October 21, 2025 • 32 mins
In this chatty (and positive) episode, Sarah and Laura trade off naming things making them happy now, in this fall season. Categories run the gamut from Laura's new planner to fresh-caught fish!
In the Q&A, they share carpool dos and don'ts for a listener frustrated by a carpool that seems to be taking away more time than it is giving due to logistical challenges and frequent changes.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician,
writer and course creator. We are two working parents who
love our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
From figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Term career goals.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This episode is airing in late October of twenty twenty five.
This is going to be one of our What's making
Us Happy Now sort of an all love of the
Week episode. We're calling this What's Making Us Happy Now
Fall edition, so just as a little thing that are
bringing us joy in this particular season. But we know
(01:05):
that we both come across as reasonably upbeat on this
podcast by design. That's one of the things we hope
to bring to you as you are commuting to work,
as some you know, fun to listen to. However, our
lives are not universally that way. We have both had
some recent stretches of feeling a bit low. Some of
(01:26):
that cannot really be talked about. Will apologize for the
vague podcasting here was it called like vague booking?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Was that the old word for Facebook, Sarah?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
So it'd be like vague, vague casting, vague blogging, vague blogging.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
But when that happens, like Sarah, what do you do
when you.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Are in a chronic bad mood to try to get
yourself continuing forward?
Speaker 3 (01:48):
I mean I do lots of things, but sometimes I
like to just wallow in it. I mean there can
be some value in that, not on the podcasting, Mike,
but just in life. And that is sort of just
like letting you feel the feelings and maybe indulge yourself
in like the music that is like sad and like Okay,
this afternoon, I'm just gonna sit on the couch and
(02:09):
eat some chocolate or whatever, you know, So that sometimes helps.
And then one thing I read about that I think
I do, but I didn't have this cute term for
it is like having lily pads, but like focusing on
things in the future that are going to be different
or fun. I know I do a lot of that
when I am doing one of my call weeks and
call is not It's not like about being down in
the dumps.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
It's just more difficult.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
It's a week at a stretch where I'm working more
hours than I would prefer to do any job and
can be interrupted at any time. And again I've come
to just understand, like, I appreciate that that is part
of what I do and accept it for the time being,
but I definitely need to focus forward to get myself
(02:51):
through and think about like one of the fun things
I'll get to do when I'm done. And actually, on
my past call week, I think around day four, I'm like,
I am booking a pedicure and I'm booking a massage.
And I actually booked the pedicure for my last day
of call because I knew I could do it all
my way home, and that's something I can do while
on call because I can answer the phone while I'm
getting my toes done. Not as easy while you're getting
your hands done, but your toes, yes, say.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
The massage wouldn't work like if you're supposed to text
back within a few minutes.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah, correct.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
So I booked the massage for the week after call,
so i'd have that to look forward to because I
have to have my phone off during that to enjoy
the experience, and I can't do that on call.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
So yeah, absolutely, yeah, No, I like to plan in
fun stuff too. I mean I got my daughter to
go apple picking with me, even if no other kids
wanted to. I was like, I really want to do this,
so I like promised to trade off. I would bring
her to Brandy Melville and she would go apple picking
with me. You know, just getting outside for fresh air
(03:47):
is always helpful, going for a walk or something, going
to bed, because sometimes things look better in the morning
reading a magazine.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
I don't know. I enjoyed doing that on my hammock
when it's possible.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
If it's in the evening and I'm not going anywhere else,
I might have a nice craft beer. It's always a
feel a little bit better moment as well, exactly. But
this is a list of things that we are enjoying
right now. Love of the week for fall. So Sarah,
I thought it might be better if we kind of
interspersed with each other.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Yeah, we kind of.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Our notes are back and forth, sort of pasted after
each other.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
But nobody wants to listen to me talk for fifteen minutes.
So what do you have all right? You want me
to kick it off? Well, the first thing kit I
have on there. Oh my gosh, this is a very
nail nail centric episode.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Talking about my pedicure, Well, I ordered a flash many system,
meaning one of those manicure systems. It has a light
so that when you polish your nails, you put your
hands under the light and it quote cures it. There's
a lot of controversy over which lights are safe and
which are okay. And one of the ingredients in these
types of manicures has actually been banned in the European
Union and that was kind of like all over the place.
(04:53):
Right after one of my kids, well it was Anabel,
right after my daughter had purchased a kind of I
don't know branded gel manny system. So I was like,
you know what, let me resource this a little bit.
And I found a few brands, which are they have
ingredients that are approved in the EU, so at least
they've passed.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Some sort of bar.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
And again I don't know how toxic these ingredients truly are,
but also manicures are very optional, so like, why not
pick the one that perhaps is vetted a little bit more?
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So I ordered it one called Manicurist.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
I have no affiliation whatsoever, but I'm like really pleased
with I was pleased with how the toxic one work too,
by the way. I was like, Wow, this is magic
if I can do this in my house. But the
less toxic or at least supposedly less toxic version from
this other brand, seem to work just as well. Now,
my daughter did not like it just as well because
it looks more like a regular manicure, like it doesn't
(05:44):
have that.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Sick gel look.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
But it did set in one minute after applying it
when you follow all the steps, and so I didn't
mess it up, and it's going a week now and
it looks really good. So yes, that is my long
winded fun love right now, which is the Manicurist Green
Flash many System interesting my llac nails.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
I like nails. They look very nice. They look nice.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, I can't keep polish on my nails, so I
don't even bother, which probably says to me a reasonable
amount of time, although you know it's a never I
don't know. My daughter and I have never gone do
like Manny or Petties things together. Maybe that's something she'll
be writing a book about later about how I never did.
But oh well, so I don't have a whole lot
of indulgences.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
In that category, I guess.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
But one thing I do I spent a ridiculous amount
of money on is Ellmis Creams. So this brand, I
don't know, there was like a freebie. There was one
in the Allure of beauty Box, but.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
You started with the beauty Box totally.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
My daughter is pretty much completely taken over now, but
I was still getting some of it then.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
And so I have this.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
The day cream is the Marine cream, I guess, and
then the evening one. The night one is this pillow mask.
It's like a pillow pep tie, whatever it's called. So
you put that on at night, put the Marine cream
SPF one on during the day.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
It's just, you know, it feels very indulgent. Maybe it
makes my skin better. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
There's a lot of psychological stuff with this, I am sure,
but who cares?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
But who cares? It's fun. It's fun. I like it.
That's making me happy right now.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
And it'd be nice to simplify to like one brand
that you enjoy and then just kind of like don't
have to think.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah, actually this weekend, I pulled everything off my counter
and out of the basket that was on my bathroom
shelf except the stuff that I use every single day,
and so other stuff is now in the cupboard. And
I threw out a lot of trash and expired stuff too.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
But it's goods.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Like I use four like makeup products during the day,
and I have two creams, and then I have my
my Nexium, so my contact lens stuff. Yeah, my toothpaste.
I guess of face wash, but yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I like it. It's minimalist, it's functional, it works.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah yeah, and it's fun to have a lot less clutter.
