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, writer,
Speaker 3: and course creator. We are two working parents who love
Speaker 3: 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. This
Speaker 1: episode is.
Speaker 2: Airing in mid January of twenty twenty five. Sarah is
Speaker 2: going to be interviewing Tracy Thomas from The Stacks Podcast.
Speaker 2: They're going to be talking all things reading. I know
Speaker 2: a lot of people are looking to achieve various reading
Speaker 2: goals in the new year, or else just have a
Speaker 2: good reading habit in their lives. We're going to be
Speaker 2: finding out lots of ideas from her. So, Sarah, how
Speaker 2: was your reading year last year? Like in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 3: Great for about seven months and then it just fell
Speaker 3: into a hole. And I think it was just a
Speaker 3: mix of life stressors, picking the wrong novel that I
Speaker 3: got stuck on and writing a lot, because when you're
Speaker 3: writing a lot, it is a little bit harder for
Speaker 3: me to consume so many words as I'm trying to
Speaker 3: produce so many words.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say it was not a great reading
Speaker 2: year for me either. I mean, I read some good books.
Speaker 2: I went on a kick of reading about the ancient Earth,
Speaker 2: so I now know the history of Earth from like
Speaker 2: when life was first appearing six hundred maybe even seven
Speaker 2: hundred million years ago, in the various extinctions that occurred
Speaker 2: along the way.
Speaker 3: It's kind of fascinating. Really.
Speaker 2: I could go in a whole tangent about the fact
Speaker 2: that you haven't found the fossils doesn't mean there wasn't anything.
Speaker 2: It just means that maybe animals were of the form
Speaker 2: that didn't fossilize. The beginning is the time moves backward.
Speaker 2: Let's just say the time keeps moving backward. So funny
Speaker 2: thing with that. Anyway, I read very little else. I
Speaker 2: I read about the ancient Earth and like nothing else.
Speaker 2: But you know, it's just it was something that had
Speaker 2: to go. I've had a lot of other things going on.
Speaker 3: I don't know. You're writing a lot too. You wrote
Speaker 3: a lot.
Speaker 2: I'm writing a lot too, like I'm writing a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it might be. I wonder how many words you
Speaker 3: wrote in twenty twenty or I bet it was like
Speaker 3: just because of your substance, like it was a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, between substocks and the book for Breakfast, the book,
Speaker 2: everything else, blogging, other newsletters.
Speaker 3: Maybe I should pare all this.
Speaker 2: Down some, but you know whatever, it's fine.
Speaker 1: I like it.
Speaker 2: I like it, But you know, I did you do
Speaker 2: you track what you read? I did in twenty seventeen
Speaker 2: and twenty eighteen. Those years I kept a reading log.
Speaker 2: I have stopped doing that.
Speaker 3: I have tracked every year since I believe twenty twenty,
Speaker 3: and there might even be if I mind my blog,
Speaker 3: I think there might even be some earlier years. But
Speaker 3: I regret this actually, Like I'm so jealous of people
Speaker 3: who have good Reads going back fifteen years or however
Speaker 3: long Goodreads has existed for, or who have a notebook
Speaker 3: of like every book they've read since they were twenty
Speaker 3: or something like that. I feel like I would have
Speaker 3: loved to have that kind of artifact, and I absolutely don't.
Speaker 3: But yeah, since twenty twenty, they're all twenty twenty through
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, I think are on my blog, and
Speaker 3: then in twenty twenty four I just went on paper,
Speaker 3: so I need to immortalize that somehow, and then we'll see.
Speaker 3: I think I'm gonna go back to posting them in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five. Okay, well that sounds good.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I posted little reviews on my website for a
Speaker 2: while and then kind of stopped doing that. Too many
Speaker 2: things stopped after I don't know twenty eight, I just
Speaker 2: stopped posting anything related to books. Do you have a
Speaker 2: TVR list though, Do you like keep track of what
Speaker 2: you want to read?
Speaker 3: Like from time to time. I'll make one sometimes when
Speaker 3: I'm doing my seasonal planning. It's not at all a like,
Speaker 3: I'm not trying to read them all. I'm not trying
Speaker 3: to only read books from that list. I need to
Speaker 3: have more looseness and like, if I hear a review
Speaker 3: that sounds awesome and I want to like order it
Speaker 3: right then and there and read that, that's totally fine.
Speaker 3: But I think it helps me strategize my library holds,
Speaker 3: and then whether I actually read all of those can vary,
Speaker 3: but I would say three out of five seasons of
Speaker 3: the year quintiles, I do make a TBR list.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I kind of just if I see a
Speaker 2: book that I want to read, i'd like take a
Speaker 2: picture of it, or I write it down or email
Speaker 2: it to myself, and then when I'm looking for something
Speaker 2: to read, if I have those, I will often download
Speaker 2: the sample on Kindle first. And that's just because I've
Speaker 2: been I mean, it's sort of the equivalent of like
Speaker 2: checking it out from the library, because it's free for
Speaker 2: that part, and then you can test it out. And
Speaker 2: I do buy the vast majority of the books that
Speaker 2: I've downloaded the sample from, but I've been saved from
Speaker 2: a few purchases from things that sounded excellent and then
Speaker 2: within the first like three pages, as like this person
Speaker 2: is no, no, this is not going to be one
Speaker 2: thing I'm going to want to read it. So good
Speaker 2: to know that you would have known that maybe if
Speaker 2: you read the first few pages in Barnes and Noble
Speaker 2: and you just don't know that necessarily online. I mean,
Speaker 2: I guess they do sometimes supposed to first pages. That's
Speaker 2: my life hack I've mentioned that I'm sure many times,
Speaker 2: is download the sample, see if you like it, and
Speaker 2: then you can really quickly order it.
Speaker 3: The nice thing is. I feel like that also provides
Speaker 3: a really kind of It points out that there's a
Speaker 3: cut point at which you are actively deciding to continue
Speaker 3: or not, which for somebody like me who has trouble like,
Speaker 3: it's not that I don't want to abandon books, it's
Speaker 3: just that I'll get past a certain point and feel like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: if I've invested this much like I should. But I mean,
Speaker 3: if I've only had the sample, you have this limited
Speaker 3: number and then you're like, is it yes or is
Speaker 3: it no?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you almost every time could no ten to
Speaker 2: fifteen percent in if you're going to want to read
Speaker 2: this book. I mean, it's true, I would imagine usually
Speaker 2: we're good by that point. But I'm excited to hear
Speaker 2: what Tracy has to say. So here's Tracy Thomas from
Speaker 2: The Stacks.
Speaker 3: Well, I am so excited to welcome Tracy to the podcast.
Speaker 3: She is the host of The Stacks, which she'll tell
Speaker 3: us all about and I am so inspired by her
Speaker 3: reading life and I'm sure you will be as well.
