those nuggets up and make them look like there was more and feed all three kids and then and then light a candle in the kitchen and have the house all clean and he'd come home and there'd be like a feast yeah we really did this I'm not trying to put him down that's not what this is about but it's just like this is what this is what I Southern women do yes exactly no I make sense to me it totally makes sense to me as a I mean my my mom's my grandfather was a surgeon and my mom said by the time she was really little that my grandmother had trained her and her sisters when they were at home they had to go up and say daddy what can I make you a drink and so by the time they were like eight years old they were making alcoholic drinks for their dad that's just what you do as a Southerner so that makes sense to me so yeah so people who are watching who think that's just weird no this is just Southern culture that's just what it is so your husband had no idea at that time my dream was to be June Cleaver like I really wanted to be that leave it to be for mom you know like that's not what I had planned for you yeah so it's real I used to say that all the time I'm like I'm like June Cleaver like you know just take your phone leave it to be her but so yeah we that happened and then we we lose the house but the the whole thing with the pickle thing it was just at the time I was just doing like pickled beans and green tomatoes and I was never going to pickle a cucumber because I was like no that's just normal now I have to because they're you know it just kind of you know yeah this enterprise out of out of the ashes you you're literally the phoenix rising out of the ashes yeah and I use my husband's name so back whenever I was telling you how I joined Facebook and he didn't really want me to I thought well if I make a if I make a company I really don't even have you I don't have a business license but if I go ahead and make a company page I'll use his name and I'll call the company because he goes by thin like short for fantasy PHI and so that I'll call it pickles I use his name and then the whole like motto was from my tour of that cemetery where the sexton said if you went to a party I don't know if this was before we started before yeah so so before we started her husband's family was such a big deal that it invited to their party back in the day was like in honor yeah they said you are going to a really fun party they were rich liberals which is like we are not rich liberals but anyway I just remembered that so then I then after I created the name pickles and then I got a website pickles calm and then and then I thought motto I was gonna see if I have a bag sitting around here but anyway my whole like my business cards say there we go on the back if you can see it if it ain't fun don't do it so that was the whole thing and that really that came from that lady at the cemetery saying that I was like I'll make it all about fun and really like if I have an issue with a store owner that I don't want to deal with anymore that's all I ever say if it ain't fun don't do it bye that's I mean it reminds me of the story what's the chicken salad chick girl she's from I think she might have well she all burn is where they start she started making her chicken salad and she just did really good chicken salads and it just kind of grew and became this chain of these incredible this is like I mean I'm a vegetarian so I've never had it but my mom and sister I mean they're there all the time at chicken salad chick and and it's crazy how God you had an orb go by you Angie just so you know or just I wonder what that was yeah you got a freaking orb yes that's an orb that's that's that's one of your angels or your guy I don't know your guys one of your angels so there you go but that isn't an amazing how and that's and I talk about that on my channel a lot about friction and we talk about that like in the yoga world a lot about how friction is necessary for change because if there's no friction and that you're not going to change right a lot and I really like that I've written it down somewhere even like it is and it's it's so easy to when you're not going through the friction to be like oh yes that was necessary but when you're in the middle of the friction it doesn't feel great doesn't feel good at all and and so sometimes when we have these moments of what the terror cards would call a tower moment when everything collapses it's because something is being rebuilt and see I've heard you say tower moment before and I've never thought I didn't know that's what it meant I thought it meant you were at the top of the tower it just comes crashing that's the terror card the tower moment is when something is going to be literally ripped from you and sometimes those tower moments in life are not caused by anything you've done like with the housing crisis of 2008 we now know where that came from that came from this group this nefarious group but what the devil will make for bad God will always use for good I just had an orb go by me as I said that it's a party it's like an orb party Spirit gets sassy but it's such a testament to the human spirit in who we really are and even in those moments because we're all programmed to an extent no matter where you grew up and what culture we laugh about the southern culture both Angie and I were raised hardcore in this hardcore southern culture I mean I had a great grandmother Angie I know nothing about her because she was a Yankee she was a Yankee I know nothing like Stafford was her maiden name that's all I know so if there are any Staffords in Philadelphia I'm your cousin I'm your cousin my grandfather was like we don't talk about her his mother he was like we don't choose Yankee she was mean she was Yankee that's what he would say so anyway actually that grandmother my great grandmother my mother is named after her and my mother was the second born and my mother's name was Mary Jo for a week for a week and then my Yankee great grandmother