January 9, 2024 • 43 mins
In today's Mailbag episode, Sarah and Laura tackle some great questions sent in by listeners. Topics include:
- Streamlining things in a busy household with school-aged kids
- Did LV or SHU ever consider SAHM life?
- Rewriting your narrative
- Ways to have BOBW when things are tight and family is not close by?
- School/camp/activity decisions
- Outsourcing housework - what do you find rewarding to do yourself?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi. This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five,
an author, journalist, and speaker.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
And this is Sarah Hartunger. I'm a mother of three,
a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are
two working parents who love our careers and our families.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
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 term career goals.
We want you to get the most out of life.
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This
episode is first airing and early to mid January of
(00:38):
twenty twenty four. We welcome any new listeners who are
joining us, who've just found us. Maybe you're looking for
new content in the new year, looking for ways to
combine work in life and generally enjoy life as you
are doing it, so welcome. We run mailbag episodes from
time to time, and you can reach us in a
bunch of different ways. You can always email me. My
(01:01):
email address is Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. You
can post a comment on my blog, which is Laura
vandercam dot com. There's also a contact form on my
website and you fill that out. I promise that actually
does come to my inbox and I look at it
as long as you're not sending me links for ads
to some ridiculous thing. I do in fact read all
(01:22):
of those. So that is an easy way to reach me.
And we can use questions in future mail bags and Sarah,
people can reach out to you as well.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Of course, you can always find my near daily writing
at the shoebox dot com t e s hu box
dot com and you can leave a question there in
the comments. You can email me. It's just my name,
Sarah dot heart dot unger at gmail dot com. You
can even text me, but I never have that number handy,
so you can look at any best laid planned show
(01:51):
notes for that number and you can text me anytime.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
So lots of ways to reach us. Let us know
your questions anything related to careers, family, organization, health, life,
you know whatever. We cover all sorts of topics, so
we are looking forward to hearing from you. So we
will go ahead and dive right into this mail bag,
which we got a lot of questions, so thank you.
(02:14):
So the first one, Sarah, let's tackle this. This person writes,
my family is busy. M not the rest of us.
I guess no, we're all busy, but this person starts
with that. So anyway, they're doing a lot of different things.
This person works full time, is starting graduate school. Her
husband also has a busy full time job, is also
in graduate school, so a lot of things going on.
(02:35):
They have a six year old and an eight year
old who each have activities. She writes, Simplification systems and
generally making things easier is a big twenty twenty four
focus in order to get it all done without unnecessary stress.
So what are some of the ways that you all
have simplified, streamlined, or done things differently to get through
(02:56):
especially busy seasons of life, Or if there's anything we've
tried and that hasn't worked, you'd like to hear that too.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, So I think you're at a perfect time with
your kids ages six and eight to have them really
kind of do some more of their own stuff, because
I often find it's right at that age that you
were used to kind of like doing everything like carefully
setting up their breakfast or something like that, you know,
putting away every article of clothing. But six and eight
(03:25):
year olds can do a lot, so that might actually
be part of what could perhaps streamline things. You would
have to accept less perfectionistic standards if you're going to
be having your kids help out. But on the flip side,
you're teaching them responsibility and life skills, so that's always good.
I would say, even though you're very, very busy and
(03:46):
you have full time careers, there's still usually some vacation
time or paid leave time to use. So I would
be super super strategic about even using that in microdoses
to give yourself a break every once in a while,
because I find that if I have something on the calendar,
even if it's just half a day of paid leave
where I'm like, I'm not doing anything, just makes me
feel better about the times when I am just kind
(04:08):
of leading a really full life with one thing after another.
So I do highly recommend trying that. And then finally,
it might be good to just take an inventory of
all the things that you are busy with and see
if there's anything that's just like not necessary anymore, either
if you've aged out of it or you feel like,
you know what, I've been doing that because everyone else
does it, but like, do I need to do it,
And I tried to think about like an example for me,
(04:30):
and a lot of people in my neighborhood will do
like cute seasonal decor for different holidays, and I'm like, Nope,
never not happening. So like I could do that and
it would be another thing on my to do list,
but I've just decided there's only so many things we
can do, and I'm gonna do something else instead.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yeah, absolutely, anytime someone is in a particular or busy season.
I actually do recommend time tracking, just because it's helpful
to see exactly how much time the big chunks of
your life that you are devoting to these big projects
are truly taking, because it can feel like, well, everything's
taking all my time. And certainly a full time job,
(05:09):
raising a family, going to graduate school, all of those
are things that people might be spending the majority of
their time doing. Those things might be someone's complete focus,
and here you are taking on all three simultaneously, but
they all take some chunk of hours out of your
one hundred and sixty eight hours in a week, and
it might be helpful to see what sort of hours
you are devoting to each of them, and where there
(05:31):
is time that you can devote to other things. So
really map it in, see what an ideal week would
look like. After you timetrack, say well, what would I
like the schedule of classes and homework to look like,
combined with the full time job obligations I have, combined
with what I need to do with my kids and
what I want to do with my kids. Sort of
(05:52):
get an idea of what a good template would look.
It won't always work for you to have weeks like that,
but at least it gives you an idea of what
you are in for which you can then build some
downtime into as well. I find that people who are
incredibly busy often benefit from having some sort of sabbath,
and not necessarily in a religious sense, but that there
(06:14):
is one day when you don't do those things right.
So you're like, I'm going to work like crazy six
days a week, but one day a week I'm not.
Or maybe it's not even a full day, it's just
that Wednesday night after work going to do nothing right.
That's the night that we don't do any of those things.
And then the other night everything can be busy, we
can have other obligations, but that's one time off, and
I find that can be helpful to establish a little
(06:34):
bit of a rhythm that you are not always having
to do something. So you might think about that purposeful
recovery time. Purposeful recovery time exactly question two, Sarah, This
person writes, how do you find time for creativity and
play in your life? And what do you do? This
person recently read The Gifts of Imperfection and which advocates
(06:57):
having time for play and things like that, and realize
that this person has little of any of this. She
works a corporate job with lots of email and spreadsheets.
She says she's not particularly artistic or team sporty, so
she's looking for outside the box ideas to add to
her life. She plays the pianos, sometimes occasionally goes to
a yoga or fitness class, but that doesn't necessarily feel
(07:18):
like creativity or play to her. So, Sarah, what fits
those buckets in your life? Yeah? My buckets.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I mean when I think about what my fun hobbies are,
they are running and they are reading. And I guess
I'll push back on the idea that like your piano
and fitness classes wouldn't necessarily fill this need. Although I
guess if personally it doesn't feel that fulfilling, maybe you
want to figure out how you can maybe adjust those
hobbies and still enjoy them, but find ways to do them,
(07:46):
maybe just a.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Little more creatively.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
So for example, you wouldn't think running is like all
that creative, but I mean there's following a training plan,
reading about training plans, talking to other people about running,
looking at gear, having a running group with friends to
talk about, be hosting a gathering, looking at races, trying
to be creative about like what would be a fun
race to go to, or like destinations. So I mean, yes,
I'm not like sitting there like making an artwork, but
(08:10):
I still feel playful with how I approach that, and
I also don't take it so seriously, like to make
it to the point where it would like become a
job or something a chore or something like that. And
then same with reading. I mean, I enjoy books. I
have fun looking at people's TVR lists and making mine
and doing book club and talking about books and sending
text to friends about books. And you know those are
(08:31):
not again like super highbrow like artistic or I don't know,
like people might not initially call those creative, but I
feel like there's enough there and they definitely feel like
play to me and that I enjoy them.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
So I guess I.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Would dive deeper into the things you're already doing and
see if you can find some aspects that might make
them feel more playful or fulfilling to you.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, I'm wondering if those are things that she feels
like she needs to work to get better at and
follow like a schedule to get better and so those
are going into the realm of things that are purposefully productive,
And there's nothing wrong with that, and we enjoy all
sorts of activities in that regard. But sometimes you want
something in life that you were doing truly just for fun.
So I wonder if you could do something that would
(09:13):
not fit into that realm of feeling like you are
doing it to get better at it or whatever. I mean,
maybe it's a sort of fitness class that you know
you're going to be terrible at at the beginning, or whatever,
I don't know, aerial class or something like that. Or
with piano, maybe it's that you're going to play something,
not working to get better at it, but just site
reading random jazz standards or holiday carols or top forty
(09:37):
hits that have been transposed for piano, But just something
fun like that that you're not thinking like, oh, I'm
going to get better at this and perform it. You're
just doing it because it's a way to relieve stress.
That might help with that mindset. I'm going to throw
out two other ideas of things kind of anyone or
pretty much almost anyone can do that might feel more
like play or creativity. One is that blogging is a
(10:00):
creative outlets. So Sarah certainly was doing this for a
long time when she wasn't doing it professionally, just as
a way to have a creative side in addition to
her full time job in medicine. You can just start
whenever you want. I mean, nobody's going to be reading
your blog at the beginning, so you can do whatever.
And then you know, over time, as you leave comments
on other people's blogs, people will come check you out.
(10:21):
And we've certainly seen some people grow their blogs quite quickly.
