Unwind with Us: Cue Cards, Highlighters & Penmanship Preferences | Calm Background Listening

In Unwind with Us: Cue Cards, Highlighters & Penmanship Preferences, Marco and Amanda settle into a softly spoken, delightfully detailed conversation about the soothing world of office supplies. What might seem ordinary — cue cards, pens, pencils, and highlighters — becomes a surprisingly calming landscape of colour, texture, and personal preference. They reflect on how cue cards help them stay organized, debate the merits of pencils versus pens, and gently spar over favourite ink colours and highlighter shades.
The discussion lingers on penmanship preferences and the small rituals of writing by hand — the feel of a good pen, the satisfaction of a crisp card, the quiet joy of highlighting just the right line. As always, this calming podcast unfolds at an unhurried pace, offering a relaxing conversation designed to help you fall asleep, ease anxiety, or quiet racing thoughts. It’s perfect for background listening at bedtime or during a middle-of-the-night wake-up. Let the gentle nostalgia of school supplies and steady banter guide you toward rest.

​Unwind with Us_ Cue Cards, Highlighters & Penmanship Preferences
(Original airdate: March 28, 2024)


Welcome to the Insomnia Project. Sit back, relax and listen as we discuss relaxation topics

Welcome to the Insomnia Project. Sit back, relax and listen as we have a calm, relaxing, chill conversation about the mundane or mundane topics to help you sort of float your way to relaxation and who knows, even sleep. Thank you for joining us. I'm your host, Marco. Tim Pano.

Amanda: When you said chill, I gotta chill.

Marco:  There you go.

Amanda: I'm Amanda. Hi.

Marco:  And please let your friends and family know about this podcast. Feel free to share it on your social media. The more listeners we get, the better. And of course, we value you as listeners. Those who listen for sleep and those who listen for otherwise.

Amanda: And, our dear friend of the program and alumna, of the program, Nidhi Khanna was recognized not too long ago.

Marco:  That's right.

Amanda: For her voice.

Marco:  Yeah. She was doing a, speech. She was Speaking in front of a crowd. Public speaking, not public speaking. She was actually speaking in front of a crowd, engaging a crowd. And someone came up to her afterwards and said, you know, I could. I recognize your voice. And I remember hearing the voice. I had to place it. And then she said, and then I realized I listened to the podcast during my pregnancy because I was. It, was the only thing that would relax them.

Amanda: So, so nice.

Marco:  Yeah. Such a lovely thing.

Amanda: We love Nidhi as well. And obviously she's always welcome back on the program anytime, but it just became easier as we. She doesn't live in this house. Although she could imagine the three of

Marco:  us together, it would be a lot of fun.


I wanted to talk about cue cards because I often use cue cards

I wanted to talk about cue cards because I often use cue cards and you don't use cue cards.

Amanda: I saw a dear friend of ours today who actually did a really great audition using cue cards.

Marco:  Oh, there you go. I love a cue card. I like my white cue cards and my multicolored cue cards and I use them for different reasons and I find them very useful. You know me, I'm always writing on a cue card.

Amanda: Indeed you are. Yeah. You love them. I don't use them too much.

Marco:  No, you don't.

Amanda: I just use them in a very weird way. I used to use them for debating in high school.

Marco:  Well, that makes sense. That's a logical reason to.

Amanda: That's not weird, I guess. But what I did use them in a weird way was I used them for whatever reason on my application to university.

Marco:  Oh really?

Amanda: I wrote answers on cue cards and numbered them.

Marco:  That's fascinating.

Amanda: M. Yeah. I don't think it was the right choice. I got in.

Marco:  Well, it was a lucky choice then.

Amanda: I don't think it was the way I should have done it, but that's what I did. I don't know why I did that.

Marco:  I use cue cards in particular when I'm teaching a course. I have cue cards in front of me. I use them as, models for my students to use and I have to order some for something I'm going to be doing in Montreal in a week's time.

Amanda: What is it about cue cards that you love so much? Why cue cue cards and not a sheet of paper or.

Marco:  It's a great question. I, I like cue cards because you're kind of subjected to writing whatever you need to write in that space and you can't go. You, you're forced in a way to be concise.

