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 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 early Ish April of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four. We're going to be talking all things memory
Speaker 2: keeping and with that traditions and celebrations to topics that
Speaker 2: kind of go along with the idea of memory keeping,
Speaker 2: especially during the busy years which we know so many
Speaker 2: of our listeners are building your careers, raising young families.
Speaker 2: You know, time is mostly spoken for. It can be
Speaker 2: challenging to think about the meta aspects of time. You know,
Speaker 2: how can we honor the past? How can we create
Speaker 2: occasions that we will want to remember as future us
Speaker 2: looking back on the past. But thinking about these meta
Speaker 2: aspects of time can make time and life in general
Speaker 2: feel more rich and full, like you're not just on
Speaker 2: a hamster wheel that time. You know, it's not just
Speaker 2: sliding on this slicknoleum floor into you know, the future
Speaker 2: or something. You've actually got this tapestry that is brilliant
Speaker 2: and colored and wonderful. So anyway, many metaphors I have
Speaker 2: been mixing there, but I do believe it is worth
Speaker 2: putting a little bit of effort into it, right.
Speaker 4: Sarah, Yes, I love this.
Speaker 3: I always think about the three selves that you have
Speaker 3: spoken about before. You have the anticipating self, which gets
Speaker 3: to an enjoy event even before it happens. You have
Speaker 3: the experiencing self that's actually there at the event. That's
Speaker 3: probably the smallest amount of time given most things. And
Speaker 3: then there's the remembering self, which gets to reflect and
Speaker 3: remember and maybe even celebrate the event after the effect.
Speaker 3: And we've discussed how there are certain life experiences that
Speaker 3: serve our remembering selves the best, an example being perhaps
Speaker 3: a Disney trip.
Speaker 4: I mean, maybe that's just us. Maybe other people.
Speaker 3: Have the most amazing experiencing selves on their Disney trips,
Speaker 3: but for us, it's all about the anticipation for the
Speaker 3: kids and the memories for us, so thinking about how
Speaker 3: we want to honor those memories with kind of purposeful
Speaker 3: actions or tangible I don't know, like things that represent
Speaker 3: what we've done can be really really valuable to kind
Speaker 3: of stretch out that remembering piece for these events and
Speaker 3: not just let them slid right past.
Speaker 4: As you said, Linoleum, though that was new.
Speaker 1: You like that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now I was thinking about this. I mean, there
Speaker 2: are moments of Disney that the experiencing self is happy with.
Speaker 2: I mean, I enjoy some of the rides, for instance.
Speaker 2: I mean that's why people go on roller coasters, as
Speaker 2: they are actually pretty fun. But there are moments for
Speaker 2: the experiencing self, and then the rest of it is
Speaker 2: more about creating the memories and maybe hoping that the
Speaker 2: experiencing self isn't too cranky about the whole experience of
Speaker 2: waiting in a line with small and fidgety children. But
Speaker 2: you know, as you said, the present is so fleeting,
Speaker 2: And this is one of these fascinating things. If you
Speaker 2: read about the philosophy of time, of how people studied
Speaker 2: time and thought about time over the years, the present
Speaker 2: itself is almost nonexistent, right because as soon as it happens.
Speaker 2: It is in the past, and yet that is the
Speaker 2: only thing we are currently experiencing in our physical bodies,
Speaker 2: and so it has this bigger footprint than the fleeting
Speaker 2: nature of it would be.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I read this whole thing with William James. There's like,
Speaker 2: how do we figure out what the present is? I mean,
Speaker 2: working memory is a certain number of seconds, but you
Speaker 2: can't distinguish two things that are less than about half
Speaker 2: a second apart.
Speaker 1: So we've got angels dancing.
Speaker 2: On the head of a pen here is basically what
Speaker 2: we come down to and trying to figure out the
Speaker 2: definition of the present.
Speaker 3: But I love how much deeper this episode got than
Speaker 3: its conception.
Speaker 4: But that's good. I think that's good.
Speaker 3: We like thinking about time, reflecting on time, and speaking
Speaker 3: of how we record things in time. Let's go back
Speaker 3: and get a little bit more concrete to thinking about.
Speaker 4: How we used to.
Speaker 3: I don't know, have memories kept throughout our childhood before
Speaker 3: the digital age is upon us now, But back then
Speaker 3: things were really different, and I think it's kind of
Speaker 3: useful to think about how things have changed and what
Speaker 3: we might miss from that age and what we are
Speaker 3: glad is different.
Speaker 4: So I don't know. I'll start.
Speaker 3: So, I grew up as you did in the eighties
Speaker 3: and nineties, and my parents' memories were preserved as mostly
Speaker 3: photographs which they developed put in albums, and then there
Speaker 3: were some rare video clips. But we didn't have a
Speaker 3: camera in our family. My uncle did, so a very
Speaker 3: disproportionate number of our family videos have my in them
Speaker 3: because it was his camera and they were probably around
Speaker 3: when he was there. And then there's also like some
Speaker 3: random audio tracks that we have that my dad has
Speaker 3: kind of passed around from when I was playing violin
Speaker 3: and singing, so that's kind of cool. And then that's
Speaker 3: about it. I did not keep old journals. I did
Speaker 3: not keep high school memorabilia. I might have one yearbook
Speaker 3: lying around, kind of crazy. I don't think I should
Speaker 3: have kept everything, Like, I stand by my desire not
Speaker 3: to have boxes and boxes to sip through, but maybe
Speaker 3: like one or two shoe boxes worth of childhood memories.
