Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
Speaker 2: and speaker.
Speaker 3: And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician,
Speaker 3: writer and course creator. We are two working parents who
Speaker 3: love our careers and our families.
Speaker 2: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
Speaker 2: how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
Speaker 2: From figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1: Term career goals.
Speaker 2: We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2: This episode is airing in late October of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: This is going to be one of our What's making
Speaker 2: Us Happy Now sort of an all love of the
Speaker 2: Week episode. We're calling this What's Making Us Happy Now
Speaker 2: Fall edition, so just as a little thing that are
Speaker 2: bringing us joy in this particular season. But we know
Speaker 2: that we both come across as reasonably upbeat on this
Speaker 2: podcast by design. That's one of the things we hope
Speaker 2: to bring to you as you are commuting to work,
Speaker 2: as some you know, fun to listen to. However, our
Speaker 2: lives are not universally that way. We have both had
Speaker 2: some recent stretches of feeling a bit low. Some of
Speaker 2: that cannot really be talked about. Will apologize for the
Speaker 2: vague podcasting here was it called like vague booking?
Speaker 1: Was that the old word for Facebook, Sarah?
Speaker 2: So it'd be like vague, vague casting, vague blogging, vague blogging.
Speaker 1: But when that happens, like Sarah, what do you do
Speaker 1: when you.
Speaker 2: Are in a chronic bad mood to try to get
Speaker 2: yourself continuing forward?
Speaker 3: I mean I do lots of things, but sometimes I
Speaker 3: like to just wallow in it. I mean there can
Speaker 3: be some value in that, not on the podcasting, Mike,
Speaker 3: but just in life. And that is sort of just
Speaker 3: like letting you feel the feelings and maybe indulge yourself
Speaker 3: in like the music that is like sad and like Okay,
Speaker 3: this afternoon, I'm just gonna sit on the couch and
Speaker 3: eat some chocolate or whatever, you know, So that sometimes helps.
Speaker 3: And then one thing I read about that I think
Speaker 3: I do, but I didn't have this cute term for
Speaker 3: it is like having lily pads, but like focusing on
Speaker 3: things in the future that are going to be different
Speaker 3: or fun. I know I do a lot of that
Speaker 3: when I am doing one of my call weeks and
Speaker 3: call is not It's not like about being down in
Speaker 3: the dumps.
Speaker 1: It's just more difficult.
Speaker 3: It's a week at a stretch where I'm working more
Speaker 3: hours than I would prefer to do any job and
Speaker 3: can be interrupted at any time. And again I've come
Speaker 3: to just understand, like, I appreciate that that is part
Speaker 3: of what I do and accept it for the time being,
Speaker 3: but I definitely need to focus forward to get myself
Speaker 3: through and think about like one of the fun things
Speaker 3: I'll get to do when I'm done. And actually, on
Speaker 3: my past call week, I think around day four, I'm like,
Speaker 3: I am booking a pedicure and I'm booking a massage.
Speaker 3: And I actually booked the pedicure for my last day
Speaker 3: of call because I knew I could do it all
Speaker 3: my way home, and that's something I can do while
Speaker 3: on call because I can answer the phone while I'm
Speaker 3: getting my toes done. Not as easy while you're getting
Speaker 3: your hands done, but your toes, yes, say.
Speaker 2: The massage wouldn't work like if you're supposed to text
Speaker 2: back within a few minutes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, correct.
Speaker 3: So I booked the massage for the week after call,
Speaker 3: so i'd have that to look forward to because I
Speaker 3: have to have my phone off during that to enjoy
Speaker 3: the experience, and I can't do that on call.
Speaker 2: So yeah, absolutely, yeah, No, I like to plan in
Speaker 2: fun stuff too. I mean I got my daughter to
Speaker 2: go apple picking with me, even if no other kids
Speaker 2: wanted to. I was like, I really want to do this,
Speaker 2: so I like promised to trade off. I would bring
Speaker 2: her to Brandy Melville and she would go apple picking
Speaker 2: with me. You know, just getting outside for fresh air
Speaker 2: is always helpful, going for a walk or something, going
Speaker 2: to bed, because sometimes things look better in the morning
Speaker 2: reading a magazine.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I enjoyed doing that on my hammock
Speaker 1: when it's possible.
Speaker 2: If it's in the evening and I'm not going anywhere else,
Speaker 2: I might have a nice craft beer. It's always a
Speaker 2: feel a little bit better moment as well, exactly. But
Speaker 2: this is a list of things that we are enjoying
Speaker 2: right now. Love of the week for fall. So Sarah,
Speaker 2: I thought it might be better if we kind of
Speaker 2: interspersed with each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we kind of.
Speaker 2: Our notes are back and forth, sort of pasted after
Speaker 2: each other.