All right, Well, so have Sarah, all right?
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Next on my list. These are really not in any order,
but who cares? My sticker printer? Oh my gosh, so
I ordered.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
I did some research on various planning sites, et cetera,
because I used to have the Kodak Step, which is
a sticker printer that printed on zinc photo sensitive paper,
and I used it to you can use a phone
app and print out little pictures and I would put
them in my five year journal and they look good.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
They don't look great. They're a little greeny.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
I think they're fading a little bit with time, and
I'm like, I gotta and it stopped working, the app
stop syncing with my phone entirely.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
I tried resetting, I tried all kinds of things. I
was like, I give up.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
So I decided to look for what's out now and
came across a different kind of category of printers that
instead of using this photo sensitive paper, they actually use
actual ink. So it's like a little, tiny little printer
in a box that has these little ink cartridge is
like inkjet or something. And I chose the Cannon Selfie.
It is so much better. It's so much sharper and crisper.
(09:01):
The app is easy to use. I can print like
little seasonal collages of what's going on. I could even
print like book titles, so I could do like little
stickers with like a book cover my planner if I
wanted to track reading in a fun visual way. I
love my sticker printer. It just brings me a lot
of joy. And yeah, I chose the it's the Kenon
Selfie QX twenty. I believe it's the one I have excellent.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Well, this is the time of year when many of
us start ordering our twenty twenty six planners our planners.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
For the next year, whatever that happens to be. So
I recently.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Indulged in buying the plumb paper notes and Days for
twenty twenty six. I definitely do not use all the planners' functionality,
like I don't use the calendar in it. I don't
use the daily to do list thing in it. I
have a regular notebook that I just do for my
daily to do list, and I use a different calendar.
But that said, I like opening a new page every
(09:57):
week and making my weekly priority list in the planner,
and I enjoy the cover. I almost never have the
cover even visible anymore, like on the desk. You know,
it's folded over to whatever week it is, and so
I don't see the cover. But I have fun with
the art on the cover, and it has a nice
LV for twenty twenty six for it, So it's it's mine.
(10:19):
It came in the mail recently.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
There's a lot of ritual in like ordering that next
year's planner, and you know, why not get into it.
There's so many great options out there. You can find
a planner to suit almost any of your preferences. You
love that layout of the days on the left and
then like a blank page on the right. So I'm
excited for you to have your next generation of plannets.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, all right, Well we're gonna take a quick ad
break and then we'll be back with more of things
we are loving now. All right, well we are back
talking in all Love of the Week episode our fall edition. Sarah,
(11:02):
what else is on your loves of the Week list
right now?
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (11:06):
So I am enjoying pilates, which was kind of a
goal of mine to figure out I don't know, in
addition to the strength training that I already do at home,
just another exercise outlet that's different from my prior running days.
And honestly, I thought about trying pilates even then, but
now I have a lot more time to do it
since I'm not running, and so I chose the studio
closest to my house, which turned out to be Club Pilates,
(11:28):
and I can get there in like seven minutes and
it's nice, it's relaxing.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
I think I.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Will enjoy it even more once I go up a
level so that it will become a little bit more challenging.
But I just like having a place to go. I
like the instructors, I like the vibe, and I like
that it fits into my schedule on the days that
I don't drive at tend to go to classes, and
I can just kind of like have mornings that are
more focused on me versus the other three mornings of
the week are focused on the kids, which both are great,
(11:55):
but it's nice to have both.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
What do you mean, move up a level? So there's
different levels of lunch for Pilates.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Club Pilates has like I mean, this is just specific
to that franchise, but like they have level one level
one point five to and you don't get to decide,
Like I can't just be like I'm I have to
ask for permission to at least that's how it works
at our studio to like move up a level. So
I'm planning on asking before I book my You know,
we're recording this in September, the end of September, but
(12:22):
hopefully by the time you're hearing this, I've been granted
my permission because I'm.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
On the next level exactly. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
It's like the kids gym where to get to start
to do parkour two versus park worps.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yes, it's like that. Yeah, it's like that.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Okay, Well, in the hobby realm for me, I am
enjoying singing in a second choir. So longtime listeners know,
I join my church choir about eight years ago, right
around the same time that this podcast started, in fact,
and I've enjoyed that immensely. But I decided last year
(12:54):
to start singing with another choir that meets in downtown
Philadelphia and is doing you know, they sang the back
me Bine our Mass, which is why I originally joined,
but I've enjoyed the other stuff they've done too.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
It's a little bit more challenging, I would say.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
And we are doing the Howls Requiem as part of
our next concert, which will have happened by the time
you were listening to this. But you know, I sang
that with my church's chamber choir eight years ago. So
it's a fun, little full circle moment where I sing
the same pieces with different choirs and I get to
feel like a seasoned choral musician, even though it's kind
(13:34):
of ridiculous to be spending two evenings a week on
choral music.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Not if you like.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
It, it is not easy to fit it in.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Let's just put it that way.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
It is a lot of evenings for my interest, but
it will it's not every we don't meet during the
summer for either choir.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
I was gonna say it's probably seasonal. It's seasonal.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
And then the Downtown Choir actually takes significant chunks of
time off, like they do a concert cycle that's like
five weeks, and then take a week or two off
and then do another one, and then we take all
of January off, so it's not as many rehearsals per
year as one might imagine.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Well, I like it. It's like your sport. It's my sport. Yeah, absolutely,
it's my sport for sure. All right, what do you have, Sarah?
All right? This one? Okay?
Speaker 3 (14:18):
I said the Apple redesign. Apple came up with a
new operating system, number twenty six. I just did the upgrade.
I said, it's pretty.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
I'm not sure it's pretty. I like, I don't know.
I think it's a little busy. Actually.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Upon further reflection, however, I love that they have now
added an app called Preview, which does what was already
doable in Apple Notes, but I think it does it
even more elegantly. Because we love having the feature where
you can just scan documents straight on your phone and
then email them or a up wherever you need to go.
And I used it in Apple Notes, but I found
it clunky that I couldn't just like scan my document
(14:53):
not within the notes ecosystem, Like what if I didn't
need it in Apple Notes and then I have to
like pull it off of notes or whatever.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
So I think this is fanas past.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
So I don't know about the whole esthetic clear glass
situation and the flashes when I'm texting. If you have upgraded,
you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
But I do like previews.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
All right, Well that is good, Well, thank Apple for that.
