Cheers for Change - Still She Persisted Despite the Pandemic, Wildfires and Cancer.

Regina and I worked our first season starting in June of 2020. We were in the midst of a global pandemic and on the national level, we were located on opposite sides of the United States. I was in wine country near Portland, Oregon and Regina was in a suburb of Atlanta Georgia. While in the midst of what became an almost ludicrous series of events, we both prioritized, more like carved out, time to write episode scripts, call each other to strategize, compile administrative details, and then tape our show each week, sometimes multiple times a week. Little did we know that when we started we would look forward to what we began to call "distracting ourselves" saying "I need the distraction from ___fill in the blank - protestors in our cities, covid 19 fears, the list went on.

Skin cancer, wildfire evacuations, hurricanes, protests, corona virus impacting our families - we just kept going, asking each other " are you sure you want to do the filming this week?" The answer was always "yes, it will distract me". Until not only did it become a distraction, we had taped 12 episodes over a three month period and it became a lifeline to engage in positive action in a quarantined world turned upside down. 

Every week we strategized post show and felt the momentum build. This enthusiastic post show wind down call help with motivation during the week when our energy was flagging and we had to work our "day jobs" and dig deep for the energy to work on the endless details related to building a Vlog show. Regina was busy operating her wine store Corks and Cuvee and Atlanta and I was busy working as a wine marketing and communications consultant in Portland, Oregon for the entirety of season one. We filmed the entire show on zoom, mostly from our homes or onsite at winery locations and longed for the day when we could film onsite from different places around the world, post-covid. 

But admittedly our supportive husbands and breakthroughs helped too. Every person who consented to be on the show and share their time bolstered our spirits. Every time we dragged ourselves to open up the zoom call, Regina at 7:00 pm,EST, and me at 4:00 PST, tired after working another "new normal" covid workday amidst disruptions with our kids going to school in their bedrooms, getting a new puppy during the pandemic (good thing he was so cute and redeemed himself every time he chewed a different shoe), and the endless virtual tastings we were doing to sustain business customers that could no longer host onsite events of more than 10 at Regina's store or at the winery brands I represented.