I know that Sarah and I both read Elizabeth Frost's
blog Optimistic Musings, and she started about two years ago
two and a half years ago and now has a
audience where she regularly gets you know, thirty to forty
comments on a post, so that's really grown quite quickly.
Another thing you can do. I'm going to throw in
(10:43):
an idea of community chorus. Like a lot of people
are like, I can't sing. I don't think there are
very many people who absolutely can't sing. What it is
is most people haven't practice all that much or done
it all that much, so they're not confident with it.
But you can certainly become that. It's very fun to
sing in a group of people. I think it taps
into something like our caveman ancestors. We're probably sitting around
(11:05):
the fire passing information to each other by singing. So
a lot of people find it fun in that kind
of almost visceral sort of way. And a great many
communities have ensembles that are open to anyone, right, Like
you don't have to audition, you don't have to go
(11:25):
through you know, challenging music. It's going to be more
accessible to everyone. So I would recommend looking into that.
Love it.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
I also feel like, okay to mention the two trending
pieces of play right now are pickaball and game nights.
I feel like everywhere I turn people are doing those things,
so if either of those suits, your fancy could always
go that direction as well.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
One quick question before the ad break, this person writes
in have you ever considered the two of you authoring
a best of both world book together, best of both
worlds book together? Hmmm? I laughed.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
I was like, Laura, I didn't plant this, I prom
because we've kind of like like casually like mentioned it
in the abstract, but never really beyond that. Partly just
because like I haven't really had time to write any
part of a book, so it could happen. I wouldn't
like rule it out.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Yeah, never rule it out. It could happen. But one
of the reasons we actually started this podcast is it's
a way to share information and build community. That's not
the written word. I mean, both of us blog very regularly,
and I write other things as well, But it's like
that in the modern world, there are a lot of
times that people aren't sitting down to read, but they're
(12:36):
still looking for content, and a podcast cast fits that
very well.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
You can listen while you're in the car and listen
while you're working out, and so I think we've definitely
produced a lot of content that is more than the
equivalent of a book in terms of words we've put
out into the world at this point. But you know,
there might be a way to organize it too, so
we'll never say it ever.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
It'll be a transcript of every single episode that we've
just bound into a thirty volume set.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yesclop Britannica. It'll come to your house in like a truck.
I know. Well, I print up our scripts and it's
always like four thousand words for two episodes, like whoa, Okay,
well that's a lot. I guess we're doing that every
two thousand words a week. That'd be one hundred thousand
words a year. Wow, it's a lot book book every year.
So we have the six volume set already perfect. Right,
we're going to take a quick ad break and we'll
(13:24):
be back with more mail bag questions. Well, we are
back doing our first mail bag episode of the new year.
So Sarah, why don't you take this next question?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yes, okay, this person writes, I would like to ask
a question about morning routines and entertainment in particular, how
do you fit in nonfiction reading in the morning. I
feel that morning you should be my most productive time,
and I ought to get on with my as fast
as possible, or dedicate the time to some workout. However,
many people claim that carving out some time for reading
in the beginning of the day completely changes their mood
(14:08):
for the better.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Laura, what do you do? Yeah, I mean, I think
this is such a personality thing. I mean think people
who enjoy reading first thing really do enjoy it, and
that's something they want to make time for first thing.
But if you're going to feel rushed while you're doing
it and like, oh, I really need to get onto
the next thing, then maybe it's not the right thing
for you to be doing in the morning. I have
generally done my year long reading projects at some point
(14:33):
during the first thirty minutes of my work day. So
like in twenty twenty three, when I was reading all
the works of Jane Austen, I would read my five
to ten pages, usually around eight thirty in the morning,
so it's not the crack of dawn. I'd usually been
up for about two hours at that point, getting kids
out the door and things like that, but it was
early in the workday. And partly it's because I found
(14:55):
I couldn't truly concentrate on focused creative work anyway. Until
everyone was out of the house. But I didn't have
to be actively working on things like after our childcare
had started and you know, our nanny was getting people
out the door. I could be in my office working,
but this was something I could do knowing that stuff
was still going on in the house. I guess that's
what I'm saying. So reading fit that for me, and
(15:17):
that's why I used that time. And you know, I
find it was nice to know that i'd done my
reading in the morning because then, no matter what else
happens in the day, at least I've read my Jane
Austen or the year before or read my Shakespeare. So
I like it, but I don't think it's something you
have to do, and so if it doesn't appeal to you,
like let it go. Agree.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
I will note that it does appeal to me, and
I generally read nonfiction at around four forty five in
the morning because I go running after that and I
need time to like drink coffee usually I have some
carbs with it, and yeah, that's just kind of like
how I default start my day. Usually get in about
twenty minutes of reading. If I really like when I'm reading,
Sometimes a little bit more. I don't feel like it's
(15:59):
like some magical change. But I will say the fact
that I'm reading means I'm not checking email. I'm not
like I'm actually actively avoiding inputs at that time. I'm like,
I want to direct how I'm spending this early morning time.
I don't even want to know about like the podcast
emergency coming down the pike, and so reading is something
I can do that is really engaging but not reactive excellent.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
So do it if it appeals to you. If it doesn't,
let it go. All right, Sarah, you can read the
next one too.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Oh, here's a juicy one. I don't recall hearing from
either of you whether you ever wanted to be or
considered being a stay at home mom. The podcasts in
your books have helped so much, but I still have
a feeling in the back of my head, will I
regret not staying home while they were little?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
So I'm going to say that, no, I never wanted
to or considered being not sort of in the workforce,
I guess while the kids were little. But partly it's
because I really love what I do. I mean, the
way what I'm doing as I'm working is what a
lot of people sort of say they do, like if
(17:02):
they didn't have to work, they'd be writing or you
know whatever else. And so given that that's what I
always wanted to be, that's not something that I would
just choose not to do, right, Like, this is much
a part of my identity. Like even if I wasn't
getting paid for it, I'd be writing during the kids
nap times, I'd be writing after they went to bed
at night, like I'd be you know, trying to find
spots to do stuff. I'd probably be sitting there in
(17:24):
this day and age be figuring out can I do
a podcast in the little bits of time around their schedules.
So really, what it is is that I'm just have
a bit more space available to do those things because
you know, I've had help with the care of the
kids during the days. But with that, the way I
work is also so flexible that I don't think I've
had to trade off any part of family life that
(17:47):
I really wanted to do. Like if I want to
take a day off and take a kid somewhere, I
can right full stop. And so it's not like I
need to be a stay at home mom in order
for that to happen, Like it's a choice that I
could make, but on some days do and some days don't.
Write Or if I wanted to go volunteer in a class, again,
I can make that happen. You know, I work from home,
(18:10):
so I generally see my older kids when they get
off the bus. I know some people think that they
need to take a break from work because they'd like
to be available to tween and teen children, you know,
as they are home from school. And I'm like, well,
I can do that and work, so it's not that
harsh trade off that I think inspires people to think
they need to go one way or another. So I think,
(18:32):
just as a sort of out of the box idea,
if you're wondering about regret, I wonder if you could
do a way of trying it out for some slightly
longer period of time. I mean, I'm guessing you may
have taken a maternity leave, so maybe that's not really
something you haven't experienced, But with your kids being not
needy newborns and you recovering from childbirth, there might be
(18:52):
a slightly different experience of it. You know, some jobs
allow for an unpaid leave of absence for some amount
of time, which again, if you're thinking of being a
stay at home mom, you're'd be living on somebody else's
income or your savings or something anyway, so you might
want to see how that works and how that feels.
Or maybe if you were thinking of switching jobs, if
this is coming up because you're not happy with what
(19:15):
you're doing and thinking, well, maybe I should try staying
home for a while instead of immediately getting another job.
You don't have to immediately get another job. You could say, well,
I'm going to take six months to be more of
a full time parent. I guess how I would put that,
but I'm looking for something in six months, like that's
the start date when I will be targeting getting back
(19:36):
in again. If you have skills that are useful and
in demand, like, it's not going to be that hard
to find a job in six months. It's not like
you took years and years and years out and your
skills are rusty or anything like that. So you could
experiment with this and if you love it and think
it's awesome, then that's great. You know, we fully support
you in that, But you may discover that, yeah, you know,
I enjoy spending time with the kids, and I enjoy working,
(19:58):
and the upside of being a working parent is that
you get to do both.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
There you go, This is sort of a twofold question.
As you were speaking, I was listening and also rereading
it again because she's asking what do we think and
you gave your answer, and then also kind of what
should she do? So I'll answer the first one first.
It like, literally, it just never crossed my mind that
I wouldn't work, which is interesting because my mother herself
(20:23):
didn't work for a lot of my young childhood years.
But I mean I wanted to go to med school,
and then I went to med school, and like it
was hard and a lot of work.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I mean, that's a lot of training to then not
be using right. I mean, I know people do, but
I mean still it's a lot of training too. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
There was just never a moment where I was like, well,
my husband could be the bread winner. It's fine, Like
I'll just like hang out my stethoscope and be done.
