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The Only Child Diaries Podcast
Tracy Wallace
175 episodes
1 day ago
Send us a text A holiday decorating contest turned into a masterclass in rolling with the weather. The atmospheric river drenched our front yard display, shorted the circuits, and left our ten-foot Yeti with gravity-defying soggy fur. We didn’t take home the win, but we did find something better: perspective, humor, and a reminder that the brightest moments often come after plans go sideways. From the driveway, the season threw another curveball—a couple inches of water pooled on the driver’...
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Send us a text A holiday decorating contest turned into a masterclass in rolling with the weather. The atmospheric river drenched our front yard display, shorted the circuits, and left our ten-foot Yeti with gravity-defying soggy fur. We didn’t take home the win, but we did find something better: perspective, humor, and a reminder that the brightest moments often come after plans go sideways. From the driveway, the season threw another curveball—a couple inches of water pooled on the driver’...
Show more...
Personal Journals
Comedy,
Society & Culture,
Relationships
Episodes (20/175)
The Only Child Diaries Podcast
The Brochure on Holiday (Decoration) Blues
Send us a text A holiday decorating contest turned into a masterclass in rolling with the weather. The atmospheric river drenched our front yard display, shorted the circuits, and left our ten-foot Yeti with gravity-defying soggy fur. We didn’t take home the win, but we did find something better: perspective, humor, and a reminder that the brightest moments often come after plans go sideways. From the driveway, the season threw another curveball—a couple inches of water pooled on the driver’...
Show more...
1 day ago
10 minutes

The Only Child Diaries Podcast
The Brochure on Los Angeles Rain
Send us a text Holiday cheer meets home reality as a Southern California storm rolls in and puts a target on outdoor lights, inflatables, and carefully planned yard magic. I talk through the tradeoffs of beauty and safety—what happens when circuits shut down, mud takes over, and the sky ignores your calendar. There’s relief that it’s rain and not wildfire winds this year, plus a real wish that weather would wait until the decorations have their moment. The season’s other curveballs pile up i...
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1 week ago
14 minutes

The Only Child Diaries Podcast
The Brochure on....Easy?
Send us a text Joy doesn’t always arrive in a big moment; sometimes it shows up in a box that claims “25 minutes” and actually takes four hours, a friendly text from a great PT, or a yard that glows just enough to make strangers slow their cars. We set out to simplify holiday decorating after two hospital stays shifted our bandwidth, and we found a sweet spot between ambition and energy. With a giant Bumble from the 1964 Rudolph classic anchoring the display, seven inflatables, and a sensible...
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2 weeks ago
9 minutes

The Only Child Diaries Podcast
The Brochure on Caregiving (Again)
Send us a text Caregiving rarely looks like the neat checklist people promise. We open the door on a week of small wins and stubborn setbacks: a partner recovering from bulging discs, the push to trade bed rest for hallway laps, and the work of finding motivation when every step aches. The house hums with real life—pets reacting to disrupted routines, a cat throwing up from stress, a dog glued to our sides—and we talk about how self care shifts from bubble baths to basic sleep, food, and the ...
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3 weeks ago
17 minutes

The Only Child Diaries Podcast
The Brochure on Caregiving, Boundaries, And Small Wins
Send us a text Caregiving isn’t a tidy checklist; it’s a constant recalibration of energy, emotion, and logistics. In this episode, I'm talking about life after back-to-back hospital stays and what it takes to keep a home running when helpers still need help, the dog thinks every visitor is a threat, and the cat needs a calming plan to handle the foot traffic. That swirl forces hard choices, and I get candid about the small moments that protect sanity—like holding a long-delayed hair appointm...
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4 weeks ago
15 minutes