Marco:  And I like that they are, they're, they're not static. In other words, when I'm organizing my thoughts. So let's say I had to do a presentation and I wrote my presentation on cue cards, or even points on different cue cards. I could mix where they appear in the presentation. So it allows me that flexibility. Whereas if I was to write it on the computer, I'd have to copy and paste.

Marco:  But you don't get the visual perspective. So for me it's like geography or a puzzle. I can put what I need to do in whatever order. And visually, I guess because I'm m a visual person, it makes sense to me. And then color, as you know, is also something that I use to help organize my thoughts. Because I always have many highlighters. I like to have highlighters. I like to have a highlighter at arm's reach at any point. So I've got some in my nightstand table. I have some near the television set. I have some on like. Amanda will find highlighters just about everywhere, right?

Amanda: They're everywhere. I remember, Ellie talking to you about your highlighting. You, you love to highlight things and you have a bag that is labeled highlighters. Yes, it seems to. Whenever I need a highlighter, it's a weird thing, I can never find one. And yet I know we have multiples.

Marco:  Whenever you need a highlighter.

Amanda: What did I say?

Marco:  Eat. I heard eat. Whenever I eat a highlighter.

Amanda: I hope not. Well, whenever I want to eat a highlighter, it's not there. That's probably a good thing.

Marco:  Yeah, it's probably a good thing.

Amanda: sometimes when I was little, sometimes

Marco:  you don't put caps on the highlighters.

Amanda: One doesn't. Not me in particular.

Marco:  No, no, you. I'm saying you. So my highlighters dry out. And you know what I find tricky with highlighters?

Amanda: Why I don't use your highlighters.

Marco:  I, find it difficult to find green highlighters. So when you get, when you get a bundle, it's usually purple, orange, yellow, blue, pink. But not green.

Marco:  But there are green ones out there, so I always covet the green ones.

Amanda: I didn't know this about you.

Marco:  Yeah. And so I'm always perplexed when I see you using the green one because I fear that my green will lose its cap and dry out. And I get my green, generally speaking, from one of the, one of the jobs we do in London, Ontario, they always have green highlighters in the rooms.

Amanda: I didn't know any of this. Shedding so much light onto so many aspects of my, my home life.

Marco:  Oftentimes that green highlighter somehow gets put in my backpack and travels home with me.

Amanda: Right.

Marco:  And that's how the green highlighter appears in our home.


Do you know what highlighter I am most likely to use in a

Amanda: Do you know what highlighter I am most likely to use in a, in a. if all highlighters were on the table, do you know which one I would take first? Yellow.

Marco:  no. Pink?

Amanda: Nope.

Marco:  Orange.

Amanda: I don't.

Marco:  How do you say orange?

Amanda: Why did you say it like that?

Marco:  I just said it for fun.

Amanda: orange. Do you know why?

Marco:  Because you worked for a company that. I should have guessed it. I should have, I should have deduced it. But you worked for a company whose color was that color of orange.

Amanda: And so one of our promotional products, because everything was orange, the signage was orange, the banners, everything was orange. and all of our promotional products were that sort of highlighter. Orange, bright orange. And so we had highlighters. That was one of the things we would hand out. And they would say the name of the company on them. So I always had orange highlighters around because they were easy to come by there. And so when I left that company, I must have had a couple of boxes of those orange highlighters. So for me, they're the most, easy to access or my brain will say, okay, that's the cheapest highlighter. And I know that your highlighters are coveted. And you know, it's not like I have my own highlighter stash. I have to dig into your highlighter situation.

Marco:  I can get you your own private highlighter stash. I wouldn't mind that. I don't like using purple because it's often too dark.

Amanda: It's too dark. Now, one of the things that we use highlighters for, because we do use them a lot in this house.

Marco:  I do.

Amanda: We don't have a, you know, a 16 year old son who's doing report on something. Like. Right. I feel like highlighters are very specific. But the reason that we use them as much as we do, one of the reasons is because we are actors and we're auditioning all the time. And so a big part of the audition process is printing out your script and then highlighting possibly your lines, the other person's lines. We each have different ways of going about it. If I hand you a script and I'm playing a role and there are, two or three other characters in the script, I will pick different colors of highlighter to differentiate. And I think you do the same. So if I'm reading for Sarah, Sarah's gonna be orange. Well, actually, the way I do it is I don't highlight Sarah. At all. I'll highlight George, who's orange. I'll make John blue. And then I'll make Tammy the coveted green.