I have a friend that did that at age forty two,
and she loves it, but it is not something I
ever seriously considered to the point where when she did it,
I was like, so, like my mom is so blown
by that concept. I personally don't think I would have
(21:03):
enjoyed like I didn't wish for, like being home with
my young kids. And I know, like that may sound bad,
but like the idea of being home with them all day,
day after day when they were little, like and maybe
not putting them in school because money would have been tighter,
that would have been not like my favorite period of life.
And I felt good about the experiences that they had
(21:25):
during that time, so I felt like we both won
by me going to work doing good things at work
and them having school and another caregiver, and then me
being there the rest of the time. I will say,
now that I have more flexibility, I really do like it.
So I mean, if I could have had what I
have now from day one, that would have been amazing.
But you know, sometimes you can't have everything immediately, so
(21:47):
I think things just worked out the way they had
to work out.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Now.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
With respect to you, I like Laura's experiment idea. I
also think it's totally fine to stay home if that's
what you want. I just want you to ask yourself,
like is it for you, and just to make sure
it's not because you're trying to protect your kids from
some kind of harm that may come to them in
childcare or out of shame or familial opinions. But if
it's truly what you want and not those other things,
(22:14):
and you feel like you'd be super sad to miss it,
and the family can handle it financially speaking, I mean
I fully support you in doing that. And sometimes I
think people who listen to this podcast might not think
that we would support that, but I mean, of course
we do. Women should do what they want to do,
and if that includes staying home if that's feasible, then like.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Great, yep, choose what you want absolutely and.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
I okay, I want to say one more thing, which
is that, Okay, when we started this podcast, there were
like nine million podcasts by stay at home moms talking
about stay at home mom life, and so that that
has not been our focus because we felt like we
needed to talk about the alternative. And so that's why
we're usually empowering women who choose to do both like
we have, and not because we think it's bad to
(22:57):
make the other choice.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Absolutely all right, So next question, what do you do
to rewrite your narrative in a positive way? This person
writes it's so easy for me to slip back into
the too much to do, never good enough feeling, because
that's the meta story all around us. She's tried daily
checkouts answering what did you accomplish today as one of
(23:18):
the questions. She knows others do affirmations. She apparently read
that cal Newport kept a note on his desk with
how many pages he had written that day. I wonder
if you know of any other rituals or routines or
habits or things like that.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
This is such an interesting question because I never thought
of my planner as a narrative writing tool, but I
do think that is in part what it serves for me.
Like I set up in the beginning of the day
the things I want to do and what the schedule
is going to look like, and I enjoy checking them
off throughout the day and looking like, look, I did that,
and I did that, and like, of course I don't
always do all of them, but even if I do
(23:54):
some of them, like I can feel good about it.
So I do think my planner kind of serves this
purpose for me, and I do record gratitude and I
just have to share. Like Cameron was like flipping through
my my planner and he was like, that's so cool
that you do gratitude. And I was like, that's so
cool that you think it's cool. Like I just thought
that was so sweet and nice.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Yeah. You know, one thing I do is I sometimes
print up nice emails that I've gotten from people, you know,
about something I have written or said that was maybe
meaningful to them. And if I'm having a rough day,
it helps to look back on somebody then saying that
whatever else I've done in the past has been helpful
to them. Right, That's a way to kind of get
out of the mindset of not doing enough. And you know,
(24:34):
think back like in your life, like look through your
old photos, look at all the cool things you've done
at various points in your life. That can kind of
get you out of the mindset of oh, nothing good
is happening. It's like, well, except look at all these
other things that are good that have happened in my life.
I think that can help with rewriting this story. And
again I'm going to put in a plug for time tracking.
I know I sound like a broken record with this,
(24:56):
but I find that many people who are quite hard
on the themselves actually have a revelatory experience with tracking
their time that they discover life isn't terrible right, like
that they are doing things like they may be sleeping
about enough amount that they should be sleeping, Like they
may be exercising four times a week like wooh winning.
Like you may be working long hours, but you're probably
(25:18):
also spending a lot of time with your family. And
so a time log helps you see that whatever narrative
you are telling yourself, maybe it's true, but maybe it's not,
or maybe it's not the whole truth. I mean, you
can say like, well, I have no free time whatsoever,
and what you really mean is I don't have as
much time as I want. Or you know, you might
think like I never read. Well you look at your
time log and you read like four hours this week. Well,
(25:39):
maybe you want to read more, but four hours is
a lot. So this is more of the question of like, well,
I'm reading thirty minutes a day and I'd like to
read an hour. How can I go from thirty minutes
to an hour? And it switches from this existential angst
to something that is an actual practical matter. So just
throwing that out there as an idea, just as a
way to rewrite our stories in general. I like it
(26:01):
all right.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
The next question is a little challenging, would you like
to read it? Well?
Speaker 1 (26:05):
I don't think it's so much challenging to I mean,
sometimes I think people pose this to us thinking that
it's like a gotcha kind of question or a stumping question.
But she says, how do you have the best of
both worlds on a low income budget? This person doesn't
really really have. She says, family close or you know,
her friends are overwhelmed with their own families. And so,
(26:25):
you know, what I read into this is someone is
just feeling really challenged in life right now that maybe
work is really hard, maybe the kids are going through
some difficult issues, resources are tight, and obviously, yes, that's
going to be a tough time and a tough situation,
and so we really sympathize with that and wouldn't be
cavalier about it at all. But there probably are still
(26:47):
ways to improve life and how you feel about it,
no matter where you are starting from. So, Sarah, you
had some questions that people could ask themselves in these situations.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Yeah, I mean, first of all, what best of both
worlds mean to you? I mean, We're not suggesting best
of both worlds as a certain type of dwelling or
car or things like that. Best of both worlds for
one person might be different than for another person. So
I do think that like reflecting on what you even
mean by this question and what you think that concept
would mean for you in your circumstances might be useful.
(27:21):
I will say connection and family is a big part
of what I see making people happy in general, providing support,
building community. I mean, I think about people I work
with potentially that might have lower incomes, but a lot
of times I will say it is like family support
that makes them more able to move through life in
(27:44):
a less harried manner because they kind of have backup.
And that's really really hard because you mentioned that you
didn't specifically have that. But maybe this is about perhaps
like building community with others even if everybody's overwhelmed, I mean,
maybe even if especially if they're overwhelmed, then building that
network might be even more important because like you can
(28:04):
have each other's backs essentially. I also feel like you
mentioned low income, and of course there may be like
factors that I don't know, like an illness or you know,
some specific you're caring for a child, like there's no
way you can do anything else. I don't know your specifics,
but sometimes that is a changeable variable. And we don't
always like to talk about money, women especially, but sometimes
(28:28):
there are things you can do to change your earning potential.
They may take a lot of time, they may take
a lot of work. But one of the medical assistants
that I work with, who I love, who moved over
from another country probably a decade ago. You know, she's
been working as a medical assistant, which is not a
high incomposition. She's been amazing and over the course of
(28:50):
that time, she has a child. By the way, she
went to night school and now she got accepted to
med school and she's starting and so she's going to
be on a path to not being in the low
income category. And I'm not in any way saying like
everyone could do that or this is easy, but you know,
it doesn't mean that just if you're in one place
financially that you're locked into that forever. So if that
(29:12):
you feel like is making things tough, and it does
make things tough. I mean we know that, like below
a certain level of financial security, life is really hard
and stressful. But and I'm not saying you wouldn't have
thought of this already, but just like think outside the box,
maybe a little bit about whether changing paths could be
a possible longer term option. It's not something that's going
to get fixed overnight, but over the course of a
(29:33):
decade a lot can happen.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
I think for many people building the best of both
worlds where they feel like they can do their best
job at work and have a happy home, life does
involve support in some form or another, and the question
is how you create that community of support around you.
Some people have it by virtue of having a close knit, helpful,
nearby family that is you. You should celebrate that fact.
(29:58):
I know a number of our listeners have actually moved
moved closer to family members. If they have the sort
of job that can be done in different places or
skills that are transferable to different employers. You know, they
look for an employer that is near extended family precisely
for the reason that maybe they can't afford elaborate aftercare arrangements.
(30:18):
But the kids can always go home and go to
your sister's house after school, or Grandma can pick the
kids up from an activity. If you are still at
work or various things like that, So that makes it
you know, it's very hard to get that level of support,
even with a lot of money. You know, I think
Sarah and I have talked about this a lot, that
creating that level of support is very expensive. Now, obviously
(30:42):
some people do pay for it. So if you don't
have lots of family members close by who are able
and willing to help out, then yeah, one option is
paying to create that support around you, whether through other caregivers,
through help with your house, or various other things. And
then finally, people can create support through close friend relationships.