The Only Child Diaries Podcast
Dry Turkey, Wet Humor - Re-releasing The Brochure on Thanksgiving
Send us a text Dry turkey on one side of the family, rum-soaked pudding on the other—somehow neither tasted like home. This week it's a re-release of my favorite funny Thanksgiving episode, and I'm pulling you into a holiday world where salt was outlawed, bay leaves did all the heavy lifting, and stuffing came from a box you didn’t want seconds of. It’s funny because it’s true, and it’s tender because it’s about more than food: it’s about learning to rewrite rituals, find the middle between d...
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1 month ago
23 minutes

The Only Child Diaries Podcast
The Brochure on Being in Your Own Bed Again
Send us a text Twelve days in the hospital can blur into a single, sleepless memory. After an ER stretch that felt endless, we finally brought my husband home—but not before the big question families everywhere wrestle with: skilled nursing facility or recovery at home. I share a past experience guiding my thinking: my dad’s fall, a stint in rehab, and an underwhelming version of “more PT” that didn’t translate into real progress. That history didn’t force our hand, but it sharpened ou...
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1 month ago
11 minutes

The Only Child Diaries Podcast
The Brochure on Managing Pain & The Power Of Advocacy
Send us a text The healthcare system doesn’t hand out a manual or a how-to brochure for that matter about how to deal with health issues. After a hospital discharged us with no pain meds and no clear plan because we declined surgery, we faced a stark choice: wait and watch strength fade, or push for access to a team that could actually help. In this episode, I walk you through the messy middle—how we navigated private medical transport when an ambulance wouldn’t cross districts, how a simple ...
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1 month ago
18 minutes

The Only Child Diaries Podcast
The Brochure on a Caregiver’s Short Update
Send us a text This week's episode is abbreviated to say the least with my husband's health issues taking center stage! Short updates on things going on. Did you listen to last week's interview by the way? If this resonates, follow the Only Child Diaries Podcast on your favorite app, leave a rating and review to help others find us, and share the show with a friend who needs a thoughtful voice in their feed. Join us on Instagram at Only Child Diaries and Facebook at Only Ch...
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1 month ago
3 minutes

The Only Child Diaries Podcast
The Brochure on Leslie Berlin
Send us a text What if the quiet of an only-child home becomes the engine for a louder, fuller life? Tracy sits down with Leslie Berlin to trace that arc—from a childhood shaped by early divorce and Sunday dinners with dad to a grown-up world built on cousins, neighbors, and in-laws who feel like true family. Leslie’s warmth and candor turn familiar worries into practical wisdom: how to learn confrontation without sibling sparring matches, how to make small holidays feel rich, and how to carr...
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2 months ago
43 minutes

The Only Child Diaries Podcast
The Brochure on Gratitude As A Daily Decision
Send us a text What do you hold onto when the week unravels—when a hospital discharge turns into a maze of home care, a storm flattens your Halloween decorations, and the cat needs an ER visit at 1 a.m.? I walk through a stretch of days where everything asked for attention at once and explain how I kept moving by choosing a glass half-full approach. We start with my husband’s recovery plan: two bulging discs, a broken rib, and a team effort that includes a visiting nurse, physical the...
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2 months ago
16 minutes

The Only Child Diaries Podcast
The Brochure on My Husband's Falls
Send us a text A cascade of pain, four falls, and a fractured rib turned a quiet week into a high-stakes navigation of hospital systems, protocols, and hard choices. We walk you through the unvarnished reality of being a caregiver when the lights of the ambulance meet the glow of Halloween decorations, the dog won’t stop barking, and the chart misses the most important details. From the ER intake to a five-day stay that demanded constant vigilance, we dig into medication mix-ups, the pharmaci...
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2 months ago
20 minutes

The Only Child Diaries Podcast
The Brochure on Marriage #4
Send us a text The week started with hope—physical therapy was finally helping my husband to build strength and balance—then it swerved into a nerve flare that turned my husband into a bedridden dependent partner that made me worry and exhausted at the same time. Caregiving isn’t glamorous; it’s small adjustments repeated with patience: finding a position that eases pain, measuring the day by steps, and choosing what gets dropped when everything can’t fit. I share how “in sickness and in heal...
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3 months ago
12 minutes