Speaker 1: But nobody wants to listen to me talk for fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: So what do you have all right? You want me
Speaker 1: to kick it off? Well, the first thing kit I
Speaker 1: have on there. Oh my gosh, this is a very
Speaker 1: nail nail centric episode.
Speaker 3: Talking about my pedicure, Well, I ordered a flash many system,
Speaker 3: meaning one of those manicure systems. It has a light
Speaker 3: so that when you polish your nails, you put your
Speaker 3: hands under the light and it quote cures it. There's
Speaker 3: a lot of controversy over which lights are safe and
Speaker 3: which are okay. And one of the ingredients in these
Speaker 3: types of manicures has actually been banned in the European
Speaker 3: Union and that was kind of like all over the place.
Speaker 3: Right after one of my kids, well it was Anabel,
Speaker 3: right after my daughter had purchased a kind of I
Speaker 3: don't know branded gel manny system. So I was like,
Speaker 3: you know what, let me resource this a little bit.
Speaker 3: And I found a few brands, which are they have
Speaker 3: ingredients that are approved in the EU, so at least
Speaker 3: they've passed.
Speaker 1: Some sort of bar.
Speaker 3: And again I don't know how toxic these ingredients truly are,
Speaker 3: but also manicures are very optional, so like, why not
Speaker 3: pick the one that perhaps is vetted a little bit more?
Speaker 1: So I ordered it one called Manicurist.
Speaker 3: I have no affiliation whatsoever, but I'm like really pleased
Speaker 3: with I was pleased with how the toxic one work too,
Speaker 3: by the way. I was like, Wow, this is magic
Speaker 3: if I can do this in my house. But the
Speaker 3: less toxic or at least supposedly less toxic version from
Speaker 3: this other brand, seem to work just as well. Now,
Speaker 3: my daughter did not like it just as well because
Speaker 3: it looks more like a regular manicure, like it doesn't
Speaker 3: have that.
Speaker 1: Sick gel look.
Speaker 3: But it did set in one minute after applying it
Speaker 3: when you follow all the steps, and so I didn't
Speaker 3: mess it up, and it's going a week now and
Speaker 3: it looks really good. So yes, that is my long
Speaker 3: winded fun love right now, which is the Manicurist Green
Speaker 3: Flash many System interesting my llac nails.
Speaker 1: I like nails. They look very nice. They look nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't keep polish on my nails, so I
Speaker 2: don't even bother, which probably says to me a reasonable
Speaker 2: amount of time, although you know it's a never I
Speaker 2: don't know. My daughter and I have never gone do
Speaker 2: like Manny or Petties things together. Maybe that's something she'll
Speaker 2: be writing a book about later about how I never did.
Speaker 2: But oh well, so I don't have a whole lot
Speaker 2: of indulgences.
Speaker 1: In that category, I guess.
Speaker 2: But one thing I do I spent a ridiculous amount
Speaker 2: of money on is Ellmis Creams. So this brand, I
Speaker 2: don't know, there was like a freebie. There was one
Speaker 2: in the Allure of beauty Box, but.
Speaker 1: You started with the beauty Box totally.
Speaker 2: My daughter is pretty much completely taken over now, but
Speaker 2: I was still getting some of it then.
Speaker 1: And so I have this.
Speaker 2: The day cream is the Marine cream, I guess, and
Speaker 2: then the evening one. The night one is this pillow mask.
Speaker 2: It's like a pillow pep tie, whatever it's called. So
Speaker 2: you put that on at night, put the Marine cream
Speaker 2: SPF one on during the day.
Speaker 1: It's just, you know, it feels very indulgent. Maybe it
Speaker 1: makes my skin better. I don't know.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of psychological stuff with this, I am sure,
Speaker 2: but who cares?
Speaker 1: But who cares? It's fun. It's fun. I like it.
Speaker 1: That's making me happy right now.
Speaker 3: And it'd be nice to simplify to like one brand
Speaker 3: that you enjoy and then just kind of like don't
Speaker 3: have to think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, actually this weekend, I pulled everything off my counter
Speaker 2: and out of the basket that was on my bathroom
Speaker 2: shelf except the stuff that I use every single day,
Speaker 2: and so other stuff is now in the cupboard. And
Speaker 2: I threw out a lot of trash and expired stuff too.
Speaker 1: But it's goods.
Speaker 2: Like I use four like makeup products during the day,
Speaker 2: and I have two creams, and then I have my
Speaker 2: my Nexium, so my contact lens stuff. Yeah, my toothpaste.
Speaker 2: I guess of face wash, but yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1: I like it. It's minimalist, it's functional, it works.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and it's fun to have a lot less clutter.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, so have Sarah, all right?
Speaker 1: Next on my list. These are really not in any order,
Speaker 1: but who cares? My sticker printer? Oh my gosh, so
Speaker 1: I ordered.
