Unclench honey, it don’t have to hurt that bad…

Here’s a few shots from yesterday’s adventures in Michigan. Sad but true, Yesterday was our last pick of this block.

2 weeks of long days and very short nights are finally coming to an end for this block of American Pickers. Today is my last day of pickups or interviews. We will drive to a quiet spot outside of Detroit to film today. It’s a sweet little farm with lamas, donkeys, sheep and lots of different birds. There’s a cute little Siamese cat too!

I always leave with a new understanding of life.

Here are a few things that I have learned on this trip. I have learned that I can live without Haley on the road, not sure if I want to, but I can. That’s good for me to know. I had a different personal assistant out on the road with me this time, actually, I had a couple. I really enjoyed being with them both. Not only did I enjoy being with them but I survived Haley not being here. She has been such a lifeline to me over the last eight years and had a very full schedule this month so she couldn’t make it out on this trip, so production hired another assistant for me. Haley started out as my personal assistant and then became my manager. I don’t like using Haley as my personal assistant because I feel like her area of expertise is outside of that realm. She makes an excellent personal assistant however, she makes an excellent manager and that really is such an important job right now, I need her to focus on that. Playing a personal assistant and a manager at the same time is highly exhausting for her. It’s entirely too much happening all at the same time and the crew relies on her heavily as well. I’m trying to separate the personal assistant from the manager and allow her to have less stress and more freedom within her job. So we’ve been toying around with the idea of bringing on another personal assistant for the needs of the crew, myself, and Mike on the road. It has worked out beautifully! I would love to be able to have a regular personal assistant on the road and have Haley be able to focus on managerial things and being my emotional support out here instead of being completely overwhelmed with everything that I need, that Mike needs, and the crew needs. It’s too much for one person. She does it seamlessly but I can see that it is A lot for her, it’s a lot for anyone.

I treasure that relationship and want that relationship to last far beyond American Pickers and I think that it’s important that I don’t wear her down. I’m really good at wearing people down! I’m fun and exciting but because of my natural makeup, I can be really exhausting.

This trip I’ve learned that there’s always a Trump sign or hat somewhere in the shot no matter how hard I try to hide them all…. And that’s ok.

I can only control so much.

I’ve learned to eat on the road when there’s food available because later there may be none. Especially when we film into the late evening. I always want to wait till I get to the hotel to eat. I realize this trip that that rarely works out. I need to eat when food is in front of me, onset, even if it’s crafty, even if it’s drive-through, just make sure to eat before I get back to the hotel. There are so many hotels and restaurants lately that are finding it very difficult to keep steady employees. I think that has a lot to do with the hourly wage but that’s my personal opinion. It is really difficult to find restaurants and hotels that are open right now and functional because so many people have decided to leave the service industry for a better quality of life and to build their own dreams. Folks simply are not getting paid enough to do service work. It’s really interesting how we view service work. We don’t realize how important these jobs are until there’s nobody to fill these positions. Service work is WAY underrated and is a thankless job. All too often service work does not pay well. Tip your servers, bartenders, hairdressers, delivery people, nail technicians, bellhops, etc well. They deserve it.

I have learned that no matter how hard I work, no matter how brutal it feels, no matter how tired I am, my crew is probably 10 times more tired and worked 10 times harder than me. Be patient, and treat them well, they are the backbone of everything that is being produced. Also make sure they are fed! If it’s hard for me to find food at the hotel, it’s equally hard for them too. The most important thing we can do out here on the road is make sure that our crew is healthy, happy, safe, and taken care of. If they’re not taken care of, nobody can take care of us.

As you can tell from the photos I’m learning from Francie, don’t take life too seriously, go play, enjoy nature, and take time to lie in the grass and roll around.

I’m also learning that when the grass is wet, you shouldn’t drive through it. Unfortunately at our last pick, we got stuck… Somebody drove straight through the mud and it was quite an ordeal to get the van out. Thankfully we were around some good folks in Detroit who had no problem helping us out of the situation.

Something else that I’m learning while I’m on the road is to take the time to rest while it’s there. There are always so many moving parts. When you think you’ll have time to rest, half of the time it’s not there. When unexpected downtime comes, it’s important for me to take the time to rest well. Resting well for me means making sure I have a humidifier in my room, taking my heating pad to bed with me, turning off my phone and setting it aside for the night, making sure I eat like I love myself, and making sure that I don’t have too many cocktails otherwise the next day could be pretty brutal.

I’m a big fan of exercise on the road but this trip has just been way too fast-moving for me to indulge in any of that, unfortunately. Exercise when you can! Even if it just means getting in a little run or some yoga or just stretching out and doing squats at some point during the day when there’s downtime. Our bodies need strengthening and Road life is not always the best life for strengthening our bodies. If nothing else, make sure to do spine exercises. Those seem to be the most important for me out of anything. If our spine is not supple, neither are we. If our spine is not flexible, neither are we. Keeping our spine flexible and in motion is a great way to keep the pain away and help us focus better during the day.

See people when you can, you never know these days… As I’m traveling through the country, I like to conserve my energy, which means that I don’t really hang out outside of work. I’m realizing that when I have an opportunity to see people that I love I need to take advantage of that opportunity. It’s hard to balance rest and socialization but I’m realizing that there’s nothing like the regret of wishing you had been able to see that person for one last time. The world is so uncertain these days, we don’t know what’s coming next. Take a moment, and try to say hi to the folks you love while you’re in town. It’s not always possible, it’s not often possible but when it is possible I’m trying to take advantage of those moments. I would rather know I tried and failed than know that I didn’t try at all to see my loved ones.

I’m learning that nothing is forever and that everything eventually comes to an end. I’ve loved this time over these last two weeks out with my crew. I’ve enjoyed the daily hugs, the wellness checks, the lunchtime hangs, and the joyful tender interactions between the crew. I loved the last 13 years of this job even though there have been things about it that I can find frustrating. I’ve loved working with the crew and have enjoyed learning new perspectives from them. Nothing is guaranteed and we don’t know what will happen tomorrow. My contract ends in February and who knows what will happen from there? Who knows if the show will get picked up for another season or if the opportunity to work will even be there at all? Enjoy the moments while you are in them. It’s hard to do because we don’t usually feel at full capacity until later. It takes our brains a minute to catch up so oftentimes we’re not able to feel all of our feelings in the moment but I’m really trying to. I want to remember all of the good I can from the crew on this project. If we’re here after February, hooray! If we’re not, it’s been a wild ride! Again, nothing is guaranteed. Enjoy it while it’s here, enjoy it while it lasts.

This is my rant for today, it is now 6:24 and it is time for me to get out of bed, shower, do my make up, try to get some stretches in and head to set so that we can film for my last day before I head home to my fur babies and my dude! I miss them all so much!