Speaker 4: Would have been worthwhile, and I don't have that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we have the standard occasional family photos
Speaker 2: printed up in albums. I don't know, I mean, I
Speaker 2: guess I don't find it all that interesting out I
Speaker 2: spent a whole lot of time looking back through those
Speaker 2: albums if I happen to be visiting my parents or
Speaker 2: anything like that, although I do find the more distant
Speaker 2: past a little bit more interesting. And my mom has
Speaker 2: digitized some of these old family photos and she posted
Speaker 2: one recently that featured It was an extended family photo
Speaker 2: and she was sitting on the lap or next to
Speaker 2: my I mean her mother, my maternal grandmother, who I
Speaker 2: have never met because she died when my mother was
Speaker 2: fairly young, and so it was weird to see this
Speaker 2: woman who as a young woman, I have some photos
Speaker 2: of her, but just really don't have that many and
Speaker 2: certainly have no memory of her, to see what she
Speaker 2: looked like and see, you know, is there any family resemblance.
Speaker 1: I think we have the same chin, So yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it was kind of cool to see.
Speaker 2: Which I'll put this out as a public service announcement
Speaker 2: here for anyone listening to this that if your parents
Speaker 2: have not done this, you know, if they have not
Speaker 2: gone through the process of like downsizing or you know,
Speaker 2: going through all their old stuff, they may have a
Speaker 2: lot of old photos or albums or things like this,
Speaker 2: and the ravages of time are not kind to anyone
Speaker 2: or to physical object, and so you might want to
Speaker 2: help them digitize these before their basement gets flooded, before
Speaker 2: you know it completely warps in a heat wave that
Speaker 2: gets their attic you know, unusable for a couple of days,
Speaker 2: and all the photos are then messed.
Speaker 1: Up by it. It would just be worth.
Speaker 2: Doing with at least some of them, because then you
Speaker 2: can have, you know, a record, even if the physical
Speaker 2: object doesn't necessarily last. So public service announcement might want
Speaker 2: to do that.
Speaker 3: I will say I have one tangible object from my
Speaker 3: childhood that somehow has made it and it happens to
Speaker 3: be my journal from second grade, which is in a
Speaker 3: mead notebook and is very whiny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, that's what journals are.
Speaker 3: We've discussed how maybe maybe we don't want our own
Speaker 3: journals necessarily being read, But that one's okay because it
Speaker 3: was like seven No.
Speaker 2: I sent Sarah a note that I mean, I found
Speaker 2: a bunch of myne old journals, you know, in bags
Speaker 2: and stuff as we've been going through boxes, and I
Speaker 2: you know, if I should, you know, if something ever
Speaker 2: happens to me, I think Sarah could fly up here
Speaker 2: and like burn them, right, that would be her service
Speaker 2: to my legacy, that nobody else would ever need to
Speaker 2: see these things. That would probably be be better for
Speaker 2: everyone on this planet. But these days, you're keeping more
Speaker 2: of your memories through your blog, and in fact, your
Speaker 2: blog is I mean approaching sort of vintage status at
Speaker 2: this point.
Speaker 4: Oh yes, okay, so we'll fast forward to today.
Speaker 3: We're kind of like that's how things were done in
Speaker 3: the old days and now in recent times. Yes, I
Speaker 3: would say for me, my biggest personal memory keeping tool
Speaker 3: is everything that's archived at the shoebox dot com and
Speaker 3: goes back to two thousand and four.
Speaker 4: There were not a lot of.
Speaker 3: Photos because I didn't think I knew how to post
Speaker 3: them until maybe two thousand and six or two thousand
Speaker 3: and seven. But still there is, I mean, there is
Speaker 3: just quite a treasure trove. Not to mention it is
Speaker 3: the right how do I put this, like the amount
Speaker 3: of personal journal that what I was comfortable of putting online.
Speaker 3: So it has some fairly intimate thoughts, but nothing that
Speaker 3: I couldn't have broadcast out into the world, although sometimes
Speaker 3: I read some of myself and it was like really,
Speaker 3: but still not as bad as what you're talking about
Speaker 3: would need to be burned.
Speaker 4: So it's really really fun to have that.
Speaker 3: And I can see why for other people who that's
Speaker 3: the only thing holding them to social media, like I
Speaker 3: have all my kids' photos in here, you know, I
Speaker 3: save my kid's childhood and instant stories or something like that,
Speaker 3: I could see why that would would drive them to
Speaker 3: want to stay. Because for me, it's easy for me
Speaker 3: to say, well.
Speaker 4: I don't need to keep that.
Speaker 3: But that's because I have this other digital record that
Speaker 3: I have built. So I don't know, start a blog. No,
Speaker 3: I'm just kidding, but it is really really nice to
Speaker 3: have that. In terms of photos, we are I don't know,
Speaker 3: we're not the world's most organized about this, but I'm
Speaker 3: very much at peace with what we do have, possibly
Speaker 3: because I do have so many digitally through my website.
