The Path Ahead | Ep. 1

Welcome to the first episode of Worth The Walk, a conversational storytelling podcast about life experiences, perspectives, and the stories that shape the path ahead.

Every journey starts somewhere — and this is ours.

In this episode, we introduce the hosts, talk about why we started the podcast, and give listeners a glimpse of what’s coming as we build this show together.

Worth The Walk is about real conversations — the kind you’d have with friends during a long drive, a late night hang, or a walk where the discussion turns into something deeper. We’ll share stories, perspectives, debates, and experiences that make life interesting, unpredictable, and sometimes hilarious.

We also want listeners to be part of the show.

Got a story, question, opinion, confession, or something crazy that happened to you? Send it in and it might be featured in a future episode.

📧 Send stories or messages to:
Worththewalkpodcast@gmail.com

Whether you're listening in the car, at the gym, or out for a walk, we’re glad you’re here at the beginning.

This is Worth The Walk.

⭐ Follow / Subscribe so you don’t miss upcoming episodes
⭐ Share with a friend who might enjoy the walk
⭐ Send us your stories: Worththewalkpodcast@gmail.com

Got a story, question, opinion, or just want to say hi? Send it in and it might be featured in a future episode.

📧 Send stories or messages to:
Worththewalkpodcast@gmail.com

Whether you're listening in the car, at the gym, or out for a walk, we’re glad you’re here.

This is Worth The Walk.

⭐ Follow / Subscribe so you don’t miss upcoming episodes
⭐ Share with a friend who might enjoy the walk
⭐ Send us your stories: Worththewalkpodcast@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We're gonna talk about ourselves. I want to introduce me, who I am, and a little bit about my family. And then Cherry, you're gonna jump in and tell us all about your love life. My my love life. Well, I didn't think it was this kind of uh podcast. Welcome to a space where we talk about the journey, every twist, every triumph, every moment that shaped who we are today. Here we explore the paths that women walk on their journey to motherhood, identity, and everything in between. These are the stories that change us, the moments that ground us, the truths we don't talk out loud nearly enough. If you're searching for connection, comfort, conversation, a couple of good laughs, you're in the right place. This is worth the walk. Let's begin. Well, here we are, episode one. I am absolutely so excited to get started. For me, I have been planning this for years. Maybe not this particular topic, but the podcast itself I've been planning for years. And here we are. Welcome to Worth the Walk. I'm Claudette Pacero, and with me today is my sister, Sherry Chloe. Hello, everyone. So excited to be here. Today we're gonna begin the journey that looks into women in total. So the mother, the first time mother, second, third, and all the way down the line. And grandma, uh want to be a mom, thought about be a mom, thought about never being a mom. Everything along those lines. Uh not talking about, have to talk about, scared to talk about. And then, of course, the one where social media is comparing us to everybody else out there in their 30-second video of perfection. And it just doesn't exist. No, no, it absolutely doesn't exist. But that's what today's about. We're gonna talk about ourselves. I want to introduce me, who I am, and a little bit about my family. And then Sherry and jump in and tell us all about your love life.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

My my love life. Well, I didn't think it was this kind of uh podcast. Let's talk about it. And also it would be pretty boring. What are we gonna talk about? No, I mean, it's okay, but it's not like 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

That three or four minutes could be good for anybody. Oh, back on track! Okay. All right, everybody. You're gonna notice in this, we're gonna get distracted. We really are, and I'll apologize right from the very, very beginning. We do have a tendency to crack ourselves up. All right. So I'm Claudia Pacero. I am married to the love of my life, Johnny Pacero, and I have been that way for 40 years this year. I should validate that with John because he's the one who's been keeping track. He's still here. I know. I can hear him. I'm there watching the competition. So we have two children, uh, my son, who's 36, and my daughter, who's 31. And I love them more than I can even put into words on this podcast or anything else in the universe. I was married at 21, had Matthew at 25, and had my daughter at 30. Um we met, John and I, in grade seven. Um, when I was 16 years old, I was moved, or my dad got posted from Ontario to Dubert, Nova Scotia. And uh in the backseat of the car at 16, crying my eyes out.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

I'm gonna marry him. I'm not leaving.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