Marco:  Right.

Amanda: and, that way, you know, to maybe do a different intonation or a different voice as we, as we do it. And of course, most of our additions are done at home.

Marco:  Right. So I'll often make notes for some of the work that we do. And I'll highlight in different colors.

Marco:  And I'll draw little pictures. And then sometimes you borrow my notes and you'll see clouds and certain symbols.

Amanda: Yeah. Which does nothing for me, but I'm glad that they help you. and yes, I borrow your notes. I feel like that was a dig. Was that a dig or just.

Marco:  No, I just make good notes is all I'm saying.

Amanda: You do make good notes. You're very organized in, in that way.

Marco:  And I'm not, which is fine.

Amanda: I was never particularly gifted student in that way. I always wanted to be.

Marco:  Now, you said earlier you ate crayons for fun. You were eating crayons or pencils.

Amanda: Pencils. I used to eat pencils when I was like 6 and 7. I would chew on the tops of pencils until the erasers would pop out and I would. I loved crunching the metal in my teeth. I know it's not a good.

Marco:  This is not.

Amanda: This is why I needed caps on all my teeth. I guess by the time I was in my early 20s. but yeah, I used to. And I can sort of still taste the. The taste of the lead in the wood, which is, you know, can't be a good thing for a child to eat for a lot of reasons.


Are you more likely to use a pencil or a pen if they're equidistant

Marco:  Are you more likely to use a pencil or a pen if they were equidistant from when you needed to write something?

Amanda: It's interesting that you say that because I also took pencils from a job that we did. They had a whole bunch of pencils, so I took one or two. And today I was writing notes and I normally would work in a pen. The place that I work now actually has really lovely pens, that are part of their promotional thing.

Marco:  And I could use a box of those pens.

Amanda: Yeah, they're not easy to come by.

Marco:  Oh really?

Amanda: But you know, I did almost take one today and I didn't. I left it there. I like those on purpose. I was like, I need to stop taking pens. We have a lot of those pens.

Marco:  No, we don't. We really don't.

Amanda: We don't.

Marco:  No, I like those pens.

Amanda: Well, I noticed there's one of my favorite pens is on the floor here. And I'm. I like. Oh, that's where it is.

Marco:  What pen is that?

Amanda: The highball pen.

Marco:  Oh, it is a nice pen.

Amanda: Dance on the floor right here.

Marco:  Our friend. Our friends have a company and. And the pen is like, it looks like rose gold. But I don't think you've answered my question of would you grab the pen or the pencil?

Amanda: What is for the per. What's the purpose of the writing?

Marco:  I don't know. You just need to jot something down. You're writing a letter to the king.

Amanda: Probably a letter to the king.

Marco:  I don't know. You're like, what's the purpose of king?

Amanda: Like King Charles.

Marco:  Yeah.

Amanda: I would probably take a pen.

Marco:  Okay.

Amanda: But I do I. What I was trying to say was I. I actually worked in pencil today and it was a nice change.

Marco:  Oh, I see.

Amanda: That's all, that's all I wanted to say.


It depends on the color of the pen. I like blue ink, but I don't like black

Marco:  Now, Amanda, how about you?

Amanda: What would you use?

Marco:  It depends on the color of the pen.

Amanda: Right. So let's talk about that I think

Marco:  we've talked about on the show, but I'll re. Mention it. I like blue ink. I don't like to write in black ink.

Amanda: Why is that?

Marco:  Unless the black ink is a liquid

Amanda: black ink, like the kind that smears on your pinky when you write.

Marco:  Like the kind that you're. The company that you work for right now has. Right. That's. That's. Is that what you're talking about? The smeary kind?

Amanda: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Marco:  That's the kind I like.

Amanda: Like when you're writing a nice card to someone and you've worked really hard on what you're gonna say, and then your pinky becomes like a stamp, an ink stamp, and then smudges all over it. Does that ever happen to you?

Marco:  Not really.

Amanda: Really? No.

Marco:  No, I'm careful when I write.

Amanda: I'm very careful. That's how I know that it makes that stamp.

