Requiem for a Podcast

Two years ago I was excited to start a podcast and I really did it. I recorded 44 episodes, each with different guests, and those episodes got downloaded over 2,400 times (average ~54.5 per episode which is not great, tbh). I published my last episode in January of this year and then quietly put the whole project on ice while I considered what to do next.

By now it's safe to say that I won't be making any more (but you can still listen, at least for now!) so I'm writing this post-mortem to remember what I learned from this endeavor. First, the good things: I met interesting people and had fun talking with them! That was my primary goal and I achieved it, so that was great. But my secondary goal, to build an audience by getting people to share it with new listeners, did not go so great.

Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful for everyone who listened to the show, and the few who followed up to tell me they enjoyed it. And I'm super grateful to the interviewees who took the time to sit down and talk with me. But otherwise, I got practically no engagement by the metrics needed to make a podcast successful--not a single review, even by my guests (no hard feelings, and it turns out this is pretty typical).

Even that was no problem while I enjoyed the process, but eventually the novelty wore off and it didn't feel worthwhile any more. Each episode took around an hour to record and maybe two hours to edit and post online. Three hours doesn't seem like much, but that turns out to be practically all my free time for a week, and I didn't love it enough for this to be my only hobby. Plus I wasn't just worried about wasting my own time, but my guests'... if nobody was going to listen, what was the point of recording?

Anyway, ultimately it was all too much so I quit. I was conflicted at first but now I'm confident that this was the right decision. In conclusion, it was fun while it lasted (and I stuck it out longer than average: most podcasts don't last more than six months before shutting down). I guess I'll keep on starting new projects forever and never stick with anything long term! (Except for my wife, my kids, my house, my pets, my day job, my craft job... you know what, maybe I do have enough going on already after all.)

Cat-stravaganza

We adopted a kitty! Chi is an approximately two-year-old Domestic Shorthair who we met at the Golden Valley Animal Humane Society. She chose me by shaking my hand when I knelt down to pet her, then walking onto my legs and jumping on my shoulders to nuzzle. She's a cuddler.

She is also a crier and this has not endeared her to Jenna, especially at nights. In hindsight it may have been foolish to bring home a needy pet just as we were starting to get a full night's sleep again after eight years of human babies. I still love her though. How can you stay mad at this face?

The best(?) part about cat ownership is that I now have an excuse to make lots of handcrafted toys and pet furniture. I built Chi a feeding puzzle so that she can burn some energy working for her food, and this nice modern scratching bed. My miter saw suffered a critical failure but I hope to fix or replace it soon and get back to work on the next project!


Offspring Update

With both the girls heading back to school, it's a good time to catch up on how they've been doing lately. Natalie is in third grade now, the last year of lower elementary, and Paisley will be starting Kindergarten next fall. It's a big transition for them and even more for Jenna, who suddenly has whole hours to herself each day!

For me, of course, there's practically no difference. Paisley is an early bird like me so we usually eat breakfast together before I go to work on weekdays. Then I come home in the evening and we all play until the dinner-bath-bedtime sequence begins. I guess we can throw "help with homework" in there more as Natalie gets older but that's about it.

What else can I say about my daughters? They're both perfect angels! Paisley's old enough that we can sort of play family board games together and she can mostly follow along, which I've been anticipating for a long time. But playing pretend is still their favorite thing to do with me, whether we're role-playing Chi's Sweet Home, pet store, or Pokemon (almost always Pokemon). Whatever it is, is fine with me; the important thing is that they want to be together and I'm just soaking that up while I can.