I will marry him someday, with my mother turning around saying, Yeah, when hell freezes over, you will. Get in the car. We're leaving. That's it. You're not marrying that passero boy. Anyways, 40 years later, here we are. Uh give or take a couple of years. So that's that's the the um journey of of the love of my life. And then we get into the next stage of my life, which is motherhood. And it changes you.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

You had a full career while you were mothering as well.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

So you had you know, the whole your whole My career actually was I'm I'm I was gonna say, I'm sad to say, but I'm not sad to say, because it was the choice I made. But my career literally was my focus. And John took time off, took parental leave off to be the caregiver. Um so with that, as you can tell, I'm slightly distracted because I can hear John put in the other world just just chatting away to his mom on the phone and just all right, we're gonna need soundproofing. So John took the first few years off. He he stayed with uh Matthew for the first uh almost two years he was with Matthew. Um and a lot of things I did not know what he did with Matthew while I was at work, such as he would get in his car with a with the uh diaper bag and drive to the racetrack with this one-year-old baby so he could make bets on the racetrack in Greenwood in Toronto, and then can make it away, huddle his little ass home before I got home and say, Oh, what a wonderful day we had. Make it memories. Make them memories, spending money, betting on the horses. That's funny. That's funny. So that's that's just a touch um about me. Now I did stay home with Samantha. Um, I think that that maternity leave was only six months, but I did take them full, yeah, they was short, right? Um, and you know, I I breastfed Samantha. I didn't breastfeed uh Matthew. Um I mean she was a quieter, more rested baby than Matthew. Again, they did the the difference between first and second is just unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Did you have a lot of encouragement with your first one to breastfeed, or was it more not discouraged or not?

SPEAKER_00 6:53

No, it wasn't even discouraged or fit anything in the hospital. I mean, they tried to help.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

1989.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

1989, yeah. I mean they talked about it, you know, you can if you want to, you know, but they brought the bottles out. I tried to breastfeed them. I got uh mastitis. Uh oh, it was it was it was horrible.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

I I only remember because I was traumatized as a teenager thinking, washes it was you're putting cabbage leaves on her what and why yeah, it was it was horrific.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

And it was it was oh the pain. Oh my god, the pain. It was just horrible. Yeah, um, but I really didn't. I think I was about three weeks and and that was it. And he was starving. Right. He was literally starving. So yeah, fed him a bottle and he was uh he was a chunky little monkey.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

He was some cute cute baby. I know. Both your babies are beautiful. I think so too.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

Yeah. So that would that's a little tiny bit about my journey and why I I and where I'm at. I now have three absolutely freaking gorgeous grandchildren. I have two grandsons and one granddaughter. I cannot say how much I love this. Like, you know, you love your kids, but then you have a grandkid, and it's like multiplied by a trillion. Like you just like that your heart says, Oh, I love you, son, I love you, daughter. And then you look at your grandkids and go, Oh, dear God, you're so gorgeous. I love you so much. And you just look at it.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Love the kind of grandma you are just makes me so happy. Claude, I see you give every ounce of everything you have into making sure those grandbabies know their grandma loves them. Yeah, I love, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Yeah, love that. Love those babies.

unknown 8:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

It's a special kind of love. I'm not there yet. I'm sure it'll be someday. Not quite in that, not in the camp yet of grandparenthood, but that's okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Yeah, not not pushing any buttons with the kids saying is today the day, let's let's get them married first.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Well, actually, how about we just get them out of my house first? Let's just talk those steps. Can we just can we just deal with that first? Absolutely. No, I love you kids. You can stay home as long as you want to.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

See, that's why we're not on YouTube.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

They didn't see that. Oh, I've I've been told to have a face for radio. Oh, that's not true. You're such a liar. So moving to a podcast is like a natural transition. I can make all those faces.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

You're such a liar. Okay, now it's your turn. Sherry Clo. Give us a little bit about uh the hows and the whys.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Well, first, I just want to say I'm I'm just so honored and I'm thankful that you've asked me to do this project with you. So I know you've thought about this project for a long time and you've put a lot of your heart and your soul into it. So asking me to be a partner in crime and a co-host with you means a lot. So I'm super, I'm super excited to be here to do that.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

You know how much I love you.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