Speaker 3: But we printed photos until maybe two thousand and six,
Speaker 3: and we have a bunch of those around. Our wedding
Speaker 3: album is not an album form, it's just a bunch
Speaker 3: of we have, like the negatives, and we have a
Speaker 3: million photos that our photographer gave us like kind of
Speaker 3: like four x six size maybe, and they're in plastic sheets.
Speaker 3: That's our wedding album. I'm fine with it, like it's
Speaker 3: not even a project. I am whatever.
Speaker 1: I get so terrible.
Speaker 3: I'm terrible about sentimentality about certain things. And I'm happy
Speaker 3: we have those photos, but I don't feel like I
Speaker 3: need them in any other format.
Speaker 4: And then twenty eight to twenty ten is.
Speaker 3: Kind of like a little bit of no man's land
Speaker 3: because I think like a lot of the photos were
Speaker 3: on digital cameras but then didn't make it onto the
Speaker 3: hard drive they got switched. So when I searched those
Speaker 3: years on Google Photos, I don't find much.
Speaker 4: It's just kind of sad.
Speaker 3: But then starting in twenty ten and twenty eleven and beyond,
Speaker 3: like I have, we have almost everything, so I feel
Speaker 3: really good about it. It's not organized, but it's completely searchable.
Speaker 3: And I guess there is the possibility that Google Photos
Speaker 3: would like die, but I have to imagine that if
Speaker 3: they were going to die, they would give some sort
Speaker 3: of warning first so we could pull everything off. So
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna go with that one hope.
Speaker 2: You know, Apple Photos, however, disappears, and there's a lot
Speaker 2: of people their photos tied to their Apple ID will
Speaker 2: be gone forever. Yeah, there's this interesting gap for us
Speaker 2: and the technology too. So we have a ton of
Speaker 2: printed photos of Jasper as a baby in two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven, right, and we would print those pictures and
Speaker 2: we used a digital movie camera at some point in
Speaker 2: there to take lots of videos. And then I know,
Speaker 2: I started taking a lot more photos of Sam on
Speaker 2: my phone because I got an iPhone in it was
Speaker 2: the very end of two thousand and nine, beginning of
Speaker 2: twenty ten, I believe, so that's when he was a baby,
Speaker 2: and so I started taking most of my photos on
Speaker 2: that as opposed to the digital camera that we then
Speaker 2: would send the files into Shutterfly and get them printed up.
Speaker 2: So there's kind of this total fall off, and like
Speaker 2: printed photos of babies that happens after Jasper and to
Speaker 2: Sam and not just what always happens with the second kid.
Speaker 2: It's because the technology itself had completely changed, and so
Speaker 2: then I think I wasn't using social media as much
Speaker 2: until a couple of years after that, and so there's
Speaker 2: this gap that suddenly there start being more photos I
Speaker 2: don't know, around twenty twelve or something, and everything is
Speaker 2: more available. We have printed photo like books of most
Speaker 2: of the years, so we have at least did that
Speaker 2: or did it from photo sessions that we did when
Speaker 2: the kids were little and then got a couple of
Speaker 2: years behind a few years ago. But Ruth has taken
Speaker 2: that job over and our family. She has access to
Speaker 2: all my photos that I take on my phone because
Speaker 2: her iPad is the same Apple ID I guess as
Speaker 2: my phone, and so she has gone and made several
Speaker 2: albums and they're really cute. So you know, yay solution
Speaker 2: there outsourced things to your kids. They may have the
Speaker 2: time to do it. We're going to take a quick
Speaker 2: ad break and then we will be back with more
Speaker 2: on memory keeping, traditions and celebrations.
Speaker 4: So back to talking about photos.
Speaker 3: I was just going to tell you that, even though
Speaker 3: I have no desire to create a beautiful wedding album,
Speaker 3: because I'm happy with our pictures in plastic sleeves, they're
Speaker 3: their own memory, I guess I do want to have
Speaker 3: family photo albums. I like doing one for each year,
Speaker 3: and we have one up until twenty twenty one, so
Speaker 3: I still have to do twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: But I think I will do what you did and
Speaker 3: ask Annabel if she's interested in this project, perhaps for
Speaker 3: a small hourly rate of some kind and that way
Speaker 3: we can be done and she can have something to do.
Speaker 3: It seems like it would be a lovely summer project
Speaker 3: for us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you guys aren't as big on like taking family
Speaker 2: photos with a photographer, are you.
Speaker 3: Or we've done it twice total, once when at of
Speaker 3: all was a baby, and then once in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 4: That was a great photo shoot.
Speaker 3: Actually it was done at my in law's fiftieth anniversary,
Speaker 3: and my sister in law got the idea to hire
Speaker 3: a photographer and do family photos. And the amazing thing
Speaker 3: about that is like we were able to share the
Speaker 3: cost and then we got all these big group shots
Speaker 3: and we also got our own like nuclear families, and
Speaker 3: some individual pictures as well. So I highly recommend that idea,
Speaker 3: like doing a photograph around a gathering, and also everyone's
Speaker 3: dressed up and looks nice for the gathering, and if
Speaker 3: it's in a pretty setting, like oh my gosh, all
Speaker 3: the stars have aligned and you can come away with
Speaker 3: something really special.