Speaker 3: I did some research on various planning sites, et cetera,
Speaker 3: because I used to have the Kodak Step, which is
Speaker 3: a sticker printer that printed on zinc photo sensitive paper,
Speaker 3: and I used it to you can use a phone
Speaker 3: app and print out little pictures and I would put
Speaker 3: them in my five year journal and they look good.
Speaker 1: They don't look great. They're a little greeny.
Speaker 3: I think they're fading a little bit with time, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, I gotta and it stopped working, the app
Speaker 3: stop syncing with my phone entirely.
Speaker 1: I tried resetting, I tried all kinds of things. I
Speaker 1: was like, I give up.
Speaker 3: So I decided to look for what's out now and
Speaker 3: came across a different kind of category of printers that
Speaker 3: instead of using this photo sensitive paper, they actually use
Speaker 3: actual ink. So it's like a little, tiny little printer
Speaker 3: in a box that has these little ink cartridge is
Speaker 3: like inkjet or something. And I chose the Cannon Selfie.
Speaker 3: It is so much better. It's so much sharper and crisper.
Speaker 3: The app is easy to use. I can print like
Speaker 3: little seasonal collages of what's going on. I could even
Speaker 3: print like book titles, so I could do like little
Speaker 3: stickers with like a book cover my planner if I
Speaker 3: wanted to track reading in a fun visual way. I
Speaker 3: love my sticker printer. It just brings me a lot
Speaker 3: of joy. And yeah, I chose the it's the Kenon
Speaker 3: Selfie QX twenty. I believe it's the one I have excellent.
Speaker 2: Well, this is the time of year when many of
Speaker 2: us start ordering our twenty twenty six planners our planners.
Speaker 1: For the next year, whatever that happens to be. So
Speaker 1: I recently.
Speaker 2: Indulged in buying the plumb paper notes and Days for
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six. I definitely do not use all the planners' functionality,
Speaker 2: like I don't use the calendar in it. I don't
Speaker 2: use the daily to do list thing in it. I
Speaker 2: have a regular notebook that I just do for my
Speaker 2: daily to do list, and I use a different calendar.
Speaker 2: But that said, I like opening a new page every
Speaker 2: week and making my weekly priority list in the planner,
Speaker 2: and I enjoy the cover. I almost never have the
Speaker 2: cover even visible anymore, like on the desk. You know,
Speaker 2: it's folded over to whatever week it is, and so
Speaker 2: I don't see the cover. But I have fun with
Speaker 2: the art on the cover, and it has a nice
Speaker 2: LV for twenty twenty six for it, So it's it's mine.
Speaker 2: It came in the mail recently.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of ritual in like ordering that next
Speaker 3: year's planner, and you know, why not get into it.
Speaker 3: There's so many great options out there. You can find
Speaker 3: a planner to suit almost any of your preferences. You
Speaker 3: love that layout of the days on the left and
Speaker 3: then like a blank page on the right. So I'm
Speaker 3: excited for you to have your next generation of plannets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, Well we're gonna take a quick ad
Speaker 2: break and then we'll be back with more of things
Speaker 2: we are loving now. All right, well we are back
Speaker 2: talking in all Love of the Week episode our fall edition. Sarah,
Speaker 2: what else is on your loves of the Week list
Speaker 2: right now?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So I am enjoying pilates, which was kind of a
Speaker 3: goal of mine to figure out I don't know, in
Speaker 3: addition to the strength training that I already do at home,
Speaker 3: just another exercise outlet that's different from my prior running days.
Speaker 3: And honestly, I thought about trying pilates even then, but
Speaker 3: now I have a lot more time to do it
Speaker 3: since I'm not running, and so I chose the studio
Speaker 3: closest to my house, which turned out to be Club Pilates,
Speaker 3: and I can get there in like seven minutes and
Speaker 3: it's nice, it's relaxing.
Speaker 1: I think I.
Speaker 3: Will enjoy it even more once I go up a
Speaker 3: level so that it will become a little bit more challenging.
Speaker 3: But I just like having a place to go. I
Speaker 3: like the instructors, I like the vibe, and I like
Speaker 3: that it fits into my schedule on the days that
Speaker 3: I don't drive at tend to go to classes, and
Speaker 3: I can just kind of like have mornings that are
Speaker 3: more focused on me versus the other three mornings of
Speaker 3: the week are focused on the kids, which both are great,
Speaker 3: but it's nice to have both.
Speaker 1: What do you mean, move up a level? So there's
Speaker 1: different levels of lunch for Pilates.