Marco:  Fair enough. No, I like blue or purple ink, but I don't like. Yeah, like, I like a purple pen has purple ink. There's a lot of pens that have purple.

Amanda: Planet Fitness pen.

Marco:  Yeah, no, those are just purple. Yeah, I guess they are purple ink. I. I like a darker purple ink, but blue would be my go to ink.

Amanda: Okay.

Marco:  I don't like to write with black ink.

Amanda: Would an indigo be your indigo ink? Be your most coveted since it's purple and blue?

Marco:  Most definitely. Most definitely. Yeah. That's. That's the ink I like. To use.

Amanda: All right.

Marco:  so if it's blue, I'll use blue. If it's. If it's a liquid kind, I'll use black. I don't have a problem with that. And pencils. If it's sharp, I like to use a sharp pencil.

Amanda: I had a nice sharp one today, so it's kind of satisfying. Yeah. but a dull pencil is the worst.

Marco:  Yeah, dull pencils. The worst.

Amanda: The worst.

Marco:  I also don't mind when you have to use a knife to. To sharpen the pencil and the lead becomes very thick.

Amanda: I don't do that. I guess I know what you're talking about, but I've never done that. A knife. To sharpen a pencil.

Marco:  You've never used a knife to sharpen a pencil?

Amanda: Oh, what year is this? No. Is it 1948? No, I don't use a knife to sharpen a pencil.

Marco:  We always used to sharpen our pencil with a knife. Yes.

Amanda: What kind of school did you go to? Dangerous Minds?

Marco:  No, we went to. We went to the Sharpen your pencils, the jets and the Sharks school. no, we, we. We.

Amanda: School of musical theater.

Marco:  Yeah. No, we had.

Amanda: Did you know how. Pencil sharpeners.

Marco:  We did, but sometimes you don't have time to sharpen with a sharpener. You have to use what's close at hand, and sometimes that's a knife.

Amanda: What? Why would you have a knife close at hand in school?

Marco:  No, I'm talking at home.

Amanda: Why would you have a knife close at hand at home, like in the kitchen?

Marco:  I think it's probably because you.


A flat, wide pencil is often used by trades people

Okay. Are you familiar with a, a work pencil for, like, people who do, like, manual labor?

Amanda: Like an IKEA pencil?

Marco:  No, they're like flat pencils that, that, like construction workers or people who work on job sites would use, and they. They can tuck easily.

Amanda: What, a flat pencil?

Marco:  Yeah. So it's like a pencil that's made to go behind your ear, and it's often used by trades people.

Amanda: I don't know this pencil.

Marco:  Yeah. so they're flat and wide. You've never seen these pencils?

Amanda: No. I mean, not the ones you put the leads in.

Marco:  No, not. Not a mechanical pencil. That's not what I said. Like, it's a. I. I'll look it up. I think it's. It's a. It's definitely something that's used by the trade. So if you went to a Home Depot or a lumber store, they would have.

Amanda: Yeah, I know. IKEA pencils. Those little guys. Also known as a mini putt. Pencil.

Marco:  Golf pencil, I believe is what those are called.

Amanda: Oh, really?

Marco:  Yeah. No, these are pencils that are used,

Amanda: aren't they, at bowling alleys too? Bowling pencils?

Marco:  I guess, I guess any place where you. Where m. You need a pencil to fill in a form of some sort. And they don't want to go through,

Amanda: they just want little ones.

Marco:  Yeah. So it's a pencil that, that's. That is wide and flat.

Amanda: I can't picture this at all. And I'm fascinated that there's a whole world of pencils I didn't know about. Yeah, for the trades, apparently.

Marco:  Yeah. I'm trying to look it up and you're asking me questions. so it's a pencil and anyways, so a tradesperson would have that pencil. Right.

Amanda: Okay. Do you want me to look it up?

Marco:  Yeah, look it up. And they wouldn't be able to sharpen it with a sharpener because how do you sharpen a flat, wide pencil? and they're likely to have some sort of knife, whether that be an exacto knife or a carpet cutting knife or a vinyl knife. I don't know, whatever knife one might have.

Amanda: Carpenter pencil.

Marco:  Yeah, maybe it's a carpenter pencil. Can you show me what it looks like? Yeah, that's it. That's it.

