Asatru Folk Assembly - 12⧸7⧸22 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 22 - Fidelity

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00:02:58.000 hello welcome once again to another exciting episode of victory never sleeps

00:03:06.040 tonight we are in for a very special treat my lovely wife mandy is going to join us this evening

00:03:14.160 she's got to wrangle our daughter here quick at the beginning and get her all

00:03:19.240 settled so she can get on so she'll be joining us here in uh in just a few

00:03:24.060 but yeah we got uh got exciting things going on these are very exciting times to be

00:03:34.440 to be Alcitru and and very exciting times to be in the AFA um I'm going to start off the

00:03:42.440 evening on a uh on an amazing note um you guys have heard me on here uh talking about this for

00:03:51.580 several months and asking for donations and trying to ring dollars out of you guys. And I really

00:03:59.120 appreciate everyone who's been generous and allowed for this to happen. As of today, Sigurheim is

00:04:06.040 ours. We have closed on the property. We have our location now. Right now it is raw land in a dream.

00:04:16.780 But in the coming years, coming months, years and decades, it will become a beautiful and amazing home for the Astru Folk Assembly, for many of our members, for Tiershoff and got a lot of really special things going to happen there.

00:04:38.440 So I am very excited to announce that and I think it is necessary to give a huge thank you to

00:04:51.240 Daniel Mason and his wife Kira and to Goethe Daniel Young. These folks have helped make this

00:04:59.960 happen in a huge way. Daniel has been on top of this. This has been something that he has done

00:05:05.560 all of the running around and the legwork for thank you guys so much um

00:05:13.880 we appreciate you and history will appreciate you

00:05:21.720 so i'm very excited i'm uh still still wrapping my head around it and absorbing all of it this is a

00:05:29.400 it's a very very exciting thing and a very exciting time um

00:05:38.520 what else i've been spending so much of my uh my effort on that this last you know few weeks that's

00:05:45.960 been a lot of my focus i'm trying to think of what else i need to need to mention to you guys or what

00:05:50.680 else we've got going on in the astro folk assembly in the coming months i know everybody is getting

00:05:56.200 geared up and excited for yule this month some of you guys have your yule celebrations coming up i

00:06:01.960 know a few people like folks out in washington have already done uh some of their yule celebrations

00:06:07.800 so um as that gets closer i wish you and yours an amazing yule this year there's plenty plenty to

00:06:16.040 celebrate um so coming up uh next year the first event that i know about that's happening that i

00:06:31.000 want you guys to get squared away on if you can do it is going to be charming of the plow at

00:06:37.320 njordshoff this is going to be njordshoff's first national event that they're hosting

00:06:43.320 and i'm very excited for that it's going to be in february it's a lovely time of year in florida

00:06:49.560 it's not too hot it's not too cold um it's just right and we're looking forward to all you guys

00:06:55.400 coming there if we have information on it if we could throw it up on the screen or certainly if

00:07:00.120 folk builders over on the side can uh let me or uh let it be known what the dates are and that's

00:07:07.880 going to be at njordshoff in white springs florida um yeah with that we will we will kill some time

00:07:16.520 until my wife gets here we've got plenty of local events going on i want you guys to make sure you're

00:07:21.640 checking out your local hoff district websites those have event calendars and uh you know i was

00:07:27.560 talking with nick earlier about how many events we have going on each week and it's you know it's

00:07:33.880 hard to tell exactly but the short answer is lots um you know just thinking about it there's probably

00:07:43.000 at least eight to ten events going on every weekend that are afa events spread across

00:07:49.640 across the country but also around the world um since i talked to you last we've got our first

00:07:55.160 that i know about french member we've got first that i know about a dutch member as well we've

00:08:02.680 got good things happening in uh in south africa with a relatively new apprentice folk builder

00:08:08.520 there that's doing great things got a lot of good things happening um looking over at the side i am

00:08:17.560 i'm seeing lots of lots of celebrating i'm celebrating tonight with some sierra nevada

00:08:23.720 narwhal imperial stout and it's delicious and i appreciate you guys being partners on this

00:08:32.280 this journey i also see um over in the chat another uh promised donation from roland blake

00:08:41.960 roland you have consistently been donating to make this happen and it is much much appreciated

00:08:47.640 thank you very much um before i get going i know we got some questions lining up that i'm happy to

00:08:54.200 get to i want to um mention we are on several different platforms right now we're broadcasting

00:09:01.560 on YouTube. We are on Entropy if you want to go participate in any Super Chat feature or if you

00:09:07.380 want to give tips slash donations there. Those are always welcome and always very useful to us.

00:09:14.300 We are on Odyssey and we are on VK and Twitter. So please check us out there and anybody listening

00:09:23.980 on those platforms. Great to have you with us. First question from Tim.

00:09:31.560 Matt, do you and Mandy have any Yule traditions in your home or from your childhood you want to share with us?

00:09:42.960 Mandy, you know what? I want to say that we've got lots of great Yule traditions.

00:09:48.040 I would like to say that. We don't.

00:09:49.820 We're working on establishing some of those and getting that figured out because now we've got Aubrey and she's getting old enough to really enjoy that.

00:09:58.380 I mean, certainly we've got different traditions and celebrations from our childhood.

00:10:04.300 I'm trying to think of anything that's, you know, particularly, particularly outstanding and

00:10:12.400 coming up fairly blank on it. And I wish I had something, something fantastic for you guys.

00:10:19.900 I really don't other than the same stuff that folks normally do. This has always been my favorite

00:10:25.500 time of year especially as a kid one thing i i really you know remember fondly as a kid was

00:10:32.460 my parents taking me around to see all the all the lights and that was always you know such a neat

00:10:38.780 thing and we've got a it doesn't seem like people do lights quite as much as they have in previous

00:10:44.860 years but um here in here in reno we've got a really cool neighborhood that they go all out

00:10:50.700 and it's like they compete with each other for these amazing yard displays and one of them is

00:10:55.740 has a radio station that they synchronize to to their holiday music and all the lights go off in

00:11:02.860 you know in sync with the music and it's really it's really something to see so i mean certainly

00:11:08.540 that i've got these two candle holders from when i was a little kid that my dad got and we always

00:11:15.340 called them the moose dogs because they're the like worst attempt at making a reindeer it basically

00:11:20.460 looks like a dog that's got moose antlers they're supposed to be reindeer they're not but they're

00:11:25.020 really cool and i have them um and that's something from my childhood that i kept

00:11:29.100 so i wish i had an awesome answer about special yule traditions that i've got and i really don't

00:11:35.740 um king of cheese uh matt good to see you tonight uh how's working out at the gym going

00:11:45.020 Working out in the gym is always going good. I look forward to that all the time.

00:11:50.000 It makes me happy. It certainly is good stress relief or anything else, but it's just a

00:11:55.560 cool thing. I love going to our gym specifically. There's a lot of people that don't like a crowded

00:12:03.920 gym. They always like to go when it's not crowded or they would prefer a home gym to where they

00:12:08.200 don't have to deal with the crowds or whatever. That's not me. I'm the opposite. I love when the

00:12:14.240 gym is crowded. Not when it's so crowded that I can't get the equipment that I want, but I just

00:12:18.660 like being around so many people doing things to better themselves. So many people with their eye

00:12:26.080 towards making themselves the very best they can be. I'm lucky. The gym that I go to, American Iron,

00:12:32.800 it's got ranked powerlifters, ranked strongmen, ranked bodybuilders, both male and female,

00:12:42.040 all kind of athletes and folks there that are really doing their best to make make their bodies

00:12:50.080 the very best they can to achieve excellence at their sport and it's just cool to surround

00:12:55.640 yourself with people that are working that hard i think that that uh that drive and that positivity

00:13:00.720 rubs off so i look forward to that so i always love going to the gym it's you know i i could say

00:13:08.140 there's a training reason that i go every single day and uh you know there's something to that but

00:13:14.620 it's more that i just really like to be there and i like to go and i like having done it it's uh

00:13:20.380 been something i've done now for

00:13:25.420 23 24 years and uh my joints aren't uh particularly happy with me about it but um

00:13:33.820 But no, Jim's going great. Thank you for asking. Chris. So I'm kind of picking through our questions because I'm going to save the Mandy ones till she gets on with us.

00:13:50.560 um so we've got a question is there a group nearby the tri-cities area i gotta say i'm

00:14:01.120 not familiar with what three cities the tri-cities makes up if somebody wants to let me know over in

00:14:07.680 the side or whatever i can shed some light on that

00:14:10.560 sorry guys i'm looking through the questions to try to find ones that i want to

00:14:28.320 that don't uh that wouldn't be better having mandy chime in on also i'm sorry

00:14:32.600 all right so i will

00:14:43.540 tonight is a continuation of our uh series on the noble virtues and i don't just have mandy

00:14:51.500 on here because she is fantastic and because i love her i have mandy on here because

00:14:56.420 AFA leadership very strongly thought that she was the example that should be on tonight to represent the value and the virtue of fidelity.

00:15:09.420 Fidelity very often in today's common common speech is associated with with relation like romantic relationships.

00:15:25.420 But it doesn't really mean that. It's got such a bigger meaning. And it's something that I want

00:15:32.320 us to talk about and kind of internalize tonight. Fidelity comes from the root of faithfulness or

00:15:40.160 being loyal to something. So it's a word that at its core means loyalty to something, to someone,

00:15:48.840 to a group of someone's. Certainly that applies in your romantic relationship, but it also

00:15:55.680 applies and was much more commonly used in the past to be your allegiance to a lord,

00:16:06.840 to a king, to your country, to your group, to your tribe, your fidelity, your loyalty with

00:16:15.460 yours, whatever that group might be, but that value of that enduring loyalty.

00:16:23.260 And that's why it's such an important virtue. And one thing about fidelity is it's one of our

00:16:33.140 virtues that's very easy to talk about in the abstract and this common sense from a distance,

00:16:40.480 But when it comes down to pressure and consequence, it's much harder to remain loyal to something or to someone when that's out of fashion or when there's a social consequence to it, when there is, you know, we've always heard about the fair weather friends.

00:17:01.180 It's much harder to maintain your loyalty when times are hard

00:17:08.100 and when there's shared sacrifice or there's shared risk.

00:17:12.200 That's when fidelity really gets tested.

00:17:28.420 All right, Nick, go ahead and throw up that graphic.

00:17:31.180 I'm talking about a couple of Sigurheim things here. We've got got one asking us what locate where the location what part of Tennessee Sigurheim is in.

00:17:46.180 So, out of abundance of caution, we're not super giving out the address and everything just yet.

00:17:53.420 All of that will come in the coming days and weeks.

00:17:58.140 It is in eastern central Tennessee.

00:18:03.580 It's about an hour and a half from Nashville.

00:18:07.460 So, that's the general location.

00:18:09.920 it's in a very beautiful you know beautiful hilly lush amazing area and it's it's so it's so pretty

00:18:22.180 and i really want you guys to be able to see it and experience it i'm very excited about it but

00:18:27.120 yeah that central and eastern area there east central area there um see a question ah the tri

00:18:34.440 cities um pasco richland and kennewick so let me take a look at our member map here because we do

00:18:42.440 have quite a few members in washington and i believe we have a decent amount of members in

00:18:51.720 eastern washington there so i'm taking a look we've you know as would be expected we've got a

00:19:02.040 a big group near Coeur d'Alene, a huge, you know, a very large segment of our memberships on that

00:19:09.980 I-5 corridor over there to the west.

00:19:16.580 We do not have a ton of people in the Kennewick area.

00:19:23.620 We do have a person over in Walla Walla, and we got a little bit of distance from there to your

00:19:30.060 next closest members. But if you get on the other side of the Cascades, we got tons of members.

00:19:34.940 If you get up near Coeur d'Alene, we have quite a few members. And I know people do stuff

00:19:39.660 periodically through there. I know that near Leavenworth is where we're hosting

00:19:47.020 Charming of the Plow for a number of years. Not sure if that's where we'll have it this year up

00:19:53.560 there, but that's always been pretty active. And I know we have membership that travels through

00:19:58.820 that area quite a bit. So we do have folks that go through there very often,

00:20:04.160 and we'd love to see that area develop.

00:20:21.520 Got a question. Are Grimm's fairy tales heathen lore? What constitutes heathen lore?

00:20:28.820 Um, I'd say, I'd say in a way, I, it's an interesting question that you ask, because it's not as clean cut as all that.

00:20:45.680 So much of what we learn about the very ancient practices of our ancestors comes to us through indirect means.

00:20:55.820 very little of it, none of it was written as a religious text. The closest thing that was

00:21:02.400 written as a religious text was written as a poetic text and as a preservation of oral tradition

00:21:08.840 in the Eddas. But beyond that, we get so much of our lore from histories, from the sagas.

00:21:17.360 And in a way, we get pieces of that. I think that the high lore, when we think about our gods,

00:21:23.620 isn't passed down in a very clear way through Grimm's fairy tales but I think

00:21:28.120 folk tradition and folk ideology does make its way through there and those lessons and you got

00:21:36.280 to be careful it's not it's not a it's not a one-for-one lore source you have to dig through

00:21:45.160 it and kind of work for the lessons that it has but those lessons are lessons about our folk

00:21:52.900 and very often it's full of so many traditions from our folk so it does have value

00:22:01.000 a little bit in a lore sense it's not something that I would include in a list of lore but I

00:22:07.060 don't think including it is entirely wrong either I know it's kind of a wishy-washy answer you ask

00:22:13.460 what constitutes heathen lore certainly you know the sagas and the eddas are huge in that but other

00:22:23.220 works of history to that too i mean very few lore conversations don't involve uh tacitus's germania

00:22:30.180 and that was you know a historical and you know in a way a uh geographical travel guide to some

00:22:41.460 of the provinces and areas outside the provinces for rome it wasn't written for a religious purpose

00:22:49.460 but we still count a lot of that as lore i know various english histories works of of

00:22:57.540 straight up christian monks we consider part of our lore because they tell

00:23:02.580 very important pieces of what our ancestors believed and how they practiced so i think that

00:23:10.020 what constitutes our lore is very vast you can consider works of sociology and archaeology

00:23:17.300 having a a place amongst our lore even if they're completely secular and scientific because they

00:23:25.460 talk about from an abstract and an outside point of view what our ancestors did and how they did

00:23:33.460 it and it also talks about their material culture that helps you better understand the things that

00:23:39.700 they valued and put emphasis on um melissa asks what is the first thing structure wise

00:23:51.300 that will be placed on the property of sigerheim once it's ready so that's a good question um

00:23:59.060 we have just incurred a pretty good size debt to acquire sigerheim so the afa wise

00:24:09.220 we're going to wait until we have paid off that debt before we invest into other other building

00:24:15.860 projects on sigerheim individually though individuals in the afa that wish to move out

00:24:22.980 there and and build homes for themselves there that's the first thing that i believe is going

00:24:28.580 to happen and we're still in the process of figuring out who those those first pioneers

00:24:33.940 are going to be to make that happen but i think that's going to be that's going to be the first

00:24:40.100 the first step and those people are gonna gonna help kind of carve an area out and get uh you know

00:24:48.500 get a dirt road from the from the road into where they're where their home's gonna be and electric

00:24:55.220 and services to that area and we can branch off from there to the subsequent homes and buildings

00:25:00.420 that come there but that's going to be the first thing uh other two big things in you know the

00:25:08.900 first couple of phases on segerheim afa wise are uh our great hall that we're going to have there

00:25:18.420 again we we have it's going to be a little bit we've got a big debt to deal with and then we

00:25:23.700 need to figure out the financing and the construction and how we're going to do that

00:25:27.780 but i'm gonna have a big hall together at to feast to celebrate together in and also

00:25:34.420 you know a place for the afa administration to function from so we'll have a big hall

00:25:41.060 with industrial kitchen facilities so we can feed people there and host events there

00:25:48.340 you know the hall itself for people together and be kind of a multi-purpose area and an eating

00:25:53.380 space and a place to together and to celebrate and have talks and hang out and fellowship with

00:26:00.100 each other and then we're also going to have a section with um you know office space conference

00:26:06.340 rooms those kind of get the work of the a3 done spaces there she is hello my wife is

00:26:17.300 joining us from downstairs downstairs in my yeah in our dining room

00:26:28.020 welcome mandy glad to have you on people have been wanting you on this program for

00:26:32.180 months now so we're all really excited to have you

00:26:37.780 and there's my daughter there's three

00:26:39.940 she mentioned so i i will go back up to the top and get to some of these questions the first one

00:26:48.660 was tim had a question i kind of sort of answered but it was unexciting because i didn't really have

00:26:53.380 any do you have any any yule traditions from your childhood that you want to share

00:26:59.300 not really um really we were pretty a religious but we celebrated christmas

00:27:10.820 because that's what you do um

00:27:15.380 oh yeah actually yes there's there's only one thing i can think of and i'm sorry it's only

00:27:19.380 half my face but let me see um we would go to a very close family friends every christmas eve

00:27:27.700 and we would have we would have meatballs and just appetizers and we would just do presents

00:27:36.080 and it was we did that for probably 25 years actually um until the yeah until the woman that

00:27:43.900 was the host just became too old or old to host it but that's kind of the only thing that we would

00:27:52.240 really really do tradition wise you guys like seafood so here's a here's a uh a inside baseball

00:28:05.120 note from the flavelle house aubrey will be perfectly well behaved and silent but the second

00:28:12.000 one of us unmutes the mic to talk all of a sudden aubrey's got to make every noise she can think of

00:28:17.600 she's going to be going to bed in probably the next 15 or 20 minutes that's a game she likes

00:28:22.000 to play, just so you guys know. All right, so Christine has a question for you. Hey, Christine!