Speaker 3: Club Pilates has like I mean, this is just specific
Speaker 3: to that franchise, but like they have level one level
Speaker 3: one point five to and you don't get to decide,
Speaker 3: Like I can't just be like I'm I have to
Speaker 3: ask for permission to at least that's how it works
Speaker 3: at our studio to like move up a level. So
Speaker 3: I'm planning on asking before I book my You know,
Speaker 3: we're recording this in September, the end of September, but
Speaker 3: hopefully by the time you're hearing this, I've been granted
Speaker 3: my permission because I'm.
Speaker 1: On the next level exactly. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: It's like the kids gym where to get to start
Speaker 2: to do parkour two versus park worps.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's like that. Yeah, it's like that.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, in the hobby realm for me, I am
Speaker 2: enjoying singing in a second choir. So longtime listeners know,
Speaker 2: I join my church choir about eight years ago, right
Speaker 2: around the same time that this podcast started, in fact,
Speaker 2: and I've enjoyed that immensely. But I decided last year
Speaker 2: to start singing with another choir that meets in downtown
Speaker 2: Philadelphia and is doing you know, they sang the back
Speaker 2: me Bine our Mass, which is why I originally joined,
Speaker 2: but I've enjoyed the other stuff they've done too.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit more challenging, I would say.
Speaker 2: And we are doing the Howls Requiem as part of
Speaker 2: our next concert, which will have happened by the time
Speaker 2: you were listening to this. But you know, I sang
Speaker 2: that with my church's chamber choir eight years ago. So
Speaker 2: it's a fun, little full circle moment where I sing
Speaker 2: the same pieces with different choirs and I get to
Speaker 2: feel like a seasoned choral musician, even though it's kind
Speaker 2: of ridiculous to be spending two evenings a week on
Speaker 2: choral music.
Speaker 1: Not if you like.
Speaker 2: It, it is not easy to fit it in.
Speaker 1: Let's just put it that way.
Speaker 2: It is a lot of evenings for my interest, but
Speaker 2: it will it's not every we don't meet during the
Speaker 2: summer for either choir.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say it's probably seasonal. It's seasonal.
Speaker 2: And then the Downtown Choir actually takes significant chunks of
Speaker 2: time off, like they do a concert cycle that's like
Speaker 2: five weeks, and then take a week or two off
Speaker 2: and then do another one, and then we take all
Speaker 2: of January off, so it's not as many rehearsals per
Speaker 2: year as one might imagine.
Speaker 1: Well, I like it. It's like your sport. It's my sport. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: it's my sport for sure. All right, what do you have, Sarah?
Speaker 1: All right? This one? Okay?
Speaker 3: I said the Apple redesign. Apple came up with a
Speaker 3: new operating system, number twenty six. I just did the upgrade.
Speaker 3: I said, it's pretty.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure it's pretty. I like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think it's a little busy. Actually.
Speaker 3: Upon further reflection, however, I love that they have now
Speaker 3: added an app called Preview, which does what was already
Speaker 3: doable in Apple Notes, but I think it does it
Speaker 3: even more elegantly. Because we love having the feature where
Speaker 3: you can just scan documents straight on your phone and
Speaker 3: then email them or a up wherever you need to go.
Speaker 3: And I used it in Apple Notes, but I found
Speaker 3: it clunky that I couldn't just like scan my document
Speaker 3: not within the notes ecosystem, Like what if I didn't
Speaker 3: need it in Apple Notes and then I have to
Speaker 3: like pull it off of notes or whatever.
Speaker 1: So I think this is fanas past.
Speaker 3: So I don't know about the whole esthetic clear glass
Speaker 3: situation and the flashes when I'm texting. If you have upgraded,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: But I do like previews.
Speaker 2: All right, Well that is good, Well, thank Apple for that.
Speaker 2: I'm going to go totally non tech and I'm going
Speaker 2: to say botanical gardens in the fall. So many people
Speaker 2: think of botanical gardens as a spring thing and that
Speaker 2: is when peak crowds will come, but many also have
Speaker 2: a season for the fall because there are a lot
Speaker 2: of fall blooming flowers. It turns out that this is
Speaker 2: an evolutionary strategy that some number of beautiful flowers employ,
Speaker 2: and the upside of fall flowers is that the backdrop
Speaker 2: against the fall flowers is also more colorful, so you
Speaker 2: have these interesting juxtapositions of like yellow flowers with orange
Speaker 2: trees behind them and purple asters with yellow oaks behind them,
Speaker 2: and so you get these different dift color combinations that
Speaker 2: you just don't in spring, where the back color is
Speaker 2: all mostly green.
Speaker 1: So I find that esthetically fascinating.
Speaker 2: So I would heartily encourage people, if they have botanical
Speaker 2: gardens near them, to go visit. Some close for winter,
Speaker 2: but they often are still open into the fall. I've
Speaker 2: been going to Chanticleer, which is about twenty minutes from
Speaker 2: my house, so that can be a long lunch if
Speaker 2: I wish it to be. And then I went to
Speaker 2: Longwood Gardens the weekend before we recorded this. That was
Speaker 2: a lot of fun to walk around there. See there
Speaker 2: are lily pads, Sarah, speaking of lily pads, things to
Speaker 2: look forward to.