I know, I know how much you love me. We just love each other. We really do. Yeah, we really do. We're connected in some some kooky ways too. We're a little, we'll get into that in a second. We'll talk about that in a minute. Um, yeah, I'm uh I'm honestly I'm married to the most wonderful man. Charles is fantastic, and he isn't the natural storyteller in our in our family. I'm not usually a storyteller. Frankly, I just don't have the memory to tell good stories. I just don't. Um, he has such a great memory and he just loves talking to people and learning their stories. So the fact that I'm sitting here doing a podcast is just ironic. So that isn't beyond me. I do feel like Charles is gonna be my phone a friend. I think I'm probably going to at certain points during the podcast be like, Paul, just a second, I'm gonna get him on the line and he's gonna fill in the blanks. He's gonna walk me through one reason. 100%. That's all right. My friend, my friend isn't there in the living room because Joe's memory's like a steel trap. Yeah, so Charles, I I've told him he's on a retainer. I'm gonna call him and he's gonna be my uh friend. Uh, we have four amazing kids, and um yeah, I think just the journey of bringing them up and raising them has I was so young when Charles and I met and got married and then had our beautiful kids. Um that I'm now in a stage of my life where I'm like, you know, who am I now? And I'm kind of evolving and growing into that uh new part of my life, and the kids have shaped me in some pretty fantastic ways. I've made amazing friends. You and I both have uh a collection of women who have amazing stories and have amazing experiences that I think you and I both want to use this platform to talk about and to share and to talk about the things that sometimes as women we we either push them aside, we don't talk about, or we share only in an environment where we you know feel safe to do. Filter what we share. Filter, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Because we don't want to be the judged mom. Yeah, right? I can I can tell you in the 80s and the 90s, it was like you wanted to be just like the Joneses. And there really wasn't ever a Jones on the street. There wasn't, but everybody wanted to be like that.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Okay, let's skip ahead to the 2000s because there's a bit of a generation gap between us. I have to mention it at some point. I know there is a bit of a gap age gap between the two of us.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

So I'm old and she's I'm just not as old.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Um it's yeah, so there is 13 years between the two of us.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

And I'm retired. She is not. She dreams of being me, but she's not.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

It's that's not a lie. Oh, so funny. Yeah, so we we have um the same parents, the same uh backgrounds, or you know, all of our relatives and kind of the same, we don't have the shared collective growing up experiences though. Like we have very different experiences growing up.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

If you look at that hierarchy of family, right? So you have the same mom and the same dad, and then you would have the oldest, the middle, and the the youngest. Well, you're almost like the only child syndrome.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

I felt like an only child when I grew up.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Because I mean, I was gone. You were five years old when I moved out of the house and was off to college, meeting John, getting the party in life and living my life and getting married and having babies. And you were still a teen.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

I think I was 13 or 14 when you had Matthew.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Yeah, it was very, you know, I became an aunt when I was 13, which is super and cool and interesting. Here's the thing, though. You and I have always had a bond. We've always had a connection between us. We're very similar. We have very similar senses of humor, we have very similar points where we can just look at each other and we're gonna laugh. I can tell. And we we have a an unspoken bit of connection and we have a little bit of woo-woo between us. So we've got very we have a few things that have been, yeah, like we're we got a little, there's something else going on here. And you and I are very connected. So we're we're super connected, and that's a big part of this podcast, too, is tuning into that intuition of that you feel. And I feel it's not unique between you and I. I think a lot of people have those connections that you have to kind of tap into a little more. It can really give you a lot of insight into how you live your life. But you and I, yeah. So, as an example, we're sitting here today getting ready for this first episode, and I look down because I just got my nails done.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

She's she's on our way on a cruise, everybody. She's gonna be bathing in the sun. Heading out of town. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

And Claudia just had this amazing spa experience that we're we are gonna talk about it. Oh, we are. Oh, we're gonna talk about it because it was pretty amazing. But we look down, our fingers, our nail color is identical.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

And I got my nails done last week. And I got mine too, and we're in different towns, even. So, like we're talking 45-minute drive from my house to where you got yours done. All right, and I never told you I got my nails done because they haven't seen me all week because it was under the weather there, and you know, laying down and taking care of myself. So I got my hands, and and she looks and she's like, Oh, she's got a breath held, and she's holding her hand up, she puts her brain. It's identical.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

It's a weird color, too. It's not even oh, it's not it's not red, it's not green, purple, blue, or anything. It's like, how would you describe it?