(31:03):
So I know we've talked to people like who are
single parents who band together with another set of two
or three single parents who all try to trade off
some level of support for each other. So you know,
your friend will take your kids on Saturday so you
can do some of the things that you didn't get
to during the week, and then you host the play
date on Sunday so they can get to those things
(31:25):
during the week. Or maybe your friend works early hours,
so her kid comes over to your house in the
early mornings that you get them to school, but you
work after five o'clock and so the kids go to
her house after school, And there's just ways you can
create some of that same support with a network of
close friends that might be worth looking into, because if
you don't have the family who can do that, the
(31:47):
family comes to you sort of more automatically. And if
you don't have the income to buy that level of support,
then maybe you can create it over time by investing
in close community relationships with other people who need support
as well. So that's just a way to think about
what might be available to you.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Awesome, all right, Next question, how do you make decisions
about schools, camps and activities for young kids? What factors
play into your decision making and how would it be
different if you didn't have to think about sibling schedules.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
I think the first thing to recognize on things like
camps and activities is that this is a pretty low
stakes question. I mean, so you don't necessarily have to
have an elaborate rubric of what you are looking for
in a three year old's activity.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
It could just be our neighbor is doing this and
they like it, let's try it out, right, Or this
other family at preschool is singing the praises of this
gymnastics center. So there's a class at a time that
works for us, we'll go with it. Or they also
liked this camp, why not try it out for a
(32:55):
week or two something like that. You know, you can
also just observe your kids. It's like a child who's
constantly putting on shows for you just might be interested
in theater or singing or dance. Someone who is climbing
all over the place might be into ninja classes, gymnastics classes.
And then just sort of having a supportive mindset as
(33:17):
the kids get older, if they mention something that they
would like to try, letting them try it out, whether
for a week as a summer camp or maybe as
a semester long activity, or just a short stint of
something that they might you know, three saturdays in a row,
you could do X, Y or Z. But just allowing
children to experiment and figure out what they like means that,
(33:38):
you know, you'll eventually get to a place where the
kids are doing things they more or less enjoy. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
I feel like I have similar I just talk to
neighbors and friends. If I hear about someone raving about
how great some program is, I'm like, give me all
the details. Because then I can see if one of
my kids is interested trial and error, just let them
try whatever and see what sticks. I do value logistics
a lot, like if I can at two kids in
a class at the same time, like I'm here for that,
that's so so so nice, And I will say I
(34:07):
don't feel like I do other than what I just said,
if it does work out. I don't really limit that
much based on sibling schedules because I do have another
driver available, although that can still not be enough driver
sometimes with three kids.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
But for the most part.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
I actually don't have to worry too too much about that.
I do love having everybody on the same school calendar.
That's like a big priority to me.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
So yeah, the schooling decision is a little bit bigger.
I mean, I guess for us, the default has always
been our local public school. But of course, you know,
we bought in the district we did because it was
known for having good local public schools and so that
might be worth doing a little bit more research into.
But even preschool. I mean, we chose our preschool because
(34:53):
it was very close to our house, and some friends
were sending their kids there and were happy with it,
and so my husband went in visited and thought it
looked fine, and now we've sent five children there. Because
once you find something you like, you may as well
stick with it. So shout out for the preschool around
the corner that has wound up being a part of
our lives for boy twelve years plus. Now time really
(35:14):
does add up, all right. So this next question, the
person writes you mentioned outsourcing housework and cleaning in favor
of paid work. So this person says, I feel like
it diminishes the work involved in caring for your home
and those who find it fulfilling. So is there at
least one task you each continue to do, not because
(35:36):
you can't afford to outsource it, but because you find
it rewarding. So, Sarah, what was your takeaway from this question?
Speaker 2 (35:45):
My first takeaway is really just about who this question
is for. And I know our podcast is focused on
women who are choosing to work and maybe therefore having
less time for this stuff, so we talk about outsourcing.
But at the same time, I feel like men have
traditionally outsourced this work to their female partners for a
(36:06):
long long time, and they don't get asked about whether
it devalues that work or there's like a little bit
of a shaming that I'm reading into in this question,
like God, like you're you're not doing this work, and
I don't know, Like.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Yeah, I don't think any law partner you'd be like, okay,
male law partner, you are outsourcing all the cooking and
cleaning to your wife. Don't you feel that devalues it
by the fact that you're not doing it. Shouldn't you
be holding on to some of it as a way
to show that it's valuable. I don't know. I guess
that's how one might read that question. So there's a
(36:43):
little bit of an edge to it, right, Yes.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
And then in terms of my actual answer, I mean
many things I do because you can't and should not
outsource everything I like. In terms of actual tasks I like.
I like cooking on Sundays, I like emptying the dish.
I like driving my kids around. I just can't drive
them in two directions at the same time, so I
need to get some help with that. I feel like
(37:08):
a lot of times I will outsource on more physical
tasks to make time for the human centered task. Again,
not because it means the physical tasks are not important,
but because I can't do both that. If I have
to choose, I'd rather do the ones that directly impact people,
whether that's at work or at home. And so I
guess i'd say, I think it's totally valuable and great
to do that stuff, but that has been the default
(37:30):
path for women for many years, and we're trying on
this podcast to like offer that other options. So I
guess that's why we talk about it in this way
pretty frequently.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Yeah, I mean, and I would say that there's something
kind of missed in the framing of this question because
the nature of having a household of seven people is
that there is always work to be done. So even
if you are outsourcing a lot, you still wind up
doing some of it. You know, In one of the
phrases I use sometimes is that when you outsource, you're
(38:02):
still a resource. You can often get things down to
maybe five to ten percent of what you would have
been doing, but you can't necessarily get rid of it entirely,
and so you know, you're better off making your peace
with that situation. And so this framing of you know,
holding on to a task because you enjoy it, well,
you can enjoy it but still not want to do
it all the time, seven days a week for seven people.
(38:24):
So for instance, I do empty the dishwasher on some days,
even though I don't enjoy it, because I'm the one
who's there to do it. Other days somebody else does it,
but some days I do it because it's getting done
seven times a week. I don't do all the laundry,
but I wind up doing a load or two a week,
so it's not like I'm missing out on the laundry experience.
I'm still getting some of it. I'm just not getting
(38:46):
all of it. I probably cook at least twice a week.
I'm not cooking seven days a week because somebody else
might be on other nights, but I'm doing it some
The cleaners come once a week, but if there's a
mess in the kitchen at some of the other point,
you know, I'm not missing out on the experience of
cleaning the kitchen just because I've hired someone to clean
my kitchen once a week. So I guess the point
(39:06):
here being like, you can find something rewarding, or you
can even find it not rewarding, but there's a lot
of work to be done. So even if you're outsourcing,
you're still doing some of it. It's just that then
you're not doing it for seven people, seven days a week,
and that can be a real relief if you are
trying to do anything else in your life, whether that
is paid work or even you know, spending more time
(39:29):
with your kids. Like there's something to be said for
that as well, because often housework and time with kids
can be at odds, right that if you are busy
cleaning your kitchen every single day, maybe that's time that
a kid would have wanted to go play in the
playroom with you. And if you can not clean the kitchen,
that's time that has opened up. So we usually end
(39:50):
our episodes with a question, but since this has been
an all mailbag episode, we obviously don't need to do
a second question segment of our show. Here, I will
go straight to the love of the week, and for
any new listeners, this is a segment we do every
week and we do with our guests as well, where
we share something that is positive that we are enjoying
that we're into right now. So, Sarah, what do you
(40:13):
have for us this week?
Speaker 2 (40:15):
So? I got some new wide leg jeans which I
am super excited about. I felt like I needed an
update I've been wearing the made Well Perfect vintage jeans
for a long time, and they're not skinny jeans, but
they're like skinny adjacent. And I just was like interested
to experiment with some other silhouettes to kind of get
an updated casual look, and so I got these from
(40:35):
air Ayr. They're the secret Sauce jeans. My stylist friend
and prior guest on this podcast, Lani and Lander, recommended them,
so she was right. They're awesome.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
I feel so cool in them.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Welcome twenty twenty four new genes.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Yay. You know I never got into skinny jeans. I
wore boot cuts in the nineties and then kept wearing
them even when you couldn't find them in stores. I'd
be ordering them somewhere and then now they're back in
which is because then I can buy them in stores again,
So yay for that. But my love of the week
is my new Eddie Bauer winter jacket. So I bought
one about six years ago. That's long, so it's nice
(41:13):
and warm, and it was great, but I bought it
on clearance. The size they had was extra small, and
I'm not necessarily an extra small person, and particularly in winter,
if you're wearing like a bulky sweater under your bulky coat.
It was just feeling a little tight. So I decided
it was time, after about six years, after a fifth child,
(41:35):
I could get a bigger coat that I could actually
button all the way. And so I bought one in
a larger size in white, and I really like it.
It's also long, it has this nice fake fur hood thing,
and so I feel very cozy, and I like that
it's a little bit brighter. I mean, maybe I'm gonna
spill Strawbuk strawberry a sie lemonade on it at some
(41:55):
point and then it won't be white anymore, and I
will regret my choice. But for now, while it is
still gold white, I am feeling happy about it.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Love It sounds super cute.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
I can't wait to see it. It does sound cute.
I'm able to send a picture or you'll see it
next time you come visit me in the winter. Well
this has been best of both worlds. We've been doing
an all mailbag episode. Feel free to send us questions me.
I'm Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. You can also
write Sarah dot heart dot Unger at gmail dot com.