Amanda: I've never seen this before.

Marco:  A carpenter pencil. Thank you. I was saying tradesperson pencil.

Amanda: I mean, you're not wrong. I've just never seen this.

Marco:  So just picture it. You could put it behind your ear and it's not going to fall. Like a round pencil will fall out of your ear.

Amanda: Do you know how much one carpenter pencil is?

Marco:  No. I'm curious.

Amanda: $68.

Marco:  No, that's impossible. That must be a box of them. There's no way one Carpenter pencil is $68.

Amanda: Oh yeah, it's a pack of 72.

Marco:  Okay.

Amanda: I was like, wow, what a coveted pencil.


So my dad always had those pencils, right? Of course

Marco:  So my dad always had those pencils, right?

Amanda: Of course.

Marco:  And he would sharpen them with a knife. And so when I was a kid and I was like, I need my pencil sharpener.

Amanda: He'd be like, come here, kid. Yeah, I got my pencil knife.

Marco:  And he would use a knife. Whatever. No, usually it was like a, a pretty big knife from the kitchen.

Amanda: Your dad was so handy and mine was so not.

Marco:  There you go.

Amanda: So he tried, but.

Marco:  So I take it your dad did not use a carpet?

Amanda: He did not. I don't even know if he would have known where the pencil sharpener was.

Marco:  Okay.

Amanda: so no, I mean he used, but actually My dad used pencils at work. He would make charts for. To chart growth. Kind of like he would, you know, what we would picture as a sort of normal Excel spreadsheet. I remember he would have the graph paper and he would make it himself.

Marco:  Oh, wow.

Amanda: And do it all, by hand. Charting the growth of different products and things like that and how they did from month to month. He had this huge big chart that he made and that was all in pencil. Ah. I think about it.

Marco:  Have you ever used a wax pencil?

Amanda: I don't think so. What would you use that for?

Marco:  So wax pencils. Do you know what a wax pencil is?

Amanda: I don't think so.

Marco:  So a wax pencil, if I'm not mistaken, were those pencils that you could peel of the rind of it?

Amanda: Oh, yeah, like a peely pencil thing. And, and the, it's almost like a wax crayon. Really.

Marco:  Yeah, yeah. And the lead that was inside it was soft. It wasn't a lead.

Amanda: It was, it was like a crayon. Yeah.

Marco:  It was kind of waxy, right?

Amanda: Yeah.

Marco:  And I feel like it was, it was used to write on certain surfaces, like on wax paper. I think, like that's what butchers would use to write on. To write on butcher paper.

Amanda: Really?

Marco:  And if I'm, listen, I could be wrong. Don't, you know, take it with a grain of salt. But that's what I remember.

Amanda: Butcher, grain of salt.

Marco:  Yeah. And then. Did you ever see the kind of chalky thing that seamstresses or tailors use when they're marking clothes?

Amanda: Is that also one of those things that you can peel back?

Marco:  No, it's more like a bar, like a thin bar of soap, let's say. But like hand sized. Kind of reminds me of. Isn't it just chalk when you go to a hotel and you get the thin bars of soap that they give. That's what it reminds me of. But I think it was made of, of a. I want to say talc. No, I think it was made of chalk. like you said.

Amanda: Okay. A, a chalk bar.

Marco:  Do you know what I'm talking about though? Like what, what that is?

Amanda: I, I always think of chalk, but maybe it's not chalk.

Marco:  No, I think it is chalk, but it's a certain type of. I remember it being.

Amanda: I don't really. I mean, I also didn't go to a lot of seamstresses growing up. a little bit. It feels like you grew up in the 30s. You're,

Marco:  Yeah, well, my, my grandmother.

Amanda: It seems like I'm like, you know what cobblers use? No, I don't. Do you know what seamstresses? The. The. The butchers and seamstresses and hunters.

Marco:  My grandmother was a very astute seamstress or tailor.

Amanda: She was pretty great.

Marco:  And so she always had those around.

Amanda: Oh, I see.

Marco:  And as kids, you just want to play with them because, you know, they make marks.

Amanda: Right.

Marco:  And so she must have loved that. I guess. I don't know. Like, you know, I'm sure we were pains by always touching those kind of. Kind of things.