SPEAKER_00 15:13

I called it like my movie skin color. Movi skin color, yeah. And they're bang on. Bang on. So guess what? I know I got my toes done too. So we're gonna have to pull our socks off now. We're gonna read it. Well, our feet. And if they're the same, I'm going for literally disappointing.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Mine are purple, hers are pink. I mean, they're a pinky purple, but they're not the same. Not like our hands. Oh, that's so disappointing. I look, if I was a Betton woman, I would have put money on our lips.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

I'm gonna tell you, that would have been totally freaking ugly. Like, I mean, just unbelievable if we were just saying.

unknown 15:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

So you can see, so one of the things on this podcast that I think is going to happen, and we might need to start taking notes or something, because this little sheer distraction that happened. So you said you had four children and a husband.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Yeah, where to put those. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

We don't know how long you've been married, or the age of your children.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Yeah, so we were married about the '97. So we've been married for 29 years. I'm trying to do the mic. Uh 29 years. Yes, we've been married for 29 years. And for children, I had all of my children by the time I was 30. And um yeah, I mean, Charles and I both love the concept of um like an easy, almost like homesteady kind of lifestyle. I mean, there is nothing about our lifestyle that reflects that. We really, we really love that the concept, the thought that goes into it. Attraction behind it all is a lot of work.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Not only is it a lot of work, it's um but your house is what is the very typical East Coast home. When you walk through there, every vibe and every thing in your body says, Oh, I gotta take my shoes off, I gotta go sit in that great big comfy chair in the corner. And I know she's gonna bring me a cup of tea any second, and she's gonna offer me one of those great, big, big cookies that she's just baked. And the house smells great, and the kids are right there, and the dog we used to bark when it came in. Uh, now she's got two other beautiful little doggies. But it is so warm and so inviting. I love that. It's so relaxing. Like every inch of your body just says, Oh, I'm home. I'm gonna just sit here for a while. Love that. And that's what your home is. Oh, yeah. And and you feel it the second you walk into the mud room, that I know drives you insane. Except it's gorgeous because it says right on the sign, welcome to our home. It literally has a sign that Sherry changes all the time for Easter and then Christmas and then Halloween, and then I think there's family day, she puts something up, and just name something. She's got everything. And the woman is talented beyond belief. I mean, I don't know where that gene went. I it fell out of my gene pool. No.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

You haven't.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Yeah, let's not let's not uh lie to the the group out there, okay? Because you are more. This is about truth, honesty, and coming forward. Even my children will tell you. You there's have talents. No, listen. Let's talk about one of the things. My children would always have the day where you could bring. Now, this is long before. Back in school, the you would bring cupcakes to school for something, and you'd bake a chicken. My kids knew I was stopping off at Loblaws before I came to get whatever pre-baked thing was on that counter, wrap that soccer up, put it in there. Whatever makes it whatever makes it happen. Their lunches, really. Mom did not, you know, invest a great deal of you know, that beautiful thing that you talk about with the homestead and how beautiful that thing was. You get it in other ways. There's where like those same lunch bowl thing pops went back in the 90s. I don't know what they made in them. She would say how much she loved her children. Yeah. Package her. Whatever it was. Well, hello. There we go. Look, look. So everybody, I'd like you to meet my beautiful dog, Miss Mimi. She is the most beautiful dog. She's got a big set of lungs. She's saying hello to that gorgeous dog that's walking behind us. Yeah. That's the other child we have now, because I have no children in this house. So we had to get one that weighs 80 pounds and takes every ounce of energy you've got to entertain. 80 pounds of muscle.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

She's got a lot of force behind her. She's a strong dog. Yeah. She'll knock you over.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

With kisses. With kisses. Come over. Kisses. 100%. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

All right, everybody. So we got a little bit off our trail there. We wanted you to know who we were and what we were and everything about us. Uh, Cher, um, you just told us you had four children. Yes. I don't know their sexes or whether they live with you or where they're at.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

Right on. Avery. Avery is our oldest.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

He's 20 sex. No, I think he's got 27. This year. But that's in April. That's right. He's 27 in April. That's right. Because Aylan just turned to 25.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

That's right. And Avery's in Ottawa, living his his best life flying planes. He's a pilot. We're so proud of you. Yeah. And Ailen is 25. And Ailen works with adults with um disabilities. Yeah, with um developmental delays, and just loves her work with CCOA. So a plug for the Corridor Community Options for Adults, which is an amazing organization.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

And she is so good. She really is the patience that woman has to be.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Not just patience, but her um understanding the manner about her and how she um comforts and communicates and um her empathy. Her yeah, she's got that in abundance. Oh yeah. Yeah, she's got lots and lots of talents.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

And Sophie and Oliver are both students at Santa Box.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

So we're Sophie is at the last stages of her education.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

That's right. She'll be graduating in May, and she just got accepted into the IDI program. You stop it. I know we just heard two days ago. So it's the dietetic internship program.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Yeah, so it's that it's a fabulous program.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Yes, it is the it's a dietetic internship program. What the first eye stands for, though, or I don't know. I don't know. Intestinal. Intense. Intense, maybe?