Speaker 1: They have a whole display of lily pads. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: we went.
Speaker 3: I saw it when we were there in July. I
Speaker 3: love those lily pads. I mean, don't miss those lily pads.
Speaker 1: They're pretty impressive.
Speaker 2: It turns out lily pads can get quite large, and
Speaker 2: so you could definitely envision yourself leaping from lily pad
Speaker 2: to lily pad as you are trying to get through
Speaker 2: a low moment in your life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you're in the Philadelphia area, check out Longwood Gardens.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful, all right.
Speaker 3: My next one is not really seasonal, but who cares?
Speaker 3: Ice cream Fridays We've just designated Friday. My kids always
Speaker 3: ask me of ice cream, and like, we don't have
Speaker 3: ice cream every night. Partly I don't want to stalk
Speaker 3: the house without much ice.
Speaker 1: Cream like all the time.
Speaker 3: But Fridays is like ice cream night, and then we
Speaker 3: can look forward to it and make sure we have
Speaker 3: fun ice cream at home, different bars that people like,
Speaker 3: different flavors, whatever, or every once in a bloom moon,
Speaker 3: won't go out to Dairy Queen or something like that.
Speaker 1: But I just like the concept.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying we would never have ice cream on
Speaker 3: any other night, but I'd like looking forward to it
Speaker 3: on Fridays.
Speaker 1: Would we were at the beach.
Speaker 2: We have our favorite ice cream place at the beach.
Speaker 2: We went basically every night while we were there.
Speaker 1: Ice cream today, ice cream Tuesdays. Yes, I know, well
Speaker 1: we won't.
Speaker 2: You know, we would never go out for ice cream otherwise,
Speaker 2: like and most people don't even eat it here, like
Speaker 2: I don't know. We don't really buy it here, so
Speaker 2: it's just like a fun beach treat. We like, indulge
Speaker 2: in ice cream for two straight weeks and then let
Speaker 2: it gets it.
Speaker 1: That's it. I love it.
Speaker 3: Well, they would probably really associate the taste and experience
Speaker 3: of ice cream with going to the Bees.
Speaker 2: And then it's really like good ice cream, right, you know,
Speaker 2: it's ice cream parlor ice cream and not just random
Speaker 2: discount FROs grocery brand that I might be buying. All right,
Speaker 2: so I'm going to it's sort of a similar category.
Speaker 2: But I mean to say, food that you have personally procured. Now,
Speaker 2: I am not like in any way one of those
Speaker 2: people writing their parenting essays about how if you grow
Speaker 2: your own veggies your kids will eat them. There is
Speaker 2: no overlap between veggies grown personally and kids being more
Speaker 2: willing to eat said veggies. In my house, however, I
Speaker 2: have enjoyed some food that we have personally procured. So
Speaker 2: Ruth and I went to Soulbury Orchards, which is another
Speaker 2: nice Philadelphia area place. It's up in Bucks County and
Speaker 2: is less of a zoo than some other pick your
Speaker 2: own farms around here.
Speaker 1: I don't need to mention them. But you know, we
Speaker 1: enjoyed a.
Speaker 2: Slightly more tame experience Soulburry Richard's, so I'll throw that
Speaker 2: out there. And we bought huge numbers of honey crisp apples.
Speaker 2: Honey crisps are my favorite. You have to time that
Speaker 2: to certain weekends of September basically to kill them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they.
Speaker 2: If you think of apple picking as a truly fall
Speaker 2: like October activity, there are only certain varieties that are
Speaker 2: available then my favorite are all available in September, so
Speaker 2: we have to make sure if we go, we go then.
Speaker 2: But we got a ton, so we've been eating those.
Speaker 2: We had apple sauce, We've got pies just I've been
Speaker 2: cutting up basically two of them a day and feeding
Speaker 2: myself and the kids slices of apples with every meal.
Speaker 2: We also have a freezer full of salmon and halibate.
Speaker 2: Because my husband and fifteen year old went to Alaska
Speaker 2: for a week this summer. They went on a commercial
Speaker 2: fishing boat. I guess not really. It was sort of
Speaker 2: like a yeah, there's this guided fish shing deep sea
Speaker 2: fishing thing, and they had their Alaska fishing licenses and
Speaker 2: hauled in all this halibut and salmon which they brought
Speaker 2: back frozen to our house.
Speaker 1: So we have been eating it.