Speaker 3: Welcome Tracy, Hi, thank you for having me. Well, today
Speaker 3: we're going to talk all things books and reading, which
Speaker 3: I know is on the top of many people's minds
Speaker 3: as we're entering a new year, reading goals are very common.
Speaker 3: Let's start with the fact that, well, we don't have
Speaker 3: the total number of books you read last year, Tracy,
Speaker 3: but it was at least one hundred and ten in
Speaker 3: like November. So where are we?
Speaker 4: So it's December as we're recording this, and I am
Speaker 4: at Let me pull up my spreadsheet.
Speaker 1: I am at one thirty one thirty.
Speaker 3: That is amazing thirty four one. Before you assume that
Speaker 3: Tracy like must have lots of free time, we will
Speaker 3: also note that she has five year old twins.
Speaker 1: Ay sure Dale, Ay sure Dale.
Speaker 3: All right, so I obviously part of it probably has
Speaker 3: to do with your career choice that you are a
Speaker 3: book podcaster, but I'm super interested in your reading journey,
Speaker 3: like did you always read that much? And did your
Speaker 3: reading change when you entered the parenting phase?
Speaker 4: Okay, so no, I did not always read one hundred
Speaker 4: plus books in my life a year.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no, that's because this is my job.
Speaker 4: I did always love to read, and sort of the
Speaker 4: origin story of the podcast and also just like reading
Speaker 4: background is that I used to live in New York.
Speaker 4: I used to read a ton in New York. I
Speaker 4: read a ton as a kid. After I graduated college
Speaker 4: and was living in New York, I was like, I
Speaker 4: want to read more. So I started reading more for fun.
Speaker 4: And then when I moved to LA in twenty twelve,
Speaker 4: I like stopped reading completely because there was no subway
Speaker 4: to read on. Life is just very different in LA
Speaker 4: than in New York. And so in twenty sixteen, I
Speaker 4: was like, I'm going to read a book a month.
Speaker 4: That's my goal. I'm going to like knock it out.
Speaker 4: I finished that, I thought I was the new like
Speaker 4: champion of the world. I was like, send me my
Speaker 4: Pulitzer Prize.
Speaker 1: I am a winner. And then in.
Speaker 4: Twenty seven I was like, I'm going to read thirteen books.
Speaker 4: I ended up reading twenty four books because I sort
Speaker 4: of like hit my stride. And then in twenty eighteen
Speaker 4: I started the show, and that year I ended up
Speaker 4: reading eighty nine books. So obviously you can see there
Speaker 4: was a large jump in my reading from when I
Speaker 4: was just reading sort of for pleasure to get back
Speaker 4: in reading, and then when reading sort of became my life.
Speaker 3: But then I'm doing the math, So then you got pregnant.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I got pregnant. My kids were born in December
Speaker 4: twenty nineteen. Yeah, so twenty nineteen I read like one
Speaker 4: hundred books, and then in twenty twenty, I think I
Speaker 4: read ninety five, so.
Speaker 1: Not too much less.
Speaker 4: But I was still working and doing the show, so
Speaker 4: I didn't have a lot of room to like cut
Speaker 4: back on reading. Also, like a pandemic happened in twenty twenty,
Speaker 4: which really shook things up. It was like a very
Speaker 4: People always ask me, They're like, oh, what was it
Speaker 4: like having like baby newborn twins, And I'm like, I
Speaker 4: cannot separate that from a major global pandemic because they
Speaker 4: were premature. They were three months not even when COVID started,
Speaker 4: So like the whole thing is just all tied up
Speaker 4: in and I haven't really unpacked that yet.
Speaker 3: Super interesting, Well, from a pure logistics standpoint, it's twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: You have twin babies, which still blows my mind. I
Speaker 3: have three children, but like they're spaced out. I've never
Speaker 3: had two babies at once, and my mind, I'm always
Speaker 3: just so in awe of twin moms. But you had
Speaker 3: your two babies, and how did you fit in your reading?
Speaker 3: Even though it's your job I mean, when did you
Speaker 3: do it? Was it like you would nurse and read
Speaker 3: and like tell me a little bit about like how
Speaker 3: cause I'm sure your amount of quote free time probably
Speaker 3: did change.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean so I read still now and back
Speaker 4: then in a lot of different ways and at a
Speaker 4: lot of different times. So I read physical books, I
Speaker 4: read audiobooks, and I read off a kindle. When I
Speaker 4: was nursing my boys, I had on each breast and
Speaker 4: I would sit so that my legs were sort of crossed,
Speaker 4: and then I would put my kindle on my knee,
Speaker 4: and then I would bend over with my nose and
Speaker 4: touch my nose to the kindle to turn the bag,
Speaker 4: which is like so so silly, but that's how I
Speaker 4: could do it, Like it made the most sense. It
Speaker 4: was like also one of the most calm times in
Speaker 4: my day, right, like besides naptime, which is when I
Speaker 4: got a lot of work done, but also during nap
Speaker 4: time I was recording episodes of the show. I would
Speaker 4: have these like two hour chunks of time where I
Speaker 4: could like record something or write something or get reading
Speaker 4: done or whatever. So I was in the beginning when
Speaker 4: they were still taking like three naps in the daytime hours.
Speaker 4: I was like, this is great, I have these like
Speaker 4: like six hours to work. But yeah, I also used
Speaker 4: to go on these really long walks and I would
Speaker 4: listen to my audio books on these really long walks.
Speaker 4: So you know, I always tell parents, you can read.
Speaker 4: There is enough time for you to read. It's just
Speaker 4: a matter if that's your priority, Like it does it
Speaker 4: have to be right, Like it could be you want
Speaker 4: to exercise, it could be you want to cook. It
Speaker 4: could be you want to watch TV. It could be
Speaker 4: you want to scroll on Instagram. But if it's something
Speaker 4: that you want to do, there's definitely time in the
Speaker 4: day to do it. It might not be while you're
Speaker 4: nursing twins like that might not be the number one
Speaker 4: priority in that moment, but for me it worked. I
Speaker 4: nursed and then I bottle fed, so then I would
Speaker 4: like put them on their little boppy pillows and then
Speaker 4: I could still hold the bottles and still do the
Speaker 4: nose thing as I was like feeding that.
Speaker 3: The image I'm never gonna I'm like, this is like
Speaker 3: seared into my brain forever, is like twin on each
Speaker 3: side and nose touching the kindle. I mean, I do
Speaker 3: feel like that does illustrate a passion for reading that
Speaker 3: is beyond average, That is amazing.
Speaker 4: So I guess they have these like clickers, Like, yes,
Speaker 4: there's at that you can turn the page. I'm sure
Speaker 4: there was then too, but I didn't have a hand
Speaker 4: to close and still it with your nose exactly, so
Speaker 4: like it's still.
Speaker 1: When someone was like, oh, you could have used a clicker,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I.
Speaker 4: Mean with one hand, I'm still down your foot your foot,
Speaker 4: I guess, but like I I think you have to.