I'm going to go totally non tech and I'm going
to say botanical gardens in the fall. So many people
think of botanical gardens as a spring thing and that
is when peak crowds will come, but many also have
(15:31):
a season for the fall because there are a lot
of fall blooming flowers. It turns out that this is
an evolutionary strategy that some number of beautiful flowers employ,
and the upside of fall flowers is that the backdrop
against the fall flowers is also more colorful, so you
have these interesting juxtapositions of like yellow flowers with orange
(15:53):
trees behind them and purple asters with yellow oaks behind them,
and so you get these different dift color combinations that
you just don't in spring, where the back color is
all mostly green.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
So I find that esthetically fascinating.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
So I would heartily encourage people, if they have botanical
gardens near them, to go visit. Some close for winter,
but they often are still open into the fall. I've
been going to Chanticleer, which is about twenty minutes from
my house, so that can be a long lunch if
I wish it to be. And then I went to
Longwood Gardens the weekend before we recorded this. That was
(16:31):
a lot of fun to walk around there. See there
are lily pads, Sarah, speaking of lily pads, things to
look forward to.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
They have a whole display of lily pads. Oh yeah,
we went.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I saw it when we were there in July. I
love those lily pads. I mean, don't miss those lily pads.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
They're pretty impressive.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
It turns out lily pads can get quite large, and
so you could definitely envision yourself leaping from lily pad
to lily pad as you are trying to get through
a low moment in your life.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Yeah, if you're in the Philadelphia area, check out Longwood Gardens.
It's beautiful, all right.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
My next one is not really seasonal, but who cares?
Ice cream Fridays We've just designated Friday. My kids always
ask me of ice cream, and like, we don't have
ice cream every night. Partly I don't want to stalk
the house without much ice.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Cream like all the time.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
But Fridays is like ice cream night, and then we
can look forward to it and make sure we have
fun ice cream at home, different bars that people like,
different flavors, whatever, or every once in a bloom moon,
won't go out to Dairy Queen or something like that.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
But I just like the concept.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
I'm not saying we would never have ice cream on
any other night, but I'd like looking forward to it
on Fridays.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Would we were at the beach.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
We have our favorite ice cream place at the beach.
We went basically every night while we were there.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Ice cream today, ice cream Tuesdays. Yes, I know, well
we won't.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
You know, we would never go out for ice cream otherwise,
like and most people don't even eat it here, like
I don't know. We don't really buy it here, so
it's just like a fun beach treat. We like, indulge
in ice cream for two straight weeks and then let
it gets it.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
That's it. I love it.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Well, they would probably really associate the taste and experience
of ice cream with going to the Bees.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
And then it's really like good ice cream, right, you know,
it's ice cream parlor ice cream and not just random
discount FROs grocery brand that I might be buying. All right,
so I'm going to it's sort of a similar category.
But I mean to say, food that you have personally procured. Now,
I am not like in any way one of those
(18:22):
people writing their parenting essays about how if you grow
your own veggies your kids will eat them. There is
no overlap between veggies grown personally and kids being more
willing to eat said veggies. In my house, however, I
have enjoyed some food that we have personally procured. So
(18:43):
Ruth and I went to Soulbury Orchards, which is another
nice Philadelphia area place. It's up in Bucks County and
is less of a zoo than some other pick your
own farms around here.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
I don't need to mention them. But you know, we
enjoyed a.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Slightly more tame experience Soulburry Richard's, so I'll throw that
out there. And we bought huge numbers of honey crisp apples.
Honey crisps are my favorite. You have to time that
to certain weekends of September basically to kill them.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah, because they.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
If you think of apple picking as a truly fall
like October activity, there are only certain varieties that are
available then my favorite are all available in September, so
we have to make sure if we go, we go then.
But we got a ton, so we've been eating those.
We had apple sauce, We've got pies just I've been
cutting up basically two of them a day and feeding
(19:35):
myself and the kids slices of apples with every meal.
We also have a freezer full of salmon and halibate.
Because my husband and fifteen year old went to Alaska
for a week this summer. They went on a commercial
fishing boat. I guess not really. It was sort of
(19:57):
like a yeah, there's this guided fish shing deep sea
fishing thing, and they had their Alaska fishing licenses and
hauled in all this halibut and salmon which they brought
back frozen to our house.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
So we have been eating it.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
And with like zero discussion. We had like the same
thing happened the same weekend. Yeah, we were in the
keys and Josh like and his friend did a fishing
charter but there's no salmon or halibut in the keys,
but they did. They didn't catch fish and it's still
in my freezer. So catching what I don't remember what
it was, but it was large. Cameron got the like prize.
(20:33):
We have a great picture, like it's huge, and we
did eat it. Actually they had a thing where you
could eat it at the restaurant at the resort, like
they'd cook it for you. We ate like two thirds
of it together and it.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Was it was really good. Yeah, so it's funny.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
We have the photos of course of my husband and
son holding fish right on the boat. And was showing
this to someone in my life who who is single,
and she mentioned that on dating apps, like a lot
of the photos guys are with.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Gigantic fish or whatever. Apparently it's like, is that a
metaphor for dating? Is the way like I will provide
for you? Look, I can fight a fish. I thought
it was more like there's more fish in the sea,
like I think it's.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
It's also one of the few times that men actually
get their photo take it. Like men aren't walking around
be like take my photo for Instagram or whatever. So
it's there's not that many photos. That's kind of sweet
men would have, but they do. That's what they put
up on the dating app. So great, good to know.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Yeah, and well tomatoes too. We've grew a lot of tomatoes.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
And I'm not a huge fan of tomatoes regularly, but
the ones we grow when they're fresh off the vine there,
they're pretty good.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
So yeah, big shout out to uh.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Have a dinner with our own salmon, sliced honey, crisp, apples,
and tomatoes.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
And you know it's all personally procured.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
All Right, we're gonna take one more quick ad break,
then we will be back with more loves of the week.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
All right, we're back. I think I really only have
one more big one. Yeah, and it's another food one.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Okay. Well, I just really love going to.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Trader Joe's in late September or mid October, so as
you're airing this is still in effect and buying everything
pumpkin and just like making a joke out of it
and then just serving a lunch that's like random pumpkin items.
Some my kids really enjoy it too, So if you
haven't tried it, I recommend.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Call it the pumpkin challenge. What like, what is the
randomness of the pumpkin items?
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Pumpkin samosas, pumpkin hummus, pumpkin salsa, pumpkin chips, pumpkin cookies,
pumpkin like, It's just like they have everything pumpkin pumpkin pasta, like,
even things that like really didn't need to be.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Pumpkin they have. Nobody asked pumpkin cereal. It's like nobody
how about pumpkin cereals? Says t Days. But it's humorous
and fun and it's now an annual ritual.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yea, So well, the time is that I gotta have
some sort of october Fest craft beer, since that's you know,
on my things that I love that I have not
done it to work because I actually don't really like
most of the sort of like pumpkinny or october Fest
related beers, and I'm not going to drink two beers,
so like you know, I'm foregoing one that I would
like in order to have one that I don't necessarily like.
(23:20):
But maybe I could have like two SIPs. Maybe I'll
find somebody else to likes to share it with them.
I don't know, so I guess related, but a folish
kind of version. I've been roasting veggies. This has been
my goal is to do this on Sunday.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
We're recording this on a Monday, and I didn't yesterday,
but I did the past two Sundays. Yesterday we made
a pie and did some other stuff, so there's already
a lot of baking involved.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
So I never got around to this.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
But I chop up various veggies, brush them with olive
oil and salt them, bake them at four hundred degrees
for thirty minutes or so.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
They come out slightly.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
And I don't know about you, but I like my
veggies to be slightly sweeter. So if you have oil
and salt in the slightly sweet, you've got that combo
of sweet salt fat. That is, in fact, what people
like to eat. It's why like caramel corn is so attractive.