00:28:30.400 Mandy, how do you stay positive and loyal when people say negative things about the AFA,

00:28:36.000 your husband, and yourself? I couldn't always, especially when it comes to staying positive.

00:28:45.600 Matt and I do this every single day the AFA is is 95 maybe more percent of our lives and so

00:28:53.220 it's hard not to take everything personally because I mean you're talking about my family

00:29:00.880 um like when somebody leaves I used to just get so mad like how dare you how dare you

00:29:06.760 leave and then talk a bunch of lies about us or speak poorly about us when the day before we were

00:29:14.860 best friends. And I guess it's just gotten to a point where that stuff just doesn't really matter

00:29:22.080 anymore. We've, we've grown to such a level that those are the people that are the losers. They're

00:29:28.580 the ones that aren't in our family anymore. And it sucks to suck for them. They're not going to

00:29:36.620 get to enjoy all the awesome things that we are here now. Was that her question? Did I answer

00:29:44.620 question christine i hope that was your question i i'm distracted i think i think you of all the

00:29:49.180 women i know know exactly exactly about that well i think that mandy makes a really important uh

00:29:57.820 point there we take everything personal and uh maybe i'm sure there's a lot of people that don't

00:30:07.820 think that we should or would advise like don't take it personally but i think that one of the

00:30:14.300 the reasons what we have is so special and this works the way that it does is because it is a

00:30:22.340 family and because we do take it personal. I don't think I would be nearly as effective as

00:30:27.580 an ulterior gothy if I was able to just leave this, you know, leave it at work and not put

00:30:36.120 all of my heart into this. I'll tell you this for mine, not that you asked, but I'm interjecting

00:30:42.360 anyway i think it's relevant um it's always hard and we feel betrayed when people who like she said

00:30:51.240 they were our best friends we were super close and then all of a sudden the next day they split

00:30:54.920 with us and feel the need to attack the very next day the very next day and we were the worst people

00:31:01.640 in the world and they're saying things about matt that are just so unbelievably untrue and the

00:31:06.840 i get mad about those things and i stress about those things

00:31:14.940 but my wife gets sad about those things and i think the hardest thing for me

00:31:24.300 with betrayal and people saying negative things about us is watching my wife open herself up

00:31:34.440 to these, you know, to these people. And you'd never know it, but Mandy's not naturally the most

00:31:39.360 outgoing person. Fake it till you make it, baby. Well, her opening herself up and letting these

00:31:47.300 people in emotionally and giving of herself to these people, and then to see the sadness in her

00:31:55.020 face when they repay that so very poorly, that's the hardest thing for me. I can take it. I can

00:32:03.360 take a lot of it, but watching it hurt my wife is really hard for me. Thank you, Christine. You are

00:32:10.980 gorgeous too. Oh, sorry. I'm used to being on the other side of the chat. So we have another question

00:32:23.880 with dating culture being what it is. Most of us enter into marriage with baggage. Any advice on

00:32:32.500 how best to manage this we'll let you go first on this maybe um

00:32:43.220 oh i will say first off baby thank you that i don't ever have to to online date ever again

00:32:51.220 because that is a true nightmare and that was 10 years ago i can't even imagine what it's like now

00:32:55.860 um i mean i've got i've got my fair amount uh i just try to remember that

00:33:06.420 matt is not any of them and nothing that happened before i met him is his fault

00:33:13.640 or or really has anything to do with him um

00:33:17.480 as far as, I guess, if you mean like trauma, I, I really couldn't speak to that. I don't feel,

00:33:29.200 I don't feel like I could speak to that. Um, but yeah, I would say, um, I would say

00:33:38.920 if you have that much baggage, you, and this is what I would tell my girlfriends too. And this

00:33:44.000 is what I've told girlfriends over the years. If you have, don't go out dating. If you're not

00:33:52.480 somebody, somebody would want to date, date yourself first. Um, be someone that somebody

00:33:59.000 else wants to date, find out who you are and who you're actually looking for and not just who you

00:34:05.900 think you're looking for. Yeah, I think you guys are tough. I was ready for this to be tough. I

00:34:15.860 knew you guys were going to be tough. Well, so that's one of the things, and not only with dating

00:34:22.220 culture the way it is, but I don't know how much you want to share or whatever, but this is not

00:34:31.000 either Mandy or myself's first marriage. And, you know, we got together in our thirties,

00:34:40.200 in our mid thirties. So, you know, anybody who's been an adult that long has been through some

00:34:46.680 things and got some mileage on them. Well, we also met each other, probably one of the lowest

00:34:52.540 points in my life. And it was, it was a really unexpected time too. And I think that it was,

00:34:57.520 um, I mean, I, I knew immediately, like I, I called my best friend the moment my plane landed

00:35:03.860 and I was like, I met him. I don't know how it's going to work. I don't know how it's going to

00:35:09.100 work out. I don't know when I said, but it's done. And this, we had never had any, there was no

00:35:18.420 romantic anything at that point. But, um, yeah, no, I was, I was widowed before I met that. I

00:35:27.500 And I mean, it was probably 10 years before we even met.

00:35:37.220 So I had had time to process that as best you can.

00:35:43.500 But yeah, I mean, sometimes I think when you're not looking is really when you might be the most successful.

00:35:52.440 what so i think that some common advice for the baggage is to you know not compare who you're

00:36:03.320 with to the people that you've had in your past but i don't think that's possible um

00:36:09.960 i don't and maybe it's just i'm lucky because i got mandy but i don't

00:36:16.760 i don't do that in a negative way one of the things that's been cool is you know i feel

00:36:28.040 regret for wasted time on relationships before that didn't work out or you know

00:36:34.360 in retrospect were a bad idea but it's it if in a way it makes me appreciate what i have now

00:36:45.240 so much more and to see the things that make this relationship make this situation and make mandy

00:36:54.360 better than previous situations and previous people that i was with um one of the biggest

00:37:02.040 things as far as baggage wise with stuff i think that you know i had gotten really used to compromising

00:37:07.720 on a lot of things and i got really used to you know not having an house a true woman but just

00:37:13.320 being lucky having somebody that's you know open to me doing what i need to do it makes such a

00:37:19.560 difference having a marriage but first having a relationship and a marriage that's based around

00:37:26.680 our faith that that's kind of the point of commonality that brought mandy and i together

00:37:31.640 um we had mutual friends in the afa and at the time we got together i lived in anchorage alaska

00:37:38.520 i say anchorage i lived right outside of anchorage in a little town called palmer and mandy lived in

00:37:44.080 florida we were as far on this continent apart as you could realistically be but we had some

00:37:51.520 friends in common that that spoke you know spoke highly that they thought we'd like each other i

00:37:58.040 know the first time they went hard talking about it was we were driving through the

00:38:06.640 Tudor Bergerwald in Germany. Myself, the McNallans, and this guy Brad and his fiance Gilly. And they,

00:38:17.820 I forget what we were talking about, but they just went on and on about how much I, you know,

00:38:22.000 think Mandy was great and this and that, and how much we need to meet each other.

00:38:25.740 And that turns out that was, you know, only a few months before we actually did get to meet each

00:38:30.220 other. And they've been telling me the same thing. And I kept brushing it off. Like, that's

00:38:34.760 ridiculous dudes in Alaska. Couldn't be further away. Get away from me with that stuff.

00:38:40.160 But no, we met at winter nights in the Poconos that year. And

00:38:44.480 yeah, it was pretty, it was pretty amazing. And things, things happened at the right time.

00:38:50.940 And, you know, I, it's one of the ways that I have been hugely, hugely blessed in, in this life.

00:38:59.600 I've got another question from Fawn. Mandy, what does fidelity mean to you?

00:39:07.780 Did you already? So what have you already talked about?

00:39:11.220 I talked about some Sigerheim stuff with folks, and then I basically gave the definition that fidelity is not just a relationship.

00:39:18.780 Well, it's not just a romantic relationship thing. It basically means loyalty to to cause, to person, to leader, to mate, to comrades.

00:39:29.600 Yeah, I mean, I, that would be really what I would say. I don't, I don't do a lot of half measures. I'm kind of all in or nothing that will tell you, you're either my friend or my enemy, or a person I know, I don't really have levels for things like that.

00:39:48.980 So once that's been, for me, once that's been broken, there's a slim to none chance.

00:39:57.320 And it's something I'm working on because it's probably not the best trait, but there's a slim to none chance that you're getting back in.

00:40:04.140 And I unfortunately expect that of people as well.

00:40:10.080 And like Matt said, I tend to get hurt pretty badly when that's not returned.

00:40:15.360 And so Matt's it.

00:40:20.120 There's no, there's, I mean, there's no,

00:40:22.780 I was actually given an ultimatum shortly after Matt and I got together

00:40:31.800 that it was either my previous kindred or Matt and the AFA.

00:40:36.020 I had to choose.

00:40:37.700 There wasn't, there wasn't a conversation.

00:40:41.480 Spoiler alert.

00:40:43.180 Yeah.

00:40:45.360 just in case you were wondering, um, yeah, I, I'm an all or nothing kind of gal. So,

00:40:55.300 you know, that's,

00:40:59.240 this is something I've kind of, I've brought up before in our virtues discussions,

00:41:05.880 and I think it's worth, worth mentioning. Everybody likes to celebrate the positive

00:41:12.160 and talk about the people who are super loyal, but we don't want to acknowledge

00:41:19.640 people are disloyal and people are shady and two-faced. It's like with courage. We want to

00:41:27.420 acknowledge and talk about and crow about courage, but we get real uncomfortable when it comes time

00:41:32.940 to call out cowardice. And that's one of the things that I think is good to keep in mind.

00:41:39.840 and I don't really know where I'm going with this other than to just have this in mind.

00:41:47.300 The choice isn't neutral or loyal.

00:41:51.780 The choice is loyal or disloyal.

00:41:55.660 There is, you know, standing firm or there's being a turncoat.

00:41:59.960 And those. Those those reflect and make each other of them stand out, we are so repulsed by the person who is not loyal because they are standing in the light of the people that are champions of loyalty.

00:42:18.800 and uh you know by that same token we see how valuable it is to have somebody who is

00:42:27.380 to the bones loyal because we see the fairweather friends that you know that have no code um yeah

00:42:36.820 there's so i was nominated for this but my my choices were actually uh go see rob stam and

00:42:44.020 go see trent east who both had uh they stayed true to us when when because of us and sometimes

00:42:56.360 and because of us the things happened in their life that were not great and uh i'll never forget

00:43:03.080 that robin trent are some ride or die homies even though trent's ignoring me right now that's fine

00:43:11.380 so is his wife oh his wife ignores people hardcore hand bone come on so um another question

00:43:22.660 from ally what is the best marriage advice you've received what

00:43:30.900 what what advice would you this is not me the question was written strange

00:43:36.180 What advice would you give to AFA couples?

00:43:40.340 Mandy, go ahead and go first.

00:43:41.860 I can't think of any advice we were ever given.

00:43:44.460 I probably don't go to bed mad.

00:43:48.440 I'm not great about that because I keep grandma hours.

00:43:51.460 So I go to bed when I'm going to bed.

00:43:54.680 I'm going to bed.

00:43:55.860 Good night.

00:43:59.980 For AFA couples, I don't know a general,

00:44:02.700 like a general piece of advice um

00:44:07.120 oh gosh gosh i knew this was gonna be tough um i don't know you go you go anytime think

00:44:18.940 all right so that's my trick i always throw the questions to the guests first

00:44:24.940 so that i have time to compose an answer while they're scrambling but i think people are on to

00:44:30.200 at this point um i'm with mandy that really you know it's cliche but i think that the reason it's

00:44:36.440 cliche is because it's so often given because it is really valuable the don't go to bed angry thing

00:44:44.680 is really important um and i think that's the advice that i would pass on to afa couples to

00:44:51.640 any couple that i want to succeed um is is that don't go to bed angry thing resolve issues when

00:44:59.720 they come up and don't let them fester i think one thing that uh people do so i know mandy does

00:45:07.560 this mandy will have arguments in her head throughout the course of days with me that i'm

00:45:12.920 not actually participating in but the imaginary matt is participating in this argument so she'll

00:45:18.280 get all worked up on it why you gotta do me like that hey we're keeping it real so truth is also

00:45:24.520 one of our virtues so but by the same token i will do that too it is ridiculous mandy will catch me

00:45:31.880 and say who are you talking to i will go through and i will choreograph a physical sequence of a

00:45:38.760 fight with different people that i envision might say something that i don't like

00:45:44.120 well i think that we all do that um to one degree or another but

00:45:49.720 it's really important with me and i'm a little bit obnoxious about it but

00:45:52.680 but that whole what's wrong, nothing thing. Don't do that. If something's wrong, tell somebody

00:45:59.080 right then what's wrong and get to the other side of it. This, and I compared this with telling the

00:46:05.360 truth the other day, but I'll harken back to it. It's like the vomit struggle. You can sit around

00:46:11.620 trying for the entire evening not to throw up when you know that you need to and be miserable for

00:46:17.800 hours then as soon as you do you feel good you're happy you feel fine you get back to your life

00:46:23.880 and i think that's true with the things in your head i need to report an assault

00:46:29.320 not from me it is from my child those who are listening on the podcast

00:46:34.600 um but very seriously once you get that out and you purge that you get that off your chest

00:46:42.520 that's a much better place to be i'd say that's the the thing that i

00:46:47.800 i apologize my daughter is distracting y'all she is distracting me as well

00:46:58.280 um also what tony said in the chat about being honest like first off just don't lie to people

00:47:06.620 anyway because that's just bad it's just bad manners but if you're going to be honest with

00:47:12.400 anybody please be honest with your spouse or the person you're choosing to spend your life with

00:47:17.640 stop somebody's going to bed here very very soon because they chose not to take a nap

00:47:26.840 maybe they want to watch or something um no what i what i was saying though is once you get that

00:47:32.520 stuff off from your desk you can proceed i the thing that i like least is knowing that the

00:47:39.640 person that i love is upset with me about something and so i desperately flail to try to

00:47:45.800 get to the other side of let's get it out let's resolve it because the idea that somebody that

00:47:51.640 i care about is upset at me is very very hard for me to deal with so i think that the you know

00:47:59.320 don't go to bed angry thing is very important and sometimes and this is to men and women out there

00:48:06.360 sometimes that means you taking responsibility and owning it and taking one for the team and moving

00:48:13.640 on um it's not always about fairness i think and i believe strongly in this your motivation in your

00:48:21.480 relationship to make sure that your uh that your partner is as happy and fulfilled and

00:48:32.120 taken care of as possible and if that means that you take a hit for it fine

00:48:36.920 so if it's about you and you getting your just desserts and if it's about you winning

00:48:43.500 it's never going to be fair it's never going to work that way it's got to be about you taking care

00:48:49.000 of

00:48:49.400 i've been told that there is a question in the chat for aubrey

00:49:14.920 we will get to it at some point if she if she lets me focus a little bit here

00:49:21.080 okay um that's a strange thing so as an aside because this is my show and i will do this

00:49:26.200 as an aside your own for this for couples

00:49:29.560 your own children's noises will bother you natural other children's noises because you'll

00:49:40.500 be hyper aware of them i was uh so aubrey and the erickson's daughter are the same age her

00:49:51.220 daughter's alice they're they're just about the same age they're very close

00:49:56.100 so i was dealing with aubrey being a baby and screaming in the back seat and it short circuits

00:50:01.140 me when i try to drive to have a you know my child screaming in the back seat freaking out

00:50:06.500 crying throwing a fit doing baby stuff but i flew there and katie and i and her daughter carpooled

00:50:13.780 from minneapolis to baldershoff for baldershoff dedication same situation like 12 hours apart

00:50:22.020 i'm in the car there's an infant about the same age in the back screaming and yelling and losing

00:50:27.540 her stuff throwing a fit but something about the octave it's not my child making the noise i was

00:50:32.500 completely mellow i was like hey alice calm down it's okay and i'm just i'm completely fine if that