Speaker 4: I don't know if my toes are that strong. I
Speaker 4: could have also just done audiobooks in that time. I
Speaker 4: don't know why I didn't think of that, but a
Speaker 4: lot going on.
Speaker 3: No, but maybe you wanted the process of like because
Speaker 3: it is like a different I don't know, ye like
Speaker 3: puts you in a different kind of headspace. Maybe it
Speaker 3: was especially relaxing to be able.
Speaker 1: To Yeah, I don't know. I can't really quite get
Speaker 1: back there mentally.
Speaker 3: I'm so impressed. Well, let's fast forward to today and
Speaker 3: I know you have a show, but like, let's pretend
Speaker 3: you sort of didn't have a show. How do you
Speaker 3: curate your reading or how do you recommend that others
Speaker 3: curate your reading or don't. Like, should people just be
Speaker 3: like pure whatever strikes them at that moment, Like, what
Speaker 3: are your thoughts?
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it really depends on why you
Speaker 4: want to read. What I do want to say is like,
Speaker 4: I think folks should be intentional with their reading. They
Speaker 4: should be thinking about who the authors are, Like what
Speaker 4: if they're you know, from marginalized backgrounds, maybe they have
Speaker 4: a disability, maybe it's queer authors. There are books that
Speaker 4: are fantastic by all sorts of people from all over
Speaker 4: the world, written in all sorts of languages, many of
Speaker 4: which have been translated into English. So if you don't
Speaker 4: speak I don't know Russian, you could probably still read
Speaker 4: a great Russian novel in English, you know. But with
Speaker 4: that being said, I think you should go with what
Speaker 4: excites you. I think that if you see a book
Speaker 4: in the bookstore and you're like, that cover is calling my.
Speaker 1: Name, I think you should probably just read that book.
Speaker 4: And if you hate it, what I really think more
Speaker 4: than anything is you should put it down. I do
Speaker 4: not subscribe to the idea that you should force yourself
Speaker 4: to finish a book.
Speaker 1: I have to because it's my job.
Speaker 4: But like you do not have to unless it's your job, right,
Speaker 4: Like even if for your book club, you don't have
Speaker 4: to finish it, like your friends might be like, uh,
Speaker 4: you didn't finish the book again, and then you can say, well,
Speaker 4: I thought it was bad, and then you can have
Speaker 4: a conversation about it. And that's a great thing for
Speaker 4: a book club. Like there's no homework assignment, there's no
Speaker 4: book report. And also just because you put a book
Speaker 4: down doesn't mean you might not go back to it
Speaker 4: at another time. I think people feel like, oh, I
Speaker 4: bought this and it was expensive, and books are expensive,
Speaker 4: and so I understand that, but that will not help
Speaker 4: you read more feeling stuck with the book. That won't
Speaker 4: help as far as like curating it. I like to
Speaker 4: read what I like to read. Even now for my show,
Speaker 4: I still read a lot of books just because I
Speaker 4: want to read them that never appear on the show
Speaker 4: because I'm excited about them or I'm interested, or I'm
Speaker 4: curious or for whatever reason. And I think if you're reading,
Speaker 4: as long as you take sort of the should out
Speaker 4: of your reading life, I think for the most part,
Speaker 4: you'll be successful.
Speaker 3: No that makes sense. Do you have like a certain
Speaker 3: number of pages that you recommend, like you know you
Speaker 3: said if you hate a book. But I personally do
Speaker 3: struggle with abandoning books, not because I have some moral
Speaker 3: obligation to finish, but because like I'll get to some
Speaker 3: point and be like, oh, well, I'm so close, like
Speaker 3: maybe it'll get better, like I've invested this much, Like
Speaker 3: I don't know, so tell me, like, yeah, is a
Speaker 3: rule of thumb for you.
Speaker 4: I don't have a specific number of pages, but generally
Speaker 4: I can tell there very early if I like something
Speaker 4: or I don't like something. I read a lot of
Speaker 4: nonfiction that's what I personally really love, and with a
Speaker 4: lot of nonfiction books, after the introduction, I can kind.
Speaker 1: Of be like, oh, I don't care.
Speaker 4: Because sometimes you know, like they lay out what the
Speaker 4: book's going to be in the introduction, so a lot
Speaker 4: of times I'm like, Okay, I think I got everything
Speaker 4: I needed to get from this. With fiction, sort of,
Speaker 4: if it doesn't grab me in the first like ten pages,
Speaker 4: I usually will put it down. Sometimes if it's come
Speaker 4: highly recommended from someone and they say, like the beginning's
Speaker 4: very slow, I'll give it more. And sometimes they're right
Speaker 4: and it picks up and I love it, and sometimes
Speaker 4: I'm like, no, this whole book is slow. I'm done,
Speaker 4: And you know, sometimes like I'll start a book and
Speaker 4: I'll like it, and then I'll put it down because
Speaker 4: I'm just like, oh, I have something else to like.
Speaker 4: It just didn't quite capture me. But I definitely don't
Speaker 4: have any really strict like numbers because it also depends
Speaker 4: on a book. Fifty pages and a two hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty page book is pretty deep into the book. Fifty
Speaker 4: pages into a five hundred page boo book is still
Speaker 4: pretty early, you know, So it just depends on what
Speaker 4: the book is and how it feels. I would say,
Speaker 4: just trust yourself. If you're in it and you're like
Speaker 4: I don't want to do this anymore, I think you
Speaker 4: could not do it anymore, and again you.
Speaker 1: Could go back.
Speaker 4: I went back to a book that I didn't finish
Speaker 4: last year and I finished it this year, and I
Speaker 4: was like, oh my god, this is one of the
Speaker 4: best things I read, Like it was so good.
Speaker 1: It just wasn't.
Speaker 4: It was just trying to read it in October last year,
Speaker 4: which is a really busy time for me. And I
Speaker 4: picked it up in January and I finished it so quickly,
Speaker 4: and I loved it. And sometimes that could be like
Speaker 4: a year's long process, Like I go back to a
Speaker 4: book four or five years later. Actually, the book that
Speaker 4: I was reading when I got induced with my boys,
Speaker 4: I put down to read like a book about sleep training.
Speaker 4: And I just finished it this year and I loved it,
Speaker 4: and it was one of my favorite books, and it's
Speaker 4: by one of my favorite authors.
Speaker 3: But I just like, I need to.
Speaker 4: Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keys. They just made it
Speaker 4: into a TV show.
Speaker 1: It's so good.
Speaker 4: And I had read like the first one hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty pages and then I had to go get induced,
Speaker 4: you know, like I was just like this is and
Speaker 4: it's a book about the troubles in Ireland.
Speaker 1: It just like was not exactly when I needed.
Speaker 2: In the moment.