(42:26):
We welcome questions. We do one every week and do
mailbag episodes every couple of weeks. We will be back
next week with more on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
And you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
This has been the best of both worlds podcast. Please
join us next time for more on making work and
life work together. Lit
Hi. This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five,
an author, journalist, and speaker.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
And this is Sarah Hartunger. I'm a mother of three,
a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are
two working parents who love our careers and our families.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
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 term career goals.
We want you to get the most out of life.
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This
episode is first airing and early to mid January of
(00:38):
twenty twenty four. We welcome any new listeners who are
joining us, who've just found us. Maybe you're looking for
new content in the new year, looking for ways to
combine work in life and generally enjoy life as you
are doing it, so welcome. We run mailbag episodes from
time to time, and you can reach us in a
bunch of different ways. You can always email me. My
(01:01):
email address is Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. You
can post a comment on my blog, which is Laura
vandercam dot com. There's also a contact form on my
website and you fill that out. I promise that actually
does come to my inbox and I look at it
as long as you're not sending me links for ads
to some ridiculous thing. I do in fact read all
(01:22):
of those. So that is an easy way to reach me.
And we can use questions in future mail bags and Sarah,
people can reach out to you as well.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Of course, you can always find my near daily writing
at the shoebox dot com t e s hu box
dot com and you can leave a question there in
the comments. You can email me. It's just my name,
Sarah dot heart dot unger at gmail dot com. You
can even text me, but I never have that number handy,
so you can look at any best laid planned show
(01:51):
notes for that number and you can text me anytime.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
So lots of ways to reach us. Let us know
your questions anything related to careers, family, organization, health, life,
you know whatever. We cover all sorts of topics, so
we are looking forward to hearing from you. So we
will go ahead and dive right into this mail bag,
which we got a lot of questions, so thank you.
(02:14):
So the first one, Sarah, let's tackle this. This person writes,
my family is busy. M not the rest of us.
I guess no, we're all busy, but this person starts
with that. So anyway, they're doing a lot of different things.
This person works full time, is starting graduate school. Her
husband also has a busy full time job, is also
in graduate school, so a lot of things going on.
(02:35):
They have a six year old and an eight year
old who each have activities. She writes, Simplification systems and
generally making things easier is a big twenty twenty four
focus in order to get it all done without unnecessary stress.
So what are some of the ways that you all
have simplified, streamlined, or done things differently to get through
(02:56):
especially busy seasons of life, Or if there's anything we've
tried and that hasn't worked, you'd like to hear that too.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, So I think you're at a perfect time with
your kids ages six and eight to have them really
kind of do some more of their own stuff, because
I often find it's right at that age that you
were used to kind of like doing everything like carefully
setting up their breakfast or something like that, you know,
putting away every article of clothing. But six and eight
(03:25):
year olds can do a lot, so that might actually
be part of what could perhaps streamline things. You would
have to accept less perfectionistic standards if you're going to
be having your kids help out. But on the flip side,
you're teaching them responsibility and life skills, so that's always good.
I would say, even though you're very, very busy and
(03:46):
you have full time careers, there's still usually some vacation
time or paid leave time to use. So I would
be super super strategic about even using that in microdoses
to give yourself a break every once in a while,
because I find that if I have something on the calendar,
even if it's just half a day of paid leave
where I'm like, I'm not doing anything, just makes me
feel better about the times when I am just kind
(04:08):
of leading a really full life with one thing after another.
So I do highly recommend trying that. And then finally,
it might be good to just take an inventory of
all the things that you are busy with and see
if there's anything that's just like not necessary anymore, either
if you've aged out of it or you feel like,
you know what, I've been doing that because everyone else
does it, but like, do I need to do it,
And I tried to think about like an example for me,
(04:30):
and a lot of people in my neighborhood will do
like cute seasonal decor for different holidays, and I'm like, Nope,
never not happening. So like I could do that and
it would be another thing on my to do list,
but I've just decided there's only so many things we
can do, and I'm gonna do something else instead.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yeah, absolutely, anytime someone is in a particular or busy season.
I actually do recommend time tracking, just because it's helpful
to see exactly how much time the big chunks of
your life that you are devoting to these big projects
are truly taking, because it can feel like, well, everything's
taking all my time. And certainly a full time job,
(05:09):
raising a family, going to graduate school, all of those
are things that people might be spending the majority of
their time doing. Those things might be someone's complete focus,
and here you are taking on all three simultaneously, but
they all take some chunk of hours out of your
one hundred and sixty eight hours in a week, and
it might be helpful to see what sort of hours
you are devoting to each of them, and where there
(05:31):
is time that you can devote to other things. So
really map it in, see what an ideal week would
look like. After you timetrack, say well, what would I
like the schedule of classes and homework to look like,
combined with the full time job obligations I have, combined
with what I need to do with my kids and
what I want to do with my kids. Sort of
(05:52):
get an idea of what a good template would look.
It won't always work for you to have weeks like that,
but at least it gives you an idea of what
you are in for which you can then build some
downtime into as well. I find that people who are
incredibly busy often benefit from having some sort of sabbath,
and not necessarily in a religious sense, but that there
(06:14):
is one day when you don't do those things right.
So you're like, I'm going to work like crazy six
days a week, but one day a week I'm not.
Or maybe it's not even a full day, it's just
that Wednesday night after work going to do nothing right.
That's the night that we don't do any of those things.
And then the other night everything can be busy, we
can have other obligations, but that's one time off, and
I find that can be helpful to establish a little
(06:34):
bit of a rhythm that you are not always having
to do something. So you might think about that purposeful
recovery time. Purposeful recovery time exactly question two, Sarah, This
person writes, how do you find time for creativity and
play in your life? And what do you do? This
person recently read The Gifts of Imperfection and which advocates
(06:57):
having time for play and things like that, and realize
that this person has little of any of this. She
works a corporate job with lots of email and spreadsheets.
She says she's not particularly artistic or team sporty, so
she's looking for outside the box ideas to add to
her life. She plays the pianos, sometimes occasionally goes to
a yoga or fitness class, but that doesn't necessarily feel
(07:18):
like creativity or play to her. So, Sarah, what fits
those buckets in your life? Yeah? My buckets.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I mean when I think about what my fun hobbies are,
they are running and they are reading. And I guess
I'll push back on the idea that like your piano
and fitness classes wouldn't necessarily fill this need. Although I
guess if personally it doesn't feel that fulfilling, maybe you
want to figure out how you can maybe adjust those
hobbies and still enjoy them, but find ways to do them,
(07:46):
maybe just a.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Little more creatively.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
So for example, you wouldn't think running is like all
that creative, but I mean there's following a training plan,
reading about training plans, talking to other people about running,
looking at gear, having a running group with friends to
talk about, be hosting a gathering, looking at races, trying
to be creative about like what would be a fun
race to go to, or like destinations. So I mean, yes,
I'm not like sitting there like making an artwork, but
(08:10):
I still feel playful with how I approach that, and
I also don't take it so seriously, like to make
it to the point where it would like become a
job or something a chore or something like that. And
then same with reading. I mean, I enjoy books. I
have fun looking at people's TVR lists and making mine
and doing book club and talking about books and sending
text to friends about books. And you know those are
(08:31):
not again like super highbrow like artistic or I don't know,
like people might not initially call those creative, but I
feel like there's enough there and they definitely feel like
play to me and that I enjoy them.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
So I guess I.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Would dive deeper into the things you're already doing and
see if you can find some aspects that might make
them feel more playful or fulfilling to you.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, I'm wondering if those are things that she feels
like she needs to work to get better at and
follow like a schedule to get better and so those
are going into the realm of things that are purposefully productive,
And there's nothing wrong with that, and we enjoy all
sorts of activities in that regard. But sometimes you want
something in life that you were doing truly just for fun.
So I wonder if you could do something that would
(09:13):
not fit into that realm of feeling like you are
doing it to get better at it or whatever. I mean,
maybe it's a sort of fitness class that you know
you're going to be terrible at at the beginning, or whatever,
I don't know, aerial class or something like that. Or
with piano, maybe it's that you're going to play something,
not working to get better at it, but just site
reading random jazz standards or holiday carols or top forty
(09:37):
hits that have been transposed for piano, But just something
fun like that that you're not thinking like, oh, I'm
going to get better at this and perform it. You're
just doing it because it's a way to relieve stress.
That might help with that mindset. I'm going to throw
out two other ideas of things kind of anyone or
pretty much almost anyone can do that might feel more
like play or creativity. One is that blogging is a
(10:00):
creative outlets. So Sarah certainly was doing this for a
long time when she wasn't doing it professionally, just as
a way to have a creative side in addition to
her full time job in medicine. You can just start
whenever you want. I mean, nobody's going to be reading
your blog at the beginning, so you can do whatever.
And then you know, over time, as you leave comments
on other people's blogs, people will come check you out.
(10:21):
And we've certainly seen some people grow their blogs quite quickly.
I know that Sarah and I both read Elizabeth Frost's
blog Optimistic Musings, and she started about two years ago
two and a half years ago and now has a
audience where she regularly gets you know, thirty to forty
comments on a post, so that's really grown quite quickly.
