This week’s special feature is, we think, a delightful and fun time with our own Kelly Nerdzilla Mendenhall and “The Other Kelly,” Kelly Reynolds of Boobies & Noobies.

Kelly and Kelly both read the romance novel Calling It by Jen Doyle. After a quick interview, they do a deep dive into the book. Was it sexy? Worth reading? What did they love and hate about it?

Here’s the thing — Non Mom Kelly did not expect to have fun reading this book, but she totally did. And there’s some pretty steamy scenes in it. If you’ve dismissed erotica or romance novels in the past, you may be pleasantly surprised by this book as well! We hope you enjoy listening as much as Kelly and Kelly enjoyed recording, and we want to thank Kelly Reynolds for allowing us to share this crossover! 

p.s. Non Mom Kelly is recovering well from surgery and her at-home nurse sees her once a week and at-home physical therapist comes twice per week. The first two weeks were very hard but she got through. Yesterday she went up the stairway to the second floor for the first time since before surgery!

As you know, the podcast is on a bit of a hiatus until the New Year because of Kelly’s big time neurosurgery. But we promised we would be posting some special episodes and collaborations. 

First up is an episode of Women Conquer Business with Jen McFarland! Kelly appeared on the show to be interviewed about her book, the podcast, and her work in Network Marketing.

What Kelly didn’t know at the time was that Jen is actually a HUGE fan of A Non Mom Happy Hour and had been following Nerdzilla Lives! (Kelly’s blog) and things. The two ladies had a lot of fun in the studio, and Kelly talks about the beginning of the show and the friendship that the Non Moms developed from several states away.

Oh, and here’s a nugget of awesome from Jen! She developed a “How-To” guide for launching a podcast! We wish we’d have had this in the beginning. 

A special announcement:

This week's episode is bittersweet as it will be our last, fresh episode until the New Year. Due to many variables, including Kelly's need to focus on healing after her next surgery, the podcast will be on hiatus.⁣⁣ It wasn’t an easy decision. But this next surgery is a doozy, and Kelly owes it to herself and every single fan we've told to put self-care first, to do just that.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ Kelly will be in the hospital from October 22 - 25 or 26. She'll be working with occupational therapists to teach her how to navigate her body and life without hurting herself. ⁣⁣ Kelly is currently working on book No. 2 which is on medical gaslighting, still writing her blog and newsletter, and generally trying to kick as much ass as she can from the #businesscouch. There’s a promo code of HAPPYHOUR at nerdzillakelly.com/store to receive a discount on Nerdzilla and Mechanerdzilla merch. If you want to keep up with Kelly while we are away, you should subscribe to her newsletter at nerdzillakelly.com/newsletter. 

On to this week's episode!:

Kelly tells Debbie Jo about the amazing horseback librarians of Eastern Kentucky!  During The Great Depression, The Pack Horse Library Project was launched as part of President Roosevelt's Work Progress Administration -- First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt had a passion for creating jobs that benefited women and children, especially, and saw a great need for literacy and access to education in Kentucky. 

At the time, unemployment in the region was at 40% and about 31% of the population in Eastern Kentucky couldn’t read. But how to deliver books to families living in the Appalachian Mountains, in treacherous terrain and cut off from so much of civilization?

You guessed it -- horseback! The ladies who delivered books, scrapbooks, magazines, and newspapers were definitely everyday heroes. We hope you enjoy learning about them as much as we did.  ⁣

Sources:

http://www.bookishbuzz.info/badass-female-librarians-delivered-books-on-horseback-in-1930s/2/ https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/librarians-horseback-new-deal-book-delivery-wpa https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/horse-riding-librarians-were-great-depression-bookmobiles-180963786/ https://www.npr.org/2018/09/13/647329067/the-pack-horse-librarians-of-eastern-kentucky

**IMPORTANT NEWS BULLETIN**

PODCOIN IS GOING UNDER AND WILL NO LONGER WORK AS OF SEPTEMBER 24. PLEASE MAKE SURE TO SUBSCRIBE TO US ON ANOTHER PLATFORM SUCH AS:

Apple Podcasts Podbean Radio Public Spotify Stitcher

This week Kelly and Debbie Jo got to hang out with Win Kelly Charles! Win is definitely a badass lady. Born with Cerebral Palsy and severe institute.org/learning-about-scoliosis/what-causes-scoliosis/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwt5zsBRD8ARIsAJfI4Bh0MZD8V6AiShVZ36QAa0hBb5TIin4cAWTgaEX3IE-_hqBLq6oz34saAiRmEALw_wcB">Scoliosis, Win made quite the early entrance into the world, changing her parents lives and the lives of those around her, forever. You can't help but fall in love with Win's spirit and perseverance.