Speaker 4: And then I got so busy and so many things
Speaker 4: happened and I just never felt called to it. And
Speaker 4: then I went to Ireland this summer and so I
Speaker 4: brought it with me and I went back and I
Speaker 4: started it over and I finished it and so quickly,
Speaker 4: and I just loved it. It's like one of my
Speaker 4: favorite books. It's so good.
Speaker 1: So just because you.
Speaker 4: Put something down doesn't mean that you can't go back
Speaker 4: to it when it feels right.
Speaker 3: I feel like that also takes the pressure off of
Speaker 3: abandoning it, like yeah, like it doesn't have to be forever,
Speaker 3: it's just like right now. And I'm hearing that you
Speaker 3: probably err on the side of leaving earlier than maybe
Speaker 3: some people do. Yes, And I need to take your
Speaker 3: advice because for me, I can't even admit to myself
Speaker 3: that I don't like something. I'll just know because I'm stuck. Like,
Speaker 3: if I like it, I'll be reading it. If I'm
Speaker 3: not reading it, I probably don't like it.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. That's I'm always telling people.
Speaker 4: I'm just like, just if you're not liking it, if
Speaker 4: you're not reading it, if it feels like homework, just
Speaker 4: put it down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, then it's not for now.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh. A right, we're gonna take a quick break.
Speaker 3: We're gonna be back talking about lots more reading stuff.
Speaker 3: All right, We are back, And I love planning and
Speaker 3: tracking things. And I always make testated, okay, good about
Speaker 3: how different people who read a lot and I don't
Speaker 3: read as much as you. I'm more in like the
Speaker 3: forty to fifty So that's a lot less onerous. But
Speaker 3: how do you track your reading?
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, I track my reading in so many
Speaker 4: different ways it's actually getting to be like obscene. So
Speaker 4: first and foremost, I have a reading track or spreadsheet
Speaker 4: that I have built over the last I mean, I
Speaker 4: keep changing it every year. I update and change it.
Speaker 4: But it's just like a Google sheet. It's actually something
Speaker 4: that I offer. I have a Patreon and it's a
Speaker 4: perk that I offer to my patrons in December and
Speaker 4: January of every year, and it's like you can only
Speaker 4: get it then and then it goes away for the
Speaker 4: next year. But it has title, it has author, it
Speaker 4: has like the imprint and the publisher. It has how
Speaker 4: many pages, it has how I read it. It has
Speaker 4: my Scott Star reading. It has what country they're from,
Speaker 4: if it's in translation, who the editor.
Speaker 1: It has like.
Speaker 4: Every possible little detail you could need for a book.
Speaker 4: I think for like a general reader it's probably too much,
Speaker 4: but for me it's really helpful to go back and see,
Speaker 4: like what I was reading. There's also a page, so
Speaker 4: that's like the first page is just raw data. Then
Speaker 4: the second page it's like a little chart and it
Speaker 4: fills in the percentages, like what percent, and then there's
Speaker 4: a page for each year, so the twenty twenty four
Speaker 4: stats doing twenty three stets goes all the way back.
Speaker 4: Then there's a page for what we call TBR, which
Speaker 4: is a to b read list, and that's where I
Speaker 4: enter every single book that comes into my home, so
Speaker 4: I know, because I get sent a lot of books
Speaker 4: for my job, so I know, and by a lot,
Speaker 4: I mean like four hundred to seven hundred a year,
Speaker 4: just depending on the year. Like it's a lot of
Speaker 4: too many to read, but also too many to even
Speaker 4: know what I have, And so it's helpful for me
Speaker 4: to put it in a spreadsheet because sometimes I'll get
Speaker 4: pitched a book and then I will forget about it,
Speaker 4: and then six months.
Speaker 1: Later it'll be up for like a literary award, and I'm.
Speaker 4: Like, oh, let me see if I have that, and
Speaker 4: I can go back to the spreadsheet and find it,
Speaker 4: because otherwise it's like my brain cannot obviously handle. So
Speaker 4: there's all these different tabs. We do a reading challenge
Speaker 4: in the stack, so there's a tab for the reading
Speaker 4: challenge for your anyways, it's it's great fun. I also
Speaker 4: use story graph, which is an alternative to Goodreads, which
Speaker 4: I love. It's less social media e it's much more
Speaker 4: reading tracking. But also there's tabs where you can do
Speaker 4: reading challenges, so you can set up a challenge, maybe
Speaker 4: like if your book club wants to set up a challenge,
Speaker 4: and you can put all twelve of the books in,
Speaker 4: and then you can say, like which ones you've read,
Speaker 4: and you can see what other people are doing, and
Speaker 4: that's really fun. I also use Goodreads still too, mainly
Speaker 4: because I know that bookstores use the ratings on Goodreads
Speaker 4: to help kind of know what's exciting and what they
Speaker 4: should be stocking, and so I want to make sure
Speaker 4: that I'm like part of that process as someone who
Speaker 4: cares deeply about making sure books are getting into people's hands.
Speaker 4: And then I also have a little notes app where
Speaker 4: I have all the books i've just finished, just the
Speaker 4: title to know if I've actually posted a review about
Speaker 4: them on my Instagram or not. So every time I
Speaker 4: finish a book, I have to go to four places
Speaker 4: to enter information, which is why I'm like, it's getting
Speaker 4: out of control, and I think I probably will be
Speaker 4: leaving Goodreads completely very very soon. I don't love it there,
Speaker 4: and it's just an extra thing. But at the moment,
Speaker 4: I haven't quite made. Maybe I'm done in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4: Maybe that's the plan.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm impressed that you have your data so many
Speaker 3: and I'm very jealous because I did not start tracking
Speaker 3: my books until twenty twenty, and I'm so sad about it.
Speaker 3: I'm like, how can you go back? And I read
Speaker 3: in my life, how can I go back? I mean,
Speaker 3: I don't know what I read when I was like
Speaker 3: twenty seven, Like it's been a while.
Speaker 4: So I started my tracker in twenty sixteen. When I
Speaker 4: started that, like twelve books, yes, in the year. So
Speaker 4: I have previous titles on my Goodreads that I read
Speaker 4: from a long time ago, but I don't have those
Speaker 4: entered in the tracker because I don't have years.
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I still might go back because there are books that
Speaker 4: I read loved that are not in my tracker that
Speaker 4: I sort of wish were.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, but you can go back.
Speaker 3: I think tracking is like a relatively I don't want
Speaker 3: to say new, like not new like this year, but
Speaker 3: like in twenty ten, no one was like tracking. They're
Speaker 3: reading like it's so people.
Speaker 4: Were I know people were people who have grandmothers, like
Speaker 4: when they died, they found journals that were just like
Speaker 4: lists of every book they ever read. I know, I
Speaker 4: thought that was so cool and like the year they
Speaker 4: read them. So I think some people were, but I
Speaker 4: do think you're right that was not like as gamified
Speaker 4: and like social media. I think I got on good
Speaker 4: Reads in about two thousand and nine, and so that's
Speaker 4: when I started sort of keeping track, but I didn't
Speaker 4: start the spreadsheet till twenty I think I started the
Speaker 4: spreadsheet in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3: Actually, well, your spreadsheet sounds amazing. I may have to
Speaker 3: check out your Patreon just for the spreadsheet.
