I’m so thankful that our friends John and Heather were visiting Chicago this past weekend from New York. We got to spend a lot of time with them and even have some deep heart to heart talks about passion, creative work, and calling.
John is in advertising and he was mentioning how when he’s trying to come up with new ideas and concepts for ads, he’s constantly second guessing himself. He’s always pushing himself and trying to come up with something that’s ground breaking and impressive.
I can TOTALLY relate to that. Since this was episode 19, of Bits & Pieces, I knew that I only had 2 episodes left to make an impact before Season 1 was over, so I started beating myself up… going back and forth between different ideas and second guessing my instincts.
It also didn’t help because I asked Joe what he thought about me making this Apple and Avocado Chicken Salad. He gave his honest opinion and said that he thought the idea was “okay,” but wasn’t sure if it was that impressive. That’s what you get for marrying a fellow creative person.
But in a way, I understood what he was saying. The recipe itself is very simple, and I got the inspiration for it from another recipe I found in a magazine. Joe is a huge activist of me coming up with original recipes on my own. I try to do that, but sometimes I just run out of creative juice.
But eventually, after trying to think of alternative recipes, I went back to my original idea and settled on doing this one anyways. Shortly after we filmed, we met up with John and Heather. That’s when John said, “for creative work, you just gotta stick with your gut. Your gut is usually right.” Couldn’t have said it better myself, John! I was so thankful to hear that from him and get that affirmation.
Creative differences and being married to your coworker is what makes shooting our show difficult sometimes. But 19 episodes later, we finally feel like we hit our stride! You can hear us talk more about how our shoot went see some bloopers in our Apple and Avocado Chicken Salad Behind the Scenes video below:
This time, for the first time, I felt like we were FINALLY learning how to work together. I would pause at the right moments and literally stop talking, stand still, and wait for Joe to readjust the camera, so that he wasn’t panicking to capture the shots.
Likewise, Joe was much more vocal in expressing his opinions like, “turn that piece of toast around.” Haha! You don’t understand, those little things made all the difference. We ended up getting less aggravated at each other, and it felt much more “fun” to shoot together.
And because we were both worried that the chicken salad smothered in avocado sauce would come out looking like a big blob of green on camera, I popped out to the grocery store the day before our shoot to search around for something to make it look more interesting.
Once I stumbled across the radishes, it changed our whole mood, because this ended up being one of our favorite photo shoots. Suddenly, I was proud to do this recipe and became excited to film it.
It just goes to show, that John is right, and with creative work, you really do have to just go with your gut. Even if it’s not perfect, you can always find ways to make it work, as long as you truly believe in it.
This episode definitely marked a milestone for us in our journey. Something was different in the air this time. We knew how to communicate, think about the other person, and make adjustments. It made us excited for things yet to come.