Speaker 4: So we're overdue to do that again.
Speaker 3: Maybe I'll do it for my parents' fiftieth wedding anniversaries.
Speaker 1: Oh, that would be awesome. Yeah, you should totally do that.
Speaker 2: We did that when my parents had their fiftieth wedding anniversary.
Speaker 2: We gathered my side of the family, obviously in a
Speaker 2: beach house for the week, and my sister in law
Speaker 2: hired a photographer to come take it. She suggested that
Speaker 2: we either all wear light blue and khaki or white
Speaker 2: on top and jeans, and so we went with the
Speaker 2: white and jeans, and we have those photos of us,
Speaker 2: and I think it came out really great because you know,
Speaker 2: you're on the beach and that actually looks like good
Speaker 2: coloring on a beach and works for most people. And
Speaker 2: like you said, we got the individual photos too that
Speaker 2: we could then use for our Christmas card. So when
Speaker 2: we gathered this past summer for my husband's side of
Speaker 2: the family, we were celebrating his mother's eighty fifth birthday,
Speaker 2: and we you know, she rented us all a giant
Speaker 2: compound and turks and caicos for a week. We hired
Speaker 2: a photographer. I suggested doing this, like, let's hire a photographer,
Speaker 2: and so you know, it's funny, I did the same thing.
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, everyone wear jeans and white. So I
Speaker 2: got a bunch of questions writing up to this like okay,
Speaker 2: short's okay? Or do you have to wear pants? Or
Speaker 2: you know, like if it's a tank top white, is
Speaker 2: that okay? Or should be a blouse?
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: But everyone made it work, and I think a lot
Speaker 2: of people did wind up using that photo or those
Speaker 2: extended family photos as spot cards this year.
Speaker 1: So it is.
Speaker 2: Always a pain to hire a photographer to stop what
Speaker 2: you're doing to get everyone to pose.
Speaker 1: You know, nobody wants to do it.
Speaker 2: It's really kind of tedious in the moment, but you
Speaker 2: will be happy you did it. And I think a
Speaker 2: lot of us could stand to put a little bit
Speaker 2: more work and time into documenting the presence so we
Speaker 2: can remember it. And that's why you keep that five
Speaker 2: year journal, right, So maybe you can talk a little
Speaker 2: bit about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I am doing you guys know, I use
Speaker 3: a lot of paper planners, and I'm always people are
Speaker 3: a gas that I don't keep every planner from every year,
Speaker 3: but I just don't want to leave that behind, Like
Speaker 3: seems kind of gross to have like a book for
Speaker 3: every year building it.
Speaker 4: I don't know, like I don't want to see my
Speaker 4: pass like that.
Speaker 3: But a five year journal feels okay because Honestly, I
Speaker 3: can picture a shelf of five year journals up from
Speaker 3: now until I'm one hundred, and it doesn't take up
Speaker 3: like a horrible.
Speaker 1: Amount of space.
Speaker 3: So somehow it doesn't bother me in the same way.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's just too morbid. I don't know, but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I love doing the five year journal because on each
Speaker 3: day I'm on year four of five of the one
Speaker 3: that I have.
Speaker 4: I wish I had started this before then.
Speaker 3: I guess I have my blog, so it's not like
Speaker 3: we're like in a vacuum, but I just put like
Speaker 3: basically what happened the day before. Like, I don't write
Speaker 3: a lot. I've write a few lines. I usually do
Speaker 3: it in color. I kind of play with pens when
Speaker 3: I do it. It's like a little meditative act I
Speaker 3: do in the morning. And yeah, it's so fun to
Speaker 3: look back on, especially because the when I have now
Speaker 3: starts at twenty twenty one, and you know, it wasn't
Speaker 3: twenty twenty, but twenty twenty one, especially early twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: was a very very different lifestyle than.
Speaker 4: We are all enjoying right now.
Speaker 3: Plus I had little, little kids, and so to be
Speaker 3: able to see how things have changed as I go
Speaker 3: from top to bottom on each day is super cool.
Speaker 3: One thing I'll say if you decide to do this
Speaker 3: is if you have some blank spaces, it does not matter.
Speaker 3: So do not be one of those people who start
Speaker 3: one and enjoy it and then they miss three days
Speaker 3: and then they're like, Okay, I can't do this, Like there
Speaker 3: are absolutely missing slots in mind, but more slots are
Speaker 3: filled out than aren't filled out, and that's way good enough.
Speaker 3: So don't be a perfectionist about it you decide to
Speaker 3: do this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the perfect does not need to be the enemy
Speaker 2: of the good. For those who are on social media, obviously,
Speaker 2: Facebook will do those time hop things often where they
Speaker 2: show you your memories from twelve years ago today, and
Speaker 2: you know that is a kind of cool thing to see,
Speaker 2: especially if your kids were Probably if you had kids
Speaker 2: twelve years ago, they obviously looked a lot different than
Speaker 2: they do now, so that is always kind of fun
Speaker 2: to see what you are thinking about.
Speaker 1: At the moment.