Speaker 4: It's more a thing, I'm telling you, it's it is
Speaker 4: the greatest part of my life. Every time I finish
Speaker 4: a book, I'm like, I get to put it in
Speaker 4: the tracker.
Speaker 3: That is amazing. All right, Well, reading mediums you mentioned
Speaker 3: you like audio, you like Kindle, you like paper. I
Speaker 3: mostly read on paper. I'm like weird, and I'm mix
Speaker 3: of buying stuff and getting from the library because well
Speaker 3: I'm in Roward County, Florida, and like we have a
Speaker 3: great like people from not from here, apparently like can
Speaker 3: get into our system, but we have like I can
Speaker 3: get almost anything I want on paper pretty quickly. I mean,
Speaker 3: there's a few really hot titles where there's a decent
Speaker 3: sized waiting list, but I actually think it's better than
Speaker 3: most places, so I feel spoiled that way. But yeah,
Speaker 3: how do you choose a format for a given book?
Speaker 3: Although I guess I know you get a lot of
Speaker 3: books sent, so that might too skew the data here.
Speaker 4: I also love my library. I mostly use my library
Speaker 4: for audiobooks and ebooks like I've never I can say
Speaker 4: I have purchased some audiobooks, but I have never purchased
Speaker 4: an ebook in my.
Speaker 1: Life, except for that's not true.
Speaker 4: One an independent author who I love, I've bought her
Speaker 4: romance novel, But other than that, I've never purchased because
Speaker 4: I have a library system that I love as well
Speaker 4: as far as what I'm going to read. If I'm
Speaker 4: making the decision for myself, I'm usually reading fiction on
Speaker 4: paper or with my eyes, whether that's kindle or physical book,
Speaker 4: And if it's pretty dense nonfiction the same, I'm usually
Speaker 4: listening to memoirs or very narrative nonfiction. That's just how
Speaker 4: my brain works. But sometimes I'm reading a book physical
Speaker 4: and kindle at the same time, or audio and physical
Speaker 4: at the same time. Not literally at the same time,
Speaker 4: but like I might be making dinner and I put
Speaker 4: the audiobook on, and then when I sit down to
Speaker 4: read at night, I go find the book and I
Speaker 4: go find what page I'm on. I jokingly say that
Speaker 4: I'm a one book pony, which just means that I
Speaker 4: can pretty much only read one book at a time.
Speaker 4: That's not exactly true, because I can do one on
Speaker 4: audio and one with my eyes, but I'm not You'll
Speaker 4: it would be so rare that I would actually be
Speaker 4: actively reading two different books at the same time in
Speaker 4: the same format. I pretty much just power through one
Speaker 4: as I go. I know people who have books in
Speaker 4: different rooms, Like their night time book in their bedroom
Speaker 4: is one book, and then they have a book that
Speaker 4: they read like on the couch in the evenings or
Speaker 4: in the mornings. Not me, it's one book all day
Speaker 4: until it's done.
Speaker 3: I was gonna ask you that question. That's so interesting.
Speaker 3: I'm I have to have one fiction and one nonfiction
Speaker 3: at all times generally, Like I don't go beyond that,
Speaker 3: but like for me, there's such different like reading, they're
Speaker 3: almost like not related, like yeah, experience.
Speaker 1: How do you decide which one you're going to read?
Speaker 1: Or where? Like is it a physical location or is
Speaker 1: it a time of.
Speaker 3: Day or yeah, like my nonfiction is morning reading, like
Speaker 3: that's how I start my day and then I'm usually
Speaker 3: done with it for the day, like it's rare that
Speaker 3: I would pick it up again. And then fiction is
Speaker 3: like any other time, like for fun, like at lunch
Speaker 3: or like when I'm going to bed or whatever.
Speaker 1: But yeah, what kind of nonfiction?
Speaker 3: A mix of stuff, but some memoirs a lot of
Speaker 3: like personal development, like but it more on the like
Speaker 3: I don't know, like cal Newport or like well, Lauravanerkam
Speaker 3: is the co host of this podcast, and I got
Speaker 3: into her stuff for a reason. I love it. But
Speaker 3: authors in that realm, which I often end up reading
Speaker 3: also kind of for work since I have this podcast
Speaker 3: and then bestlaid plans. So yeah, all right, but back
Speaker 3: to you.
Speaker 4: Sorry, podcasters can't help themselves asking no questions, Like I've
Speaker 4: been biting my tongue and asking you so many questions
Speaker 4: so that I had to get those off though I'm done.
Speaker 3: I'm done, And you saw on my face when you
Speaker 3: said you only read one book at once, and I
Speaker 3: think I was shocked because I was just like, oh,
Speaker 3: she's a reading person and she likes to just power
Speaker 3: through one. I never would have thought that so very interesting.
Speaker 3: I'm going to pivot a little bit because i want
Speaker 3: to talk about reading and kids. Now, your kids, not
Speaker 3: you reading with kids, but like helping the kids read.
Speaker 3: So your kids are five, and what are your reading
Speaker 3: practices with them now? And what are tips for cultivating
Speaker 3: or reading habit in your children.
Speaker 1: We read every day at bedtime.
Speaker 4: They don't read yet, and I am really nervous to
Speaker 4: pressure them to read, Like I've been very sort of
Speaker 4: hands off in reading, Like I think other parents are
Speaker 4: probably more active at this age with reading. But I'm
Speaker 4: like too scared for them to like resent it because
Speaker 4: it is my job. So I think I'm maybe like
Speaker 4: over correcting the other way. Like they know all their letters,
Speaker 4: they know all their sounds, but when I try to
Speaker 4: have them like put it together, and then they're like
Speaker 4: I don't want to.
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, don't do it. It's fine. Nobody who
Speaker 1: reads readings for losers. It's fine, it's fine. But they
Speaker 1: love books.
Speaker 4: They love books like they get so they each get
Speaker 4: to pick a book at bedtime that I read to them.
Speaker 4: And if we're really running late, sometimes we have to
Speaker 4: agree on one book only, like all three of us
Speaker 4: have to agree on one book, and that is always
Speaker 4: like the worst.
Speaker 1: Like it's like I.
Speaker 4: Want to pick a book, this one, picked the book,
Speaker 4: this one. Like if we can get the two books
Speaker 4: in or a bonus book, that's always great.
Speaker 1: So mostly we.