Another thing you can do. I'm going to throw in
(10:43):
an idea of community chorus. Like a lot of people
are like, I can't sing. I don't think there are
very many people who absolutely can't sing. What it is
is most people haven't practice all that much or done
it all that much, so they're not confident with it.
But you can certainly become that. It's very fun to
sing in a group of people. I think it taps
into something like our caveman ancestors. We're probably sitting around
(11:05):
the fire passing information to each other by singing. So
a lot of people find it fun in that kind
of almost visceral sort of way. And a great many
communities have ensembles that are open to anyone, right, Like
you don't have to audition, you don't have to go
(11:25):
through you know, challenging music. It's going to be more
accessible to everyone. So I would recommend looking into that.
Love it.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
I also feel like, okay to mention the two trending
pieces of play right now are pickaball and game nights.
I feel like everywhere I turn people are doing those things,
so if either of those suits, your fancy could always
go that direction as well.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
One quick question before the ad break, this person writes
in have you ever considered the two of you authoring
a best of both world book together, best of both
worlds book together? Hmmm? I laughed.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
I was like, Laura, I didn't plant this, I prom
because we've kind of like like casually like mentioned it
in the abstract, but never really beyond that. Partly just
because like I haven't really had time to write any
part of a book, so it could happen. I wouldn't
like rule it out.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Yeah, never rule it out. It could happen. But one
of the reasons we actually started this podcast is it's
a way to share information and build community. That's not
the written word. I mean, both of us blog very regularly,
and I write other things as well, But it's like
that in the modern world, there are a lot of
times that people aren't sitting down to read, but they're
(12:36):
still looking for content, and a podcast cast fits that
very well.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
You can listen while you're in the car and listen
while you're working out, and so I think we've definitely
produced a lot of content that is more than the
equivalent of a book in terms of words we've put
out into the world at this point. But you know,
there might be a way to organize it too, so
we'll never say it ever.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
It'll be a transcript of every single episode that we've
just bound into a thirty volume set.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yesclop Britannica. It'll come to your house in like a truck.
I know. Well, I print up our scripts and it's
always like four thousand words for two episodes, like whoa, Okay,
well that's a lot. I guess we're doing that every
two thousand words a week. That'd be one hundred thousand
words a year. Wow, it's a lot book book every year.
So we have the six volume set already perfect. Right,
we're going to take a quick ad break and we'll
(13:24):
be back with more mail bag questions. Well, we are
back doing our first mail bag episode of the new year.
So Sarah, why don't you take this next question?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yes, okay, this person writes, I would like to ask
a question about morning routines and entertainment in particular, how
do you fit in nonfiction reading in the morning. I
feel that morning you should be my most productive time,
and I ought to get on with my as fast
as possible, or dedicate the time to some workout. However,
many people claim that carving out some time for reading
in the beginning of the day completely changes their mood
(14:08):
for the better.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Laura, what do you do? Yeah, I mean, I think
this is such a personality thing. I mean think people
who enjoy reading first thing really do enjoy it, and
that's something they want to make time for first thing.
But if you're going to feel rushed while you're doing
it and like, oh, I really need to get onto
the next thing, then maybe it's not the right thing
for you to be doing in the morning. I have
generally done my year long reading projects at some point
(14:33):
during the first thirty minutes of my work day. So
like in twenty twenty three, when I was reading all
the works of Jane Austen, I would read my five
to ten pages, usually around eight thirty in the morning,
so it's not the crack of dawn. I'd usually been
up for about two hours at that point, getting kids
out the door and things like that, but it was
early in the workday. And partly it's because I found
(14:55):
I couldn't truly concentrate on focused creative work anyway. Until
everyone was out of the house. But I didn't have
to be actively working on things like after our childcare
had started and you know, our nanny was getting people
out the door. I could be in my office working,
but this was something I could do knowing that stuff
was still going on in the house. I guess that's
what I'm saying. So reading fit that for me, and
(15:17):
that's why I used that time. And you know, I
find it was nice to know that i'd done my
reading in the morning because then, no matter what else
happens in the day, at least I've read my Jane
Austen or the year before or read my Shakespeare. So
I like it, but I don't think it's something you
have to do, and so if it doesn't appeal to you,
like let it go. Agree.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
I will note that it does appeal to me, and
I generally read nonfiction at around four forty five in
the morning because I go running after that and I
need time to like drink coffee usually I have some
carbs with it, and yeah, that's just kind of like
how I default start my day. Usually get in about
twenty minutes of reading. If I really like when I'm reading,
Sometimes a little bit more. I don't feel like it's
(15:59):
like some magical change. But I will say the fact
that I'm reading means I'm not checking email. I'm not
like I'm actually actively avoiding inputs at that time. I'm like,
I want to direct how I'm spending this early morning time.
I don't even want to know about like the podcast
emergency coming down the pike, and so reading is something
I can do that is really engaging but not reactive excellent.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
So do it if it appeals to you. If it doesn't,
let it go. All right, Sarah, you can read the
next one too.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Oh, here's a juicy one. I don't recall hearing from
either of you whether you ever wanted to be or
considered being a stay at home mom. The podcasts in
your books have helped so much, but I still have
a feeling in the back of my head, will I
regret not staying home while they were little?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
So I'm going to say that, no, I never wanted
to or considered being not sort of in the workforce,
I guess while the kids were little. But partly it's
because I really love what I do. I mean, the
way what I'm doing as I'm working is what a
lot of people sort of say they do, like if
(17:02):
they didn't have to work, they'd be writing or you
know whatever else. And so given that that's what I
always wanted to be, that's not something that I would
just choose not to do, right, Like, this is much
a part of my identity. Like even if I wasn't
getting paid for it, I'd be writing during the kids
nap times, I'd be writing after they went to bed
at night, like I'd be you know, trying to find
spots to do stuff. I'd probably be sitting there in
(17:24):
this day and age be figuring out can I do
a podcast in the little bits of time around their schedules.
So really, what it is is that I'm just have
a bit more space available to do those things because
you know, I've had help with the care of the
kids during the days. But with that, the way I
work is also so flexible that I don't think I've
had to trade off any part of family life that
(17:47):
I really wanted to do. Like if I want to
take a day off and take a kid somewhere, I
can right full stop. And so it's not like I
need to be a stay at home mom in order
for that to happen, Like it's a choice that I
could make, but on some days do and some days don't.
Write Or if I wanted to go volunteer in a class, again,
I can make that happen. You know, I work from home,
(18:10):
so I generally see my older kids when they get
off the bus. I know some people think that they
need to take a break from work because they'd like
to be available to tween and teen children, you know,
as they are home from school. And I'm like, well,
I can do that and work, so it's not that
harsh trade off that I think inspires people to think
they need to go one way or another. So I think,
(18:32):
just as a sort of out of the box idea,
if you're wondering about regret, I wonder if you could
do a way of trying it out for some slightly
longer period of time. I mean, I'm guessing you may
have taken a maternity leave, so maybe that's not really
something you haven't experienced, But with your kids being not
needy newborns and you recovering from childbirth, there might be
(18:52):
a slightly different experience of it. You know, some jobs
allow for an unpaid leave of absence for some amount
of time, which again, if you're thinking of being a
stay at home mom, you're'd be living on somebody else's
income or your savings or something anyway, so you might
want to see how that works and how that feels.
Or maybe if you were thinking of switching jobs, if
this is coming up because you're not happy with what
(19:15):
you're doing and thinking, well, maybe I should try staying
home for a while instead of immediately getting another job.
You don't have to immediately get another job. You could say, well,
I'm going to take six months to be more of
a full time parent. I guess how I would put that,
but I'm looking for something in six months, like that's
the start date when I will be targeting getting back
(19:36):
in again. If you have skills that are useful and
in demand, like, it's not going to be that hard
to find a job in six months. It's not like
you took years and years and years out and your
skills are rusty or anything like that. So you could
experiment with this and if you love it and think
it's awesome, then that's great. You know, we fully support
you in that, But you may discover that, yeah, you know,
I enjoy spending time with the kids, and I enjoy working,
(19:58):
and the upside of being a working parent is that
you get to do both.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
There you go, This is sort of a twofold question.
As you were speaking, I was listening and also rereading
it again because she's asking what do we think and
you gave your answer, and then also kind of what
should she do? So I'll answer the first one first.
It like, literally, it just never crossed my mind that
I wouldn't work, which is interesting because my mother herself
(20:23):
didn't work for a lot of my young childhood years.
But I mean I wanted to go to med school,
and then I went to med school, and like it
was hard and a lot of work.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I mean, that's a lot of training to then not
be using right. I mean, I know people do, but
I mean still it's a lot of training too. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
There was just never a moment where I was like, well,
my husband could be the bread winner. It's fine, Like
I'll just like hang out my stethoscope and be done.
I have a friend that did that at age forty two,
and she loves it, but it is not something I
ever seriously considered to the point where when she did it,
I was like, so, like my mom is so blown
by that concept. I personally don't think I would have
(21:03):
enjoyed like I didn't wish for, like being home with
my young kids. And I know, like that may sound bad,
but like the idea of being home with them all day,
day after day when they were little, like and maybe
not putting them in school because money would have been tighter,
that would have been not like my favorite period of life.