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Either way, it's it's gonna be intense. Maybe I know we're super proud. Yeah, super proud. And our Ollie is just fantastic. He is just in the beginning stages of learning how. What education in that secondary world looks like.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Loves his program. He's just going gangbusters too. Loves and playing guitar. He was playing guitar all weekend, which was so great to hear. I love when he plays.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

Listen, and that's another thing that the East Coast family has got. Both you and Lori down here have got children that can play the guitar, play the fiddle, can sing songs. Claudic didn't do that with her children. No.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

But you but you sing, right, Claude?

SPEAKER_00 22:27

Did I not call you a earlier on this program? So she knows I'm tone-deaf, and she's doing this on purpose. And I'm going to tell you right now, Dan, our producer, he's going to be sitting there rolling because I've sang for both Dan and Katie. And they know how good I am, right? Katie loves when we do karaoke. So somewhere along the lines, when Miss Katie listens to this podcast, she too will appreciate how good I am at singing.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

I mean, you know what I love is it's not just the apricotette, it's the it's the dedication. No, it's with the energy and the the ghost pa that you use when you do sing.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

And the complete disregard of the tears of the audience as they plug their ears.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Don't care. I just I love it. But that is what I love about it. That right there. Okay, got it.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

Fabulous. We're fabulous. So this show is supposed to be about truth and honesty. And so far. Yeah, we're just a bunch of lies. So far, you're so full of crap. It's not funny. So you've got your four children. Yes. And a married husband. A husband and wife.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

I mean, he's married to me. That's right. So exciting. You know, that's that's a good part. And he's from Cape Breton, and those roots are something that we um I personally, every time um, and I knew this very early on when Charles and I were dating, I'm just like, I loved everything about his parents' home, the community where he's from, River Bourgeois and Cape Breton, I just love like everything about the community and the people and the stories and the lifestyle and everything about that. And I know that if Charles could, if we could make um like a living and a life of like if we weren't already very settled where we are now, I'm no for in a heartbeat he would love to have raised our family in Cape Breton.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

So well, as we move through these and we go through our episodes of of motherhood and that whole journey to bringing children into the world and raising them, we're gonna talk about the village. I will tell you, Cape Breton and Charles, he has got a village behind him. I do believe we once said it was a population of approximately what?

SPEAKER_01 24:40

Oh, River Bourgeois itself, it seems like it's one million. One million, maybe. Everybody in Nova Scotia has a connection to River Bourgeois, it seems like, and when you go out into the world, you find they're everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

But his village is strong, and and that by itself is something for us to talk about. We're gonna go down those roads as we as we pull the our podcast together. So this was our intro. I want you to know we're gonna try to do this weekly. And um, now that you know the silliness, the foolishness, and all the other stuff that goes along with with Sherry and I, um uh I'm hoping that you'll continue on with this journey. And this is why we're worth the walk. Our walk is always filled with fun, joy, and you will find out sooner or later there were some hiccups. There's a little bit of tears, not enough to hold us back, and we're strong enough to go through and raise our children, raise our grandchildren, and always be there for whoever needs us. And with that being said, Sherry, why don't you walk us out of here?

SPEAKER_01 25:38

So, everyone, we're so glad that you've joined us on this first episode to learn a little bit about who we are, what we're about, and uh hopefully you'll be joining in week to week. Please visit our email and drop us some stories. Give us some ideas of what you'd like to hear. Maybe you have a story yourself you'd like to share. Go to worth the walk podcast at gmail.com. Like, subscribe, and uh anywhere you get your podcasts, that's where you'll find us. Spotify, worth the walk. Again, that's worth the walk podcast at gmail.com. Please find us and like us and be good to one another. We'll see you next week.