Speaker 2: My time logs are serving this function for me right now,
Speaker 2: So longtime listeners know that I began tracking my time
Speaker 2: in April of twenty fifteen, which you do the math,
Speaker 2: that is nine years ago now, so there are some
Speaker 2: extensive memories documented of every half hour of Laura's life
Speaker 2: since twenty fifteen. But I have been employing this more
Speaker 2: as a memory keeping kind of thing as opposed to
Speaker 2: how many hours do I spend working or driving or
Speaker 2: emptying the dishwash or anything like that. And the particular
Speaker 2: way I do it is that I match up the
Speaker 2: Monday start date. So for a couple of years, I
Speaker 2: would see that the ones I had saved on my
Speaker 2: current laptop matched the Monday date that I was doing.
Speaker 2: So December, like seventeen of twenty twenty three was the
Speaker 2: same day of the week as December seventeen of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen. Sorry, twenty twenty three match twenty seventeen, and
Speaker 2: so I was starting twenty eighteen. And then of course
Speaker 2: we had leap year, so that shifted it again, so
Speaker 2: now I'm five years behind. So these days I'm looking
Speaker 2: at the weeks from twenty nineteen. So that's kind of
Speaker 2: exciting because I'm getting up into the point where I'm
Speaker 2: going to learn that Henry is on his way, so
Speaker 2: I'm kind of looking forward to seeing.
Speaker 1: That on the log and remembering all that. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it was.
Speaker 2: It kind of tedious to do, not terribly, I mean,
Speaker 2: like the five year journal, it's only three minutes a
Speaker 2: day for me, but knowing how I spent an entire
Speaker 2: week in like early twenty nineteen is kind of priceless
Speaker 2: at this point because there's no way I could recreate it.
Speaker 1: At this point, I would have no idea.
Speaker 2: But since I have the artifact of that time, I
Speaker 2: can in fact call it back up.
Speaker 4: Are you tempted to now copy and paste a photo?
Speaker 1: Like? Oh yes?
Speaker 2: We read a grateful Kay Kaylen Lopez blog and she
Speaker 2: has been tracking her time continuously for several months now
Speaker 2: at least, and she has done this more and explicitly
Speaker 2: memory keeping way where she pastes in photos on the
Speaker 2: Excel file. And that's really awesome. I think that's great,
Speaker 2: and that will be even better to look back on
Speaker 2: than what I have, which is words on a screen.
Speaker 2: But you know, I have to rely on my brain
Speaker 2: to pull it back up. So moving on just a
Speaker 2: little bit, pivoting to the idea of traditions. We're including
Speaker 2: this in this episode because these are things that we
Speaker 2: choose to do over and over again and honor them
Speaker 2: as special. So they will in fact become memories through
Speaker 2: sheer repetition, and then as you do them again, they
Speaker 2: become opportunities to look back on your life in the
Speaker 2: previous times you did whatever this tradition might happen to be. So, Sarah,
Speaker 2: maybe you could talk a little bit about why you
Speaker 2: think traditions are worth trying to make happen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I was reflecting on the difference between
Speaker 3: something that's just routine, like because once their roles around,
Speaker 3: we don't know go to tap class, versus tradition, like
Speaker 3: why do we choose to elevate certain things and not
Speaker 3: elevate other things? And I mean I think, if anything,
Speaker 3: we should err on the side of turning more things
Speaker 3: into traditions. And like just kind of I think there's
Speaker 3: just like a level of attention or a little level
Speaker 3: of celebration that can bring certain things we do over
Speaker 3: and over again to the forefront. I do think if
Speaker 3: it's something very very frequent, it's hard to call it
Speaker 3: a tradition. Again, like Wednesday tap class. If perhaps like
Speaker 3: the last Friday of every month, your family loves to
Speaker 3: go out to the movies, then that could be considered
Speaker 3: a tradition, and that would just like elevate it a
Speaker 3: little bit more. I think that hearing other people's traditions
Speaker 3: can be really, really fun and inspiring. So I think
Speaker 3: we should take this opportunity to share some of our
Speaker 3: family traditions so that people can therefore reflect on theirs.
Speaker 3: And I will say one natural thing that does happen
Speaker 3: with traditions is you compare it with years past, Like
Speaker 3: that's what I think humans love. One of the things
Speaker 3: humans love about holidays, other than the chance to just
Speaker 3: connect and get together and celebrate, is like it automatically
Speaker 3: invokes the prior ones. Right each Thanksgiving, we think, oh,
Speaker 3: like last year I had a babe at this event,
Speaker 3: or last year we held it here, or last year
Speaker 3: this family member was with us, and since then they've passed.
Speaker 3: Like these things are really important. They mark milestones. So
Speaker 3: I think traditions are just awesome and we should pay
Speaker 3: attention to them and perhaps cultivate more of them. So
Speaker 3: a few non typical traditions that we have in our
Speaker 3: house include an annual graduation dinner at the melting Pot.
Speaker 1: Graduation every year. Yes okay, we're graduating from fourth grade?
Speaker 1: Sounds good? Yes, okay, end of school year dinner school year.
Speaker 4: Okay, the restaurant is absolutely like the kid's choice. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but they love it. They look forward to it. We
Speaker 4: always go in June.
Speaker 3: There's like always a thunderstorm that we're dodging on the
Speaker 3: way because that's the weather we have.