She has authored multiple books, hosts and co-hosts multiple podcasts, and spreads education and awareness about living with Cerebral Palsy and chronic pain, daily. We talked about Spoonie life, fashion for Spoonies and her podcast Diary of a Fashionista, grief & loss, and authenticity!

We hope you enjoy hearing Win's story and our conversation in the virtual studio.

Connect with Win Here:

http://askwin.weebly.com/

Make sure you check out her podcast Diary of a Fashionista, on one of these fine listening apps:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-diary-of-a-fashionista/id1444555159?mt=2

https://radiopublic.com/a-diary-of-a-fashionista-8g0qwZ

https://tunein.com/podcasts/Education-Podcasts/A-Diary-of-a-Fashionista-p1205222/

This week's episode is a hoot!

To keep things interesting Debbie Jo shares again (who needs rules anyway amiright) all about America's favorite pastime, baseball!

The story of Jackie Mitchell is full of controversy, mystery, + badassery. The 17 year old struck out 2 of baseball's best players in an exhibition game on April 2, 1931.

Or did she?

We'll let you decide based on the evidence but we'd love to hear your thoughts + theories so send us a message after you listen!

Thanks for listening this week + every week :)

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-woman-who-maybe-struck-out-babe-ruth-and-lou-gehrig-4759182/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Mitchell

mitchell-overlooked.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/obituaries/jackie-mitchell-overlooked.html

It's been a bit of a hot mess express over here at the Non Mom Happy Hour Virtual Recording Studio the past two weeks. We are going through some growing pains with Squadcast.fm v2.0. We are doing are best to work with the support team at Squadcast.fm and get it figured out. They're just as frustrated as we are, we're sure, so please hang in there with us while we get the kinks out. (For instance, in this episode you'll notice that Debbie Jo's audio isn't up to our usual standards. Long story.)

SURPRISE! We have some new business.

First of all, if you haven't yet, please check out our new-and-improved website, www.anonmomhappyhour.com. We decided that since our podcast audience has had a serious upgrade in recent months, so should our website, and we think it's pretty cool. Find links to all the social meds, our merch store, photos of us at PodX, all kinds of things.

Now, on to the show:

This week Kelly tells Debbie Jo about esteemed American author Toni Morrison. Morrison was important for so many reasons; she challenged so much about how we as a society and culture view race, American beauty standards, civil rights, and the balance of good and evil. It's hard to adequately put into words just how important her work has been and what a loss our country and the world suffered when she passed away in August. We hope you dig the tribute.

Debbie Jo tells Kelly about... no one. You'll have to listen to learn why! Get to it! Thanks for hanging with us, and remember:

Always be a real ass human. (Even if that means you go a week without a podcast episode release, and then your next episode release has audio issues.)

Sources:

https://wp.nyu.edu/tonimorrison/2016/12/15/the-impact-of-toni-morrison/

https://www.biography.com/writer/toni-morrison

Toni.html">https://www.notablebiographies.com/Mo-Ni/Morrison-Toni.html

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Toni-Morrison

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Garner

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1993/summary/

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Princeton-University

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/06/toni-morrison-author-and-pulitzer-winner-dies-aged-88

For you, it's only been two weeks since we recorded and released an episode. For the Non Moms, it has been four weeks. Time is so weird. 

Our producer has an official pseudonym. You can follow him on Instagram as @Wade.Freeman. Do it. Give him production feedback. It'll be great. (He's going to hate us, which is hilarious.)

This week you can hear all about Kelly's (successful) neurosurgery and hospital experience (so much tragic comedy); Debbie Jo's new meditation and gratitude practices; Kelly's plumbing disaster which of course took place just days after the neurosurgery; our birthdays! That's right, we're both officially older and neither of us is totally comfortable with it. 

This episode, in other words, is a journey through some serious real life, a few disasters, a little bit of success, and a whole lot of fun. Join us next week when we'll have new research for you! 

We love y'all so much. Thanks for being here. Also, please consider checking out our patreon at www.patreon.com/anonmomhappyhour and becoming a patreon for as little as $3 a month! (We'll send you mail that's not bills. How fun is that?!)