00:50:38.340 was aubrey i'd be white knuckled to the wheel like stressed so it's kind of interesting how

00:50:43.780 how the sound of your own child makes you act different so we got another question um fidelity

00:50:51.300 towards our loved ones is important can you elaborate on fidelity in the faith mandy what

00:50:59.380 are your thoughts i mean in terms of a relative that you might have beef with or just your

00:51:08.020 relatives in general um i think he's more talking about the fidelity towards the faith as opposed

00:51:13.620 to the one towards your loved ones you should elaborate on that okay i will

00:51:23.140 so and i think this goes with all fidelity i think this is uh

00:51:34.660 relevant with the people that you're with but it's also relevant with your faith

00:51:41.060 are you really also true are you really true to the a seer and loyal to the a seer

00:51:46.980 if you won't say so in public you know that's the difference between having a girlfriend having a

00:51:52.420 wife and having your side chick that you don't acknowledge um with our faith if you're if you

00:52:04.100 are faithful if you have fidelity towards our faith then pull your hammer out and wear it

00:52:11.940 be proud be also true hey what are you doing this weekend oh well i've got a thing with some people

00:52:19.460 by no and i think we all feel we all go through that phase but no me and my church are celebrating

00:52:29.140 ostara oh wow ostara what's that we'll see and then tell them or don't just say hey i'm also true

00:52:36.100 and that's what we do but being able to say that out loud and in public or hey i'm a member of the

00:52:41.540 austro folk assembly it's my church i love it i'm very excited about it even if you're scared that

00:52:46.980 people so i think that we're pre-gamed on this that like we we think of these very serious things

00:52:53.060 maybe i'll get doxxed maybe antifa will do something to me but i think another thing that's

00:52:59.860 very real maybe i'll feel uncomfortable because i'm going to say something nobody's heard before

00:53:05.060 and they're going to ask me strange questions and because they've never heard of it before

00:53:10.500 maybe they're going to think i'm silly and i think those are real concerns people have too

00:53:15.620 i know i have them i know that's something that goes through my head um that i've learned to be

00:53:21.540 better at but fidelity means standing with the acer standing with the outs of true folk assembly

00:53:30.260 standing with us not in the privacy of your own bedroom you didn't tell your mom and the

00:53:36.500 lights are out but you're secretly down with the cause no it means living this in the open

00:53:43.300 and being proud and showing that you're proud of people that's one of the important things you

00:53:48.020 know it's one of the most important things in a relationship too showing that you're proud of the

00:53:52.900 person that you're with and the same thing applies to our faith to our church um that's how i think

00:54:00.580 it applies in that sense and there's very extreme circumstances that it applies to but on an

00:54:08.900 everyday basis i think that's how it applies go ahead honey also you should want to be a person

00:54:17.380 that your partner is proud of proud to be with proud to present as well

00:54:25.860 sorry you know what i don't even know if that answers the question but it's extremely important

00:54:33.700 we have strange messages in society absolutely you should worry about making sure you look good

00:54:47.520 for your partner or you're somebody they're proud to be next to those things matter and they're

00:54:54.840 important and no matter how much we pretend they're not doesn't take away from their visceral

00:54:59.080 important importance you owe it to your spouse to be the very best version of yourself you can be

00:55:09.000 i think you owe that doubly to your children but you owe that to be the best version of yourself

00:55:15.960 and it doesn't just mean on ethereal values but look good be in good shape take care of yourself

00:55:23.320 try to spruce yourself up make yourself look nice it's important that your spouse is proud when they

00:55:29.960 stand next to you and uh that's something that i keep in mind and i hope i do well with something

00:55:35.640 i know mandy does awesome with uh i'm super i'm excited to have her on with us tonight it's uh

00:55:42.680 it's really a a privilege to have her with us on this i'm really proud of that

00:55:46.760 i did not want to be on here y'all i would just say you know but somebody i think it was fawn

00:55:54.560 came up with the term flavor flavor and i thought that was really fun it's not well you know that

00:56:00.060 that would sound good so mandy has been a flavor for just a few years now since uh 2017 but uh

00:56:07.820 i haven't been a flavor now for you know 40 41 and a half years i can tell you that that is that

00:56:14.460 is not as clever as it was when i was in third grade and it hasn't gotten any any clever since

00:56:20.220 then but it does seem to entertain everybody else no it's all good uh growing up in the time

00:56:25.420 of flavor flave that was a common common reference um but there you have it uh we got another

00:56:33.500 question question from tracy i would love for mandy to talk about the bloat she went to in

00:56:39.260 white springs florida so many years ago oh my gosh uh scott this was tell us the story i'm i'm not

00:56:48.060 sure um it's like 2009 or 2010 alan might have to correct me i went with my kindred and it was alan

00:56:57.340 and his boys i think all three of his boys and we had rented a rented a um a cabin

00:57:06.460 I don't know. Pardon me. Pardon me. Excuse me. Hey, can you turn my side off?

00:57:17.320 My wife is going to tend to our sleepy child. So here's another thing. Aside from all this,

00:57:24.860 she decided today she was not going to take her nap. So that makes her a little bit extra spicy

00:57:32.320 will come seven o'clock i think mandy's gonna go and uh lay her down for her uh for bed because

00:57:40.800 i think that's what time we're at here so she will be back and join us here in a minute um

00:57:52.400 we're on a roll they're doing some good stuff so now i'm sorting back for uh

00:57:56.000 just matt questions or just matt stuff i appreciate you guys kind of bearing with

00:58:00.320 me and my family tonight it's um yeah it's a little bit different than a normal show and this

00:58:09.440 is kind of a a view of what goes on in the the flavel house um i'm looking at i'm just looking

00:58:18.320 through the questions right now so please don't mind any dead air while i do that uh we've got a

00:58:24.080 question for aubrey what is your favorite food honestly her words aren't quite there yet so i

00:58:30.480 don't think she'll be able to answer that question um this is a little game aubrey likes to play

00:58:38.800 she'll find something she really likes so then we will go to the store and get her more of the

00:58:43.600 thing that she really likes then she all of a sudden doesn't like that anymore and she's got

00:58:49.120 us on that uh that several times now that's a that's a game she likes to play i don't know

00:58:54.960 she seems to really like matt she likes anything that involves cheese and my wife and mustard well

00:59:01.680 so my wife and i are are retarding her a little bit and we don't need to and we're trying to

00:59:05.920 correct that but it's the cutest thing because she has decided that cheese is she she so she

00:59:12.400 will refer to cheese as she she and we think it's so cute that we refer to cheese as she she

00:59:16.800 and i don't think that's helping her get it figured out a little bit no mustard i would say

00:59:23.600 i would say usually consistently pickles mustard she's definitely my child um and cheese

00:59:33.520 all right so maybe mandy has come back to us she did not put the child to bed

00:59:38.080 so um she got some muffins so that's fine people are probably judging me but she's

00:59:43.520 gonna have some muffins no she goes to bed i wish i could eat some of those muffins too they look

00:59:48.400 delicious so hopefully she's enjoying that uh heather asks matt could you tell us about what

00:59:54.400 sigerheim means to your family so

01:00:03.520 it's hard because there's as mandy said this is like 95 of our life

01:00:10.800 so i don't know a way to make a clean separation between what is matt's family stuff and what is

01:00:17.440 afa stuff but so much of the dream of sigerheim is to have my daughter around other kids

01:00:26.720 that are sane and other parents that are sane that will look out for her and

01:00:33.840 And to where I can look out for their kids.

01:00:37.400 And so she can be around a whole village of people that share common values, common beliefs, and common heritage.

01:00:46.300 That's huge.

01:00:48.660 We live, we love where we live.

01:00:52.120 If the option was, you know, just where to live as a single family, we love it here.

01:00:58.640 but I would rather live anywhere surrounded by my very best friends and by people who are part

01:01:07.400 of my AFA family than to be isolated somewhere else and so the idea is to be in this community

01:01:16.220 every day and not just live close to other AFA members but interact with them every single day

01:01:22.700 to live that village lifestyle with people that I care about and people that I share things with

01:01:31.040 and to have my family be a part of that and have that community to have you know if I'm out of

01:01:36.680 town I know there's people that are going to take care of my wife and my daughter if something goes

01:01:40.460 wrong or they need something or there's you know a plumbing issue or whatever else and by that same

01:01:47.540 token if our friends if other members who are there leave we can help look after their kids

01:01:52.300 We can help check in on their on their wives if they need help.

01:01:56.760 Having that is is such a that's been the dream.

01:02:01.060 That's been the dream since certainly since I joined, joined the AFA, since I found Ossetru and, you know, reading and being aware of our history.

01:02:09.440 That's been the dream all along. And so Sigurheim is a huge thing for that.

01:02:15.420 And I'm looking forward to being around other families and other couples that we love and sharing our life together on that.

01:02:25.680 And having something beautiful and special for our children to grow up in and grow up into means a lot to my family.

01:02:36.980 uh what is the requirement for homesteading there at siggerheim so we're working on that i wish i

01:02:47.600 had a really perfect answer for you there's certainly thoughts um one of the the first

01:02:53.920 orders of business now that we've purchased the land i'm sorry shay that was awesome

01:03:00.920 apparently there's awesome things going on in the side chat i don't know about

01:03:06.640 hopefully not at my expense but either one so what i was going to say though is um

01:03:18.880 fidelity is one of the requirements i'm sorry to plug tonight's a core topic but realistically

01:03:25.440 that's the idea is people that are going to be super afa loyal because it's a it's a significant

01:03:32.000 investment and it's a big deal um people that want to participate and make this their life and not

01:03:42.000 just a group they pay some dues to and are in and out but make this their church make this their

01:03:46.800 family and be willing to do that we want people who are going to be able to now we're going to

01:03:52.560 build eventually um like guest cabins or guest dormitory areas or however that's going to be

01:03:59.840 set up to where people who don't have their stuff figured out financially have a place to stay while

01:04:04.800 they do that but um ideally it's going to be uh ideally families i'm not saying a hard rule on no

01:04:13.680 singles but the idea is is families um who are willing to build a nice home there now that can

01:04:25.680 be a relatively humble home or it could be a mansion that depends i don't know your finances

01:04:30.960 but i want you to be able to build your dream there um but what it does mean is we're not

01:04:35.600 going to look like the res our stuff's going to be well taken care of we're not going to it's

01:04:40.160 not going to be junky it's going to be something worthy of our gods looking at and being proud of

01:04:46.080 and not being offended by all the beat up you know broke down vehicles in the lawn and trash

01:04:51.280 in the front that's not going to happen um the other thing is and i mean this is a financial

01:04:56.720 commitment to the success of siggerheim if we run through hard times if something comes up

01:05:02.240 it's going to be on the people in that community to make sure that it works and that that community

01:05:11.520 works and so that's going to take different uh different shape depending on what we're doing i

01:05:16.560 think that as a first step people who want to homestead there instead of the one percent hoff

01:05:23.280 toller probably to start out at ten percent hoff toller for living there

01:05:32.960 well again it's not like a a fee thing it's like a being a contributing member to making

01:05:39.280 sure that this community is successful one of the other things is it's never going to be fair

01:05:43.680 the first pioneers that go there are going to invest way more of themselves than the people

01:05:48.640 that come in you know number 10 number 11 number 12 they're going to have figured it all out they're

01:05:55.040 going to have to spend less and if the issue is fairness it's never going to be fair but the issue

01:06:01.520 if the issue is this is what you love and where you want to raise your family then we want to

01:06:05.680 help make that happen so the exact requirements we're having our law speaker alan and uh

01:06:13.680 and a couple other members who are attorneys look into that and try to get that figured out on just

01:06:18.960 exactly the shape that's going to take to where it's the most protected for what we're trying to

01:06:24.480 do but if that's something you're interested in reach out to your folk builder and they can get

01:06:29.600 you to me and we can get that figured out if it's something you're you're considering um

01:06:34.640 um king of cheese is asking his uh extremely question uh how are the three of you doing today

01:06:45.040 well i hope mandy how are you doing okay first off tony that was awesome i couldn't stop giggling

01:06:52.880 tony if you haven't been reading the chat babe tony has changed his name to king of shishi

01:06:58.240 so i'm doing a little bit sleepy but uh i'm doing good aubrey seems to be doing good she's a little

01:07:09.340 bit we just got home from soccer which is probably why she's eating all the food in the house

01:07:13.240 but she also did not take a nap so aubrey's been pretty good today we've had a pretty good day

01:07:20.080 um i'm doing great like i said i have been this is just me i stress don't worry about it but over

01:07:27.780 getting close to getting Sigurheim here the the problems always come in the last couple you know

01:07:34.980 in the last stretch of the race so I've been stressing that and it's really nice now to sit

01:07:40.700 back to have be able to that's finally real it's the thing we have that we have a piece of land now

01:07:46.500 we can reach out and touch that we're going to build our future on

01:07:49.640 and so i am i am overjoyed i am particularly proud tonight that my wife is on here with us

01:08:00.740 and uh mostly proud of my daughter when she's not making loud noises that are interrupting

01:08:05.780 i had a head injury remember that time she broke my nose she broke my nose y'all that's the first

01:08:11.900 broken bone i've ever had in my whole life she broke my nose so baby heads are a thing

01:08:19.620 And so we were I was sleeping and it was Mandy's turn to go in there and deal with Aubrey because she was having a hard time.

01:08:26.460 And this was probably a year ago. And so Mandy goes in there and I wake up to this like crash, boom, bang, there's chaos in the child's room.

01:08:38.500 I get up and I go in there. Mandy is unconscious on the floor and my daughter is standing up on the bed looking at her like confused as to how that happened.

01:08:48.400 And apparently they were in there laying down on the bed and it was pitch black.

01:08:54.240 Aubrey stands up. Next thing you know, she falls over like a tree and her head impacts Mandy's nose and breaks it and knocks her unconscious.

01:09:03.560 She lost consciousness three times.

01:09:06.960 And I went in there and it was the craziest situation.

01:09:10.760 So when you deal with toddlers, keep your hands up and be aware of where their head is at all times.

01:09:18.400 Okay. So I was just reminded that I walked away before I finished my answering my question about White Springs. So, oh, yes. Okay. I, I think I just talked about who was there. Um, I remember we did like a kind of fireside, like little informal thing. And then the next day, gosh, I really don't remember.

01:09:48.400 much about the ritual. It's been 12, 13 years. And then we went to Stephen Foster State Park,

01:09:56.740 which is right there. And that was really cool. I'm excited to go back to that because it should

01:10:01.880 be super close to the Hoff. I can't remember if I was a member of that. I must have been.

01:10:10.980 But yeah, so it was pretty cool for me to see that the location we were choosing was where I

01:10:14.920 held my first not backyard but actual went to a afa event and that was really cool

01:10:21.380 full circle for me it was weird one might say um don't say that in front of alan no i said it

01:10:30.960 appropriately i'm meaning it the appropriate way alan would celebrate me on this um specifically

01:10:38.460 for this event because he was involved in the weirdness uh so we got another question mandy

01:10:44.660 can you tell us about your journey into joining the afa sure um well i was raised sort of without

01:10:54.260 any religion so um yeah my mom didn't really practice anything and so but if you grew up in

01:11:03.780 the south you know that if you were staying over at a friend's house you were going to church with

01:11:08.900 them on sunday morning if you stayed over saturday night or if you stayed the weekend with them you

01:11:14.340 you were probably going to go to Bible Baptist church.

01:11:18.160 So did that a few times.

01:11:21.420 Didn't really do much for me.

01:11:23.680 Honestly,

01:11:24.620 my mom always used to used to say,

01:11:26.760 am I shouting?

01:11:27.400 I feel like I'm shouting.

01:11:29.000 Maybe am I shouting?

01:11:30.280 You're not shouting.

01:11:31.040 You're good.

01:11:31.740 You see how well he listens.

01:11:34.960 So my mom always used to say the phrase,

01:11:37.600 the church of God starts at home.