Speaker 4: But it's like, I don't know, we love it.
Speaker 3: And actually we've started to invite grandparents to this tradition,
Speaker 3: so it's just kind of.
Speaker 4: Getting more and more elevated.
Speaker 3: We do something when you're ten, you get to pick
Speaker 3: your family's upcoming trip destination ten or thereabouts, depending on timing.
Speaker 3: We do first day of school ice cream. That's just
Speaker 3: always a thing, It's a given. We have some traditions
Speaker 3: tied to different vacation spots, specifically Amelia Island. That's the
Speaker 3: place our family has gone the most times, while other
Speaker 3: than Philadelphia on my parents' hospital, like the non family location,
Speaker 3: and we do things like we always have dinner like
Speaker 3: at this seafood place with a pirate and it does
Speaker 3: feel like a tradition just because we like seek out
Speaker 3: these same experiences every time. I think one newer tradition
Speaker 3: that we have kind of cultivated accidentally is to always
Speaker 3: go to Arii and buy stuff before vacations that have
Speaker 3: an outdoorsy component, Like I think it gets us in
Speaker 3: the mood, like what do we.
Speaker 1: Need for this?
Speaker 3: Like what kind of adventures are we going to go on?
Speaker 3: And yeah, we're headed to do that in two days.
Speaker 3: So yeah, tradition lives on. And then I mean there
Speaker 3: are also holiday traditions. I've talked about the Valentine's Day
Speaker 3: treasure hunt in our house. The kids buy gifts for
Speaker 3: the Mother's and Father's Day and we try to make
Speaker 3: them kind of nice. I love to do July fourth
Speaker 3: in Philadelphia, and Jewish holidays are almost always at Josh's
Speaker 3: family's house because they put on really lovely celebrations. So yeah,
Speaker 3: those are just a few of our specific family traditions.
Speaker 4: But it was actually really.
Speaker 3: Fun to reflect on what they are and think about
Speaker 3: what could perhaps be at it as the kids get older.
Speaker 2: Awesome, Well, we're gonna take one more quick ad break
Speaker 2: and then I'll be back talking about a few of
Speaker 2: my family's tradition. Well, we are back. We've been talking
Speaker 2: memory keeping, now traditions, and we'll get to celebrations in
Speaker 2: just a minute. Although that is totally related, some overlap here.
Speaker 2: We have a few family traditions that have become ones
Speaker 2: over time that we've consciously created, like getting family pajamas
Speaker 2: at Christmas, so we order a matching set for everyone,
Speaker 2: and we've done this for.
Speaker 1: Boy five six years.
Speaker 2: Five years, and so we have a lot of pajamas,
Speaker 2: but the kids seem to.
Speaker 1: Like it, so we do it.
Speaker 2: We have started the tradition of doing sibling gifts at Christmas,
Speaker 2: which is another one that would not be able to
Speaker 2: be taken away very easily. We go to the same
Speaker 2: town on the Jersey Shore Ocean Grove every summer, and
Speaker 2: for the past few years we've actually stayed at the
Speaker 2: same house, so it's kind of like our beach house
Speaker 2: without being our beach house and having to deal with
Speaker 2: all that. But that vacation features a ton of traditions
Speaker 2: because we have been there so often. Like we often
Speaker 2: go to Day's Ice Cream, we go to the Silver
Speaker 2: Brawl arcade in Asbury, mikel and I often stop at
Speaker 2: the Asbury Beer Garden.
Speaker 1: There's just a lot of different things.
Speaker 2: I was reflecting bringing this back to the Disney part
Speaker 2: from earlier in this episode.
Speaker 1: I feel like.
Speaker 2: We've been to Disney enough times now that parts of
Speaker 2: that are starting to feel a bit like tradition, Like, hey,
Speaker 2: here we are waiting for the safari at Animal Kingdom
Speaker 2: Park again.
Speaker 1: We've done that a great many times.
Speaker 4: I actually find traditions.
Speaker 3: I find that the most fun part of Disney doing
Speaker 3: stuff again and again and like remembering it and like,
Speaker 3: oh here we are, Yeah, same thing. I mean, we
Speaker 3: have different ones that we do, but I think that's
Speaker 3: part of their business plan to keep things very much
Speaker 3: the same. So it does feel like, you know, ritual
Speaker 3: almost Yeah. Yeah, Well, let's just do a quick look
Speaker 3: at celebrations. Obviously, traditions and celebrations are very tightly entwined,
Speaker 3: but this is a time of year with a lot
Speaker 3: of celebrations. So kid birthday parties, Sarah, what of the
Speaker 3: birthday party norms have you like learned over time as
Speaker 3: you've been observing this. Yeah, so, I mean I feel
Speaker 3: like the little kid parties are big family parties, and
Speaker 3: certainly where I live, people go very over the top
Speaker 3: in some cases, and then they become much more kid
Speaker 3: centric kind of around four or five, and then the
Speaker 3: drop off sort of kind of seems to gradually start
Speaker 3: around seven, although even past that, I mean we had
Speaker 3: Cameron's tenth, and we had parents that stayed I think
Speaker 3: more for convenience than for any concern of what, you know,
Speaker 3: whether their kid could be alone. And then there's like
Speaker 3: this other shift which I wasn't necessarily ever thinking about,
Speaker 3: where I think there's.