came down to Charleston and pitched a fit that my mother wasn't named after her so they had to go change the birth certificate and change my mom's name to Alice and my aunt that's younger than my mom who's since passed away her name was Mary Jo but my mom was like you know my granddad's parents at that point my grandfather was in medical school my grandparent my granddad's parents were paying their way and so if my great grandmother wanted my mother's name changed then they had to go change her name that's all the money they had to go down and change her baby's name very important very important my grandmother wanted to name me Laura after the character in Dr. Javago and my grandmother my mom's mom was like you are not naming her after a character from Dr. Javago you're going to give her a family name you're going to name her Bryce so it's the same thing happened so my mother has been very good with my sister's kids my mom has backed off and allowed them to like none of my sister's kids are not family names but their middle names are family names so we've got some fresh blood that's the thing about the south too maybe this is common in other your husband's a junior my father was a junior if I had been a boy I would have been the third you see that a lot in families in the south where names are like repeated over and over you've got like four williams there's even billops finnazy spalding billops finnazy johnson spalding hospital that's from this family line and the johnson billops finnazy johnson they're down in albany georgia where I grew up never knew them but anyway it's just that name it's big it is in the south carolina the brices the williams brice stadium that's my mom's family and I remember when I was in high school my college advisor was like you can just go to south carolina without even taking the SATs because of your name I was like do you really think that I want to go be a game cock with the name brice on the state that's embarrassing there's no way in hell I'm going to that university there's just no way that's so embarrassing the names are really important down here in the south and that's a lot of weight to carry our son is the only he's the last tillman boy that's it because everybody else had girls and they were girls marrying outside of the tillman family he's the last tillman pressure my dad was the last he had all sisters and then he gave birth to my mom had all girls that's a lot of pressure I don't feel any pressure on any of my children I'm like Rosie you don't want to go to college what you want to do I think I just want to do make up you know what at this point if I had a child I would probably try to sway them away I mean we all got to pay for the college with all the stuff going on with the passing of these bills and it's just like all these the tuition is so high what job is at KSU and he needs it for what he's wanting to do like computers I guess he needs it he already like at 13 built his own computer built his sister's computer like he's so smart he told me that he has a I don't even know what discord is he's got a grip on there he won't either I don't know what discord is he's like tutoring all of his classmates wow and even that teacher the professors had to ask him like how did you do that that's his gift that's his god given talent no but like doing make up for living I think about like cutting hair these are really smart kids at this point too that are choosing to go that route everybody needs a haircut everybody needs help with make up everybody needs plumbing done everybody needs their oil changed and at this point with everything going on in the world like to learn actually my dad did say that once that was some good advice he gave us even though he was a veterinarian he and we all went to college but he was like you know find a trade as well like even though you have an education find something you can actually do with your hands which is kind of what you're doing like you have this natural ability you've created this business that's obviously very successful because you're not taking it back though it's since the pandemic it has become like I have no employees anymore zero so it's just me and my husband and today is golf day for him and so he usually I told him I said I don't know why I scheduled this for 11 because I know you're going to still be here and I don't want to talk with you in the room you know like he said bye to me earlier but he's gone but yeah his friend came to get him I think he will have beer today so his friend group for him there are a lot of truthers that are like alcohol is bad I'm like listen when you go up in the south I love the smell of alcohol and people because I remember my family coming home with like their cocktail clothes on and carrying us to bed and like smelling it on their clothes like listen God wants you to have fun life is hard like just relax with your friends doesn't drink scotch very often but it seems like it's more like in the winter or near the holiday time you know and our kids are always like is he drinking scotch because he always suggests to anything if he's drinking scotch like yes yes sure like my dad's dad would have two scotches every single night of his life and that's just every time I see that scotch I think of my granddaddy Ed he would have his scotch every night what's the difference because a beer does not do this to him but scotch makes and wine doesn't do this to him but if he drinks scotch he'll look at me and he's like I love you that's me over Rob I think it's just the way the compounds of the alcohol hit people's system differently beer I get goofy I'm a fun time I'm a fun time but Rob might get very like I'm not good with wine wine gives me headaches I can't do wine tequila I had a really bad experience with tequila one time so every time I smell it I'm like I could do it every now and then but yeah it's um but yeah that's and that's part and again that's part of our culture like we we're drinkers I was telling my friend Stephanie