01:11:39.980 And that's always kind of resonated with me a little bit,

01:11:42.280 but yeah,

01:11:43.900 I remember that I had started dating, I was like 16 or 17 and I'd started dating this born again

01:11:49.840 Baptist, which again, if you're from the South, those are the worst ones. Um, but, uh,

01:11:59.600 yeah, I remember he had me go to a service with him and I don't remember what they were talking

01:12:07.620 about, but I just, I wish I could remember specific. Oh, it was a story of Job. They

01:12:12.560 were talking about the story of Job. And I remember, and I have always been just completely

01:12:16.640 horrified by that story, everything about it. And, um, I remember we left and I'm like, you know,

01:12:24.160 this just, I don't believe in this, nothing about this. And, uh, we broke up shortly after, but you

01:12:29.340 know, you're 16, 17 and, uh, went off to college and I watched the movie practical magic. This is

01:12:35.580 how old I am. And I was like, I'm going to be Wiccan. Wiccan is what I'm going to be. This is

01:12:40.660 what I am. And it is solely because of that movie. And I remember walking from my dorm and there was

01:12:47.700 this little, um, bookstore. This is in like rural West Virginia. The fact they even had this. Um,

01:12:54.120 and I bought some tarot cards because that's what Wiccans do. And I bought, um, what's named Gardner,

01:12:58.940 a couple of the Gardner books. And, uh, I know if there's ladies in the chat, y'all know which

01:13:03.680 what I'm talking about and I remember just this this is what I am and I remember you'd have to

01:13:11.440 this was before you could like you could order things from the internet but it's not like it is

01:13:15.060 today like you you get a catalog and I remember looking at the catalog and I'm gonna get this

01:13:18.680 I'm gonna get this cool pentagram because that's gonna be cool and but it never really never really

01:13:25.360 did much for me to be honest and I remember not really liking any of the people I ever met

01:13:31.460 through it and also just the realization that it's kind of hooey. Um, but it was just many

01:13:38.720 years later that I, um, a friend that I'd had for a really long time, he, uh, he started talking

01:13:47.160 about this thing called Alcitru and it was just kind of in the periphery cause I wasn't really

01:13:51.060 involved until finally one day I was like, what are you guys doing? Can I come? And I remember

01:13:59.540 going to my first ritual it was just a backyard bloat informal maybe like five people and it was

01:14:08.480 like wow just this is it this feels right and the very next day and we don't even really have

01:14:16.060 ravens in Florida so I don't even know how I saw one I was doing um if you are a runner in Florida

01:14:21.280 you know that there are no hills you just run on bridges that's your hill training and so I was

01:14:26.620 running on this bridge and I was coming down it and there was, to me, it was a raven. Maybe it

01:14:34.160 wasn't, but it was a very large blackbird. So it's a raven if it had the same effect. Right.

01:14:39.720 And it was just, just hollering at me. Just, just like, that's my raven. Nice. You're welcome.

01:14:47.760 Um, and it, I like stopped in my tracks, I almost tripped and I just got super breathless and it

01:14:53.820 just I called one of the people that were there and I talked to him about it and he's like that

01:14:58.580 sounds serious I'm not very esoteric if anybody knows me they probably know that and so I can't

01:15:05.820 really go into the like deep spiritual aspects of what happened but it just and the the one thing

01:15:13.660 about Ask True for me was that I never had to change anything that I already thought or felt

01:15:18.960 it was just a name for it um yeah so that's been about 14 15 years now i guess

01:15:35.040 all right so um trent asks mandy tell the truth is the banana sauerkraut thing actually delicious

01:15:43.680 or is matt just trolling i think delicious is not the best word it was not delicious however

01:15:53.520 it was edible i did have a second helping in fact i had it for breakfast the next day too

01:15:58.720 so it's weird but it really wasn't that bad law speaker she's misusing weird it is not weird

01:16:07.040 Oh, Helen's going to get me.

01:16:10.960 He is going to get you.

01:16:12.100 No, it is delicious.

01:16:13.340 She's mistaken, but she did have three servings of it and didn't complain.

01:16:17.340 It's awesome.

01:16:18.120 You will like it when I make it for you.

01:16:20.540 You'll like it.

01:16:22.860 It's better than anything produced by Megadeth.

01:16:28.020 All right.

01:16:30.320 I'm not going to go into that because that's not setting the bar high.

01:16:33.980 Trent is one of my most very favorite people on this whole entire planet.

01:16:38.240 I will never forget meeting him.

01:16:40.580 I am so glad and honestly humbled that he is such a close friend of mine.

01:16:45.260 Trent has really questionable taste in music.

01:16:49.460 That questionable is kind.

01:16:53.000 So Christine asks, can you two share with us your wedding ceremony?

01:16:58.160 How did that change your relationship with each other, the gods, and the AFA?

01:17:03.980 nick can you post that picture please and alan or i'm not alan i apologize mandy can you go ahead

01:17:11.820 and uh answer first for us the ceremony so this was our second marriage both of us and so

01:17:24.300 i don't know i i kind of did the really small thing the first time and so this was

01:17:28.540 was bigger for me. I, we planned this, we got engaged at Ostara and then we got married at the

01:17:36.420 midsummer. So it was what, like three months, maybe like less than three months, I think.

01:17:42.060 So honestly, we didn't, we, I'm not, I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of weddings at events

01:17:50.900 because I think it takes away from the wedding. However, we knew that the people we would want

01:17:58.440 to invite would be coming from so many places that they would all kind of already be at this

01:18:03.700 one place. So we, we planned it specifically at the very end of midsummer, once midsummer was over

01:18:08.280 because we didn't want to put a bunch of people out. Anybody that knows Matt and I know that we

01:18:14.620 do not like to inconvenience people and we will actually inconvenience ourselves

01:18:21.300 so much in order to not inconvenience other people but um yeah we uh I I knew kind of

01:18:30.880 immediately that I wanted it to be Alan um doing the ceremony and uh because he's special for both

01:18:37.440 of us he was my very first folk builder and uh yeah we just kind of planned it really quick and

01:18:43.900 sorry you go ahead baby all right so I will give a plug to Aubrey she is doing really good on her

01:19:05.700 potty training she's pretty squared away on that you guys got a little inside view into her

01:19:10.300 She has to announce it when I'm home, when I'm home, she has to announce it.

01:19:14.020 Well, she gets a reward.

01:19:15.260 She gets these M&Ms and that's part of it.

01:19:20.340 So we both and this is why I misspoke and said Alan earlier.

01:19:25.420 We both wanted Alan to perform the service so much.

01:19:30.780 He's been really important to the both of us.

01:19:34.100 i don't know alan alan is one of my closest friends certainly but he's one of the people that

01:19:46.820 he's one of the people that i look up to and i respect in a way that you know differently than

01:19:56.920 other people um i'm you know i'm getting used to my my also gothic swagger and you know i'll

01:20:05.400 own the room with a lot of people but i'm pretty deferential towards alan i'll still fight for

01:20:12.840 what i gotta fight for make stuff happen but alan is one of those people that i really look up to

01:20:18.920 in his opinion he could whip you whoa hold on my jujitsu ain't no joke ain't no joke

01:20:26.600 we'll have to see we'll have to see maybe we'll test it i hope not i hope not i don't want none

01:20:30.840 but realistically um alan yeah alan's somebody that i really look up to and it was such an honor

01:20:38.600 to have him do our wedding um we did our wedding at odenshoff i think we were the first wedding

01:20:44.920 at odenshoff i think so too i think so too um it was midsummer of 2017 and it was 114 degrees that

01:20:54.600 day and me having just moved from florida i remember people like oh it's gonna be so hot

01:21:01.320 i didn't notice a thing and even in a full wedding dress uh with crinoline and everything

01:21:06.460 this dress was from the 1950s so that thing was heavy um i was not i didn't even sweat i didn't

01:21:12.420 even notice it that event we had people falling out the whole time there were like kids passing

01:21:18.060 out and i was i was fine it's strange perhaps it's weird i was i mean you can see in the picture i

01:21:26.060 was wearing all black i think i had a red um vest on under that um but yeah i was wearing a three

01:21:35.500 piece black suit and it was 114 and i don't handle heat like i sweat really really easily i'm i

01:21:45.180 don't handle heat well at all but that day i don't even remember it being hot i mean i remember

01:21:49.500 being hot because of the other people that were falling out but um yeah i i was fine like my mind

01:21:58.540 was so focused on the day and what i was doing um and we wrote our own vows which i wish i had

01:22:05.820 written my noun because i knew what would happen is i would just like and that's exactly what

01:22:10.300 happen i don't even remember i honestly couldn't even tell you what i said that was that that

01:22:16.620 doesn't matter that all of that i was there with just this woman that i love so much in front of

01:22:25.500 people that i care about at the first half of the astro folk assembly with this person that meant so

01:22:32.380 much to us performing the ceremony hey there's no way you could mess that up it was amazing

01:22:38.700 um and it was ready to go afterwards people were ready to go ready go it's hot we're out in the sun

01:22:47.220 people there was some stiff competition on getting the seats that had a little bit of shade

01:22:52.460 um yeah we learned we learned a lot just in terms of winning at that event we there's some things

01:22:58.760 knowing now i would do differently like certainly our pictures our pictures were all taken at this

01:23:03.040 really strange angle that I definitely regret. No, stop. Look at the picture that it's up. It's

01:23:13.180 beautiful. We have beautiful wedding pictures. It was a beautiful wedding. Most beautiful bride

01:23:17.960 in the entire world. It was amazing. It was neat because it was a really good midsummer as well.

01:23:25.160 I think that at the time, that was a record-setting Midsommar.

01:23:32.000 So for the wedding, my dad and my stepmom came.

01:23:35.960 And because it was Midsommar, they decided to spend the weekend there with us.

01:23:40.920 So they brought their RV and they stayed there for the weekend.

01:23:44.320 And that was really important to me, too.

01:23:46.420 that's the moment that they realized that their son wasn't just some loser doing this

01:23:55.940 crazy pretend thing or whatever they thought it was that's when they got to see that it was very

01:24:05.500 real they got to go to our first half that was a real you know they could reach out and touch it

01:24:12.940 and lean against her. They got to see that. They got to see well over a hundred people there

01:24:20.560 who were very devoted to what we were doing. And on a personal note, it's just neat. Like watching,

01:24:28.300 I came from being, you know, some lame, nerdy kid in high school that was nobody.

01:24:35.020 it was i think very interesting for my dad and carol to watch me around some some really hard

01:24:43.260 dudes that were treating me very deferentially that meant something to them that oh okay he's

01:24:49.660 doing something important i remember they went to our uh our auction and like my dad's trying to find

01:24:55.900 deals and he's just blown away like i watched this on his face when he was figuring it out

01:25:03.100 because people are bidding like 400 on a book that he knows damn well you can go on amazon and get

01:25:10.540 for like 50. and so the moment and i saw it on his face when it clicked no these people aren't

01:25:18.780 participating in a for-profit auction they're donating to their church and my dad and i don't

01:25:25.660 mean this disrespectfully at all um but materially that's always been very important to him he's been

01:25:32.620 very successful very ambitious in his life he's got two different retirement streams coming in

01:25:39.260 he has managed his finances extremely well so is my stepmother and they they both

01:25:46.940 they both live very very well and more power power to them i'm very proud of them for that

01:25:52.220 they associate dollar value with the value of things them being able to see the tangible value

01:26:02.600 of what I was doing that meant a lot and that showed them that this is real and so that was

01:26:09.780 special too it was good to have them there my mom was she was pretty pretty far into her dementia

01:26:16.880 at that point but she was there and i i'm i'm glad that she was there with us

01:26:22.400 um as far as how did it change our relationship with each other i really don't think that much

01:26:29.520 we had already been living together for like pretty much the duration

01:26:35.200 i don't know something like that we're together well we were together for about two and a half

01:26:44.620 years at that point right and we've been living together for probably two months after you moved

01:26:51.420 to florida so we've been living together for about two and a half years so i mean i think our

01:26:56.780 our relationship with each other didn't change that much um

01:27:04.860 but it was

01:27:08.540 so i don't think it was a change but the evolution was complete was appropriate

01:27:14.620 if we're going to do this we have to do it right you get married you're not going to be

01:27:21.820 facebook married and just change your last names yeah you go through these things that are real

01:27:27.180 to do this right and to represent that at the highest level and getting married was you know

01:27:34.540 never a question that was always very important to us it's not just as good to be facebook married

01:27:41.180 or just as good to live together but not actually be married no we wanted to get married in front

01:27:47.020 of the gods we wanted to be legally man and wife um we wanted that for our life for our future and

01:27:57.100 i think that was really important we were very honored to be able to get married

01:28:00.620 at odin's off we went and we had you know just a couple of days worth of honeymoon but over in

01:28:06.060 lake tahoe and that was really cool we went i got a room for 27 in lake tahoe 27 a night

01:28:13.740 it's because it had no air conditioning i don't think any of them do no that's not true all of i

01:28:21.100 guarantee you all of the casino ones do but i like the place we stayed it was fine it was great

01:28:26.940 it was beautiful to be at lake tahoe it was really nice the first night after we got married we got

01:28:31.900 there and we're super hungry and mandy's still wearing her dress and we went to uh this burger

01:28:37.580 place there and that was really cool and people bought us around and it was it was just neat it

01:28:42.620 was a really really nice thing um yeah i got i got nothing but uh but great memories about that

01:28:51.820 because somebody needs to go to bed so uh or when i disappear i i've told nick to make me disappear

01:28:58.460 temporarily. And so just so it's not a surprise. All righty. So Mandy may leave us here at a

01:29:07.180 moment's notice. Mandy, what is the best advice that you can give to couples who are both in

01:29:12.460 leadership as far as balancing public life and private life? Don't make your private life public,

01:29:21.620 I think is my biggest piece of advice.

01:29:25.460 There is nobody that needs to know about your private business besides you.

01:29:30.720 It doesn't need to be on Facebook.

01:29:31.900 It doesn't need to be on Instagram.

01:29:33.640 Keep your private life private is probably what I would say.

01:29:44.120 I will leave it there.

01:29:45.240 It was asked for Mandy's advice, and that is Mandy's advice.

01:29:48.600 Do you have a rebuttal?

01:29:49.460 Well, not really a rebuttal, but this is my advice on any of that, when you have compartmentalized sections of your life, and that's fine.

01:30:02.040 But live honestly who you are, and they synchronize.

01:30:08.400 Don't have it to where if somebody secretly got a window into your private life, like you're this whole different person.

01:30:15.300 Be who you are at all different points.

01:30:17.740 by what just happened to the screen. I'm assuming that Mandy is going to take my daughter to bed

01:30:22.420 and that's cool. I'll farm through the questions and see if I find some bad ones. If not, I will

01:30:27.460 try to entertain you until my wife gets back. But yeah, I would say as far as balancing

01:30:33.560 balancing things, be authentic all the time. There's nothing worse than finding that secretly

01:30:42.540 this person is a completely different person than private. We all have different sides of

01:30:48.600 our shelves that we show different people. And of course, that's the case. I mean, you guys get

01:30:55.380 on here and I'm trying to dress nice and whatever. If you guys saw me sitting on the couch and my

01:31:00.880 no shirt on and my pajama pants playing with my cats and my daughter, it's going to be a little

01:31:05.720 bit different, but you're not going to fundamentally see a different person. And I think that's really

01:31:11.360 important um let me take a second to look through the questions here and see if there any uh just

01:31:21.600 Matt's stuff. Okay. Here's a, um, here's a good one. Or, uh, I don't mean to say Cavalier. Here's

01:31:43.240 an important one. Um, Antonio asks, what's the best way to handle with people you cared about

01:31:50.720 that has depression i need advice uh first thank you antonio i i recognize your name for being on

01:31:58.160 here so often and participating i'm really glad that you keep watching the show as far as helping

01:32:05.200 people deal with depression it's it's really um this is an important topic and it's hard to give

01:32:19.440 blanket advice because the root cause for depression is so very different depending upon the person

01:32:30.800 hey sweetheart

01:32:35.920 so it one of the things that i deal with a lot

01:32:42.800 as a gothi is dealing with people who are going through um through depression in their life

01:32:49.440 Especially, that was a huge thing during the COVID lockdowns.

01:32:57.660 So many people that struggled with depression had their normal means of dealing with that taken away from them.

01:33:06.780 Obviously, it was very hard for them to go in person to any kind of therapy that they may have been going to.

01:33:13.520 But just activities that they had to help cope with their depression.

01:33:17.780 if they like to go out to the bar while those are closed if they like to go to the game

01:33:21.620 when they couldn't do that if they liked to you know go do anything

01:33:30.900 anything that they had in their life to cope with those things was taken from them it was a very hard

01:33:36.820 time um as far as advice that i would say on dealing with people with depression

01:33:44.980 don't assume you can fix it don't assume that you have to have

01:33:55.060 good night aubrey don't assume that you have to have the right answer that's going to change it

01:34:02.140 for them. Um, it's, this is something I tell our go thar too. You didn't break it. And I say that

01:34:15.940 I don't know if maybe you were the cause of this person's, but I'm assuming that you're not,

01:34:20.620 you didn't cause this problem. The only thing you can do is try to help. So everything you do

01:34:27.840 counts and is good and matters. You don't have to have the right answer that fixes it. What is

01:34:37.000 always beneficial to do is to be able to listen and to actively listen. Don't let there be any

01:34:44.420 doubt that maybe you're not paying attention or that maybe you're not fully devoted to it,

01:34:50.600 But you don't have to have you don't have to solve it. But, man, that's terrible.

01:34:58.520 Yeah, it hurts hearing you say that. Man, I I hear what you're saying.