Speaker 4: An age where your kid doesn't necessarily want.
Speaker 3: A party but would rather like do something special with
Speaker 3: a friend or with a family or things like that,
Speaker 3: and I feel like that's around maybe well, I don't know,
Speaker 3: I'm just headed into that territory now.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it depends that we've had like a small number
Speaker 2: of kids over to the house for something that the
Speaker 2: older kids want to do. And I think Jasper's trying
Speaker 2: to plan an outing to a tea place. He really
Speaker 2: likes tea, and there's this place called a Taste of
Speaker 2: Britain in the area that does a high tea, so
Speaker 2: I think he and his friends might be doing that,
Speaker 2: which is kind of kind of random. Do you guys
Speaker 2: do much for your anniversary each year? I'm just curious.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we do, actually, I mean I would say we
Speaker 3: try to make that when we do a getaway. We
Speaker 3: can't always time it exactly for the anniversary. Sometimes it's
Speaker 3: more around my birthday. Those two are very close together,
Speaker 3: but we do we usually try to either do some
Speaker 3: sort of really nice in or out. Well, this year,
Speaker 3: we're going to be, as we'll talk about in a
Speaker 3: future episode, you know, running a marathon that weekend, so
Speaker 3: it'll be fun and togetherness and a really nice celebration.
Speaker 3: So we do, and we don't do gifts for anniversary.
Speaker 3: I mean, the gift is like getting to spend time together.
Speaker 3: That's a yeah, big gift. Mostly don't need new stuff.
Speaker 2: But you had a great tip in here about looking
Speaker 2: at the family calendar because people like to have a
Speaker 2: certain amount of celebrating in life, Like we always want
Speaker 2: something to look forward to, and there are certain times
Speaker 2: of year where they come fast and furious, and sometimes
Speaker 2: people have their children exactly two years apart, so then
Speaker 2: you wind up with like three birthdays in a row
Speaker 2: and one month or something like that. But if the
Speaker 2: calendar is a little bit sparse, it might be worth
Speaker 2: thinking about. I mean, you've done that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love doing this.
Speaker 3: I mean this is kind of part of my annual
Speaker 3: planning practice where we kind of think about what the
Speaker 3: big rocks are in the year, and when I see
Speaker 3: months that are just like, oh my god, there's nothing fun,
Speaker 3: Like you have to find something and maybe that's something
Speaker 3: can be a celebration. So you gave a great example
Speaker 3: of birthdays being clustered, which in our house they are.
Speaker 3: There are no birthdays between May and December.
Speaker 4: In our family.
Speaker 3: Everybody is in those five months beforehand, and so I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: what's in that frame. Hmmm, My blog's anniversary, that's an
Speaker 3: important birthday. Our podcast anniversary, that's a very important milestone.
Speaker 3: So trying to think of other things that perhaps could
Speaker 3: be celebrated in those slower times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny. I think the professional ones we tend
Speaker 2: not to think about quite as much. I mean, obviously,
Speaker 2: if you work for a giant corporation that is like
Speaker 2: somebody does this, like does this as a policy, like
Speaker 2: you know, twenty years or ten years or Whatever's that's awesome.
Speaker 2: I don't know how many places like even do that anymore.
Speaker 2: But throw yourself apart, like I've been in this job
Speaker 2: five years. I mean, whether you intend to stay or not,
Speaker 2: you could celebrate your longevity for that and what you've
Speaker 2: learned over the course of five years and the people
Speaker 2: you have met over the course of five years, and
Speaker 2: I don't know, get yourself a cupcake or something.
Speaker 1: It could be.
Speaker 3: I'm realizing that I had my tenth work anniversary and
Speaker 3: I didn't even notice it.
Speaker 4: I wish I had. I wish I could go back,
Speaker 4: but I guess I'll have to wait for fifteen.
Speaker 1: You would have given yourself a cupcake.
Speaker 3: Yeah, or like asked my practice manager to buy me
Speaker 3: a cup or something like that.
Speaker 2: I could at least pay for my Starbucks today. All Right,
Speaker 2: so this question, we're going to pivot to the question here.
Speaker 2: This listener writes in, I am looking for fresh ideas
Speaker 2: for date nights, so, you know, getting a little bit
Speaker 2: tired just going out to the same restaurant over and
Speaker 2: over again.
Speaker 1: Sarah, what would you suggest?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that I should take this advice as
Speaker 3: much as I'm giving it. But I think day dates
Speaker 3: are underrated. I always Actually I'm going to give a
Speaker 3: shout out to Kelsey from the Girl next Door podcast.
Speaker 3: She's all about the date eate. She and her husband
Speaker 3: do a lot of this, and I love that idea.
Speaker 3: Because you're not tired, you can like do something, So
Speaker 3: you could go to a museum, you could go to
Speaker 3: a hike. It would be an opportunity to hike without
Speaker 3: any kids complaining about the distance.
Speaker 4: How cool would that be.