Speaker 3: And with like zero discussion. We had like the same
Speaker 3: thing happened the same weekend. Yeah, we were in the
Speaker 3: keys and Josh like and his friend did a fishing
Speaker 3: charter but there's no salmon or halibut in the keys,
Speaker 3: but they did. They didn't catch fish and it's still
Speaker 3: in my freezer. So catching what I don't remember what
Speaker 3: it was, but it was large. Cameron got the like prize.
Speaker 3: We have a great picture, like it's huge, and we
Speaker 3: did eat it. Actually they had a thing where you
Speaker 3: could eat it at the restaurant at the resort, like
Speaker 3: they'd cook it for you. We ate like two thirds
Speaker 3: of it together and it.
Speaker 1: Was it was really good. Yeah, so it's funny.
Speaker 2: We have the photos of course of my husband and
Speaker 2: son holding fish right on the boat. And was showing
Speaker 2: this to someone in my life who who is single,
Speaker 2: and she mentioned that on dating apps, like a lot
Speaker 2: of the photos guys are with.
Speaker 1: Gigantic fish or whatever. Apparently it's like, is that a
Speaker 1: metaphor for dating? Is the way like I will provide
Speaker 1: for you? Look, I can fight a fish. I thought
Speaker 1: it was more like there's more fish in the sea,
Speaker 1: like I think it's.
Speaker 2: It's also one of the few times that men actually
Speaker 2: get their photo take it. Like men aren't walking around
Speaker 2: be like take my photo for Instagram or whatever. So
Speaker 2: it's there's not that many photos. That's kind of sweet
Speaker 2: men would have, but they do. That's what they put
Speaker 2: up on the dating app. So great, good to know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and well tomatoes too. We've grew a lot of tomatoes.
Speaker 2: And I'm not a huge fan of tomatoes regularly, but
Speaker 2: the ones we grow when they're fresh off the vine there,
Speaker 2: they're pretty good.
Speaker 1: So yeah, big shout out to uh.
Speaker 2: Have a dinner with our own salmon, sliced honey, crisp, apples,
Speaker 2: and tomatoes.
Speaker 1: And you know it's all personally procured.
Speaker 2: All Right, we're gonna take one more quick ad break,
Speaker 2: then we will be back with more loves of the week.
Speaker 3: All right, we're back. I think I really only have
Speaker 3: one more big one. Yeah, and it's another food one.
Speaker 1: Okay. Well, I just really love going to.
Speaker 3: Trader Joe's in late September or mid October, so as
Speaker 3: you're airing this is still in effect and buying everything
Speaker 3: pumpkin and just like making a joke out of it
Speaker 3: and then just serving a lunch that's like random pumpkin items.
Speaker 3: Some my kids really enjoy it too, So if you
Speaker 3: haven't tried it, I recommend.
Speaker 2: Call it the pumpkin challenge. What like, what is the
Speaker 2: randomness of the pumpkin items?
Speaker 3: Pumpkin samosas, pumpkin hummus, pumpkin salsa, pumpkin chips, pumpkin cookies,
Speaker 3: pumpkin like, It's just like they have everything pumpkin pumpkin pasta, like,
Speaker 3: even things that like really didn't need to be.
Speaker 1: Pumpkin they have. Nobody asked pumpkin cereal. It's like nobody
Speaker 1: how about pumpkin cereals? Says t Days. But it's humorous
Speaker 1: and fun and it's now an annual ritual.
Speaker 2: Yea, So well, the time is that I gotta have
Speaker 2: some sort of october Fest craft beer, since that's you know,
Speaker 2: on my things that I love that I have not
Speaker 2: done it to work because I actually don't really like
Speaker 2: most of the sort of like pumpkinny or october Fest
Speaker 2: related beers, and I'm not going to drink two beers,
Speaker 2: so like you know, I'm foregoing one that I would
Speaker 2: like in order to have one that I don't necessarily like.
Speaker 2: But maybe I could have like two SIPs. Maybe I'll
Speaker 2: find somebody else to likes to share it with them.
Speaker 2: I don't know, so I guess related, but a folish
Speaker 2: kind of version. I've been roasting veggies. This has been
Speaker 2: my goal is to do this on Sunday.
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 2: We're recording this on a Monday, and I didn't yesterday,
Speaker 2: but I did the past two Sundays. Yesterday we made
Speaker 2: a pie and did some other stuff, so there's already
Speaker 2: a lot of baking involved.
Speaker 1: So I never got around to this.
Speaker 2: But I chop up various veggies, brush them with olive
Speaker 2: oil and salt them, bake them at four hundred degrees
Speaker 2: for thirty minutes or so.
Speaker 1: They come out slightly.
Speaker 2: And I don't know about you, but I like my
Speaker 2: veggies to be slightly sweeter. So if you have oil
Speaker 2: and salt in the slightly sweet, you've got that combo
Speaker 2: of sweet salt fat. That is, in fact, what people
Speaker 2: like to eat. It's why like caramel corn is so attractive.