01:35:04.580 I'm so sorry you're going through that. But I hear you. I love you. I care about you.

01:35:09.940 Is there anything I can do? And just that helps a lot more than you would think that it does.

01:35:17.920 um if somebody's going through depression one of the things that i've noticed in my time as a

01:35:26.060 goethe is when people are depressed they want to pull away and retreat and kind of curl up in a

01:35:31.060 ball and pull away from all their friends and family it's the exact wrong thing to do but it's

01:35:38.140 what all of us including myself want to do it's what our tendency is to do if you have someone

01:35:45.920 you care about who's depressed, see if you can hang out with them. You don't have to take them

01:35:50.580 out and do something crazy. You can just sit there and watch TV and have something to eat with them.

01:35:55.620 But surround them with love and with people that care about them. The more you can be around them,

01:36:04.400 and again, don't force yourself in, but if they're open to it, have them be around people

01:36:12.040 and just listen to them and there's something that's very valuable about somebody who's

01:36:18.520 willing to witness what you're going through acknowledge it validate it and give you a hug

01:36:26.360 and be there for you and sometimes it's the best thing you can do and if there's more specifics

01:36:32.600 i could advise a little bit more specifically but as a general rule that's what i would say

01:36:38.440 and thank you for asking antonio i think it's a really good question and so many of our people

01:36:43.560 today do struggle with depression so that's a really good thing you ask

01:36:56.120 again i'm farming the questions here to see some

01:36:58.920 just matte ones and i'll go back and get the other ones here when my wife rejoins us

01:37:08.440 Oh, I'll go ahead and take ownership of this one. At what age slash economic status do you think a man is ready to marry? That depends on the man. And I know that's a cop out answer, but it really, really does.

01:37:23.720 um in 2020 so in times past we have examples of people at very you know 15 16 17 that they're

01:37:35.360 grown men they're holding a shield in the shield wall they're fighting for their country they're

01:37:42.560 fighting for their king they're raising a family they're providing we had times where men grew up

01:37:49.520 very, very early. But in 2022, we have times where men grow up very, very late. Maybe the 15-year-old

01:37:59.800 that I mentioned from 1600 that was a grown man, we have guys that are 27 that aren't as mature as

01:38:09.160 that young man. So I don't think I can put a specific age on it. But what I want to dispel

01:38:18.820 is this myth of economic status any economic status um you can be making zero get married and

01:38:32.100 start a family um there's a couple things and i know this is controversial there's a difference

01:38:41.540 between what i would vote for and what i would take advantage of and by take advantage i don't

01:38:47.540 mean anything shady our system is structured a certain way if there are benefits set aside to

01:38:55.860 provide for you if you are young economically disadvantaged and you have children

01:39:02.900 take as much of that as you are legally entitled to take if you don't then my tax dollars are going

01:39:12.660 to go to other groups of people and not to my own people if we're going to be taxed for it just the

01:39:19.380 same i want my tax dollars to help my people just like other folks want their tax dollars to help

01:39:26.580 their folks so you're in take everything you're entitled to to make that work for you and your

01:39:33.540 family i have seen too much in life that if you wait for the perfect time then time passes you by

01:39:42.020 and you find yourself old and alone and barren and you know wow i finally got my

01:39:49.220 finances figured out and i'm 60 and you're you're kind of out of luck um

01:39:56.660 i'll say this and it wasn't so much economics it was just thinking that i had forever

01:40:01.940 and not taking the time we didn't have aubrey until both of us were 39 years old

01:40:09.300 we were very fortunate that that's something we were able to have happen

01:40:15.140 that was our shot and we could have very easily missed it the both of us had spent most of our

01:40:24.820 you know child producing years and we'll get to it when the time's right and if you play the game

01:40:33.640 like that the clock will run out on you before you know it so i think that uh

01:40:41.560 but here's another thing so you said it's not just economic and you said what age but it's not so

01:40:46.600 much the age it's the maturity what i would say is don't do if you still need to be at the club

01:40:54.600 every night going home with a different ship don't get married and try to beat a square

01:41:03.640 You need to be the kind of man that so I'd I'd say this and I'm this is a convoluted answer, but there's a lot of different factors to it.

01:41:19.080 You need to be at a point where you can be the man that you would want your daughter to marry before you decide to marry somebody else's daughter.

01:41:29.160 women are primed very early to want to get married to this guy and if you're not ready to be that guy

01:41:41.540 then it's probably not a good time for you to be married and that changes in the course of a man's

01:41:49.280 life. At least I know it did for me. So if you still need to measure your success by how many

01:41:58.820 women you can get to go home with you, I'm not faulting that. Don't get married when you're in

01:42:09.120 that phase. It's not fair to you. It's not fair to your wife. It's not fair to your family.

01:42:13.860 get to a point where you want to be and can legitimately try to be the man that you would

01:42:25.100 want a future daughter of yours to marry. And then you're okay to marry someone else's daughter.

01:42:33.300 And I hope that's, I hope that's meaningful.

01:42:36.260 Again, I know I'm skipping through the questions differently because I'm waiting for Mandy to get

01:42:48.740 back. Okay, so this is a really interesting question. Thank you, Allie. As a Goethe,

01:42:57.260 have you ever been asked to marry a couple you knew were not going to work?

01:43:02.360 no so far i haven't but i do anticipate that's a very likely thing to have happen

01:43:12.780 i did marry a couple one time that i didn't know very well but they wanted me to do it

01:43:21.040 and and i did and i don't blame myself for this but i was really offended that that marriage

01:43:29.900 only lasted a couple of months and i don't feel like either of them tried very hard to make it

01:43:34.620 stay i don't know their relationship i don't know all of the details and i'm not trying to call them

01:43:40.540 out personally but i think that's the closest i've come to the question that you're asking

01:43:47.260 one thing our gothar really try to do and i know that we have varying degrees of how

01:43:52.860 intrusive this is depending on the circumstance but we do try to do a little bit of marital

01:43:58.060 counseling before we perform a wedding to help that couple make sure that they're ready to take

01:44:05.740 that step now we don't push that we don't force that so it's on them but we would like to provide

01:44:13.820 that so that they know this is something they want to do and i think with a couple in question

01:44:20.220 we tried that a little bit and uh but yeah that one stuck with me because it was really

01:44:25.980 i don't like doing that and then having people not take it seriously

01:44:30.700 so uh that's the closest i've come and i hope that answers the question

01:44:35.420 okay so we have another question again from chelsea uh and i think this is a good question

01:44:48.220 is Pennsylvania Dutch heathen lore.

01:44:52.640 I love these quotes.

01:44:54.240 Kissing don't last, land lasts.

01:44:57.280 And to a friend's house, the way is never long.

01:45:02.700 I feel it's deeply ancestral and relevant.

01:45:05.520 Is it? Of course it is.

01:45:07.960 Folk customs are really important.

01:45:09.880 You don't have to have the name of one of the gods

01:45:13.120 in a quotation for it to be meaningful

01:45:15.420 and for it to be relevant to our faith um that folk wisdom that's passed down through our cultures

01:45:24.980 is is lower it is our folk soul it is our gods it is our faith now every little quirky saying

01:45:36.900 your grandma says isn't holy writ but yes i would say a lot of pennsylvania dutch tradition

01:45:45.180 comes directly from our lore and our culture. I will butcher the word for that. Maybe I will

01:45:52.960 butcher the word for that. What is that? Ogawe? I'm not sure how it's pronounced. But I know that

01:45:59.400 the Pennsylvania Dutch hex signs are always something that have been really cool. That's

01:46:05.540 something that Githya Pat Hall was really into, and she did a lot of those. And those are absolutely

01:46:13.360 our cultural current with our symbols and our runology in her case. So yes, I think that

01:46:22.340 Pennsylvania Dutch culture absolutely speaks to our lore. Now you have to look at it through a

01:46:27.700 critical eye, but certainly that's part of our heritage. And we do ourselves a disservice to

01:46:33.560 discard it just because it doesn't have some kind of Viking coat of paint slapped on it.

01:46:39.240 So, yeah, I think so. Definitely. My wife has rejoined us. I'm going to go try to find where

01:46:45.380 the last question was that you answered and see what we can do with that. There's a book we have

01:46:50.180 to read every night and it takes us a couple extra minutes. That's okay. All right. I think

01:47:00.620 I'm where we're at. All right. Cliff asks, hey, Mandy, we see asks all the time from the fellas.

01:47:09.240 How do I find an ousted true wife or similar?

01:47:12.600 Do you have any advice for women who are looking for an ousted true husband?

01:47:18.600 Among so many fellas.

01:47:22.260 I would say not much different than the advice I gave earlier.

01:47:26.540 Just be someone that somebody wants to be with.

01:47:30.380 Be true to yourself.

01:47:31.580 um if you're gonna come into these circles don't don't go hoeing around uh people see that people

01:47:41.660 talk um your past is your past but um just just be a woman of quality a woman that people want

01:47:50.220 to be around people that a man would be proud to have on his arm um in terms of advice i didn't

01:47:57.780 realize and i mean this was eight or nine years ago that um single women weren't really coming

01:48:07.280 around in these circles i i didn't know that i just was coming around um i lasted exactly one

01:48:15.300 national event but um yeah i i would say don't be scared to come to an event and even if

01:48:27.740 has to be a larger event um i know it can be super intimidating you don't really know what's

01:48:33.420 what's going on who's going to be there um is it going to be a sausage fest is it going to be

01:48:40.000 just all women anymore it could be could be any of those things now man um but yeah i would i would

01:48:50.040 say if you're hesitant if you're not a member yet reach out to one of our folk builders and we have

01:48:57.400 so many female folk builders now and they don't even necessarily need to be in your state but

01:49:01.400 reach out to one of us you can reach out to me um and uh yeah we'll talk to you but see what

01:49:09.400 we're about instead of seeing what you might see written about us all right um can you please talk

01:49:19.960 about the importance of shared values in a relationship slash marriage or even friendships

01:49:26.760 thanks go ahead and take that one first i really couldn't imagine it any other way i mean

01:49:33.720 i briefly for maybe less than a year dated somebody who was a strict catholic he had

01:49:38.600 zero interest in also true like zero um i had zero interest in catholicism i will say

01:49:44.760 i've never been to mass before and mass was mass was interesting not enough that i would

01:49:49.240 want to convert or anything but just mass is super interesting i i love the traditions i love the

01:49:55.160 the rituals um i honestly i want to compare it to football in the sec like um there's football but

01:50:02.740 then there's just all the awesome traditions that go with it um and that was that was really lovely

01:50:09.020 i went on a to a midnight mass service and i think there was one other one i was just trying

01:50:15.700 to be supportive it turned out that guy was kind of a jerk so it worked it didn't work out worked

01:50:21.280 out? I don't know. I don't remember the question. Oh yeah. And since then, I can't imagine it any

01:50:37.300 other way. And Matt and I are pretty, I don't know if it's unique, but we're only a month apart in

01:50:41.900 age and we were raised kind of similarly. So we know all the same jokes. We almost never, ever,

01:50:48.100 ever have to explain the joke. We both get it. Always. Almost always. He's dumb. He's dumb sometimes.

01:51:01.060 Maybe. But yeah, I just can't, even if he wasn't my husband, he would probably still be my best

01:51:10.780 friend. Um, because I mean, everything in terms of we both, man, if you know us in person, you

01:51:19.980 know, we are, we are eaters. We are excited to eat. If we know, and we don't eat out a lot because

01:51:26.280 we're both on pretty strict macros. I am particularly right now, but, um, if we know

01:51:31.900 we're going to go out, we will talk about it for days. If we know we're trying someplace new,

01:51:36.780 we'll be we'll be looking at the menu three four days in a row I mean it's the buffet Matt and I

01:51:44.760 that's how I knew it was love when we went to the buffet and there was no judgment from inside

01:51:49.600 in fact I had finished one plate and he's like you're going back for more right I was like

01:51:54.180 um but uh yeah just music the the sing-alongs we have in our car are ridiculous we probably

01:52:05.240 alienate anybody that drives with us um any of it i just can't imagine another way i i don't

01:52:15.400 ever want to imagine it being another way um yeah i if you're not if you don't have that i'm sorry

01:52:29.080 is that rude if that was rude i'm sorry no we're keeping it real truth is one of our

01:52:34.760 virtues truth is is cliff's virtue and cliff would approve um if you don't want the truth don't ask me

01:52:45.640 no i appreciate that and he keeps it real so uh shared values it's

01:52:56.120 it's huge and it's the thing that stays

01:52:59.560 it stays solid throughout the years i mean circumstances and life change your situations

01:53:08.740 economically change um you know having kids is a huge change there's so many variables but if

01:53:18.920 your core values and core beliefs match up that is something solid to hold on to whether you're rich

01:53:26.440 or you become poor, whether you're successful or you're not, no matter where you live, where you

01:53:33.960 go, what you do, if you have those same core principles that you share, it's huge. And

01:53:41.440 everything Mandy talked about, all the different commonalities make up so much of that day-to-day.

01:53:48.220 um you need to find that with the person you're going to build a life with

01:53:54.980 and it's very easy to assume that you'll build that down the road if you can just get decent

01:54:02.100 you know raw material to work with but that's very very hard to count on and i think that

01:54:08.260 seldom comes true the way people want it to find somebody that has those shared core principles

01:54:16.260 And that's why I think it's so important that people find their mate within the AFA, is that they have our church as a foundation to build their marriage on.

01:54:28.440 I think that's really important. It made all of the difference in my life and so many of us.

01:54:37.340 And I think that it will in yours as well.

01:54:41.240 So the next question is from Sarah.

01:54:43.780 When I first joined the AFA, both Matt and you posted photos of your gym time together.

01:54:50.540 Do you feel that time together helped strengthen not only your bodies, but your relationship?

01:54:57.000 Oh, yeah, absolutely.

01:54:58.220 We don't get to go to the gym together anymore because our gym doesn't.

01:55:02.340 We go to the best gym in the world and there's only two complaints.

01:55:05.520 One, this is Andre.

01:55:08.820 This is Andre.

01:55:09.600 we go to the best gym in the world. And the only two complaints I have are the weekend hours

01:55:15.220 and they don't have childcare, which I've talked to the owner and it's just the liability is just

01:55:21.640 so ridiculous, ridiculously expensive that I don't blame them. But yeah, that was big from

01:55:27.580 the start. I wasn't as big into strength training until I met Matt. And then all that changed when

01:55:35.900 he would, can I do that? My arms aren't in the thing. Um, my arms aren't as oppressive,

01:55:42.160 but he better watch out because I trained with a, an Olympian. He's going to Olympia next week.

01:55:47.480 Um, but, uh, yeah, it's, it's huge. Um, the, the mental benefits, the physical benefits just,

01:55:55.740 I mean, and you, maybe it's controversial, but you, you want to be somebody aesthetically,

01:56:03.220 physically, mentally that your partner is proud of at the end of the day. And I mean, it's taken

01:56:09.780 me a long time to lose the baby weight. I was like, I'm not going to be the one of those ones

01:56:15.460 that's going to gain all this weight when I'm pregnant. And I did everything right. I followed

01:56:20.680 a pregnancy program. I went to the gym five days a week. I had meal prepped. I gained, I still gained

01:56:27.300 almost 60 pounds. I really have no idea what I could have done differently. But in fairness,

01:56:31.960 they did close the gym at the last two months that I was pregnant. Anyway, yeah, I, where

01:56:39.740 am I going? Oh, it's never been lost on me that Matt is a, in terms of our circle as

01:56:48.240 a public figure, which by default makes me one too. And I want to make him proud. I want

01:56:54.460 to be proud of the person that I present in photos or at events. Yeah, it's huge for us. We

01:57:06.040 go to the gym every single day. I go at about 5 a.m. between, closer to 5.30 now, between 5.30 and

01:57:12.020 5.45 a.m. when they're both sleeping so that I can get it done. Because if you're a mom, you know

01:57:17.080 you have to do it when you can. And that's when I can. And then I come home and I do some type of

01:57:22.720 Cardio. I tried to incorporate Aubrey in that, but the weather hasn't been conducive to that. So

01:57:26.800 I have a spin bike here at the house, thankfully. That thing has saved me. I tell you, I'm not a

01:57:31.220 home exercise person, but that sucker, I've had it since almost two years now, I guess, maybe.