The Only Child Diaries Podcast
The Brochure on the New York Times
Send us a text Have you ever broken a promise to yourself for something that unexpectedly connected you to someone you've lost? That's exactly what happened when I subscribed to The New York Times after vowing never to accumulate publications again. When we moved from our apartment a few years ago, we discovered mountains of magazines and newspaper clippings tucked away in closets and corners—evidence of my fundraising career, my husband's modeling hobby, and our shared love of reading. The ...
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3 months ago
14 minutes

The Only Child Diaries Podcast
The Brochure on Marriage #3
Send us a text Have you ever had a revelation when someone you've known for years suddenly reveals themselves to be completely different from who you thought they were? Maybe you suddenly started spending a LOT of time with them and finally got to really KNOW them? That somewhat jarring disconnect between perception and reality forms the heart of this episode's exploration into the complicated layers of our closest relationships. And let's face it, sometimes we just give people the bene...
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3 months ago
12 minutes

The Only Child Diaries Podcast
The Brochure on Surviving a Drunk Driver Crash
Send us a text The choice to drive drunk can destroy lives in an instant. On September 7, 2017, my husband Bill and I were enjoying a vacation in Las Vegas when a drunk driver slammed into our rental car at approximately 80 miles per hour. The impact was so violent that I genuinely believed I wouldn't survive. Our world transformed in that moment—from carefree vacation to a 20-month nightmare of physical recovery, emotional trauma, and an exhausting fight for justice. This is my annual re-rel...
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3 months ago
51 minutes

The Only Child Diaries Podcast
The Brochure on our 3rd Anniversary!
Send us a text This week I'm celebrating three years of the Only Child Diaries podcast, reflecting on the journey and expressing gratitude to listeners across 58 countries worldwide. The podcast has grown into a global community where experiences of being an only child are shared with humor and insight. • Upcoming interview with Leslie Berlin, a fellow only child with a different background including divorced parents, multiple cousins, and her own children • Podcast demographics reveal liste...
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4 months ago
20 minutes

The Only Child Diaries Podcast
The Brochure on Arborists
Send us a text Yeah, you get to a certain age, and you think, okay, there are some things I can do well....or at least good enough. Discovering you've been watering trees wrong your entire life is not something I expected to learn about myself after hiring an arborist to help me with our aging tangerine tree. A beloved 50-year-old tangerine tree planted by my father back when I was a teenager. But I did learn something new and I'm hoping I can nurse it back to some level of bette...
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4 months ago
19 minutes

The Only Child Diaries Podcast
The Brochure on Yet More Closure
Send us a text If you're a regular listener you already know I've talked a lot about grief. It gets to be a bigger part of life as you go along. Saying goodbye isn't a single moment but a journey that unfolds in unexpected layers over time. After keeping my horse Dallas's stall for over a year following his sudden passing, I 'm finally facing the last tie with the barn - giving up his stall. This wasn't just about emptying a locker filled with dusty memories, but about ackn...
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4 months ago
11 minutes

The Only Child Diaries Podcast
The Brochure on Home Repair Nightmares
Send us a text Homeownership can feel like navigating uncharted waters without a compass. That sinking feeling when you hear an unfamiliar noise in your house? It happened to me recently, and what followed was both educational and let's face it, expensive. When I moved into my parents' home, I quickly discovered that years of deferred maintenance meant something broke literally every day. It became a running joke – what would give up the ghost today? Eventually, things settled down, a...
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4 months ago
11 minutes

The Only Child Diaries Podcast
Send us a text A holiday decorating contest turned into a masterclass in rolling with the weather. The atmospheric river drenched our front yard display, shorted the circuits, and left our ten-foot Yeti with gravity-defying soggy fur. We didn’t take home the win, but we did find something better: perspective, humor, and a reminder that the brightest moments often come after plans go sideways. From the driveway, the season threw another curveball—a couple inches of water pooled on the driver’...