But this is yeah veggie version of this. So if
(24:22):
you can make veggies into things that feel like a
good snack food.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Then I feel like you're already winning.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
And totally I don't do so many, but I do
enough that I can have it as like a side
dish on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, and so I figure,
that's at least some more veggies in my life.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Right delicious sounds good, makes me want to eat them
right now. My last one's a little meta, which is
just that it's the time of year when we can
already start thinking about like Thanksgiving and the holidays, Like
it's not crazy to.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Be planning that.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
I booked a lot of our ski stuff now, and
I just, yeah, it's anticipation and not like what we're
actually doing.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
But there's joy in that.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Yeah, yeah, no, no, I mean I've we're definitely thinking
through the holidays. We already booked our big trip for
the holidays, but we're thinking of adding another one possibly
for some people, and you know, been pondering Thanksgiving and stuff.
It's so, you know, at the end of the year
is always a good celebratory time and I'm enjoying thinking
about what am I still doing this year, and then
(25:19):
you get to start thinking about the next year.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Like you know as I bought the new planner. What
are what are my goals going to be for twenty
twenty six? Sarah, I don't know. I'm going to find
out in just a couple of weeks from this airing
at Bestly Planing.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Yeah, that's true because I will have been forced to
record this our goals for twenty twenty six episodes, so
stay tuned for that, all right. So this week's question
comes from something that could be a big win but
sometimes is occasionally not so. The listener says, I have
been setting up carpools or set up a carpool to
save time, but the back and forth via texts and
(25:54):
people switching or having to cancel feels like it is
creating a lot of extra mental load for something that
was supposed to make my life easier. Are there smarter
ways to do this or carpool best practices to make
it not feel like an addedvert in?
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Sarah, what do you have? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (26:13):
I mean some of this has to do with the
culture of your carpool, Like we had a fantastic one
last year, and I think it was just sort of
understood that, like you don't cancel, yeah, just don't mess
it up. Like if your kid is sick, you're still
driving the other two kids and like it'll all turn
or you you might ask for the occasional swap, but
in general, you just sort of like stay in your lane.
And we did it by day, so that would just
kept it really really simple. Like we always drove Tuesdays
(26:33):
and then there was like a Monday drive and a
Thursday drive. We didn't have to think about anything on
Monday and Thursday, and we did everything on Tuesdays and
we just owned that day.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
I think that kept it simple.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
We did have a What's up chat so that we
could communicate like hey, I'm here or whatever. But I
do think some of it is just like between the lines,
like talking to people like this is going to be
like a serious.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Carpool, right, Like this is not an amateur level carpool, because.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
It would be really frustrating for like over and over again, Oh,
actually I can't do it this week, I can't do
it that week. Like pick a day that you can
commit to, and hopefully that can work for everyone because
you being consistent with your Tuesday means other people can
consistently know they have their Tuesday not to worry about.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yeah, no, it's true.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
I remember many years ago we did a carpool for
middle school with Jasper and some neighbors and he started
doing this before school choir two mornings a week, and
I still came back and drove the two other kids
on the weeks that it was my week to do
the whole week because we did it by week.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
So I would carpool with you anytime.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Yeah, well, Sarah, there are many reasons that you and
I have a podcast that has lasted eight years.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
I'm not gonna skip, not gonna track it out of
carpel do.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
It just because like there was a plausible reason not
to do it.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
So I guess that is a lesson, like choose your partner,
Like maybe you get to know people a little bit
before you decide who you want to carpool with and
make sure that your intentions are aligned.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yes, absolutely so, Yes, choosing reliable carpool partners. And I
actually interviewed a gentleman from my other podcast, which may
have run by this point or will soon, Paul Leonardi,
who's the author of Digital Exhaustion, and he talked some
about this topic as well. I mean, I rememberbody I was,
you know, he was mentioning this because I was like,
(28:21):
oh my god, I just heard this question as well.
But his wife got a text from a friend who
said that her carpool had resulted in eighty three texts
on their chain that week.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
That's a lot.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
That's a lot of TEA had it muted, but but.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
He went back and counted. Okay, get back.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
And counted, and there were eighty three texts, And I'm like, wow,
that is yeah. I mean, at that point, yes, I
don't believe the carpool is necessarily saving you any time
or mental effort. So so choose well, one thing to
do instead of trying to arrange it digitally. If there
is a situation where you are all in person, like
if you're all there at the first game or first practice,
(29:02):
doing that back and forth in person to set it
out and to figure out what works might be more helpful,
even just because the in person interaction is going to
be more pleasant than back and forth via text. And
if there is any sort of situation where things will
be changed again, it helps if there is a time
you are all getting together, so for instance, if you
all see each other at games, that is when you
(29:24):
discuss any of the changes that would need to happen
to the carpool schedule as opposed to like a digital
back and forth, and so that sort of reduces it.
And you know you are seeing each other, then you
don't all go to the practices that might be a
way to make it not feel like this tedious thing.
It's more like you're just having a conversation with your
fellow parents along the side, and you know you can
(29:46):
conclude things instead of.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Anything else.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
No, I was going to say that actually what you
were saying, and I'm going to love this interview. I
have a feeling because I, you know, think we are
digitally exhausted sometimes, but like to carpool, if you work
in something where you're like taking turns being in charge,
like a call schedule, I actually think that would so
benefit from being a personal discussion rather than everyone's emailing,
(30:12):
texting back and forth, maybe sending stuff to one person.
They're supposed to put everything together. No, get everyone in
a room, go through the calendar and be like, who
wants this week? Who wants this week? And yeah, they're
fifty two weeks and I'll take a while, but then
you're done for the year. Or maybe you just do
it by quarter, you do twelve weeks, and I think
that would be so much quicker than trying to synthesize
everybody's I can't do that, but I can't do that
(30:32):
and whatever, and then no one's surprised by anything. So
this is my vision for how I think calls should
be figured out in my division.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
And it won't probably.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Happen because I'm not in charge of making the schedule,
but my fantasy, I'll keep communicating it and maybe someday
we'll try it.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Yeah, all right, so we're best practices here is we
are going to choose the right carpool partners. Yeah, we
are going to just own times, whether that's owning a
day or owning a week, so there's no uncertainty of
who is doing it. The ethos is that you don't
cancel unless you absolutely absolutely have to. The logistics are
(31:10):
ideally arranged in person. Yes, So it's a pleasant conversation
as opposed to fifty techts back and forth.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Love it, love it all right.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Well, we don't have an extra love of the week
this time because this has been an all love of
the Week episode, but we would love to hear from
you if you have tips on making a carpool run. Well,
you can make that happen.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
And if you have another Love of the Week, we'd
love to hear that too. Yeah, send us your Fall favorites.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Yeah. Well, this has been best of both worlds. We've
been discussing our all Love of the Week Fall edition.