01:57:38.340 Yeah, I guess about two years now. And I love it. I've never taken a spin class in my life. This is

01:57:43.300 not sponsored. But I know it's huge for us. Our schedule is very much around when the other one

01:57:56.800 is going to go to the gym. And there's never a like, hey, honey, let's do this instead of going

01:58:03.540 to the gym. Like never. There are times where if he is like banged up or sick, I'm like,

01:58:08.540 you sure you want to go to the gym? But, um, what do I say? Yes. He always goes. Um, but yeah, we,

01:58:17.920 uh, it's a, it's a huge part of our lives, huge part of our lives. I, I, uh, another thing I

01:58:23.540 wouldn't have any other way. I am sad that we never get to go together though. So Sarah, you

01:58:28.500 asked about, you know, does that time together help strengthen our relationship? And it doesn't,

01:58:33.560 it's one of the really hard things for us and this is one of the inspirations honestly for sickerheim

01:58:42.840 we have had so we had aubrey at a really interesting time we had her um april the 18th

01:58:50.840 of 2020. so the very height of covid so all of the covid restrictions were going around

01:58:57.560 and people were more separated than ever neither of us have had any family help in dealing with

01:59:06.380 her um you know my mom no fault on her she's literally senile I love her to death but she

01:59:14.000 can't take care of my daughter I know she would if she could my dad and my stepmom they're true

01:59:20.900 believers in the whole COVID thing and they have shunned us because we weren't. Mandy's father's

01:59:31.180 not around and her mother is terrified of flying and didn't come out here. So, well, my point being,

01:59:39.100 we didn't have any local support. We are in a place that we love surrounded by people, but we

01:59:45.620 don't have those close people that I want for us at Sigerheim. So Mandy and I have literally,

01:59:52.840 we've had one, one date since we had Aubrey. Aubrey's two and a half. Thank you, Daniel and

02:00:01.260 Heather. Daniel, Goethe Daniel Young and his wife, Heather, were out here to visit us and they gave

02:00:08.960 us a night to just go and her and I have a date together. That was the first one we had in two

02:00:15.220 years so um yeah that time we had to go to the gym together the day before yeah we also had to go to

02:00:24.640 the it's the first time we've done that in years yes as a foundation to build a relationship on

02:00:30.900 it was really important and because we did that together for a certain amount of time

02:00:37.840 and it's part of our lives we can still build relationship around it we talk to each other

02:00:44.380 about how the gym was when we were there or who was there or whatever we talk about our routine

02:00:51.020 we talk about our diet we talk about those things together and i think that's been really nice for

02:00:56.860 our relationship but um yeah time together is really important and it's it's hard to come by

02:01:02.860 when you have a young child especially if you're isolated and that's one of the dreams i have and

02:01:08.940 i know that these dreams come too late by the time we get there it won't be the same deal

02:01:12.860 but what I want is to be able to watch other people's kids when they're a young couple and

02:01:20.820 they have their first child and they need that time together. I'm happy. That's my favorite

02:01:28.240 thing. You should see me do these baby namings. I love babies and kids. I'm really happy to watch

02:01:35.960 them so that other people can go and get that time with their spouse. I think that's really

02:01:40.920 important we've got a um donation our first one of the night on entropy michael thank you very much

02:01:49.320 michael five dollars appreciate that a lot thank you he says hail to you hail to our gods hail to

02:01:57.160 our volk here's a little something uh too little i'm afraid to help support the important work you

02:02:04.280 do hey it's never too little thank you so much your five dollars are absolutely appreciated thank you

02:02:10.920 um no that's great uh just gotta sort through a little bit i answered some while you're putting

02:02:18.940 aubrey down um sarah asks mandy you run an awesome program for the afa families the baby

02:02:27.900 blanket project please talk about it oh i should go grab one yeah it started kind of by accident i

02:02:35.160 want to say four years ago a friend of ours up in Alaska was having a baby and I was like I'm just

02:02:42.420 gonna make him a blanket and um somebody else was having a baby at the same time and I made them a

02:02:50.360 blanket and they had posted about it online and somebody was like oh wow what a what a cool program

02:02:55.400 we should start doing that for newly born babies now at the time there was maybe one or two every

02:03:03.600 few months. So this was, that's Ryan Skinner's little baby. He's not little anymore. I probably,

02:03:08.560 I need to send a new picture. Um, so it was completely manageable. It was me and Mary

02:03:13.600 Minshaw and a former member in North Dakota and, um, some other women that were making some and

02:03:21.920 it just exploded with our membership. And we, I believe are at, so after that we did like

02:03:30.500 maybe a half dozen. And then the next year it was, I want to say 23.

02:03:35.700 And then last year it was over 35, I think.

02:03:39.500 And now we're, I think we're at 42 with the baby born a couple of days ago.

02:03:45.140 So yeah, if you are,

02:03:48.300 if you're in the AFA and you're a crafter and you can make baby blankets,

02:03:51.920 we can use them because I have three fixing to go out here shortly.

02:03:56.260 Yeah. It's one of my most favorite things.

02:04:00.500 Uh, we try to send it pretty shortly after they're, um, born and, uh, I love, I love

02:04:09.520 getting pictures of the babies with their blankets.

02:04:12.060 It's one of my most favorite things.

02:04:17.040 It's just me.

02:04:18.120 Um, uh, so yeah, um,

02:04:27.020 I was told that if if I get nervous I should just smile awkwardly. Here Ob's laughing. I see

02:04:39.760 you guys smiling. Changed since having Aubrey? I think mostly just that we don't get as much.

02:04:48.100 Oh should I read this aloud? Has our relationship changed since having Aubrey? Do you have advice

02:04:52.000 for couples wanting children. I would say that it's changed in, in that we don't get as much

02:04:57.660 time together, just like we just explained. And that's, that's difficult. Um, we mostly just get

02:05:03.340 a couple hours in the evening, but because I get up so early to go to the gym, that's cut a little

02:05:09.160 bit short, but we're managing to get Aubrey to bed a little bit earlier. Normally I wouldn't let her

02:05:14.360 stay up this late. Um, so we get a little bit more time and of course we have weekends. Um,

02:05:20.420 but that's been the biggest thing is we just don't get as much time by ourselves together

02:05:25.100 because now she's taking less naps. Um, I don't remember the second half of the question. I'm

02:05:31.540 sorry. My advice for couples wanting children, uh, don't wait and be old like us. Um, if that's

02:05:39.560 the person you're going to be with, do not wait. Now we didn't plan to wait that long.

02:05:44.060 circumstances were just what they were. But yeah, I think my advice would be know who you are as

02:05:53.400 people. Make sure that you're going to teach them the same values, that you're on the same page with

02:05:58.200 parenting because that's super important. And yeah, don't wait. So I'm celebrating Sigurheim

02:06:09.740 time with the Narwhal and when you drink the Narwhal and you sit for hours doing a show

02:06:16.760 liquid's got to go somewhere so I appreciate you holding it down Mandy um no it was super

02:06:23.600 not awkward at all it was super not awkward at all no it was super awkward I heard it from a

02:06:28.040 distance but I still appreciate it uh that said on the question

02:06:32.300 I don't I mean Christine you obviously know this but I don't there is no way I could convey it

02:06:43.160 to people who don't have children nothing I could say

02:06:49.940 would make you understand what it's like to have children and I know that's super obnoxious when I

02:06:58.460 didn't have children when i hear that it is obnoxious i give you that but as a father um

02:07:11.420 life has a different dimension to it i don't think it's you know really changed our relationship

02:07:20.220 in a way that that i notice and i'm sure that it has but our relationship was strong before

02:07:26.700 and is strong now and is is strengthened through our devotion to raising this child obviously but

02:07:37.660 everything else in life has a little bit different meaning to it um the things that

02:07:46.060 you're doing in the world outlive you all of a sudden when you have a child

02:07:54.060 it's not just what i can do until my wife and i pass it's what we can do that my daughter

02:08:03.740 can take on into the future and you know all of that is obviously common sense

02:08:11.020 but you feel it in your bones when you're a parent um

02:08:15.660 um the example you said you know I want to be the best I can be for the gods for the folk for my

02:08:26.460 wife for my ancestors but it's entirely different and amplified in a very different way I want my

02:08:38.520 daughter to see her daddy as you know this man that I want to be and that that is a strong strong

02:08:50.040 motivation um I want to role model to my daughter what a man should be so that when she finds her

02:09:01.260 husband she looks for someone who exhibits those values because I think we all um I think as men

02:09:14.220 our father defines our life either we want to be like him and impress him or he does poorly and we

02:09:22.980 want to do good in spite of him in some way but I think one way or another our actions are

02:09:32.580 are determined by that I think with girls that's huge I mean you hear about the girls on the

02:09:37.980 stripper pole because they got the daddy issues I don't want that for Aubrey um she's gonna behave

02:09:46.680 one way because of what a crappy father i am or a different way because i did something right

02:09:55.000 and i want to do something right not just so she's not making money on the pole

02:10:01.480 but so that she gets a man that treats her well and she it's so important like and this

02:10:09.800 is way beyond your question that you ask but i want i tell her how pretty she is and how great

02:10:18.920 she is and how aubry's the best you're the best you're the very best one because i want her to

02:10:24.120 have that self-esteem so many of our girls don't grow up with that i want to be her biggest

02:10:31.080 cheerleader for the rest of her life so that she knows how special she is so that she ends up with

02:10:39.160 someone who treats her like she's that special um and that's that's really important and we've

02:10:48.760 gone way outside the bounds of the question but i mean some of this is just stream of consciousness

02:10:54.600 the questions make the conversation go um and i think that's important uh hey matt are there

02:11:03.400 any examples of how our ancestors dealt with infidelity um sort of it's funny because you

02:11:11.080 use the term infidelity and in 2022 that means you know cheating on your spouse but in

02:11:21.320 722 that meant something really different it meant uh turning your back on your lord when he was

02:11:29.000 in peril it meant you know when the shield wall was up you turning tail and running

02:11:35.000 it meant something really different not that it doesn't imply the other but um

02:11:43.400 depending on where you were any type of disloyalty and any type of cowardice was probably the most

02:11:52.520 extreme thing that was dealt with and in that same regard you know in our lore those that are on the

02:12:00.360 strand that souls get dissolved by dripping poison in the afterlife that was for broke people who

02:12:07.960 broke fidelity that was for oath breakers that was for people who you know hey i promise you

02:12:14.360 no matter what i got your back and then when stuff got thick they didn't have their back

02:12:21.080 um that was one of the most heavily looked down upon things by our ancestors and rightly so

02:12:29.240 um you know there's that example for our lore again it was the cowards and the homosexuals

02:12:37.960 that would get um stomped into the bog and again i pointed that out in a previous show it wasn't

02:12:44.920 because that's gross or we don't like it it's because that was such a shameful thing

02:12:51.720 that we wanted to bury it beneath sight like that was out of sight out of mind because we didn't

02:12:58.600 want to contemplate it because it was so disgusting to our ancestors for you to you know that was one

02:13:07.160 of the um fundamental virtues of our folk was that fidelity to your lord it was your

02:13:14.680 job as a retainer to a lord to not let him fall in battle you would die by his side rather than

02:13:23.800 let him fall and it was his job to never let you outperform him in battle and that synergy made

02:13:32.200 our people amazing on battlefield but when you turn tail and run and your brothers and the lord

02:13:42.760 you supported are out there fighting and dying that was so shameful that our people just wanted

02:13:50.840 to make it disappear beneath the earth um and that's that's shown in how it's dealt with in the

02:13:57.480 afterlife uh that idea of fidelity of of staying that course to our ancestors was everything

02:14:06.520 that is the most important thing that's always stuck to me out of beowulf

02:14:11.240 was wiglaf staying with his lord when he's fighting the dragon all the other things everyone

02:14:17.000 else who's one rings and lands from their king they run because it's a dragon and he's terrifying

02:14:25.240 but one man one man stood with beowulf and held his shield and fought the dragon with him

02:14:34.660 and that was wig laugh and that that's always meant so much to me since the day i started reading

02:14:44.880 um next question will either of you be joining us for yule at thor's hoff on the 16th

02:14:51.180 to the 18th. We will not. If I could, if there was a way to do it, I would love to be at Yule

02:15:02.000 at every one of our Hoffs, every one of our kindred Yules. I wish I could be a million

02:15:07.720 places at once because Yule is such a special time. And I know that everybody's got these

02:15:14.240 amazing yule celebrations and i want to be there um nope we're going to be doing yule at odenshoff

02:15:22.160 assuming we can all make it i'm gonna find a way to make it it may be tricky to see if my wife and

02:15:27.780 child can get there that pass donner pass in the sierras is it's no joke it gets closed pretty

02:15:35.440 often with really heavy snowfall it's fixing to be closed tomorrow that's what i hear that's word

02:15:40.560 on the streets um no i'll not be able to get yule at thorshoff but i will be there in spirit and i

02:15:48.160 hope you guys are having an amazing one i know it will be i know heather has gotten a tremendous

02:15:54.320 amount of toys and coats this is the first year that thorshoff is going to be giving away toys

02:16:01.120 and winter coats for folks in their community that that might not have those things otherwise

02:16:08.000 and i'm really proud of that and uh again i would love to be with you guys for yule

02:16:14.080 maybe one day uh but this month is is not that day unfortunately

02:16:22.080 um do you guys know of any books about the gods which are for children let's say you mandy um

02:16:31.680 so there there's the one that our folk builder jim cummings have written he's written two of

02:16:35.920 of them, and those are good. I don't know what age you're talking about, but I actually,

02:16:40.160 some people don't like it. I actually like Children of Odin. It was one of the first

02:16:44.140 ones that I read. I think it makes the lore kind of manageable.

02:16:52.180 Those are the only ones I can really think of for kids. We haven't really gotten that far

02:16:56.180 with Aubrey yet

02:16:58.060 in terms of books.

02:17:01.720 she's you know i really don't have any great book recommendations for kids to you we're just not

02:17:09.520 there yet yeah we're just not quite there with harry yet and we will be when we get there i

02:17:18.760 would really recommend if you want to really answer that question um gothi robstam rstam

02:17:26.740 with two m's at runeson.org he is the dean of our homeschool program and i think he's probably got

02:17:34.180 some really good uh advice for you on that so another question matt tell us more about meeting

02:17:43.140 your wife so it was let's hear your version this we've had some contradictory versions in the past

02:17:51.860 so this is the the accurate version um this was 2014

02:18:05.780 i know things hey now so it's 2014 um in august uh brad and gilly and steve and sheila and i

02:18:16.580 were driving a citron rental a rental van through the tuta bergewald in northern germany

02:18:29.300 and we were we just crested a hill and we were coming through a valley and we could see this

02:18:35.380 beautiful forest out in front of us i've never heard this story before the same forest where

02:18:40.500 Herman defeated three legions of Rome.

02:18:47.780 And I forget what we were talking about or what brought it up, but I remember they said,

02:18:53.120 Matt, you really need to meet our kinswoman, Mandy.

02:18:57.320 You guys would get along so well. You guys are such a good match. You guys really need to meet

02:19:02.900 each other. And it didn't go much further than that. Like, oh, yeah, yeah. Tell me about or

02:19:10.040 whatever but again i was in alaska and she was in florida so um i came back to the states

02:19:18.360 and again a man from alaska woman from florida

02:19:24.280 conversation in patterborn germany um

02:19:32.360 so that was probably august two months later we were we both were able to be at winter nights in

02:19:39.800 poconos in pittsylvania and uh and i met mandy and i remember walking across i was coming from

02:19:47.400 the upper part of the property and she was down by that by the main building there and you know

02:19:53.400 some little exchange of you know ah it's you and we got to meet each other and um that's wrong

02:20:01.960 no that's not wrong that's exactly how it happened um and

02:20:09.800 So I felt a little bad because I was I was very much focused on Mandy and not other responsibilities I may have had at this particular event.

02:20:20.840 And I feel a little bit bad about that, but not really.

02:20:24.820 But I was I was really focused on on Mandy.

02:20:30.460 And we did stuff and she.

02:20:32.700 No, wait.

02:20:34.480 No, we didn't.

02:20:35.660 No, no, that's not what I mean.

02:20:37.320 we like hung out together and whatever and then i remember we were in the infirmary um there's

02:20:44.680 different cabins where we set up different people but there this infirmity was was heated where some

02:20:49.480 of the other cabins weren't so we'd set up you know elderly people or different people there

02:20:53.880 that needed some heat i don't even know why we're in there but we were and mandy did this like

02:20:59.560 this thing where she like stumbled into me to see if i would catch her or not

02:21:05.720 and i don't i don't know what game she was playing but i grabbed her and put her on my arm around

02:21:09.960 her and caught her because i'm not because i'm raised right but that was like her secret test

02:21:16.920 to see if like i would do that or if i just let her fall on her face and look there stupid i don't

02:21:21.800 know i don't know what other people she'd been with but i uh you know i put my arm around her

02:21:27.960 and helped her to not fall down and i think that that was apparently that scored me some points

02:21:34.840 um and then we hung out together and and we were walking down there was something going on in the

02:21:39.800 playhouse which was down the hill from uh the main hall there she had heels on and she did like

02:21:46.220 ah please help me i can't manage them with my heels and she you know she grabbed on my

02:21:52.500 and and that was good um it was real though it was a ploy but it was real

02:22:01.700 so i don't wear heels at events anymore you should fix that heels are awesome so we walked down there

02:22:09.140 um and then when everybody else was watching the music and doing other things we sat on the porch

02:22:15.060 there in these porch swings and just hung out and talked and spent that time together and you know

02:22:22.340 You know, somebody came by and gave us some Moldovan wine, and we drank the Moldovan wine and hung out together and spent the evening spending time together.