And I felt good about the experiences that they had
(21:25):
during that time, so I felt like we both won
by me going to work doing good things at work
and them having school and another caregiver, and then me
being there the rest of the time. I will say,
now that I have more flexibility, I really do like it.
So I mean, if I could have had what I
have now from day one, that would have been amazing.
But you know, sometimes you can't have everything immediately, so
(21:47):
I think things just worked out the way they had
to work out.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Now.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
With respect to you, I like Laura's experiment idea. I
also think it's totally fine to stay home if that's
what you want. I just want you to ask yourself,
like is it for you, and just to make sure
it's not because you're trying to protect your kids from
some kind of harm that may come to them in
childcare or out of shame or familial opinions. But if
it's truly what you want and not those other things,
(22:14):
and you feel like you'd be super sad to miss it,
and the family can handle it financially speaking, I mean
I fully support you in doing that. And sometimes I
think people who listen to this podcast might not think
that we would support that, but I mean, of course
we do. Women should do what they want to do,
and if that includes staying home if that's feasible, then like.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Great, yep, choose what you want absolutely and.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
I okay, I want to say one more thing, which
is that, Okay, when we started this podcast, there were
like nine million podcasts by stay at home moms talking
about stay at home mom life, and so that that
has not been our focus because we felt like we
needed to talk about the alternative. And so that's why
we're usually empowering women who choose to do both like
we have, and not because we think it's bad to
(22:57):
make the other choice.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Absolutely all right, So next question, what do you do
to rewrite your narrative in a positive way? This person
writes it's so easy for me to slip back into
the too much to do, never good enough feeling, because
that's the meta story all around us. She's tried daily
checkouts answering what did you accomplish today as one of
(23:18):
the questions. She knows others do affirmations. She apparently read
that cal Newport kept a note on his desk with
how many pages he had written that day. I wonder
if you know of any other rituals or routines or
habits or things like that.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
This is such an interesting question because I never thought
of my planner as a narrative writing tool, but I
do think that is in part what it serves for me.
Like I set up in the beginning of the day
the things I want to do and what the schedule
is going to look like, and I enjoy checking them
off throughout the day and looking like, look, I did that,
and I did that, and like, of course I don't
always do all of them, but even if I do
(23:54):
some of them, like I can feel good about it.
So I do think my planner kind of serves this
purpose for me, and I do record gratitude and I
just have to share. Like Cameron was like flipping through
my my planner and he was like, that's so cool
that you do gratitude. And I was like, that's so
cool that you think it's cool. Like I just thought
that was so sweet and nice.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Yeah. You know, one thing I do is I sometimes
print up nice emails that I've gotten from people, you know,
about something I have written or said that was maybe
meaningful to them. And if I'm having a rough day,
it helps to look back on somebody then saying that
whatever else I've done in the past has been helpful
to them. Right, That's a way to kind of get
out of the mindset of not doing enough. And you know,
(24:34):
think back like in your life, like look through your
old photos, look at all the cool things you've done
at various points in your life. That can kind of
get you out of the mindset of oh, nothing good
is happening. It's like, well, except look at all these
other things that are good that have happened in my life.
I think that can help with rewriting this story. And
again I'm going to put in a plug for time tracking.
I know I sound like a broken record with this,
(24:56):
but I find that many people who are quite hard
on the themselves actually have a revelatory experience with tracking
their time that they discover life isn't terrible right, like
that they are doing things like they may be sleeping
about enough amount that they should be sleeping, Like they
may be exercising four times a week like wooh winning.
Like you may be working long hours, but you're probably
(25:18):
also spending a lot of time with your family. And
so a time log helps you see that whatever narrative
you are telling yourself, maybe it's true, but maybe it's not,
or maybe it's not the whole truth. I mean, you
can say like, well, I have no free time whatsoever,
and what you really mean is I don't have as
much time as I want. Or you know, you might
think like I never read. Well you look at your
time log and you read like four hours this week. Well,
(25:39):
maybe you want to read more, but four hours is
a lot. So this is more of the question of like, well,
I'm reading thirty minutes a day and I'd like to
read an hour. How can I go from thirty minutes
to an hour? And it switches from this existential angst
to something that is an actual practical matter. So just
throwing that out there as an idea, just as a
way to rewrite our stories in general. I like it
(26:01):
all right.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
The next question is a little challenging, would you like
to read it? Well?
Speaker 1 (26:05):
I don't think it's so much challenging to I mean,
sometimes I think people pose this to us thinking that
it's like a gotcha kind of question or a stumping question.
But she says, how do you have the best of
both worlds on a low income budget? This person doesn't
really really have. She says, family close or you know,
her friends are overwhelmed with their own families. And so,
(26:25):
you know, what I read into this is someone is
just feeling really challenged in life right now that maybe
work is really hard, maybe the kids are going through
some difficult issues, resources are tight, and obviously, yes, that's
going to be a tough time and a tough situation,
and so we really sympathize with that and wouldn't be
cavalier about it at all. But there probably are still
(26:47):
ways to improve life and how you feel about it,
no matter where you are starting from. So, Sarah, you
had some questions that people could ask themselves in these situations.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Yeah, I mean, first of all, what best of both
worlds mean to you? I mean, We're not suggesting best
of both worlds as a certain type of dwelling or
car or things like that. Best of both worlds for
one person might be different than for another person. So
I do think that like reflecting on what you even
mean by this question and what you think that concept
would mean for you in your circumstances might be useful.
(27:21):
I will say connection and family is a big part
of what I see making people happy in general, providing support,
building community. I mean, I think about people I work
with potentially that might have lower incomes, but a lot
of times I will say it is like family support
that makes them more able to move through life in
(27:44):
a less harried manner because they kind of have backup.
And that's really really hard because you mentioned that you
didn't specifically have that. But maybe this is about perhaps
like building community with others even if everybody's overwhelmed, I mean,
maybe even if especially if they're overwhelmed, then building that
network might be even more important because like you can
(28:04):
have each other's backs essentially. I also feel like you
mentioned low income, and of course there may be like
factors that I don't know, like an illness or you know,
some specific you're caring for a child, like there's no
way you can do anything else. I don't know your specifics,
but sometimes that is a changeable variable. And we don't
always like to talk about money, women especially, but sometimes
(28:28):
there are things you can do to change your earning potential.
They may take a lot of time, they may take
a lot of work. But one of the medical assistants
that I work with, who I love, who moved over
from another country probably a decade ago. You know, she's
been working as a medical assistant, which is not a
high incomposition. She's been amazing and over the course of
(28:50):
that time, she has a child. By the way, she
went to night school and now she got accepted to
med school and she's starting and so she's going to
be on a path to not being in the low
income category. And I'm not in any way saying like
everyone could do that or this is easy, but you know,
it doesn't mean that just if you're in one place
financially that you're locked into that forever. So if that
(29:12):
you feel like is making things tough, and it does
make things tough. I mean we know that, like below
a certain level of financial security, life is really hard
and stressful. But and I'm not saying you wouldn't have
thought of this already, but just like think outside the box,
maybe a little bit about whether changing paths could be
a possible longer term option. It's not something that's going
to get fixed overnight, but over the course of a
(29:33):
decade a lot can happen.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
I think for many people building the best of both
worlds where they feel like they can do their best
job at work and have a happy home, life does
involve support in some form or another, and the question
is how you create that community of support around you.
Some people have it by virtue of having a close knit, helpful,
nearby family that is you. You should celebrate that fact.
(29:58):
I know a number of our listeners have actually moved
moved closer to family members. If they have the sort
of job that can be done in different places or
skills that are transferable to different employers. You know, they
look for an employer that is near extended family precisely
for the reason that maybe they can't afford elaborate aftercare arrangements.
(30:18):
But the kids can always go home and go to
your sister's house after school, or Grandma can pick the
kids up from an activity. If you are still at
work or various things like that, So that makes it
you know, it's very hard to get that level of support,
even with a lot of money. You know, I think
Sarah and I have talked about this a lot, that
creating that level of support is very expensive. Now, obviously
(30:42):
some people do pay for it. So if you don't
have lots of family members close by who are able
and willing to help out, then yeah, one option is
paying to create that support around you, whether through other caregivers,
through help with your house, or various other things. And
then finally, people can create support through close friend relationships.