We will be back next week with more on making
work and life fit together.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com
or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
And you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please
join us next time for more on making work and
life work together.
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician,
writer and course creator. We are two working parents who
love our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
From figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Term career goals.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This episode is airing in late October of twenty twenty five.
This is going to be one of our What's making
Us Happy Now sort of an all love of the
Week episode. We're calling this What's Making Us Happy Now
Fall edition, so just as a little thing that are
bringing us joy in this particular season. But we know
(01:05):
that we both come across as reasonably upbeat on this
podcast by design. That's one of the things we hope
to bring to you as you are commuting to work,
as some you know, fun to listen to. However, our
lives are not universally that way. We have both had
some recent stretches of feeling a bit low. Some of
(01:26):
that cannot really be talked about. Will apologize for the
vague podcasting here was it called like vague booking?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Was that the old word for Facebook, Sarah?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
So it'd be like vague, vague casting, vague blogging, vague blogging.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
But when that happens, like Sarah, what do you do
when you.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Are in a chronic bad mood to try to get
yourself continuing forward?
Speaker 3 (01:48):
I mean I do lots of things, but sometimes I
like to just wallow in it. I mean there can
be some value in that, not on the podcasting, Mike,
but just in life. And that is sort of just
like letting you feel the feelings and maybe indulge yourself
in like the music that is like sad and like Okay,
this afternoon, I'm just gonna sit on the couch and
(02:09):
eat some chocolate or whatever, you know, So that sometimes helps.
And then one thing I read about that I think
I do, but I didn't have this cute term for
it is like having lily pads, but like focusing on
things in the future that are going to be different
or fun. I know I do a lot of that
when I am doing one of my call weeks and
call is not It's not like about being down in
the dumps.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
It's just more difficult.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
It's a week at a stretch where I'm working more
hours than I would prefer to do any job and
can be interrupted at any time. And again I've come
to just understand, like, I appreciate that that is part
of what I do and accept it for the time being,
but I definitely need to focus forward to get myself
(02:51):
through and think about like one of the fun things
I'll get to do when I'm done. And actually, on
my past call week, I think around day four, I'm like,
I am booking a pedicure and I'm booking a massage.
And I actually booked the pedicure for my last day
of call because I knew I could do it all
my way home, and that's something I can do while
on call because I can answer the phone while I'm
getting my toes done. Not as easy while you're getting
your hands done, but your toes, yes, say.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
The massage wouldn't work like if you're supposed to text
back within a few minutes.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah, correct.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
So I booked the massage for the week after call,
so i'd have that to look forward to because I
have to have my phone off during that to enjoy
the experience, and I can't do that on call.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
So yeah, absolutely, yeah, No, I like to plan in
fun stuff too. I mean I got my daughter to
go apple picking with me, even if no other kids
wanted to. I was like, I really want to do this,
so I like promised to trade off. I would bring
her to Brandy Melville and she would go apple picking
with me. You know, just getting outside for fresh air
(03:47):
is always helpful, going for a walk or something, going
to bed, because sometimes things look better in the morning
reading a magazine.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
I don't know. I enjoyed doing that on my hammock
when it's possible.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
If it's in the evening and I'm not going anywhere else,
I might have a nice craft beer. It's always a
feel a little bit better moment as well, exactly. But
this is a list of things that we are enjoying
right now. Love of the week for fall. So Sarah,
I thought it might be better if we kind of
interspersed with each other.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Yeah, we kind of.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Our notes are back and forth, sort of pasted after
each other.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
But nobody wants to listen to me talk for fifteen minutes.
So what do you have all right? You want me
to kick it off? Well, the first thing kit I
have on there. Oh my gosh, this is a very
nail nail centric episode.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Talking about my pedicure, Well, I ordered a flash many system,
meaning one of those manicure systems. It has a light
so that when you polish your nails, you put your
hands under the light and it quote cures it. There's
a lot of controversy over which lights are safe and
which are okay. And one of the ingredients in these
types of manicures has actually been banned in the European
Union and that was kind of like all over the place.
(04:53):
Right after one of my kids, well it was Anabel,
right after my daughter had purchased a kind of I
don't know branded gel manny system. So I was like,
you know what, let me resource this a little bit.
And I found a few brands, which are they have
ingredients that are approved in the EU, so at least
they've passed.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Some sort of bar.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
And again I don't know how toxic these ingredients truly are,
but also manicures are very optional, so like, why not
pick the one that perhaps is vetted a little bit more?
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So I ordered it one called Manicurist.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
I have no affiliation whatsoever, but I'm like really pleased
with I was pleased with how the toxic one work too,
by the way. I was like, Wow, this is magic
if I can do this in my house. But the
less toxic or at least supposedly less toxic version from
this other brand, seem to work just as well. Now,
my daughter did not like it just as well because
it looks more like a regular manicure, like it doesn't
(05:44):
have that.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Sick gel look.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
But it did set in one minute after applying it
when you follow all the steps, and so I didn't
mess it up, and it's going a week now and
it looks really good. So yes, that is my long
winded fun love right now, which is the Manicurist Green
Flash many System interesting my llac nails.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
I like nails. They look very nice. They look nice.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, I can't keep polish on my nails, so I
don't even bother, which probably says to me a reasonable
amount of time, although you know it's a never I
don't know. My daughter and I have never gone do
like Manny or Petties things together. Maybe that's something she'll
be writing a book about later about how I never did.
But oh well, so I don't have a whole lot
of indulgences.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
In that category, I guess.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
But one thing I do I spent a ridiculous amount
of money on is Ellmis Creams. So this brand, I
don't know, there was like a freebie. There was one
in the Allure of beauty Box, but.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
You started with the beauty Box totally.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
My daughter is pretty much completely taken over now, but
I was still getting some of it then.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
And so I have this.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
The day cream is the Marine cream, I guess, and
then the evening one. The night one is this pillow mask.
It's like a pillow pep tie, whatever it's called. So
you put that on at night, put the Marine cream
SPF one on during the day.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
It's just, you know, it feels very indulgent. Maybe it
makes my skin better. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
There's a lot of psychological stuff with this, I am sure,
but who cares?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
But who cares? It's fun. It's fun. I like it.
That's making me happy right now.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
And it'd be nice to simplify to like one brand
that you enjoy and then just kind of like don't
have to think.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah, actually this weekend, I pulled everything off my counter
and out of the basket that was on my bathroom
shelf except the stuff that I use every single day,
and so other stuff is now in the cupboard. And
I threw out a lot of trash and expired stuff too.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
But it's goods.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Like I use four like makeup products during the day,
and I have two creams, and then I have my
my Nexium, so my contact lens stuff. Yeah, my toothpaste.
I guess of face wash, but yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I like it. It's minimalist, it's functional, it works.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah yeah, and it's fun to have a lot less clutter.
All right, Well, so have Sarah, all right?