02:22:36.380 And it was it was really, really nice. And I mean, it was all it was all done at that point.

02:22:42.980 It really was love at first sight.

02:22:44.700 um that was in october you know 10th through 14th ish there and uh you know by by yule time

02:22:58.560 I was down in florida I I packed up everything and moved across the country to florida to uh

02:23:05.140 to be with mandy and to to start my life there and to to build that future and I was down there

02:23:11.400 two years with her. And yeah, that's how we met. This is an interesting question. If

02:23:25.680 Flavelle had a flavor, what would the flavor be?

02:23:30.980 Pickles.

02:23:32.520 Wow. So that was a clever turn of phrase, but you made a mistake and asked the wrong

02:23:40.040 person that sits here and analyzes this stuff it's like being spawned last week somebody asked

02:23:44.680 a question like what's your five favorite books so i gotta actually think about that what would

02:23:51.080 the flavel uh flavor be mandy says pickles we all like pickles pickles are delicious

02:23:58.360 i'm not that's that's easy so hold on um

02:24:01.640 All right. There's no way on this podcast or this podcast slash broadcast that any of you guys are going to be interested in my thought process on this.

02:24:14.940 So I'll give you a couple of things. We like acidic, mustardy and pickley flavors.

02:24:25.140 that's certainly a flavor uh trait and thing um as far as mead and alcohol goes we like fruity

02:24:39.620 stuff and sweet stuff i would say that orange spice is certainly a flavor flavor

02:24:48.420 um as the one conferring the name i'm just going to just take ownership and say that's a thing

02:24:53.460 whether it's it doesn't have to be agreed upon it's imposed um so cool i'm gonna go i'm gonna

02:25:00.180 call it orange spice orange spice is the flavor flavor i'm gonna own it that's what my family's

02:25:06.420 got um if aubrey somebody that makes me make it aubrey learns how to talk and says she doesn't

02:25:13.300 like it then beatings will ensue no it's a it's a thing um best mead that i ever had there was two

02:25:23.060 that are about tied. There was an orange spice from a former member and a pear spice from a

02:25:28.560 former member. And they're the best I've ever had. Orange spice. I'm just an orange spice guy. I'm

02:25:33.440 that guy that likes the chocolate oranges around Yule time. So yeah, orange spice is going to be

02:25:38.880 my deal. No, Alan's orange blossom mead is my favorite. It's too dry. It's too dry. Everybody

02:25:47.600 likes the law speaker's mead. I think his mead is very good quality. I just like a much sweeter

02:25:52.580 mead that's that's my taste um another question will we see the flavels at the odenshoff yule

02:26:01.380 you will certainly see at least a flavel at the odenshoff yule but i'm going to do everything in

02:26:06.820 my power to bring uh all of the flavors there we look forward to it every year yule is we do you'll

02:26:13.700 big at odin's hof um i believe i'll be doing the yule bloat there uh i love it and i hope that

02:26:23.540 we'll be there for it again the past could get sketchy i'll be there for it regardless

02:26:30.580 uh the king of shishi matt mandy what do you think of my new name i love it i love it as

02:26:39.380 well i'm so impressed that's awesome our daughter would love it that was a nice gesture well done

02:26:47.380 what region is sigerheim in so sigerheim is in thor's hof district at present

02:26:55.940 once we establish tiershoff which is two hofs from now at sigerheim it will be the

02:27:03.540 district seat of its own district but that's uh that's probably a few years off

02:27:13.780 uh daniel says question for mandy hogan or savage what how could you even do that to me

02:27:23.220 i gotta stay true this episode is about fidelity i'm gonna say hulk hogan hulkamaniac household

02:27:39.480 hulk is the man my brother i'm gonna say hulk hogan see i thought you'd go deeper than that

02:27:49.460 thought you'd ask me an hbk question but i'm impressed see i think hulk hogan you got to if

02:27:55.700 that's the choice but that's that gives short short shrift to the macho man i think the macho

02:28:01.060 man is a very strong number two that's that's hard man that's hard daniel's gonna have to put his uh

02:28:09.300 it's unfortunate what he thinks in there

02:28:13.140 it's it's really not the hogan is obviously better than the macho man but the macho man

02:28:17.780 is better than Pretty Batch everybody else.

02:28:20.720 I know.

02:28:22.920 Suclifsa

02:28:23.600 was able to body slam

02:28:25.780 Andre the Giant.

02:28:27.420 I don't think that the Macho Man could do that.

02:28:30.380 He could not.

02:28:32.780 No, he could not,

02:28:34.400 Mandy. The Macho Man could not

02:28:36.220 body slam Andre the Giant.

02:28:38.140 No, he could not, but he'd give him a

02:28:39.980 flying elbow. Yes, he would.

02:28:42.680 I see

02:28:43.720 we're keeping it

02:28:46.140 real in this episode there's a lot of people that didn't know you could do that I cannot do that

02:28:49.900 I couldn't even do a Miss Elizabeth I can do many things I'm a man of many talents yeah

02:28:56.660 Cliff asks can I juggle literally no figuratively yes neither one of us can juggle

02:29:07.140 So, Daniel says, Matt, Mandy, how do you manage your time apart?

02:29:18.420 We talk all day long.

02:29:21.360 We talk or text all day long.

02:29:26.640 If it's as simple as sending random Instagram reels of cute puppies or something,

02:29:34.380 uh the memes just fly sometimes just random

02:29:40.100 i can't talk about that i was gonna so this is terrible but i was gonna say

02:29:51.140 often we'll just make really stupid references because we always get the joke so i was the

02:29:56.380 first thing that comes to mind was um the guy from nxs uh stop stop pause

02:30:08.300 we would say remember that time michael hudges hung himself from

02:30:13.980 doing stuff he shouldn't have if you're listening to an nxs like we literally we talk

02:30:19.980 all day long across various platforms um that's how

02:30:26.500 but do you remember that time that michael hedge is telling himself

02:30:32.420 why remember yes i do mandy fleville we've got no time apart we talk from the end to the very

02:30:42.020 start that's how our relationship is and that's how it will be yes it will daniel young

02:30:49.000 um quick wrestling interlude because i guess this wasn't about common knowledge but daniel

02:30:54.500 probably knows it but apparently the undertaker has found jesus and he's like now super super

02:30:59.540 christian which is very interesting most of those guys found jesus i'd rather they find jesus than

02:31:07.180 find a dress so time apart honestly it's stupid how um silly i am on time apart stuff like

02:31:24.380 it's not just with mandy some of it is but it's really really particular

02:31:29.500 since aubrey was born um i love to travel and i travel to a lot of different afa stuff

02:31:35.100 um i love it i wouldn't trade it for the world i absolutely keep doing it but man

02:31:44.220 i miss my family i miss my family bad

02:31:49.320 um i'll take a flight and it'll be a four-hour flight and by the time i touch ground i'm missing

02:31:56.820 my family and i appreciate mandy sends me pictures of you know aubrey when she wakes up and whatever

02:32:02.800 And I just I miss him terribly when I'm at places.

02:32:08.660 It was such an important thing for Mandy to come with me to events.

02:32:14.200 And I miss her at events so much.

02:32:16.720 She hasn't been to very many things with me when I've traveled.

02:32:19.760 Only one since Aubrey's born.

02:32:21.800 Aubrey's two and a half years old.

02:32:23.140 She went to Ostara in the South 2021 with me.

02:32:28.380 And that was really cool.

02:32:29.720 It was great to have Aubrey there.

02:32:30.820 but it was a lot of work for mandy um aubrey was great on the plane ride down she was good on the

02:32:38.200 plane ride back the layover was rough what plane were you on no the way down she was perfect angel

02:32:45.560 yes there yeah on the way back she wasn't great on the plane she wasn't horrible but while she

02:32:53.220 was down there she was sleeping in a new place and she was nuts and mandy had to deal with her

02:32:57.860 And again, when I go to these events, I got to wear the All's Hairy Goathe hat.

02:33:02.480 And I've got a lot of things to do.

02:33:04.980 So Mandy takes all of the dealing with, you know, the screaming infant.

02:33:11.520 And that's hard.

02:33:13.400 Aubrey's older now.

02:33:14.540 And I really want to get them both out to some events in 2023.

02:33:19.900 We'll see how that goes.

02:33:21.840 But we're hoping to make it to some.

02:33:23.660 She just doesn't do too well outside of her routine.

02:33:27.780 i'm silly and i'm a baby when i don't have these people with me but i love my family and i miss

02:33:33.940 them i love traveling i love all of those things but i'm i miss my family very quick

02:33:42.180 uh lawrence with 10 canadian dollars thank you so much lawrence seriously you are on

02:33:48.340 every single week and you probably donate ten dollars every week and i really appreciate you

02:33:54.100 uh hi matt nice to meet you mandy as an example of old-time fidelity i learned through letters

02:34:02.420 uh that my grandfather a captain in world war one was so committed to the cause as misguided as it

02:34:10.900 was he threatened a couple of privates with his sidearm dissuading them from running during a

02:34:18.580 he didn't battle um that's got to be hard lawrence i i appreciate that your grandfather was so

02:34:28.740 so down that he was willing to do that and it's it's awful to think about but

02:34:38.900 when you've got that many people there there's a herd mentality and you get one guy that runs

02:34:44.420 runs next thing you know you've got a whole line of guys that run from the front so him being able

02:34:51.840 to stand there and be the enforcer on that when those guys need to go over the top with the rest

02:34:57.860 of their unit that says a lot and it really does speak to to fidelity um yeah you know i

02:35:10.320 good for him hail to your grandfather that's awesome

02:35:15.840 uh next question i have to be honest i'm 39 years old and have no kids i feel like an idiot

02:35:26.400 i chase different women like a moron can i still support our folk if i never have kids yes have

02:35:34.160 kids reject the paradigm make it happen i did it 39 she did it's possible do that fix it um

02:35:46.480 you have way more time than she does yeah that's true too um that's biological reality

02:35:55.040 but realistically for anyone out there who finds themselves past childbearing years can you still

02:36:00.320 support our folk if you never have kids of course you can of course you can uh i'm not gonna lie to

02:36:07.360 him tell you it's the same you should have kids you should have had kids your life is better if

02:36:13.520 you have kids if you can't have kids and you don't have kids that sucks and that nothing i can say

02:36:20.720 makes that not suck but of course you can no matter what situation you find yourself in your life

02:36:29.120 you can still support your fold folks that are past childbearing years you can abs you don't

02:36:37.520 know what mandy and i would give for some older folks that that didn't have any kids to want to

02:36:44.560 watch aubrey for a night so we could go shoot so we go to the gym together or so we can go have

02:36:51.200 some you know all you can eat tacos or whatever the case might be this is so i know that this

02:36:58.320 came up as a question from a man but this was a question this was a conversation that came up and

02:37:03.600 if brandy's still on she can maybe correct me in the chat or christine but a really important

02:37:09.120 question came up on our um not question but topic that i had not even heard of about um

02:37:16.560 our ancestors had special names for aunts and for um just the women that were kind of either

02:37:22.960 couldn't have children or were past that child bearing age, but are still so important to our

02:37:28.380 folk. And I'll tell you what, we have, we, I have some women that for whatever their circumstances

02:37:35.060 don't have children, can't have children, haven't had children, and they are integral to us. Someone,

02:37:40.080 someone like Crystal Podbreger at Odenshoff, she's, couldn't be more of an aunt to Aubrey.

02:37:47.900 um and those those people are so important to our culture still and always will be you know we it

02:37:58.300 it sounds trite or silly to say because of course we're going to say you guys can contribute

02:38:11.280 realistically it really does take a village to raise a child having multiple people out there

02:38:20.160 whether they have their own children or they don't that want to help rear the children of

02:38:26.560 our folk and be examples and help teach our future that is always welcome and honestly

02:38:35.600 to the parents that are feeling isolated and are alone and struggling, that's huge.

02:38:45.200 You know, if you have somebody out there that hasn't had their own kids, but wants to

02:38:49.240 wants to babysit or wants to teach the kids a special skill or a special thing they have,

02:38:55.380 that is such a benefit to those of us who feel isolated and need that little bit of a break or

02:39:07.340 that little bit of a help and a support in raising our kids there's a lot of things you can do

02:39:13.700 especially as older people who have experience teaching the children as they grow older from

02:39:21.260 your experience that's such a resource i mean that child like aubrey only has my life experience

02:39:30.780 or mandy's life experience to learn from you adding a different life experience that she

02:39:38.540 can learn things from is huge you know i've done a lot of things i'm proud of the life i've lived

02:39:44.780 but i've i've never served in the military there's a lot of things i've never done

02:39:49.340 if you have you can teach my daughter about that and that's welcomed and appreciated so much

02:39:57.740 maybe she you know when she gets a little bit older she has a talent that has nothing in

02:40:04.140 common with anything i'm good at maybe she wants to play music maybe she wants to do something

02:40:10.700 artistic that's completely different than something i know about if you can help her

02:40:16.140 learn about that and be a role model in that that's huge and that's so appreciated

02:40:23.500 for your personal life have kids if you can

02:40:29.900 but if you can't there is so many very beautiful ways you can contribute

02:40:35.740 to our children's life and to the next generation

02:40:40.220 that we welcome those from the bottom of our heart we welcome those

02:40:43.980 the afa's stance on marrying somebody who is not germanic but is still european

02:40:56.400 as long as they're white folks marry them i'm not german

02:41:01.140 the afa that's the thing i'm i'm not either the vast majority of my folk are uh english

02:41:11.220 and other British Isles, whatever that category ends up being, with very little being from

02:41:18.900 continental Europe. And I know that goes down to a lot of particulars with the Anglo-Saxons being

02:41:25.560 Germanic peoples, whatever. But my point being, the AFA, this isn't about Germanicism.

02:41:32.180 that is the cultural lens that we draw our names and our stories from

02:41:40.780 but the afa has always been and will continue to be certainly pan-european and pan-arian

02:41:48.100 as long as it's a you know your partner is white absolutely absolutely that's wonderful we'd love

02:41:57.360 for you guys to start your family

02:41:58.820 and be part of the Astro Folk Assembly.

02:42:08.600 Why does the Norn future scold mean debt?

02:42:17.840 So that's a little bit complex.

02:42:21.440 I don't think scold equals debt.

02:42:25.580 I think most linguistically correct, scold equals should, that implies the payment of a debt. It implies what should happen.

02:42:41.500 but the idea and i think it's really special in our in our faith it's not future as if this will

02:42:52.240 happen because there's so many variables you can have the greatest potential in the world you can

02:43:00.600 be set on the greatest course and you can just decide nope i'm gonna screw it up and you can

02:43:07.880 still mess it up but scold is the future that should be and um i think the way in which i come

02:43:21.400 in contact with mother schuld in uh scold in the most common way is when i do the baby namings

02:43:30.680 because when i do a baby naming i draw a rune from each of the norms

02:43:34.040 And I always ask, scold, to give that child something to shoot for, something to aspire to, a noble goal to direct her life towards or his life towards.

02:43:54.140 and that linguistically is a really subtle difference there's no guarantee of the future

02:44:03.080 our future isn't guaranteed you can turn against your destiny you can fight against the current

02:44:10.320 you can drop the ball you can choose to to cut your your thread short and in your life early

02:44:18.760 There's many things that somebody can do to avoid what should happen.

02:44:24.780 But if you practice the mystery of Rhydo and you do the right things in the right course of time,

02:44:32.860 Skull describes where you should head towards.

02:44:38.640 And that's, I think, the subtle difference on that.

02:44:40.700 And I hope that answers that.

02:44:43.880 Nick asks, why Reno?