Speaker 2: But this is yeah veggie version of this. So if
Speaker 2: you can make veggies into things that feel like a
Speaker 2: good snack food.
Speaker 1: Then I feel like you're already winning.
Speaker 2: And totally I don't do so many, but I do
Speaker 2: enough that I can have it as like a side
Speaker 2: dish on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, and so I figure,
Speaker 2: that's at least some more veggies in my life.
Speaker 3: Right delicious sounds good, makes me want to eat them
Speaker 3: right now. My last one's a little meta, which is
Speaker 3: just that it's the time of year when we can
Speaker 3: already start thinking about like Thanksgiving and the holidays, Like
Speaker 3: it's not crazy to.
Speaker 1: Be planning that.
Speaker 3: I booked a lot of our ski stuff now, and
Speaker 3: I just, yeah, it's anticipation and not like what we're
Speaker 3: actually doing.
Speaker 1: But there's joy in that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, no, I mean I've we're definitely thinking
Speaker 2: through the holidays. We already booked our big trip for
Speaker 2: the holidays, but we're thinking of adding another one possibly
Speaker 2: for some people, and you know, been pondering Thanksgiving and stuff.
Speaker 2: It's so, you know, at the end of the year
Speaker 2: is always a good celebratory time and I'm enjoying thinking
Speaker 2: about what am I still doing this year, and then
Speaker 2: you get to start thinking about the next year.
Speaker 1: Like you know as I bought the new planner. What
Speaker 1: are what are my goals going to be for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six? Sarah, I don't know. I'm going to find
Speaker 1: out in just a couple of weeks from this airing
Speaker 1: at Bestly Planing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true because I will have been forced to
Speaker 2: record this our goals for twenty twenty six episodes, so
Speaker 2: stay tuned for that, all right. So this week's question
Speaker 2: comes from something that could be a big win but
Speaker 2: sometimes is occasionally not so. The listener says, I have
Speaker 2: been setting up carpools or set up a carpool to
Speaker 2: save time, but the back and forth via texts and
Speaker 2: people switching or having to cancel feels like it is
Speaker 2: creating a lot of extra mental load for something that
Speaker 2: was supposed to make my life easier. Are there smarter
Speaker 2: ways to do this or carpool best practices to make
Speaker 2: it not feel like an addedvert in?
Speaker 1: Sarah, what do you have? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean some of this has to do with the
Speaker 3: culture of your carpool, Like we had a fantastic one
Speaker 3: last year, and I think it was just sort of
Speaker 3: understood that, like you don't cancel, yeah, just don't mess
Speaker 3: it up. Like if your kid is sick, you're still
Speaker 3: driving the other two kids and like it'll all turn
Speaker 3: or you you might ask for the occasional swap, but
Speaker 3: in general, you just sort of like stay in your lane.
Speaker 3: And we did it by day, so that would just
Speaker 3: kept it really really simple. Like we always drove Tuesdays
Speaker 3: and then there was like a Monday drive and a
Speaker 3: Thursday drive. We didn't have to think about anything on
Speaker 3: Monday and Thursday, and we did everything on Tuesdays and
Speaker 3: we just owned that day.
Speaker 1: I think that kept it simple.
Speaker 3: We did have a What's up chat so that we
Speaker 3: could communicate like hey, I'm here or whatever. But I
Speaker 3: do think some of it is just like between the lines,
Speaker 3: like talking to people like this is going to be
Speaker 3: like a serious.
Speaker 2: Carpool, right, Like this is not an amateur level carpool, because.
Speaker 3: It would be really frustrating for like over and over again, Oh,
Speaker 3: actually I can't do it this week, I can't do
Speaker 3: it that week. Like pick a day that you can
Speaker 3: commit to, and hopefully that can work for everyone because
Speaker 3: you being consistent with your Tuesday means other people can
Speaker 3: consistently know they have their Tuesday not to worry about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's true.
Speaker 2: I remember many years ago we did a carpool for
Speaker 2: middle school with Jasper and some neighbors and he started
Speaker 2: doing this before school choir two mornings a week, and
Speaker 2: I still came back and drove the two other kids
Speaker 2: on the weeks that it was my week to do
Speaker 2: the whole week because we did it by week.
Speaker 1: So I would carpool with you anytime.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Sarah, there are many reasons that you and
Speaker 2: I have a podcast that has lasted eight years.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna skip, not gonna track it out of
Speaker 1: carpel do.
Speaker 2: It just because like there was a plausible reason not
Speaker 2: to do it.