Speaker 4: Read picture books, but recently we started reading a chapter
Speaker 4: a night from sometimes from certain chapter books. So like
Speaker 4: we were reading Charlotte's Web. We were listening in the
Speaker 4: car to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on audio. They
Speaker 4: were really into that. On longer drives, Trevor Noah has
Speaker 4: this great new book called Into the Uncut Grass. It's
Speaker 4: really small, it's for like teeny tiny chapters, but it's
Speaker 4: so I'm like obsessed with that. I'm telling everybody it's
Speaker 4: so good. And they just really i mean, they just
Speaker 4: really like to be read to, and they like to
Speaker 4: ask questions and tell me about what they're seeing, what's
Speaker 4: happening in the book.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And do you have a process for picking books
Speaker 3: for them or like a favorite resource you go to
Speaker 3: to find kids books, No, I.
Speaker 4: Mean at this point now they like to pick books
Speaker 4: when we go to the bookstore. And one of the
Speaker 4: things I do is every time I go on a
Speaker 4: trip because I have to travel for work, is I
Speaker 4: always bring back a book for each person. And so
Speaker 4: that's like a fun, fun way for me to find
Speaker 4: new books because I'm usually going to bookstores in my
Speaker 4: travels and sometimes I get sent books from publishers. I
Speaker 4: have some people on social media that I follow who
Speaker 4: talk about kids books, but mostly I'm sort of just
Speaker 4: like peruising, and we go to the library a lot,
Speaker 4: so that's also a good way to discover new authors.
Speaker 4: And usually when we go, everyone gets to pick two
Speaker 4: or three books, including me, so we end up with
Speaker 4: and if my husband goes, you know, another, so we
Speaker 4: end up with like eight to twelve books for like
Speaker 4: kids books for a library trip, and then that's enough
Speaker 4: to kind of rotate and if we find any favorites,
Speaker 4: we might go back and see if that author has
Speaker 4: other you know, so the same way that I do
Speaker 4: with adult books, sort of just recommendations if I've seen
Speaker 4: it somewhere, going to the library, asking friends, whatever, looks
Speaker 4: exciting all of that.
Speaker 3: We had the best library routine last year because one
Speaker 3: of my kids had a piano teacher that was like
Speaker 3: right by the library. We would go every week. And
Speaker 3: I'm like, that's why we don't have library books anymore,
Speaker 3: because we just switch piano teachers. Oh, but I agree
Speaker 3: that regular visitation is so helpful and unlike me, like
Speaker 3: when I go to the library, I'm just picking up
Speaker 3: my holds, you know, But with them, I want them
Speaker 3: to browse and like choose, so that sane really makes sense.
Speaker 1: That's exactly when I go, I'm just in and out.
Speaker 4: I have to go this afternoon, I'm gonna walk over there,
Speaker 4: pick up my books and get out. But yes, with them,
Speaker 4: we go sit in like the little kids room and
Speaker 4: they get to pick.
Speaker 1: And it's so funny.
Speaker 4: When we go to the a bookstore, they'll pull books
Speaker 4: off the shelf like they're at the library. But at
Speaker 4: the library they tell you to just leave them on
Speaker 4: the table and the librarians put them away.
Speaker 1: But at the bookstore, I'm like, where did you get that?
Speaker 1: We have to put it back. It's like different vibes,
Speaker 1: different vibes.
Speaker 3: All right, we're going to take one more break and
Speaker 3: we are going to be back with some tips on
Speaker 3: maybe fitting in more reading or getting out of a slump.
Speaker 3: All right, we are back, and I definitely have my
Speaker 3: own reading slump in the end of twenty twenty four
Speaker 3: kind of like started with some stressful stuff around August
Speaker 3: in September and had trouble recovering. And I know that
Speaker 3: it's a common like New Year's goal for people to
Speaker 3: read more. So what would you suggest for someone either
Speaker 3: in a reading slump or who is trying to build
Speaker 3: up the habits of reading more? And maybe those are
Speaker 3: two different things.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I say those are two really different things to me.
Speaker 4: I'm going to start with the reading slum. If you
Speaker 4: are in a reading slump now more than ever, pick
Speaker 4: up things that you really want to read, not that
Speaker 4: thing that you bought last time at the store or
Speaker 4: the thing that the hold is going to be up
Speaker 4: on soon from the library. That book that you have
Speaker 4: been dying to read, that everyone is talking about, that
Speaker 4: you're so excited about. That is the only thing that
Speaker 4: will get you out of a reading slump. The other
Speaker 4: option is to avoid your books like the Plague, watch
Speaker 4: every TV show that you've ever wanted to watch until
Speaker 4: you feel like you're excited to read books again. I
Speaker 4: had a horrible reading slump when Love is Blind was
Speaker 4: on and I was like, I gotta read, I gotta read,
Speaker 4: and I was like, you know what, I'm just going
Speaker 4: to watch all of Love is Blind. And I did,
Speaker 4: and I bounce back with my best reading month ever.
Speaker 4: So like it just I think, like, Okay, you're in
Speaker 4: a reading slump. Great, who cares?
Speaker 1: You'll go back, you know.
Speaker 4: Like even when I was in a reading slump, which
Speaker 4: is different because I have to read for work, I
Speaker 4: still was like, I hate reading. I hate every book
Speaker 4: I read, and it was miserable for like I had
Speaker 4: like two or three this year. Actually it was a
Speaker 4: really hard reading year for me.
Speaker 1: But you get out of it. You bounce back.
Speaker 4: Something exciting comes along and it takes you right out
Speaker 4: of it as far as wanting to read more. So
Speaker 4: this is still my reading goal every single year. I
Speaker 4: started doing this about four years ago and I do
Speaker 4: it every single year.
Speaker 1: My only reading goal is to read ten pages a day.
Speaker 1: That is my only goal. And I know it's all crazy.
Speaker 3: I'm interrupting you, because that's the goal I set for
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five, Like it's already been announced on the podcast,
Speaker 3: so no one will think I copied. That's okay, keep going,
Speaker 3: that's hilarious. Actually it was ten minutes for me, but
Speaker 3: keep going.
Speaker 4: Ten minutes okay. So I'm a slow reader. Ten minutes
Speaker 4: will get me like three pages, and I'm like, I
Speaker 4: can't be efective. Ten pages for me is probably about
Speaker 4: more like twenty minutes of reading time. And I think
Speaker 4: it's a perfect goal because it's quantifiable, it is easy
Speaker 4: to achieve.
Speaker 1: It's not a pain.
Speaker 4: It's not even not even running a mile, right, It's
Speaker 4: not difficult. It's just a matter of sitting down and
Speaker 4: doing it. When I started reading ten pages a day
Speaker 4: as a goal, I started reading even more than what
Speaker 4: I was already reading a lot, because it makes it
Speaker 4: a practice.
Speaker 1: And if you do the.
Speaker 4: Math, ish we're talking about like three thousand, six hundred
Speaker 4: and fifty pages in the year, which is approximately going
Speaker 4: to put you let's say every book is three hundred pages,
Speaker 4: like you're looking at ten to twelve books in the year.