There's been a real crafting, um, movement in the last few years

And, yeah, so we always had those kind of, you know, the inkling to. To make marks everywhere.

Amanda: Oh, my goodness. All the. All the tools of old.

Marco:  Yeah. I mean, they. They served a purpose, right?

Amanda: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I. And a lot of those trade coming back, right?

Marco:  For sure.

Amanda: Like, dressmaking, I think is. Is having somewhat of a resurgence. Certainly seen, like, people wanting to create. There's been a real crafting, movement. Movement in the last few years, I think.

Marco:  I recently did some. Is it cross stitch?

Amanda: I did, yeah. Ah.

Marco:  For a friend. Is that called cross stitch?

Amanda: Yeah, I was going to say embroidery, but I think you're right. It's called cross stitch when it's in the little circle thing.

Marco:  All I know is that I made little X's to make words for a friend's birthday, and she loved it.

Amanda: And I had the same people that are the owners of these nice pens that we were talking about.

Marco:  Highball pens.

Amanda: Highball pens and, highball tv. So it's not a. It's a streamer. Not a boozy thing.

Marco:  Yeah, definitely. Check out Highball tv. M. And, yeah, I'd never. I'd never done that before. And my mom, once again, was a very proficient cross stitcher.

Amanda: Do you remember your mother's needle cushion? Pin cushion.

Marco:  I think it was a tomato.

Amanda: Tomato. Yeah. They all had the tomato. Yeah, some had, a strawberry with a little strawberry attached to it. I don't know if you had that one.

Marco:  I always thought that was the tomato that had a little pepper, like a hot pepper.

Amanda: Maybe it was a hot pepper, but my mom had a tomato. It's so funny, we've never spoken about this, but my mom had the tomato pin cushion as well. And I used to.

Marco:  Pincushions are there if you didn't have the tomato.

Amanda: Was that a thing in the 70s? Oh, you got to get the tomato pin cushion, like, now.

Marco:  There was a satiny, There was a satiny pin cushion that I think had little. Little figures Looking in on it.

Amanda: Okay.

Marco:  Did you ever see that?

Amanda: No, no, we just had a sewing machine and the tomato pin cushion.

Marco:  Yeah, we actually.


Did your mom sew as much as she did other hobbies

Okay, so for the.

Amanda: Did you. Did your mom sew as much?

Marco:  She, she would do more knitting and crocheting and needlepoint and. What's the other one called?

Amanda: well, she's a big crocheter.

Marco:  Crochet and knits and things like that.

Amanda: See, my mom would make pillows, right? So she'd make pillow covers. When she got bored of her pillow, she just buy some fabric, cheap fabric. And I mean, she'd buy good fabric on sale always. and she'd make pillows. She always was making curtains. My mother makes new curtains like every three years, I swear.

Marco:  Yeah. And we, we got some of her curtains.

Amanda: Yeah, she's always making curtains.

Marco:  And we use them. Really? They were the perfect size for one of the sliders up at our cottage. And then I washed them and I didn't realize you're not supposed to wash. And I shrunk them.

Amanda: Yeah, they're usually dry clean.

Marco:  Only I didn't realize.

Amanda: But you know what? Those cur. Those particular ones, it bugs her that we use them because they don't have the proper backing on them because she made them for a condo that she was renting with my dad for a very short time in Tennessee. Right. But that's how much my mom makes curtains. That they were in a condo for three months or whatever it was, and she still was like, okay, you know what, we need specific curtains. So she made curtains, but she never put a backing on them because they were more just temporary and for show. But we took them and we put them, you know, we use them and they should have like a thicker backing to them, but anyway, they don't. So. I've never been good at making curtains. But my mom always says, oh, I'm not a seamstress, I'm not a seamstress. I guess her mother was right. I mean, that's the thing, right? Back in those days, you had to be sure.

Marco:  I recently sewed a button on my shirt.

Amanda: You did? Yesterday.

Marco:  I couldn't find. I couldn't find thread.

Marco:  So I had to use some embroidery thread for the button.

Amanda: Well, that's the other thing when you actually need to do like. And it really is just sewing a button or maybe sewing a hem into pants if you're feeling a bit ambitious. for me, maybe darning a sock. If you really like a pair of socks and there's a hole that's happened. Do you have you ever darned a sock?