Speaker 3: You could also keep it at a normal time, but
Speaker 3: like maybe turn your restaurant seeking into some kind of quest,
Speaker 3: like we're going to go to the top three rated
Speaker 3: Miami restaurants, or we are going to try every Peruvian
Speaker 3: place in the area and figure out which one is
Speaker 3: the best, like, you know, turning it into some sort
Speaker 3: of activity where you maybe even want to like take
Speaker 3: notes or I don't know, like just elevating it a
Speaker 3: little bit. And then one thing we are planning on
Speaker 3: doing soon, which is inspired by my friend who is
Speaker 3: super into yoga, is that she's going to have us
Speaker 3: come for a yoga date where she has this class
Speaker 3: that she likes at like four point thirty on a Saturday.
Speaker 3: She lives in Miami Beach, so to be perfect, we'll
Speaker 3: drive down, we'll go, we'll all do yoga together, and
Speaker 3: then that area is walking distance from some like really
Speaker 3: nice restaurants, so we'll just like but casual, so we
Speaker 3: can go in our yoga gear, so we'll just like
Speaker 3: mosey out and get some dinner afterward together.
Speaker 4: So I'm really looking forward to.
Speaker 1: That sounds awesome. Yeah, I'll throw out one.
Speaker 2: One random idea is that I heard this from somebody
Speaker 2: recently that they hired a sitter to take their kids out,
Speaker 2: Like the sitter took the three kids out to a movie,
Speaker 2: which allowed this couple to enjoy some time in their
Speaker 2: home by themselves, for whatever they chose to do with it.
Speaker 2: So I'm just going to throw that out there as
Speaker 2: an idea. I will say that sporting events are kind
Speaker 2: of different in that you're watching something but it's you know,
Speaker 2: it just probably you don't go to that many that
Speaker 2: are like professional or college level or something like that.
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed going to a six Ers game with
Speaker 2: Michael last year. But even more so, just something to
Speaker 2: think about with trying to come up with interesting date
Speaker 2: ideas is that if you have little kids, actually booking
Speaker 2: regular babysitting for a time that you might have a
Speaker 2: date night can encourage you to be a little bit
Speaker 2: more creative about this, because if you know you have
Speaker 2: every Friday night, then you start looking for things that
Speaker 2: are happening on Friday night. Or it doesn't have to
Speaker 2: rise to the level of, oh, would we get a
Speaker 2: sitter for this right, because you already have the sitter.
Speaker 2: So you could be like, well, why don't we go
Speaker 2: to this farmer's market and then see if this thing
Speaker 2: that's festival in a local square is any good or not.
Speaker 2: Like you probably wouldn't get a sitter just to do that,
Speaker 2: But if you know you already have this sitter, then
Speaker 2: you're willing to try things that are a little bit more.
Speaker 1: Out of the box because the time is protected.
Speaker 2: So just throwing that out as an idea awesome, right,
Speaker 2: Sarah Love of the Week.
Speaker 4: Yes, I'm going to be basic.
Speaker 3: I love that we have a Starbucks at my hospital
Speaker 3: where I work, like we didn't always, so it's just amazing.
Speaker 3: And I've definitely gotten into a oat milk cappuccino have
Speaker 3: it lately, especially when I have a lot to do
Speaker 3: and I want a little bit of extra cappine in
Speaker 3: my system.
Speaker 4: I just love it.
Speaker 3: I look forward to it, and I don't do it
Speaker 3: every day but maybe twice a week and savor it
Speaker 3: every single time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have quite the Starbucks habit around here. I
Speaker 2: would say they're more order ahead app I've wound up
Speaker 2: using a lot now. It just makes it so much
Speaker 2: easier because then you're not wait in the store, which
Speaker 2: is one thing if you're going to the store and
Speaker 2: hanging out with someone there or a kid or whatever.
Speaker 1: But if you are.
Speaker 2: Just procuring the drinks, not having to wait around for
Speaker 2: them is really cool. So you know, put in the
Speaker 2: order five minutes ahead of time, drive over on your way, and.
Speaker 1: Then pick it up. It's great.
Speaker 2: We've been getting a lot of strawberry aside lemonade refreshers.
Speaker 2: Probably will get even more as we get into the summer,
Speaker 2: and the cold beverages sounds more and more appealing in
Speaker 2: the afternoon.
Speaker 1: I would say that happens more days per week than not.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we have quite the Starbucks habit around here.
Speaker 1: I guess that could be my love of the week
Speaker 1: from now on. Well, this has been best of both worlds.
Speaker 2: We have been talking about all things memory keeping, celebrations
Speaker 2: and traditions, just putting a plug in for thinking about
Speaker 2: these things.
Speaker 1: Even if you are in the busy.
Speaker 2: Years, at some point you're going to be looking back
Speaker 2: on this, and even you can see yourself looking back
Speaker 2: on life five years ago. And isn't it nice when
Speaker 2: you have concrete things to remember? So you might want
Speaker 2: to be kind to your future self and think about
Speaker 2: keeping some memories and creating some traditions that your future
Speaker 2: self can look back on. And we will be back
Speaker 2: next week with more on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 4: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3: You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com
Speaker 3: or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can.
Speaker 4: Find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has
Speaker 4: been the best of both worlds podcasts.
Speaker 2: Please join us next time for more on making work
Speaker 2: and life work together.