Speaker 4: But the real reason that this goal, I think it
Speaker 4: worked for me so well, is that once you start
Speaker 4: reading ten pages, you're not gonna want to stop at
Speaker 4: ten pages, right, Like, if you're picking the right books,
Speaker 4: if the books are exciting too, if it's things you
Speaker 4: want to read, you're going to sit down for those
Speaker 4: ten pages and you're gonna be like, I have a
Speaker 4: little extra time, I'm gonna read more. And like, some
Speaker 4: days I truly only read ten pages. Some days I
Speaker 4: only get to like three pages or zero pages. I mean,
Speaker 4: it happens. But then some days I read two hundred
Speaker 4: pages in the day. But the thing is like having
Speaker 4: the goal be low and achievable, I think is really important,
Speaker 4: especially if you're trying to get back into reading or
Speaker 4: you are just like I want to read a little
Speaker 4: bit more, but I'm not really a reader. Something like
Speaker 4: that is really doable. I also think one book a
Speaker 4: month is also like a doable goal, or depending on
Speaker 4: how much you read, maybe it's one a week whatever,
Speaker 4: but like something that's super duper quantifiable. Did I do
Speaker 4: this yes or no? Because like reading more not like,
Speaker 4: how do you know if you're reading more?
Speaker 3: Totally two be So yeah, That's what I was saying.
Speaker 4: And then the other thing I say for people who
Speaker 4: like are struggling to read or like finding time is
Speaker 4: to I mean, I'm not as intense to be like
Speaker 4: put it on your calendar. But if that's like I
Speaker 4: don't know some people, you know, some people put their
Speaker 4: workouts on their calendar. Some people put having sex with
Speaker 4: their partner on their calendar. So like, depending on who
Speaker 4: you are, maybe that's helpful. But to me, I think
Speaker 4: just when it's time to read, going on airplane mode
Speaker 4: is huge. Making sure you have your snacks and beverages,
Speaker 4: your blankets, you have gone to the bathroom, all of
Speaker 4: the things that are the thing that will make you
Speaker 4: get up and stop reading. Make sure you've taken care
Speaker 4: of those things first and then sit down to read.
Speaker 1: I think that's.
Speaker 4: Really really, really, really really important. If you have young
Speaker 4: kids and like maybe you're trying to sneak in reading
Speaker 4: when they're out of the house, maybe they're with their sitter,
Speaker 4: or maybe they're with your partner, maybe they're at school.
Speaker 4: What I do is I have a do not disturb
Speaker 4: mode that is for sort of reading time that allows
Speaker 4: for those people to get through to me. Otherwise nobody
Speaker 4: else can. So if you're worried about that, like you
Speaker 4: can customize your phone to give you a do not
Speaker 4: disturb that allows for any people that you might need
Speaker 4: to talk to, you know, so, and you can have
Speaker 4: like a special one that's just for reading.
Speaker 3: Yes, reading mode. I love it, Yeah, I love it. Well.
Speaker 3: We usually do a Love of the Week, which is, like,
Speaker 3: you name something that makes you happy this week, but
Speaker 3: I thought it might be more fun for you to
Speaker 3: share as of now. This is mean, but your top
Speaker 3: three books for twenty twenty four? Can you or okay,
Speaker 3: just three books you loved in twenty twenty four? There
Speaker 3: you go, I can.
Speaker 4: I can share three of my favorite books. My problem
Speaker 4: is that this year there were two books that were
Speaker 4: sort of like the most beloved books by everybody in
Speaker 4: the world, and like they're up for all the awards,
Speaker 4: and so I'm just gonna say them because I too
Speaker 4: loved these books, but everybody's talking about them, and so
Speaker 4: I feel like, let's not waste time with them. One
Speaker 4: is called James by Percival Everett, and the other is
Speaker 4: called Martyr by Cave.
Speaker 1: Akbar Love Love, Love, Love Love. Okay, I'm with everybody.
Speaker 1: They're great done. My favorite nonfiction.
Speaker 4: Book so far or like overall this year is a
Speaker 4: book called Challenger by Adam Higginbotham. It's about the Challenger
Speaker 4: disaster in nineteen eighty six. It is so riveting. It's
Speaker 4: one of those books where you know the ending and
Speaker 4: you're still like, what's gonna happen? Like, how did this
Speaker 4: spaceshift take off? It's so fascinating. I will do one
Speaker 4: small disclaimer. I did not think this, but a lot
Speaker 4: of people told me that the first section they thought
Speaker 4: was a little bit slow because it's a little bit sciency.
Speaker 4: So if you're a person who's like, should I keep going, yes,
Speaker 4: get to part two, I'm part three, and you're gonna
Speaker 4: be like sick to your stomach because you cannot believe
Speaker 4: what's happening. So that's a book I loved this year.
Speaker 4: He also wrote the Chernobyl book that got turned into
Speaker 4: that Chernobyl TV show on HBO. The book's called Midnight
Speaker 4: in Chernobyl.
Speaker 1: He's great.
Speaker 4: Another book that I loved this year is a book
Speaker 4: called Colored Television by Danzy Senna. She's so funny and
Speaker 4: I just absolutely I am obsessed with her. It's about
Speaker 4: this woman named Jane. It's a novel, and Jane is
Speaker 4: a professor and she's trying to write her second book.
Speaker 4: But it's a failure and it's about Jane's mixed race
Speaker 4: and it's about being mixed, and she's like, I'm going
Speaker 4: to sell out.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go to Hollywood.
Speaker 4: She goes to write the great like Mixed TV show,
Speaker 4: and it's just all about her extremely bad decisions. Danzy
Speaker 4: is like an author who writes main characters who a
Speaker 4: lot of people think are unlikable. I love them, but
Speaker 4: they make bad choices, Like the whole book, You're just
Speaker 4: like Jane girl, do not do that, don't Jane.
Speaker 1: I hate this for y'all. And then.
Speaker 4: Last book I'll pick is, let's see, I did nonfiction.
Speaker 4: I did fiction.
Speaker 1: Do you want me to do essays? Or do you
Speaker 1: want me to do memoir?
Speaker 3: Deep, let's have a memoir. I need to mate.
Speaker 4: This memoir is called Another Word for Love by Carvel Wallace.
Speaker 1: It is so good.
Speaker 4: Carvell Wallace is a black queer person from the Bay Area,
Speaker 4: or actually they're from the East Coast.
Speaker 1: They live in LA. They live in the Bay Area.
Speaker 4: The first part of the book is about their childhood
Speaker 4: and sort of the trauma that they experienced their mother
Speaker 4: dealed with like houselessness, and it's a lot of kind
Speaker 4: of difficult, heavy stuff, and then as the book goes on,
Speaker 4: Carvell sort of imagines these other possibilities around healing and
Speaker 4: redemption and reconciliation. It's just so beautifully written. It's so smart,
Speaker 4: it's so tender. When I first started the book, I
Speaker 4: was sort of like, this is really good writing, like
Speaker 4: this feels like every other sort of trauma memoir, And
Speaker 4: as you keep going, you're just like, whoa, I am
Speaker 4: blown away by the way that this memoir was transformed,
Speaker 4: by the way that this author has transformed their thinking.