02:44:47.180 because reno's amazing it's the biggest little city in the world it was an accident it was it

02:44:53.520 was an accident um we accidentally so we moved out to the bay area and that we were warned not

02:45:03.340 from people in the bay area but we were where i was warned but uh that just completely fell apart

02:45:09.520 almost immediately after we got there. And I am extremely grateful for it, but I was given a job

02:45:18.500 in San Francisco, which on a map, Santa Rosa to San Francisco, that's only 60 miles. Anybody who

02:45:24.380 lives in the Bay Area knows that that means nothing. And that was a three to sometimes up

02:45:30.780 to six hour commute, just the commute part a day. And it was soul crushing. And we were living in

02:45:37.460 just such an expensive area the cheapest place we could find in an expensive area and um i was just

02:45:45.600 looking for literally anything i was sending out resumes for anything in this job i was looking um

02:45:51.940 like around uh nevada and placard county and i had gone to a couple of interviews not interviews but

02:45:57.840 like the step before the interview and this job opened up in reno and i looked at it and i was

02:46:03.400 like I could probably do that I have I meet all the criteria and um yeah I applied for it and it

02:46:10.480 probably the fastest government job hiring in history and uh we drove over we drove over for

02:46:17.400 the interview and I remember the pass was just a mess but we we made it over and we we get into

02:46:23.840 and I don't know if you've driven in Torino from the Sierras but it's just it's beautiful it's the

02:46:29.780 view is beautiful and everything was covered in snow and white and gorgeous. And so, uh, we went

02:46:38.340 to the interview. It was 10, maybe 15 minutes long. I was convinced that I bombed it. Um,

02:46:45.680 we went for some Mexican food. Um, and then we just, oh, somebody had told us about all you can

02:46:54.420 eat sushi in Reno. We thought that was just that one place. No, if you're in Reno, all the sushi,

02:46:58.900 all you can eat. It is delicious. This is why I gained 10 pounds the first year that we lived

02:47:03.660 here. And so did you, I think. And I'm still trying to get that last. I got all the baby

02:47:11.760 weight off. I'm trying to get the last 10 sushi pounds off. But yeah, we went and got sushi and

02:47:21.800 we just took our time getting back home to home, getting back to Santa Rosa. And the next day they

02:47:28.160 called me and I had the job and and within basically we basically we applied for that job

02:47:33.680 almost sight unseen we had been to Reno one other time we had flown in there because it was the

02:47:37.380 cheapest from Daytona Beach which was weird Daytona to Reno who'd think that would be so cheap

02:47:41.840 but uh yeah we pretty much came sight unseen and so um yeah we searched for an apartment got an

02:47:50.320 apartment ended up buying a house in the same neighborhood as the apartment and uh we I love

02:47:56.200 it here we love it here there's some things that would change there's some things that have changed

02:47:59.940 since covid and since the like mass migration into reno from california but no i love it here

02:48:07.860 so mandy mixes some things together um

02:48:14.920 i was living out in florida with mandy and things happened very quickly when i ended up becoming

02:48:24.520 else here to go. So very quickly, I went from the third guy to the top guy. And it happened

02:48:33.520 like within a month. And I knew in order to make this work, I needed to be where the AFA was.

02:48:43.240 And at the time, we had just gotten Odense off. So all of a sudden, Mandy needs to pack up her

02:48:52.920 entire life i had just done this you know a couple years previous to move to florida

02:48:58.360 no mandy liquidate your entire existence and move with me out to as close as we can find

02:49:06.760 to odin soft and that first uh closest we could find was in santa rosa and we had a family out

02:49:15.080 there that were ifa members at the time that were you know helped us out helped us get started up

02:49:21.240 helped us with some job things i appreciate that so much um but we got out there and you know

02:49:28.120 california is terrible it just is uh bay area is even more terrible than general california

02:49:36.600 just as bad as you think california is the bay area is is so so much worse so we tried to get

02:49:42.200 that all figured out and bear in santa rosa we were about three hours from odens off

02:49:47.720 so we did that for a while it was about a year it was 384 days exactly there you go

02:49:56.040 that was cool our apartment complex was small and overpriced we had a really cool hot tub and that

02:50:01.920 was neat um we did that for a little bit we went over you know something to do for yule just me

02:50:09.020 and mandy we went over to reno and i think crystal had told us about eg2 had unlimited sushi

02:50:17.980 so cool me and mandy are always down for some unlimited food so we went over there

02:50:24.540 and it was good um we had our unlimited sushi that was amazing we went back

02:50:30.220 mandy started looking at job postings found one there second trip we went back to reno

02:50:38.460 so our first are uh the sushi adventure i don't think that's true it's absolutely true

02:50:44.940 you stop so we went and uh there's something magical that happens and we take it for granted

02:50:52.860 now because we do the drive all the time when you drive between california and nevada there's

02:50:59.820 a really stark point where the mountains go from being you know big trees and alpine

02:51:08.380 to being desert and it's like one side of the mountains you're one way and the other

02:51:13.580 it's like you immediately cross over this line yeah also what they were doing like ta-da we're

02:51:20.460 in the desert okay cool so magically the state of nevada takes way better care of its roads so you

02:51:27.100 hit this rough spot in the road roads rough rough rough rough boom it's super smooth and then you go

02:51:33.260 into reno and you see this whole different biome it's so different and like mandy mentioned it's

02:51:39.580 snow covered it was beautiful we went we got some sushi i think even that day we went to

02:51:47.660 the gym that was affiliated with our gym it was nice oh yeah we did yeah we did i know we did

02:51:55.180 so that was cool and we did that went back home said hey reno's a real option let's think about

02:52:02.460 this so she came over and she gets this job at the morgue and they're like hey you know we just need

02:52:09.180 to tell you before that this may be traumatic you're gonna have to look at dead bodies maybe

02:52:13.900 he's like i'm cool with that i love dead bodies so she answered this okay real really creepy way

02:52:21.820 about the dead bodies stop and no you hold on truth is one of our virtues so she worried that

02:52:29.820 that would mess up her interview and we ate um mexican food at this taqueria over by the university

02:52:38.220 it was good it's not nearly the best taqueria in reno mind you but it was good so we ate her

02:52:44.140 and we talked about it and she's like man i think i messed up i was too excited to see the dead

02:52:48.220 bodies so it's not true that is absolutely true be honest with our viewers um yeah it's not true

02:52:59.180 it's absolutely true but turns out that's why she got the job it worked out

02:53:03.020 um and we moved out here so factor than that it was three hours from santa rosa to the hof

02:53:09.280 it is two and a half hours from here to the hof so we're actually closer to the hof than we were

02:53:18.020 um but we're at the we're at the mercy of that mountain pass we're at the mercy of the pass but

02:53:25.660 man we love it we've got everything here you'd want from a big city but it's small enough to

02:53:32.300 you run into people that you know um my lighting has changed to where now all of a sudden i'm

02:53:39.740 i'm way washed out but that's not how i started this uh this and i'm like way taller than you

02:53:45.340 know it it happens it's crazy it's it's the magic of the internet don't don't worry about it um

02:53:53.340 but yeah that's why reno and we found that what's really cool is we get cold freezing winters which

02:54:00.060 makes me happy uh mandy gets heat in the summer but not florida heat so the very first time we

02:54:09.500 were in reno and she mentioned this briefly we had gone to mid-summer 2016 and uh it was 110 degrees

02:54:19.900 in orlando where we flew out of and it was 110 degrees in reno where we landed miami 110 versus

02:54:28.700 reno 110 is a world of difference and we notice that immediately but um yeah no we like i say we

02:54:40.800 love it here it's all of the reno amazingness and the sushi and the stuff we're gonna lose all that

02:54:49.800 going to siggerheim we're gonna replace it with literally living with people who are our folk

02:54:58.200 who are our family, who we love, who we'll be able to build our life with.

02:55:04.420 And so we're going to have to trade in some sushi for some down-home barbecue.

02:55:10.520 But we'll figure it out.

02:55:14.200 But yeah, I suppose that's the really long answer.

02:55:18.540 Really long, John.

02:55:19.500 What was the question? How did we get to Reno?

02:55:22.140 Why Reno?

02:55:23.020 But if you look at it on the map, it's about a halfway point between where I was, where I grew up and where she grew up.

02:55:30.840 Almost exactly. I think it was like within 100 miles.

02:55:33.580 It works really, really well.

02:55:35.260 And the other thing is that people don't take into account, Reno is really cool with the skies.

02:55:41.600 So right over the Sierras, there's always a break in the sky.

02:55:46.400 There's a storm system or something.

02:55:49.680 but if you look out to the west or to the east rather the sky is entirely different

02:55:55.840 but in reno we get that it was really hard for mandy out in santa rosa because you'd have

02:56:01.680 rainy weeks you would have periods of time where you don't have blue sky and sunshine

02:56:08.880 every day is the most beautiful perfect sunshiny day and there's a rainstorm that comes through in

02:56:19.780 the afternoon in the summertime for 20 minutes maybe and you're back to the most beautiful blue

02:56:26.540 blue sky and sunshine all day long so the vitamin d thing was a big deal she'd go out to santa rosa

02:56:33.500 and there was like a month it was just rainy every day i think the first month that we lived there

02:56:38.340 never stopped raining from the second i crossed into oakland coming north it didn't stop raining

02:56:44.340 for even a second well and that's not her normal but reno is cool because it's still that everyday

02:56:50.420 sunshine blue skies um and she gets that she gets that vitamin d that stuff i'm

02:56:57.060 used to in alaska not having it but it's really important for mandy to have that um okay

02:57:03.700 brandy asks have we discussed which wwe wrestler is the greatest of all time according to mrs

02:57:13.700 flavel greatest greatest is so nuanced there's the greatest and then there's like my favorites

02:57:26.060 so greatest of all so we're gonna say greatest like pure like talent like he could beat you in

02:57:38.920 the ring that's the guy Shawn Michaels I will hear nothing else if we're talking about who

02:57:46.500 you're gonna fight in the street well I would lose to all of them and then

02:57:52.180 um and then my my favorite is always going to be hulk open he

02:58:00.740 hh brother what do you say

02:58:11.500 but then there's other wrestlers i like i mean i love rick flair and i like the macho man

02:58:18.200 i like triple h but not necessarily for his wrestling prowess um a couple years and

02:58:25.120 yeah but my favorite like name is always going to be brutus the barber beefcake

02:58:31.800 always it's best it's the best moniker i think

02:58:35.520 but i think oh kogan i this this episode is fidelity this episode fidelity i gotta stay true

02:58:43.900 So Mandy asked what my opinion was

02:58:55.780 This was not the original question

02:58:57.700 I mean

02:58:59.920 I

02:59:00.480 Was a Hulkamaniac since I was a little

02:59:04.000 Kid obviously Hulk Hogan

02:59:06.340 Gotta stay true to your roots

02:59:08.100 You do have to stay true

02:59:10.060 To your roots

02:59:10.760 There's some

02:59:13.340 close

02:59:14.520 seconds. Honestly, Stone Cold

02:59:17.780 is really, really close

02:59:19.760 up there.

02:59:21.540 He's always been amazing.

02:59:24.340 There's people that I

02:59:25.640 like better than other people.

02:59:27.620 Obviously, Macho Man is one of my favorite

02:59:29.820 guys. Always

02:59:31.600 was since I was a little kid.

02:59:33.500 Oh, Manny gets the magnet off

02:59:35.580 my fridge with an

02:59:37.320 NWO Hollywood Hulk Hogan

02:59:39.800 figurine.

02:59:41.100 yeah no I'm Hulkamaniac

02:59:45.160 for life

02:59:46.940 there you go

02:59:51.720 Ryan says I don't know who the last guy is

02:59:55.000 I don't remember who I said was the last guy

02:59:57.120 oh Brutus Beefcake

03:00:01.240 he's not

03:00:01.960 Brutus the Barber Beefcake is terrible

03:00:06.480 but his name was hilarious

03:00:08.480 that's the best name

03:00:09.780 gimmicks is really funny um so as far as i can read it we have one question left

03:00:17.520 good because i keep straight grandma hours y'all no it's all good so tracy wants to know matt and

03:00:23.820 how many cats do you have all of them three all yeah i think we have three cats at present i think

03:00:31.900 you met all of them two of them look similar if they're not side by side and then we have two

03:00:37.800 kittlers and then we have an orange cat named toaster strudel we have toaster strudel we have

03:00:44.280 uh andre who is an enormous cat i introduced him briefly we have his sister who is alternatively

03:00:53.880 known as annabelle or by our child as a babu aubrey can't quite say ultimate warrior was

03:01:00.600 awesome adam ultimate warriors i i i had not remembered ultimate warriors um promos but then

03:01:08.920 matt had had reminded me and we had to go back and watch some of those and he makes no damn sense

03:01:15.020 but adam i could see you being an ultimate warrior fan he was very exciting can't say he wasn't he

03:01:22.720 was extremely exciting rick clare was exciting they were exciting a lot of exciting stone cold

03:01:29.580 I stopped watching it by then because

03:01:31.440 I had a younger brother, which is why it was always

03:01:33.700 on, but I had moved out of the house by

03:01:35.360 then.

03:01:39.220 None of you are excited as HBK, though.

03:01:42.480 No, but he

03:01:43.720 was a sexy boy, Daniel.

03:01:46.260 He is very fruity.

03:01:48.180 Hulk Hogan was not fruity.

03:01:50.080 He was not fruity. He was playing

03:01:51.540 his part. It's all about Hulkamania.

03:01:55.220 You're not

03:01:55.820 in the frame, baby.

03:01:56.640 that's okay it's a little tiny frame that's what we do whoo all right so uh i think that's the last

03:02:06.240 we have for this evening i appreciate you guys joining us this is very much um just kind of a

03:02:14.880 dose of the the flavel household wait uh gone with the wind what what oh and i don't know if that

03:02:22.560 counts as a movie so i would say casablanca also but i'm also not sure if that counts as a romance

03:02:28.580 movie it's my favorite romance movie all right so uh shlomo shekelstein asked what uh romay uh

03:02:40.340 favorite romantic movie from mandy was and that's the first two that come to mind but they're they

03:02:47.020 don't really have happy endings for either party so they are romantic man

03:02:54.040 those are the first two that come to mind all right well can you think of another one that I

03:03:03.920 like you don't want oh oh no the Philadelphia story the Philadelphia story with Cary Grant

03:03:09.860 and Catherine Hepburn there you have it that's or bringing a baby also with Cary Grant and

03:03:16.320 Katherine Hepburn. Oh, or An Affair to Remember with Cary Grant. Cary Grant. All right. Oh,

03:03:25.160 wait. Cat on the Hot Tender Roof is a good one, too, with Paul Neiman.

03:03:28.900 There you go. These are moderately happy endings, unlike the first two.

03:03:32.360 All right. Daniel, don't be like that.

03:03:40.620 All right, guys. Thank you so much for joining us tonight.

03:03:46.320 um it's really really nice to have my wife on here uh she is Mandy is such a huge part of what we do

03:04:01.680 in her personal life she has given so much of herself to make the AFA work so much of what

03:04:11.100 What I am able to do is built on the back of what Mandy is willing to do for us.

03:04:23.100 Mandy literally cashed in her entire life to come out here with me to run the AFA.

03:04:31.100 She's doing it again when we move to Sigurheim.

03:04:35.100 it's why we're waiting that's why i need to make sure we have a

03:04:39.180 a house that's at least as good as this to move her into um

03:04:46.860 she has put so much of her own self on the back burner to allow me to be the

03:04:53.020 alzaria goethe of the afa that i should be it is huge and it makes all the difference

03:05:02.300 She has been here to support me this entire time.

03:05:08.300 Behind the scenes, she supports our women.

03:05:13.300 She rallies them to do different things.

03:05:18.300 She advises them.

03:05:21.300 She advises me way more than anybody realizes as far as how I do things, or if I'm going to send something out, I run it by her, and she gives me her insight.

03:05:36.180 She keeps me informed of what our members and our families are going through on times that I can't keep track of all of it.

03:05:47.020 she has wrapped up her whole life

03:05:54.620 and infused it into this

03:05:57.100 so that I can be the best I can be

03:06:00.420 and so that our AFA family can be the best that it can be

03:06:04.760 and she doesn't look for a lot of attention

03:06:12.060 or ask for it

03:06:14.280 but she deserves so much attention and so much appreciation.

03:06:24.760 It is such a huge component of me being able to be the man that I am,

03:06:32.640 that I have her there helping to make that happen and facilitating that, our life, our family.

03:06:40.340 it's huge I'm very honored that Mandy just joined us tonight thank you so much Mandy for being here

03:06:50.260 with us thank you thank you guys for having me and thank you for all the people that thank you

03:06:54.840 for the nominations I really didn't want to come and do this I was super nervous I've been talking

03:07:00.720 about it all day how nervous I am actually for the last month I'm nervous I am no you're silly

03:07:06.120 this is low stress you did awesome i got beat up

03:07:14.120 ain't nobody beat you up do you remember the time she broke my nose i do aubrey beat you up that one

03:07:19.720 time all right guys thank you so much uh just a note sigur heim is ours as of today hail the gods

03:07:32.840 Hail the folk. Hail the AFA. Bye, guys. And remember, victory never sleeps. We'll see you guys next week.

03:08:02.840 Thank you.

03:08:32.840 We'll be right back.

03:09:02.840 Thank you.

03:09:32.840 Thank you.

03:10:02.840 Thank you.

03:10:32.840 Thank you.

03:11:02.840 Thank you.

03:11:32.840 Thank you.

Asatru Folk Assembly - December 08, 2022

12⧸7⧸22 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 22 - Fidelity

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