(31:03):
So I know we've talked to people like who are
single parents who band together with another set of two
or three single parents who all try to trade off
some level of support for each other. So you know,
your friend will take your kids on Saturday so you
can do some of the things that you didn't get
to during the week, and then you host the play
date on Sunday so they can get to those things
(31:25):
during the week. Or maybe your friend works early hours,
so her kid comes over to your house in the
early mornings that you get them to school, but you
work after five o'clock and so the kids go to
her house after school, And there's just ways you can
create some of that same support with a network of
close friends that might be worth looking into, because if
you don't have the family who can do that, the
(31:47):
family comes to you sort of more automatically. And if
you don't have the income to buy that level of support,
then maybe you can create it over time by investing
in close community relationships with other people who need support
as well. So that's just a way to think about
what might be available to you.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Awesome, all right, Next question, how do you make decisions
about schools, camps and activities for young kids? What factors
play into your decision making and how would it be
different if you didn't have to think about sibling schedules.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
I think the first thing to recognize on things like
camps and activities is that this is a pretty low
stakes question. I mean, so you don't necessarily have to
have an elaborate rubric of what you are looking for
in a three year old's activity.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
It could just be our neighbor is doing this and
they like it, let's try it out, right, Or this
other family at preschool is singing the praises of this
gymnastics center. So there's a class at a time that
works for us, we'll go with it. Or they also
liked this camp, why not try it out for a
(32:55):
week or two something like that. You know, you can
also just observe your kids. It's like a child who's
constantly putting on shows for you just might be interested
in theater or singing or dance. Someone who is climbing
all over the place might be into ninja classes, gymnastics classes.
And then just sort of having a supportive mindset as
(33:17):
the kids get older, if they mention something that they
would like to try, letting them try it out, whether
for a week as a summer camp or maybe as
a semester long activity, or just a short stint of
something that they might you know, three saturdays in a row,
you could do X, Y or Z. But just allowing
children to experiment and figure out what they like means that,
(33:38):
you know, you'll eventually get to a place where the
kids are doing things they more or less enjoy. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
I feel like I have similar I just talk to
neighbors and friends. If I hear about someone raving about
how great some program is, I'm like, give me all
the details. Because then I can see if one of
my kids is interested trial and error, just let them
try whatever and see what sticks. I do value logistics
a lot, like if I can at two kids in
a class at the same time, like I'm here for that,
that's so so so nice, And I will say I
(34:07):
don't feel like I do other than what I just said,
if it does work out. I don't really limit that
much based on sibling schedules because I do have another
driver available, although that can still not be enough driver
sometimes with three kids.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
But for the most part.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
I actually don't have to worry too too much about that.
I do love having everybody on the same school calendar.
That's like a big priority to me.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
So yeah, the schooling decision is a little bit bigger.
I mean, I guess for us, the default has always
been our local public school. But of course, you know,
we bought in the district we did because it was
known for having good local public schools and so that
might be worth doing a little bit more research into.
But even preschool. I mean, we chose our preschool because
(34:53):
it was very close to our house, and some friends
were sending their kids there and were happy with it,
and so my husband went in visited and thought it
looked fine, and now we've sent five children there. Because
once you find something you like, you may as well
stick with it. So shout out for the preschool around
the corner that has wound up being a part of
our lives for boy twelve years plus. Now time really
(35:14):
does add up, all right. So this next question, the
person writes you mentioned outsourcing housework and cleaning in favor
of paid work. So this person says, I feel like
it diminishes the work involved in caring for your home
and those who find it fulfilling. So is there at
least one task you each continue to do, not because
(35:36):
you can't afford to outsource it, but because you find
it rewarding. So, Sarah, what was your takeaway from this question?
Speaker 2 (35:45):
My first takeaway is really just about who this question
is for. And I know our podcast is focused on
women who are choosing to work and maybe therefore having
less time for this stuff, so we talk about outsourcing.
But at the same time, I feel like men have
traditionally outsourced this work to their female partners for a
(36:06):
long long time, and they don't get asked about whether
it devalues that work or there's like a little bit
of a shaming that I'm reading into in this question,
like God, like you're you're not doing this work, and
I don't know, Like.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Yeah, I don't think any law partner you'd be like, okay,
male law partner, you are outsourcing all the cooking and
cleaning to your wife. Don't you feel that devalues it
by the fact that you're not doing it. Shouldn't you
be holding on to some of it as a way
to show that it's valuable. I don't know. I guess
that's how one might read that question. So there's a
(36:43):
little bit of an edge to it, right, Yes.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
And then in terms of my actual answer, I mean
many things I do because you can't and should not
outsource everything I like. In terms of actual tasks I like.
I like cooking on Sundays, I like emptying the dish.
I like driving my kids around. I just can't drive
them in two directions at the same time, so I
need to get some help with that. I feel like
(37:08):
a lot of times I will outsource on more physical
tasks to make time for the human centered task. Again,
not because it means the physical tasks are not important,
but because I can't do both that. If I have
to choose, I'd rather do the ones that directly impact people,
whether that's at work or at home. And so I
guess i'd say, I think it's totally valuable and great
to do that stuff, but that has been the default
(37:30):
path for women for many years, and we're trying on
this podcast to like offer that other options. So I
guess that's why we talk about it in this way
pretty frequently.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Yeah, I mean, and I would say that there's something
kind of missed in the framing of this question because
the nature of having a household of seven people is
that there is always work to be done. So even
if you are outsourcing a lot, you still wind up
doing some of it. You know, In one of the
phrases I use sometimes is that when you outsource, you're
(38:02):
still a resource. You can often get things down to
maybe five to ten percent of what you would have
been doing, but you can't necessarily get rid of it entirely,
and so you know, you're better off making your peace
with that situation. And so this framing of you know,
holding on to a task because you enjoy it, well,
you can enjoy it but still not want to do
it all the time, seven days a week for seven people.
(38:24):
So for instance, I do empty the dishwasher on some days,
even though I don't enjoy it, because I'm the one
who's there to do it. Other days somebody else does it,
but some days I do it because it's getting done
seven times a week. I don't do all the laundry,
but I wind up doing a load or two a week,
so it's not like I'm missing out on the laundry experience.
I'm still getting some of it. I'm just not getting
(38:46):
all of it. I probably cook at least twice a week.
I'm not cooking seven days a week because somebody else
might be on other nights, but I'm doing it some
The cleaners come once a week, but if there's a
mess in the kitchen at some of the other point,
you know, I'm not missing out on the experience of
cleaning the kitchen just because I've hired someone to clean
my kitchen once a week. So I guess the point
(39:06):
here being like, you can find something rewarding, or you
can even find it not rewarding, but there's a lot
of work to be done. So even if you're outsourcing,
you're still doing some of it. It's just that then
you're not doing it for seven people, seven days a week,
and that can be a real relief if you are
trying to do anything else in your life, whether that
is paid work or even you know, spending more time
(39:29):
with your kids. Like there's something to be said for
that as well, because often housework and time with kids
can be at odds, right that if you are busy
cleaning your kitchen every single day, maybe that's time that
a kid would have wanted to go play in the
playroom with you. And if you can not clean the kitchen,
that's time that has opened up. So we usually end
(39:50):
our episodes with a question, but since this has been
an all mailbag episode, we obviously don't need to do
a second question segment of our show. Here, I will
go straight to the love of the week, and for
any new listeners, this is a segment we do every
week and we do with our guests as well, where
we share something that is positive that we are enjoying
that we're into right now. So, Sarah, what do you
(40:13):
have for us this week?
Speaker 2 (40:15):
So? I got some new wide leg jeans which I
am super excited about. I felt like I needed an
update I've been wearing the made Well Perfect vintage jeans
for a long time, and they're not skinny jeans, but
they're like skinny adjacent. And I just was like interested
to experiment with some other silhouettes to kind of get
an updated casual look, and so I got these from
(40:35):
air Ayr. They're the secret Sauce jeans. My stylist friend
and prior guest on this podcast, Lani and Lander, recommended them,
so she was right. They're awesome.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
I feel so cool in them.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Welcome twenty twenty four new genes.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Yay. You know I never got into skinny jeans. I
wore boot cuts in the nineties and then kept wearing
them even when you couldn't find them in stores. I'd
be ordering them somewhere and then now they're back in
which is because then I can buy them in stores again,
So yay for that. But my love of the week
is my new Eddie Bauer winter jacket. So I bought
one about six years ago. That's long, so it's nice
(41:13):
and warm, and it was great, but I bought it
on clearance. The size they had was extra small, and
I'm not necessarily an extra small person, and particularly in winter,
if you're wearing like a bulky sweater under your bulky coat.
It was just feeling a little tight. So I decided
it was time, after about six years, after a fifth child,
(41:35):
I could get a bigger coat that I could actually
button all the way. And so I bought one in
a larger size in white, and I really like it.
It's also long, it has this nice fake fur hood thing,
and so I feel very cozy, and I like that
it's a little bit brighter. I mean, maybe I'm gonna
spill Strawbuk strawberry a sie lemonade on it at some
(41:55):
point and then it won't be white anymore, and I
will regret my choice. But for now, while it is
still gold white, I am feeling happy about it.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Love It sounds super cute.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
I can't wait to see it. It does sound cute.
I'm able to send a picture or you'll see it
next time you come visit me in the winter. Well
this has been best of both worlds. We've been doing
an all mailbag episode. Feel free to send us questions me.
I'm Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. You can also
write Sarah dot heart dot Unger at gmail dot com.
(42:26):
We welcome questions. We do one every week and do
mailbag episodes every couple of weeks. We will be back
next week with more on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
And you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
This has been the best of both worlds podcast. Please
join us next time for more on making work and
life work together. Lit
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