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Next on my list. These are really not in any order,
but who cares? My sticker printer? Oh my gosh, so
I ordered.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
I did some research on various planning sites, et cetera,
because I used to have the Kodak Step, which is
a sticker printer that printed on zinc photo sensitive paper,
and I used it to you can use a phone
app and print out little pictures and I would put
them in my five year journal and they look good.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
They don't look great. They're a little greeny.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
I think they're fading a little bit with time, and
I'm like, I gotta and it stopped working, the app
stop syncing with my phone entirely.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
I tried resetting, I tried all kinds of things. I
was like, I give up.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
So I decided to look for what's out now and
came across a different kind of category of printers that
instead of using this photo sensitive paper, they actually use
actual ink. So it's like a little, tiny little printer
in a box that has these little ink cartridge is
like inkjet or something. And I chose the Cannon Selfie.
It is so much better. It's so much sharper and crisper.
(09:01):
The app is easy to use. I can print like
little seasonal collages of what's going on. I could even
print like book titles, so I could do like little
stickers with like a book cover my planner if I
wanted to track reading in a fun visual way. I
love my sticker printer. It just brings me a lot
of joy. And yeah, I chose the it's the Kenon
Selfie QX twenty. I believe it's the one I have excellent.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Well, this is the time of year when many of
us start ordering our twenty twenty six planners our planners.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
For the next year, whatever that happens to be. So
I recently.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Indulged in buying the plumb paper notes and Days for
twenty twenty six. I definitely do not use all the planners' functionality,
like I don't use the calendar in it. I don't
use the daily to do list thing in it. I
have a regular notebook that I just do for my
daily to do list, and I use a different calendar.
But that said, I like opening a new page every
(09:57):
week and making my weekly priority list in the planner,
and I enjoy the cover. I almost never have the
cover even visible anymore, like on the desk. You know,
it's folded over to whatever week it is, and so
I don't see the cover. But I have fun with
the art on the cover, and it has a nice
LV for twenty twenty six for it, So it's it's mine.
(10:19):
It came in the mail recently.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
There's a lot of ritual in like ordering that next
year's planner, and you know, why not get into it.
There's so many great options out there. You can find
a planner to suit almost any of your preferences. You
love that layout of the days on the left and
then like a blank page on the right. So I'm
excited for you to have your next generation of plannets.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, all right, Well we're gonna take a quick ad
break and then we'll be back with more of things
we are loving now. All right, well we are back
talking in all Love of the Week episode our fall edition. Sarah,
(11:02):
what else is on your loves of the Week list
right now?
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (11:06):
So I am enjoying pilates, which was kind of a
goal of mine to figure out I don't know, in
addition to the strength training that I already do at home,
just another exercise outlet that's different from my prior running days.
And honestly, I thought about trying pilates even then, but
now I have a lot more time to do it
since I'm not running, and so I chose the studio
closest to my house, which turned out to be Club Pilates,
(11:28):
and I can get there in like seven minutes and
it's nice, it's relaxing.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
I think I.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Will enjoy it even more once I go up a
level so that it will become a little bit more challenging.
But I just like having a place to go. I
like the instructors, I like the vibe, and I like
that it fits into my schedule on the days that
I don't drive at tend to go to classes, and
I can just kind of like have mornings that are
more focused on me versus the other three mornings of
the week are focused on the kids, which both are great,
(11:55):
but it's nice to have both.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
What do you mean, move up a level? So there's
different levels of lunch for Pilates.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Club Pilates has like I mean, this is just specific
to that franchise, but like they have level one level
one point five to and you don't get to decide,
Like I can't just be like I'm I have to
ask for permission to at least that's how it works
at our studio to like move up a level. So
I'm planning on asking before I book my You know,
we're recording this in September, the end of September, but
(12:22):
hopefully by the time you're hearing this, I've been granted
my permission because I'm.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
On the next level exactly. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
It's like the kids gym where to get to start
to do parkour two versus park worps.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yes, it's like that. Yeah, it's like that.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Okay, Well, in the hobby realm for me, I am
enjoying singing in a second choir. So longtime listeners know,
I join my church choir about eight years ago, right
around the same time that this podcast started, in fact,
and I've enjoyed that immensely. But I decided last year
(12:54):
to start singing with another choir that meets in downtown
Philadelphia and is doing you know, they sang the back
me Bine our Mass, which is why I originally joined,
but I've enjoyed the other stuff they've done too.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
It's a little bit more challenging, I would say.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
And we are doing the Howls Requiem as part of
our next concert, which will have happened by the time
you were listening to this. But you know, I sang
that with my church's chamber choir eight years ago. So
it's a fun, little full circle moment where I sing
the same pieces with different choirs and I get to
feel like a seasoned choral musician, even though it's kind
(13:34):
of ridiculous to be spending two evenings a week on
choral music.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Not if you like.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
It, it is not easy to fit it in.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Let's just put it that way.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
It is a lot of evenings for my interest, but
it will it's not every we don't meet during the
summer for either choir.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
I was gonna say it's probably seasonal. It's seasonal.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
And then the Downtown Choir actually takes significant chunks of
time off, like they do a concert cycle that's like
five weeks, and then take a week or two off
and then do another one, and then we take all
of January off, so it's not as many rehearsals per
year as one might imagine.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Well, I like it. It's like your sport. It's my sport. Yeah, absolutely,
it's my sport for sure. All right, what do you have, Sarah?
All right? This one? Okay?
Speaker 3 (14:18):
I said the Apple redesign. Apple came up with a
new operating system, number twenty six. I just did the upgrade.
I said, it's pretty.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
I'm not sure it's pretty. I like, I don't know.
I think it's a little busy. Actually.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Upon further reflection, however, I love that they have now
added an app called Preview, which does what was already
doable in Apple Notes, but I think it does it
even more elegantly. Because we love having the feature where
you can just scan documents straight on your phone and
then email them or a up wherever you need to go.
And I used it in Apple Notes, but I found
it clunky that I couldn't just like scan my document
(14:53):
not within the notes ecosystem, Like what if I didn't
need it in Apple Notes and then I have to
like pull it off of notes or whatever.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
So I think this is fanas past.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
So I don't know about the whole esthetic clear glass
situation and the flashes when I'm texting. If you have upgraded,
you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
But I do like previews.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
All right, Well that is good, Well, thank Apple for that.
I'm going to go totally non tech and I'm going
to say botanical gardens in the fall. So many people
think of botanical gardens as a spring thing and that
is when peak crowds will come, but many also have
(15:31):
a season for the fall because there are a lot
of fall blooming flowers. It turns out that this is
an evolutionary strategy that some number of beautiful flowers employ,
and the upside of fall flowers is that the backdrop
against the fall flowers is also more colorful, so you
have these interesting juxtapositions of like yellow flowers with orange
(15:53):
trees behind them and purple asters with yellow oaks behind them,
and so you get these different dift color combinations that
you just don't in spring, where the back color is
all mostly green.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
So I find that esthetically fascinating.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
So I would heartily encourage people, if they have botanical
gardens near them, to go visit. Some close for winter,
but they often are still open into the fall. I've
been going to Chanticleer, which is about twenty minutes from
my house, so that can be a long lunch if
I wish it to be. And then I went to
Longwood Gardens the weekend before we recorded this. That was
(16:31):
a lot of fun to walk around there. See there
are lily pads, Sarah, speaking of lily pads, things to
look forward to.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
They have a whole display of lily pads. Oh yeah,
we went.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I saw it when we were there in July. I
love those lily pads. I mean, don't miss those lily pads.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
They're pretty impressive.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
It turns out lily pads can get quite large, and
so you could definitely envision yourself leaping from lily pad
to lily pad as you are trying to get through
a low moment in your life.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Yeah, if you're in the Philadelphia area, check out Longwood Gardens.