Marco:  I think I have, but I remember seeing people darning socks. And I don't know if it was my grandmother or my mother or who it was, but they would take a light bulb and put it in the sock so that you. Have you never seen that? So you could darn the sock where the hole is because the light bulb. Yeah.

Amanda: Smart, though.

Marco:  Yeah. Would. Would. Would allow the hole to be visually present, I guess, for you. that's. I've seen that before, which I always thought was kind of neat.

Amanda: But what I was going to say is, like, I used to when I moved in here, I had a little box of buttons, some thread, some needles. Like I had that. I don't even have that anymore. I don't know where that went.

Marco:  I know where there's a box of buttons. I just found. There's so many buttons. I thought the thread would be there, but.

Amanda: Is, it my box or yours?

Marco:  No, it's my box. But I'm wondering if your buttons made it to my box.

Amanda: They must have, because I don't think I have them anymore. I don't know.

Marco:  Well, because I don't.

Amanda: It's a good reminder, though, that it's time to clean. When you don't know where that random box of buttons is or when you need to sew a button, and you realize the only thread you have is either from a hotel sewing kit, which is often the case for me.

Marco:  That's not good quality thread.

Amanda: No. But sometimes you don't care.

Marco:  It's a thread you need in a pinch.

Amanda: Yeah. or in your case, an embroidery kit from a friend. But it's true, we don't. Sewing, has always been a thing I wanted to get into and never quite did. And I know we've had Lois, my good friend Lois on the program talking about her quilting.

Marco:  Right.

Amanda: journey. Which has been incredible. But, I've always thought, oh, yeah, I'll get some some year. That will be my New Year's resolution. Like to start sewing.


Did you make anything in home ec. when you were in high school

Marco:  Well, we have a lot of listeners who are very crafty. I know if there's a thread you would recommend that we purchase and have in the house for when we have

Amanda: thread needs or like a sewing machine that would be good for somebody just starting out that may wanna even just hem something or.

Marco:  Sure.

Amanda: Fashion a skirt or something simple like homeack101 kind of thing.

Marco:  And if you know what those. What that tailor's chalk is made of, let us know.

Amanda: Did you make anything in home ec. When you were in high school, do you ever.

Marco:  I feel like we made a. A little pillow. Maybe it was a pin cushion pillow.

Amanda: I made pants. I made gaucho pants.

Marco:  Oh, my goodness. No, we.

Amanda: They weren't great. I'd have to wear a belt with them because they didn't really. I couldn't really tackle the waist too well. But I think, I would wear them.

Marco:  I think we made a little bear that we stuffed. And you made pants. Wow.

Amanda: I wanted to make something useful. I made black. It was 1991. I made black gaucho pants. Or 1990, but like, it was. I just remember Madonna's Vogue just came out. Maybe 91. Madonna's Vogue came out. So I wanted pants like what she was wearing in that video.

Marco:  What did you cobble in Cobble class?

Amanda: I did have cobalt, but I did make Rice Krispies squares in Home ec. Wow.

Marco:  Tasty. Well, we'll leave you with that little tasty treat. Pardon the pun. And we hope you were. that's.

Amanda: Why is it a pun?

Marco:  Tasty treat, Rice Krispie squares.

Amanda: Why is that a pun?

Marco:  Isn't that Pardon the pun? Isn't that the expression?

Amanda: If it's a pun, what do you say?

Marco:  Pardon the.

Amanda: You don't pardon it.

Marco:  Okay.

Amanda: Uh-huh.

Marco:  Well, don't. Oh, I can't believe I got. I'm gonna write on a cue card.

Amanda: Well, if you were like. And with that, we're gonna snap, crackle and pop. Pardon the pun. That would probably be a pun. Okay, how about tasty treat is.

Marco:  Sorry, you said Rice Krispies square.

Amanda: Yeah.

Marco:  It's a tasty treat, isn't it?

Amanda: It is, but that's not a pun.

Marco:  I guess not. Okay.

Amanda: I mean, maybe we'll have to do another episode on what is a pun? What makes a pun.

Marco:  Maybe we will. And I'll leave you with that. All right. Till next time. Thank you for listening. I hope you were able to listen and sleep and come up with a pun. Maybe.

Marco:  Until next time.