For All That is Instagram-Holy (I mean, announcing Her Words, His Wine!)

It’s June 24th, my brother’s birthday. In honor of this special day, Matthew and I are debuting “Her Words, His Wine” which is a YouTube channel about … you guessed it, words and mostly wine.

Here is the blurb:
Episode 1 : “Leaving Los Angeles” or FROM CHENGDU TO CHANDLER

Story: Introducing Peppur and Matthew Soraci, a newly-married couple from LA moving to the suburbs of Arizona. As first-time home owners who yearn for the good food and the good times of LA, these two hold on to their last moments in Los Angeles before stepping foot into Chandler. These are their stories. Via food. And other stuff. First up, saying goodbye to the first hello, Chengdu House. Comfort Chinese Food that’s fast, hot and yummy with a touch of Pierre Jouet class to wash it down amidst all the moving chaos.

Featured restaurant:
Chengdu House in Valley Village, CA + Chou’s Kitchen, Chandler, AZ

Featured wine: Pierre Jouet Grand Brut, Rusack 2019 Pinot Noir

Now. I’ve gotta say a few things, in honor of All That is Instagram-Holy.

This is alotta work:

It’s so fun to sorta sit around the table and think about how you can create content n’ stuff and then hope that it will be an overnight- or moderately-overnight success. I mean, it happens to so many other people, why can’t it happen to you, right? Or, you look at all the IG influencers with their beautiful photos and hundreds, if not thousands of interactive followers, and you think, I can do that…!

Well, you can. But it takes alotta work. A lot of it. And it takes being in the right place, doing the right thing, at the right time. (With the right mindset.)

For our project, we started thinking about it last year, and I did my personal best to take the creative process slowly because while I really do love what I do, I know how easily overwhelmed I can get, which then leads to huge disappointments and even depression. It is a vicious cycle of getting excited about ideas, taking steps to execute those ideas, climbing to a good starting point and then falling apart because I get paralyzed by “All That is Instagram Holy”. Some of y’all know exactly what I mean.

So, yesterday was a bad day. Today was a bad day. Why? Because TODAY is launch day for Her Words, His Wine. I knew I wasn’t ready. I knew I didn’t have my story pitch formulated, and I knew that the video itself, while silly and laugh-out-loud funny in some parts, was not perfect.

Luckily, I had a therapy session yesterday (there’s so much going on I didn’t even talk about this, but some of this is wrapped up in that…! ha). We talked about emotions, feeling safe and understanding what is fact and what is not…to give a Cliff-Note version.

For those of us dealing with this sorta thing – perfection, overwhelm, depression, feeling sucky, I just want to say that I see you and I hear you. And I also want to say that we need to persevere. Why? Because we do have good ideas! We are interesting and funny and talented and stuff. Those are the facts! The fiction is the doubt.

Therefore, in full transparency, but also with a genuinely huge smile of pride, joy and giggly-excitement, I present to you, Her Words, His Wine. Created by us, written by me, it is a slice-of life, not-perfect and sometimes silly series about us trying to anchor ourselves in food and wine as a way to manage moving from LA to AZ. It’s also about family! It is edited by my former amazing student, Nino Aphakidze; her cousin/play-sister, Anna Volodina does the delightful graphics and art design. (Very, very proud of them!) The brand includes the YouTube Channel and our website where I will micro blog about AZ and stuff, and where Mr. Soraci will share his passion for wine, which we hope will translate into useful information for you.