Speaker 4: It's just so powerful and so beautiful. So that's another
Speaker 4: word for love by Carvel Wallace.
Speaker 3: And that sounds awesome. All right, Maybe one of those
Speaker 3: will get me out of my slum. Oh my gosh, Tracy,
Speaker 3: this has been so so delightful. So remind our listeners
Speaker 3: where they can find you, including that very tantalizing spreadsheet
Speaker 3: you mentioned.
Speaker 4: Yes, okay, so you can find me at the Stacks
Speaker 4: pod on Instagram. And the podcast is called The Stacks.
Speaker 4: It comes out every Wednesday, so wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 4: And then if you want to support the work that
Speaker 4: I do, I have a Patreon. It's Patreon dot com
Speaker 4: slash the Stacks. If you join in December or January,
Speaker 4: you have access to the Reading Tracker. It'll get sent
Speaker 4: to you. It'll be posted sometime in December, sometime soon,
Speaker 4: and then yeah, that's that you can and I have
Speaker 4: a website. The Stacks podcast will all the places. If
Speaker 4: you go to any of the places, you'll be able
Speaker 4: to find all the other places because that's how internet works.
Speaker 1: So yes, the Stacks find it.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, thank you so much for coming on, Tracy.
Speaker 3: This was a blast.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. Well, that was great.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Sarah and Tracy for that discussion
Speaker 2: of reading. So this week's question comes from a listener
Speaker 2: who says you both seem to take weekends away with
Speaker 2: your husband's I mean, I hear about this less from Laura,
Speaker 2: but it seems like it happens. My question is how
Speaker 2: do you deal with childcare in this situation? It seems
Speaker 2: like your nanny sometimes covers. Does she sleep at your house?
Speaker 2: What do you pay for the weekend relative to an
Speaker 2: hourly rate? Do your grandparents ever cover? With a big family,
Speaker 2: I now have three kids under six, do you ever
Speaker 2: split up the kids to make it easier on the
Speaker 2: childcare provider. This person says that she and her husband
Speaker 2: were pretty good about this when they had one kid,
Speaker 2: maybe even two, but three seems like nobody wants to
Speaker 2: take over for forty eight hours, So, Sarah, what is
Speaker 2: your answer there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we do usually hire our nanny to do this.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to go into total payment specific, but
Speaker 3: you can pay a lower rate for overnights. You just
Speaker 3: have to legally make sure that you're at least paying
Speaker 3: a minimum wage, so you can't be like when the
Speaker 3: kids are sleeping it's free, like they're still working, and
Speaker 3: you have to be paying something. So we worked it out.
Speaker 3: It's not the full full regular rate, but it's definitely
Speaker 3: extra above what she would get into normal week and
Speaker 3: meets those criteria. She will often stay at our house
Speaker 3: because it's just easier if the kids have activities, or
Speaker 3: she'll take them to her house for a night, And
Speaker 3: we have in the past also had grandparents help, not
Speaker 3: by sending all three there, but like sending one kid
Speaker 3: with the grandparents and then her taking the other two
Speaker 3: and the other kind of share the load. Option would
Speaker 3: be like if one of one friend had like maybe
Speaker 3: your oldest has a really close friend and they could
Speaker 3: just have a sleepover. Because the older kids get, the
Speaker 3: easier it is to just kind of host another kid,
Speaker 3: so it's not a huge burden for you know, your
Speaker 3: next door neighbor with a similar age kid to take
Speaker 3: your twelve year old, for example. So yeah, I mean
Speaker 3: I love going away with my husband. We try to
Speaker 3: do it twice a year, so it's not like this
Speaker 3: is a happening all the time kind of a thing.
Speaker 3: But I just think it's so good for our relationship
Speaker 3: when we do it, and I look forward to them
Speaker 3: and want to keep doing it. Yeah, well, I can
Speaker 3: say we don't do it that frequently.
Speaker 2: I mean, we've done three since Henry was born, and
Speaker 2: those have all been in the last year, So I
Speaker 2: guess we're getting better at it now as the kids
Speaker 2: are getting older. But we need to hire overnight coverage.
Speaker 2: But we had overnight cover, you know, we have it
Speaker 2: during the week as an option because that's always something
Speaker 2: we've built into our agreements with our nannies that they
Speaker 2: would be available for that. Because I travel for work,
Speaker 2: my husband travels for work, we need coverage that could
Speaker 2: be overnight. So we tend actually to hire different people
Speaker 2: though for the weekends, just as a matter of keeping
Speaker 2: ours reasonable. You know, we have other people that we
Speaker 2: have hired for the weekend, and you just you know,
Speaker 2: negotiate a rate like anything else, like this for the
Speaker 2: hours that we assume the kids are and then this
Speaker 2: is the overnight rate, and that's how you do it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I totally sympathize that it is hard to
Speaker 2: get anyone to cover for large families. You know, grandparents
Speaker 2: may have been fine with one kid, but five kids
Speaker 2: makes it a little harder on anyone to manage the chaos,
Speaker 2: even if some of the kids are older. And so yeah,
Speaker 2: that is the kind of a drawback of the larger
Speaker 2: family is the ability for you guys to get away
Speaker 2: to gather.
Speaker 1: This is actually the hardest thing.
Speaker 2: It is not hard for one parent to get away,
Speaker 2: and so I often encourage people to trade off with
Speaker 2: their partners so each of you get time away to
Speaker 2: do fun stuff. But of course the two of you
Speaker 2: to gather is the hardest of all of that, since
Speaker 2: you don't have a readily available person.
Speaker 3: So empathizing here totally, and in some ways I do
Speaker 3: feel like the challenges kind of seem to get more
Speaker 3: so when the kids are old, I mean they're easier
Speaker 3: in the way that you could send them to a neighbor,
Speaker 3: and they're harder in a way that like the kids
Speaker 3: have more stuff and so like for example, when we
Speaker 3: just left, the kids had like a soccer tournament and
Speaker 3: then the restraumatics it was piano and like you know,
Speaker 3: our Nanni was one person managing all of that. And
Speaker 3: that's a lot. Of course, our kids could skip an
Speaker 3: activity every once in a while and they wouldn't know,
Speaker 3: no disaster, what would happen. But it just logistics become
Speaker 3: a little bit more complex when the kids are older.
Speaker 2: Sometimes exactly all right, Well, this has been best of
Speaker 2: both worlds. Sarah has been interviewing Tracy Thomas of The Stacks.
Speaker 2: We will be back next week with more on making
Speaker 2: work and life fit together.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
Speaker 3: shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
Speaker 3: and you can.
Speaker 2: Find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has
Speaker 2: been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us
Speaker 2: next time for more on making work and life work together.