It's beautiful, all right.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
My next one is not really seasonal, but who cares?
Ice cream Fridays We've just designated Friday. My kids always
ask me of ice cream, and like, we don't have
ice cream every night. Partly I don't want to stalk
the house without much ice.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Cream like all the time.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
But Fridays is like ice cream night, and then we
can look forward to it and make sure we have
fun ice cream at home, different bars that people like,
different flavors, whatever, or every once in a bloom moon,
won't go out to Dairy Queen or something like that.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
But I just like the concept.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
I'm not saying we would never have ice cream on
any other night, but I'd like looking forward to it
on Fridays.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Would we were at the beach.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
We have our favorite ice cream place at the beach.
We went basically every night while we were there.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Ice cream today, ice cream Tuesdays. Yes, I know, well
we won't.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
You know, we would never go out for ice cream otherwise,
like and most people don't even eat it here, like
I don't know. We don't really buy it here, so
it's just like a fun beach treat. We like, indulge
in ice cream for two straight weeks and then let
it gets it.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
That's it. I love it.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Well, they would probably really associate the taste and experience
of ice cream with going to the Bees.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
And then it's really like good ice cream, right, you know,
it's ice cream parlor ice cream and not just random
discount FROs grocery brand that I might be buying. All right,
so I'm going to it's sort of a similar category.
But I mean to say, food that you have personally procured. Now,
I am not like in any way one of those
(18:22):
people writing their parenting essays about how if you grow
your own veggies your kids will eat them. There is
no overlap between veggies grown personally and kids being more
willing to eat said veggies. In my house, however, I
have enjoyed some food that we have personally procured. So
(18:43):
Ruth and I went to Soulbury Orchards, which is another
nice Philadelphia area place. It's up in Bucks County and
is less of a zoo than some other pick your
own farms around here.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
I don't need to mention them. But you know, we
enjoyed a.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Slightly more tame experience Soulburry Richard's, so I'll throw that
out there. And we bought huge numbers of honey crisp apples.
Honey crisps are my favorite. You have to time that
to certain weekends of September basically to kill them.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah, because they.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
If you think of apple picking as a truly fall
like October activity, there are only certain varieties that are
available then my favorite are all available in September, so
we have to make sure if we go, we go then.
But we got a ton, so we've been eating those.
We had apple sauce, We've got pies just I've been
cutting up basically two of them a day and feeding
(19:35):
myself and the kids slices of apples with every meal.
We also have a freezer full of salmon and halibate.
Because my husband and fifteen year old went to Alaska
for a week this summer. They went on a commercial
fishing boat. I guess not really. It was sort of
(19:57):
like a yeah, there's this guided fish shing deep sea
fishing thing, and they had their Alaska fishing licenses and
hauled in all this halibut and salmon which they brought
back frozen to our house.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
So we have been eating it.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
And with like zero discussion. We had like the same
thing happened the same weekend. Yeah, we were in the
keys and Josh like and his friend did a fishing
charter but there's no salmon or halibut in the keys,
but they did. They didn't catch fish and it's still
in my freezer. So catching what I don't remember what
it was, but it was large. Cameron got the like prize.
(20:33):
We have a great picture, like it's huge, and we
did eat it. Actually they had a thing where you
could eat it at the restaurant at the resort, like
they'd cook it for you. We ate like two thirds
of it together and it.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Was it was really good. Yeah, so it's funny.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
We have the photos of course of my husband and
son holding fish right on the boat. And was showing
this to someone in my life who who is single,
and she mentioned that on dating apps, like a lot
of the photos guys are with.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Gigantic fish or whatever. Apparently it's like, is that a
metaphor for dating? Is the way like I will provide
for you? Look, I can fight a fish. I thought
it was more like there's more fish in the sea,
like I think it's.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
It's also one of the few times that men actually
get their photo take it. Like men aren't walking around
be like take my photo for Instagram or whatever. So
it's there's not that many photos. That's kind of sweet
men would have, but they do. That's what they put
up on the dating app. So great, good to know.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Yeah, and well tomatoes too. We've grew a lot of tomatoes.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
And I'm not a huge fan of tomatoes regularly, but
the ones we grow when they're fresh off the vine there,
they're pretty good.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
So yeah, big shout out to uh.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Have a dinner with our own salmon, sliced honey, crisp, apples,
and tomatoes.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
And you know it's all personally procured.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
All Right, we're gonna take one more quick ad break,
then we will be back with more loves of the week.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
All right, we're back. I think I really only have
one more big one. Yeah, and it's another food one.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Okay. Well, I just really love going to.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Trader Joe's in late September or mid October, so as
you're airing this is still in effect and buying everything
pumpkin and just like making a joke out of it
and then just serving a lunch that's like random pumpkin items.
Some my kids really enjoy it too, So if you
haven't tried it, I recommend.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Call it the pumpkin challenge. What like, what is the
randomness of the pumpkin items?
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Pumpkin samosas, pumpkin hummus, pumpkin salsa, pumpkin chips, pumpkin cookies,
pumpkin like, It's just like they have everything pumpkin pumpkin pasta, like,
even things that like really didn't need to be.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Pumpkin they have. Nobody asked pumpkin cereal. It's like nobody
how about pumpkin cereals? Says t Days. But it's humorous
and fun and it's now an annual ritual.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yea, So well, the time is that I gotta have
some sort of october Fest craft beer, since that's you know,
on my things that I love that I have not
done it to work because I actually don't really like
most of the sort of like pumpkinny or october Fest
related beers, and I'm not going to drink two beers,
so like you know, I'm foregoing one that I would
like in order to have one that I don't necessarily like.
(23:20):
But maybe I could have like two SIPs. Maybe I'll
find somebody else to likes to share it with them.
I don't know, so I guess related, but a folish
kind of version. I've been roasting veggies. This has been
my goal is to do this on Sunday.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
We're recording this on a Monday, and I didn't yesterday,
but I did the past two Sundays. Yesterday we made
a pie and did some other stuff, so there's already
a lot of baking involved.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
So I never got around to this.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
But I chop up various veggies, brush them with olive
oil and salt them, bake them at four hundred degrees
for thirty minutes or so.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
They come out slightly.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
And I don't know about you, but I like my
veggies to be slightly sweeter. So if you have oil
and salt in the slightly sweet, you've got that combo
of sweet salt fat. That is, in fact, what people
like to eat. It's why like caramel corn is so attractive.