when she came down to visit I was saying how there's a bar at my mom has a bar at her house and I was like that's common in the south a lot of houses have bars in them the first thing you see when you come in my back door my garage my sister has a bar at her house I'm like this is just a lot of houses in the south are built my mom's parents had two bars in their house they had a full bar and what we would call like the play room it was like the pool room is a full bar and then they had a little bar and like the fancy den not the living room but like the fancy living room was like real fancy but then like the fancier like they when the guests came over that were proper that then they had this I'm like this is just part of the southern culture like I said my mother would have by eight years old was making my granddad mix drinks when he would come home from work my granddad the one who had had scotch every night my dad's dad he picked me up from school once and took me to the country club for dinner and granite this was the 90's so it's not now but this was the 90's and country clubs are owned technically by the members because they pay for it and I was 14 at the time and I remember sitting at the table with my grandfather I don't know why it was just the two of us I don't know why my sister wasn't there my cousins weren't there it was just the two of us and the waiter comes by and we order and my grandfather ordered me a drink an actual alcoholic beverage and the waiter kind of looked at my granddad and looked at me and my granddad said I'm her guardian I'm going to teach her how to drink properly go get her a drink and the waiter goes yes sir and walked back and got me a drink and I just sit there at 14 years old with my grandfather to learn how to drink a cocktail nowadays that probably wouldn't happen they probably would have called the cops but you know the cell was like yes sir and at the same age at 14 my granddad, same granddad picked me up from school and we were driving in this big old Lincoln down the road to his house and he pulled the car over to the side of the road he told me to get out and he told me to get the driver's seat and he said you're going to start learning how to drive yeah I used to have to drive my dad around all the time now this is kind of backwards so like I said I came from a different different spoon my dad would get drunk and he would lay across the hood of the truck you had to drive him home yeah and he and I was like he said he was looking for deer tracks we lived like dirt roads and you know like I was like eight driving a stick trying and my mom was always at ceramic class like she was painting ceramics that night it was like every Thursday that's so I mean that's what I guarantee you if a cop pulled over he'd probably just tell you to get on home I mean if a cop had pulled me over with my granddad in the car my granddad would have been like you sir I'm going to go tell your grandmother or your mother you know my grandfather would probably be scolding the cop you know that's just how it was back then my dad I know in Quitman would hit my grandmother's grandparents he was driving the scout stick at like eight years old around the farm no I mean we needed to know how to do that those things yeah because he would spend the summers with his grandparents my great grandparents and I remember so this is another funny southern story so my grandmother's grandparents down in Quitman Georgia and Quitman's tiny isn't Angie it is like a speck on the map it's tiny I only know one store they're out on a whim I know every store that carries my products and it's in Quitman so needless to say my grandfathers the Bennets they were a very powerful family there were a lot more attorneys well my very wealthy family and when my grandmother started dating my grandfather the Bennets were Democrats that's the one part of my family they were Democrats but they were also Protestants my grandmother was dating at the time before she met my granddad a Democrat who was a Catholic and that was very hard for my great-grandparents to swallow that pill that he was Catholic well when my grandfather came around and he went down to meet my grandparents they were okay with the fact that he was a Republican as long as he was a Catholic so it's just funny how the old southern like hangups I mean my sister is married to a Catholic at this point but he they're not his mom's Italian so it's more cultural and it's just crazy how many issues there would have been back in 20 years before in the South where now it's not that big of a deal all these little cultural things are so funny but it just makes us who we are and all these other things that were culturally acceptable when I was a kid like driving my grandfather or having an alcoholic beverage of the country club would not happen today would not happen today they would have called the cops my granddad you know for doing that so that's just that's what makes and that's why people are like oh I love what's the divine secrets with the IOS that's just the South that's normal that's just like yaya that's normal like they were laying out taking their clothes off you know driving in the heat and like sounds good to me that's good our parents would have been pissed but like it's it's that hot where you're like whatever so Angie I I know we're coming over an hour you're gonna be back for us to do a deep dive into Athens, Georgia so for you guys who are liking these deep dives and I have got as I've been talking to you I'm thinking I need to come to Athens we need to film together in Athens something and I want I want us to do if I'm gonna put you in the spot on a video I want us to do a deep dive together into the werewolf of South Georgia love it let's do I want you to look into it too so I know the story and and then we can maybe bring even bring Stephanie back on and see what we can find even more about who this girl was and what she really shaped her I do remember that it was a girl I don't know why I