Speaker 3: So I guess that is a lesson, like choose your partner,
Speaker 3: Like maybe you get to know people a little bit
Speaker 3: before you decide who you want to carpool with and
Speaker 3: make sure that your intentions are aligned.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely so, Yes, choosing reliable carpool partners. And I
Speaker 2: actually interviewed a gentleman from my other podcast, which may
Speaker 2: have run by this point or will soon, Paul Leonardi,
Speaker 2: who's the author of Digital Exhaustion, and he talked some
Speaker 2: about this topic as well. I mean, I rememberbody I was,
Speaker 2: you know, he was mentioning this because I was like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I just heard this question as well.
Speaker 2: But his wife got a text from a friend who
Speaker 2: said that her carpool had resulted in eighty three texts
Speaker 2: on their chain that week.
Speaker 1: That's a lot.
Speaker 3: That's a lot of TEA had it muted, but but.
Speaker 1: He went back and counted. Okay, get back.
Speaker 2: And counted, and there were eighty three texts, And I'm like, wow,
Speaker 2: that is yeah. I mean, at that point, yes, I
Speaker 2: don't believe the carpool is necessarily saving you any time
Speaker 2: or mental effort. So so choose well, one thing to
Speaker 2: do instead of trying to arrange it digitally. If there
Speaker 2: is a situation where you are all in person, like
Speaker 2: if you're all there at the first game or first practice,
Speaker 2: doing that back and forth in person to set it
Speaker 2: out and to figure out what works might be more helpful,
Speaker 2: even just because the in person interaction is going to
Speaker 2: be more pleasant than back and forth via text. And
Speaker 2: if there is any sort of situation where things will
Speaker 2: be changed again, it helps if there is a time
Speaker 2: you are all getting together, so for instance, if you
Speaker 2: all see each other at games, that is when you
Speaker 2: discuss any of the changes that would need to happen
Speaker 2: to the carpool schedule as opposed to like a digital
Speaker 2: back and forth, and so that sort of reduces it.
Speaker 2: And you know you are seeing each other, then you
Speaker 2: don't all go to the practices that might be a
Speaker 2: way to make it not feel like this tedious thing.
Speaker 2: It's more like you're just having a conversation with your
Speaker 2: fellow parents along the side, and you know you can
Speaker 2: conclude things instead of.
Speaker 1: Anything else.
Speaker 3: No, I was going to say that actually what you
Speaker 3: were saying, and I'm going to love this interview. I
Speaker 3: have a feeling because I, you know, think we are
Speaker 3: digitally exhausted sometimes, but like to carpool, if you work
Speaker 3: in something where you're like taking turns being in charge,
Speaker 3: like a call schedule, I actually think that would so
Speaker 3: benefit from being a personal discussion rather than everyone's emailing,
Speaker 3: texting back and forth, maybe sending stuff to one person.
Speaker 3: They're supposed to put everything together. No, get everyone in
Speaker 3: a room, go through the calendar and be like, who
Speaker 3: wants this week? Who wants this week? And yeah, they're
Speaker 3: fifty two weeks and I'll take a while, but then
Speaker 3: you're done for the year. Or maybe you just do
Speaker 3: it by quarter, you do twelve weeks, and I think
Speaker 3: that would be so much quicker than trying to synthesize
Speaker 3: everybody's I can't do that, but I can't do that
Speaker 3: and whatever, and then no one's surprised by anything. So
Speaker 3: this is my vision for how I think calls should
Speaker 3: be figured out in my division.
Speaker 1: And it won't probably.
Speaker 3: Happen because I'm not in charge of making the schedule,
Speaker 3: but my fantasy, I'll keep communicating it and maybe someday
Speaker 3: we'll try it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, so we're best practices here is we
Speaker 2: are going to choose the right carpool partners. Yeah, we
Speaker 2: are going to just own times, whether that's owning a
Speaker 2: day or owning a week, so there's no uncertainty of
Speaker 2: who is doing it. The ethos is that you don't
Speaker 2: cancel unless you absolutely absolutely have to. The logistics are
Speaker 2: ideally arranged in person. Yes, So it's a pleasant conversation
Speaker 2: as opposed to fifty techts back and forth.
Speaker 1: Love it, love it all right.
Speaker 2: Well, we don't have an extra love of the week
Speaker 2: this time because this has been an all love of
Speaker 2: the Week episode, but we would love to hear from
Speaker 2: you if you have tips on making a carpool run. Well,
Speaker 2: you can make that happen.
Speaker 1: And if you have another Love of the Week, we'd
Speaker 1: love to hear that too. Yeah, send us your Fall favorites.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, this has been best of both worlds. We've
Speaker 2: been discussing our all Love of the Week Fall edition.
Speaker 2: We will be back next week with more on making
Speaker 2: work and life fit together.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3: You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com
Speaker 3: or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram.
Speaker 2: And you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 2: This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please
Speaker 2: join us next time for more on making work and
Speaker 2: life work together.