But this is yeah veggie version of this. So if
(24:22):
you can make veggies into things that feel like a
good snack food.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Then I feel like you're already winning.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
And totally I don't do so many, but I do
enough that I can have it as like a side
dish on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, and so I figure,
that's at least some more veggies in my life.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Right delicious sounds good, makes me want to eat them
right now. My last one's a little meta, which is
just that it's the time of year when we can
already start thinking about like Thanksgiving and the holidays, Like
it's not crazy to.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Be planning that.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
I booked a lot of our ski stuff now, and
I just, yeah, it's anticipation and not like what we're
actually doing.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
But there's joy in that.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Yeah, yeah, no, no, I mean I've we're definitely thinking
through the holidays. We already booked our big trip for
the holidays, but we're thinking of adding another one possibly
for some people, and you know, been pondering Thanksgiving and stuff.
It's so, you know, at the end of the year
is always a good celebratory time and I'm enjoying thinking
about what am I still doing this year, and then
(25:19):
you get to start thinking about the next year.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Like you know as I bought the new planner. What
are what are my goals going to be for twenty
twenty six? Sarah, I don't know. I'm going to find
out in just a couple of weeks from this airing
at Bestly Planing.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Yeah, that's true because I will have been forced to
record this our goals for twenty twenty six episodes, so
stay tuned for that, all right. So this week's question
comes from something that could be a big win but
sometimes is occasionally not so. The listener says, I have
been setting up carpools or set up a carpool to
save time, but the back and forth via texts and
(25:54):
people switching or having to cancel feels like it is
creating a lot of extra mental load for something that
was supposed to make my life easier. Are there smarter
ways to do this or carpool best practices to make
it not feel like an addedvert in?
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Sarah, what do you have? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (26:13):
I mean some of this has to do with the
culture of your carpool, Like we had a fantastic one
last year, and I think it was just sort of
understood that, like you don't cancel, yeah, just don't mess
it up. Like if your kid is sick, you're still
driving the other two kids and like it'll all turn
or you you might ask for the occasional swap, but
in general, you just sort of like stay in your lane.
And we did it by day, so that would just
kept it really really simple. Like we always drove Tuesdays
(26:33):
and then there was like a Monday drive and a
Thursday drive. We didn't have to think about anything on
Monday and Thursday, and we did everything on Tuesdays and
we just owned that day.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
I think that kept it simple.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
We did have a What's up chat so that we
could communicate like hey, I'm here or whatever. But I
do think some of it is just like between the lines,
like talking to people like this is going to be
like a serious.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Carpool, right, Like this is not an amateur level carpool, because.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
It would be really frustrating for like over and over again, Oh,
actually I can't do it this week, I can't do
it that week. Like pick a day that you can
commit to, and hopefully that can work for everyone because
you being consistent with your Tuesday means other people can
consistently know they have their Tuesday not to worry about.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yeah, no, it's true.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
I remember many years ago we did a carpool for
middle school with Jasper and some neighbors and he started
doing this before school choir two mornings a week, and
I still came back and drove the two other kids
on the weeks that it was my week to do
the whole week because we did it by week.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
So I would carpool with you anytime.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Yeah, well, Sarah, there are many reasons that you and
I have a podcast that has lasted eight years.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
I'm not gonna skip, not gonna track it out of
carpel do.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
It just because like there was a plausible reason not
to do it.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
So I guess that is a lesson, like choose your partner,
Like maybe you get to know people a little bit
before you decide who you want to carpool with and
make sure that your intentions are aligned.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yes, absolutely so, Yes, choosing reliable carpool partners. And I
actually interviewed a gentleman from my other podcast, which may
have run by this point or will soon, Paul Leonardi,
who's the author of Digital Exhaustion, and he talked some
about this topic as well. I mean, I rememberbody I was,
you know, he was mentioning this because I was like,
(28:21):
oh my god, I just heard this question as well.
But his wife got a text from a friend who
said that her carpool had resulted in eighty three texts
on their chain that week.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
That's a lot.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
That's a lot of TEA had it muted, but but.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
He went back and counted. Okay, get back.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
And counted, and there were eighty three texts, And I'm like, wow,
that is yeah. I mean, at that point, yes, I
don't believe the carpool is necessarily saving you any time
or mental effort. So so choose well, one thing to
do instead of trying to arrange it digitally. If there
is a situation where you are all in person, like
if you're all there at the first game or first practice,
(29:02):
doing that back and forth in person to set it
out and to figure out what works might be more helpful,
even just because the in person interaction is going to
be more pleasant than back and forth via text. And
if there is any sort of situation where things will
be changed again, it helps if there is a time
you are all getting together, so for instance, if you
all see each other at games, that is when you
(29:24):
discuss any of the changes that would need to happen
to the carpool schedule as opposed to like a digital
back and forth, and so that sort of reduces it.
And you know you are seeing each other, then you
don't all go to the practices that might be a
way to make it not feel like this tedious thing.
It's more like you're just having a conversation with your
fellow parents along the side, and you know you can
(29:46):
conclude things instead of.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Anything else.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
No, I was going to say that actually what you
were saying, and I'm going to love this interview. I
have a feeling because I, you know, think we are
digitally exhausted sometimes, but like to carpool, if you work
in something where you're like taking turns being in charge,
like a call schedule, I actually think that would so
benefit from being a personal discussion rather than everyone's emailing,
(30:12):
texting back and forth, maybe sending stuff to one person.
They're supposed to put everything together. No, get everyone in
a room, go through the calendar and be like, who
wants this week? Who wants this week? And yeah, they're
fifty two weeks and I'll take a while, but then
you're done for the year. Or maybe you just do
it by quarter, you do twelve weeks, and I think
that would be so much quicker than trying to synthesize
everybody's I can't do that, but I can't do that
(30:32):
and whatever, and then no one's surprised by anything. So
this is my vision for how I think calls should
be figured out in my division.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
And it won't probably.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Happen because I'm not in charge of making the schedule,
but my fantasy, I'll keep communicating it and maybe someday
we'll try it.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Yeah, all right, so we're best practices here is we
are going to choose the right carpool partners. Yeah, we
are going to just own times, whether that's owning a
day or owning a week, so there's no uncertainty of
who is doing it. The ethos is that you don't
cancel unless you absolutely absolutely have to. The logistics are
(31:10):
ideally arranged in person. Yes, So it's a pleasant conversation
as opposed to fifty techts back and forth.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Love it, love it all right.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Well, we don't have an extra love of the week
this time because this has been an all love of
the Week episode, but we would love to hear from
you if you have tips on making a carpool run. Well,
you can make that happen.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
And if you have another Love of the Week, we'd
love to hear that too. Yeah, send us your Fall favorites.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Yeah. Well, this has been best of both worlds. We've
been discussing our all Love of the Week Fall edition.
We will be back next week with more on making
work and life fit together.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com
or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
And you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please
join us next time for more on making work and
life work together.
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