think werewolf is a boy I remember I remember watching your video a while back I probably didn't believe it I think when I covered it I probably thought she just had some like Harry disposition or something and the people in the town but now that I've known Jesse the voter and I'm getting like was she werewolf like what was happening was she so I'm gonna ask you look into it and we'll also revisit that story because there's some other stories I do want to revisit that I covered a long time ago because now I have a different perspective everything I have a different perspective about everything everything nothing every time I talk to Jesse the voter I'm always like oh my god Grimm's fairy tells is more of a reality than well truth is stranger than fiction it really is it really is and I'm still not I mean I still am under this assumption that this is Egypt where we live was the original Egypt yes I would show you but there in another drawer my mother-in-law went to Egypt a while back and she brought back these paparous little paintings you know and I've always I haven't done anything with them yet but I have such a like connection like I'm like there's some reason why am I drawn to this like why do I really like the I just covered my daughter-in-chairs not too long ago stable gun and this old fabric that she brought back from Egypt I just felt like yeah these two and blonde haired blue white people were in Egypt as well we see that in drawing so it doesn't you don't have to be a black person to be Egyptian you can also be a white person I always laugh like in all the hieroglyphics there's blue people why aren't we talking about the blue people like is this not me like how come nobody mentions this we just like go through school and they just kind of slide by the fact that there's a freaking blue person where are these blue people like this is crazy so um so yes we have so much Angie I'm so excited once again guys I'm gonna go ahead and reshare her channel so you guys go ahead and subscribe to Angie's channel and will you send me your links to your now do you ship your pickles or do you ship any of your stuff to people outside of Georgia I do a whole lot of people in Atlanta even order so even though like Alon's Bakery has it but a lot of people just you know have learned like not to get out anymore we're ship every day so I'll put a link to your website down in the description box too because I mean what a great gift to give people too like you know if you go to someone's house or there's like a you don't quite know what to get them like getting them something like this is so unique you know and especially since I mean I'm of the I really believe that right now even though we all still have to like use the Amazons and use the big chains right now I'm still any chance I have to like promote a small business because I believe going forward we're gonna be going back to us manufacturing our own stuff and there's more love put into it that way and we're actually trying to go back to that there's stores I mean I look at my phone I'm like oh my gosh am I gonna tell them since we don't have any employees anymore it's really hard for us to get distribution going and getting the deliveries made and people are watering people are asking people are asking the shelf is empty the shelf is empty I'm like they can order online because we can't keep up with the demand and we've never been able to keep up with it but right now we really can't not put the stores we can keep up with the retail side of it online. Yeah so I'm gonna put that link up guys because what a great I mean what a great gift what a great thing to have in your own home I mean I know in the south too if someone comes over you have to you know you put like a plate out of cheese and crackers like what's amazing to have something like that so you can put out for guests to come over and so guys go and check out her and I have to say Angie her channel is turning into my favorite channels because I love your personality I think you're so I think you're so hysterical and there's so much honesty and that's what I love about this I love I love a good sense of humor anyway because I I mean you see Stephanie and me together we crack up at the most inappropriate things but that's why I mean life is comical like this is the most being a human is hard human is really hard and we all chose to come back into these really dense heavy bodies and experiences dense heavy life and so if you can find people that make you laugh then that you have found a true treasure and so I'm going to really encourage you guys to go and check out Angie's channel and just watch her videos because she's funny she's honest she's obviously if you watch her video she's going through this journey with all of us we're all just trying to go like wait a minute shit's not adding up nothing is what we thought it was and but actually the truth as you were saying it just resonates it feels better feels better and we still got I mean I know we still have so much more left to learn which I'm really excited about so and I know that September is going to be rough guys we're in the height of battle right now so if you need that break and you need to laugh and smile when things get tough go check out Angie's channel because she will make you smile so so yes well thank you Angie I'm so happy you came on today I'm going to text you and Stephanie and figure out a time to film the Athens episode and get you back on so we can pull some tarot cards and see what's going on in Athens Georgia and so and hey I mean we're going to be looking into the werewolf of Georgia if you guys are from South Georgia and also want to pitch in with the werewolf of Georgia just email me and we can do like a round table or something because that's a wild story that's a freaking wild story so so anyway guys we all love you very much make sure you've got hit that subscribe button for Angie and my channel if you're not subscribed and we will talk to you guys soon bye everybody