Superficial Things Part Deux. Ep 96

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vanderkam. I'm a mother of four, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hart Hunger. I'm a mother of three, practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. 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 is episode ninety six. We are going to be revisiting the popular topic of superficial things. This was honestly one of our best listened to episodes of the past year, and we say, hey, we're always up for a discussion of superficial things, so we will be diving into that. Although there's something of a well for us, we were reminded of people's interest in this. Both of us posted on our blogs about weight issues and body image and exercise and eating and how this all relates. And you get a lot of comments when you do that, Yeah, you want to see traffic bump up, just and that it was not either of our intention. I don't, but I was sort of like weight in there some fifty plus comments later, only jeez, I guess this is other people are interested in this too. I mean the reason I had posted I was sort of like not liking how I looked in pictures. My weight was at the highest it had been in a while, but within the context of my having about zero interest in devoting much time and effort to weight loss and knew perfectly well how to do it and how to I've done it in the past, but also just feeling like, you know, there's other things I want to devote time and mental energy too, And I think a lot of other people felt similarly that, you know, there's no reason to devote huge quantities of time to it, but sometimes there are small tweaks you can make that might be of help. A lot of people wrote about intermittent fasting, which held no appeal to me whatsoever, except if I do it inadvertently. But you know, that's maybe it's this year. It does seem to be one hundred percent. I think it's it's the twenty eighteen with Keto and twenty nineteen is intermitten fasting. And twenty twenty is gonna be something else. If we could just figure out what it is now, then maybe we could just you know, cash out. But yeah, I mean, my my post was actually fairly positive. Like I I guess I was just reflecting on the fact that I feel fully recovered from Genevieve and that I feel happier with my body composition than I have maybe ever, with a lot less effort putt put into it than other times. So either I'm like dying of some unknown disease or I guess I've just figured out some things at work in mostly just doing a lot more strength work than I ever did, which is something that people told me for years. Like my friends would tell me who looked amazing, and they'd say, Sarah, you would love this, like just try and orange theory or just like start lifting some weights regularly. I'd be like, well, but I just love to run running. And we've talked about this before. It's wonderful. I love it. It It does nothing for my body that is good. I mean, it doesn't do anything bad really, but it doesn't do anything good. Versus when I actually became consistent with lifting weights, and that was either doing it online as I mostly do, but also sometimes some in person classes. I like seeing muscles and muscles burn calories at rest, so maybe that helps too. And I definitely do feel like the kind of more intuitive eating does work for me. I'm a hardcore moderator. I do not like to ever think that I can't eat something. But then I also feel like, if I'm not super hungry, I'm as well not eat that much because then everything kind of balances out pretty well. So that's been my quote unquote secret. There is no secret. Everybody's different. I'm probably lucky in my genetics, so that's probably ninety percent of my quote unquote secret. But I'll say that I'm I'm happier now than I was maybe several years ago, and that's what's working for me. So it was my post. No, that's absolutely awesome, and I've really you know, it's I decided that I was going to try and make some small tweaks because I was interested in getting it down a little, I mean, not too ridiculous, I mean just for for numerical purposes. Here, I was generally weighing I'm five to five, I was weighing something like one thirty eight one thirty nine. My goal was more around one thirty and I would say that in it's only been like two and a half weeks of paying more attention to it. And yesterday I stepped on the scale and I was one thirty two. So that was easy. It was relatively easy, So I guess that was it was sort of funny to me, like, huh, all right, well that's that's good. I could just stop there, that would be fine. Of course, then that part of your brain kicks. I'm like, world, why not get down to one twenty five and be like im? But that that's not going to be sustainable, Like I can't put the time and effort into say, never touching bread again or something like that. But I love things like craft beer and dark chocolate and you know, big pretzels out a beer garden or you know, really good bread and all these things, and so any life that doesn't involve that, it is just you know, I'd rather be heavy and have those things than be light and not probably to a point, right, and again this is like, this is everybody's choice, and this is fully superficial, and we admit that. And also, if you feel like you're happier when the scale is higher for you, like, then you do you? I am that this is in no way yeah, and I feel I was gonna say it like and I think maybe I'm getting like I like it when I'm not distracted by not feeling good about how I look. So it's more like a double negative than a positive, if that makes sense. And it sounds like kind of that's your situation as well. You'd like to get it to where it's not a factor in your Yeah, I mean, just you know that I don't look at a picture of myself or look at myself on camera and be like, geez, why you know does that look like that? And something very similar? Very easy to get down as it turned out to be, then why not so among other things like sometimes i'd like to have, you know, like one blue moon in the evening. Again, this is it is so small, like I was just I cut that out during the week. But it's not like I'm cutting a lot because I wasn't drinking much, you know. It's like I literally have taken like two to three beers per week out of my life and somehow I was able to like move the scale. So I don't know if there's like more to there's a hormone of cornfl that I was not aware of. But it's you know, I will drink on weekends or a special occasion, like if I go to a conference happy hour and that's on a Monday night, Like, sure, have a drink, but and I was never having more than one anyway, So again this it doesn't make any logical sense in terms of number of calories, but who knows. So yeah, no, I guess those small tweaks do in fact get you there. So and as much as we love to say that we feel awesome just ignoring that and downe with diet culture, it just kind of is what it is. Yeah. Yeah, So that's the update on that other superficial topics. There's so many super so many superficial topics. We feel like we need to hit clothes. And now, of course that's tangentially related to what we just talked about. Oh, that's my pager, guys, and I am not on call, so that's going on. Problem. No, I'll deal with that later. So you know, trunk club I was doing for a while and it was really fun and it was cool novelty, but I don't know, it actually started to become this chore where the trunk would come and then it would sit there and I didn't even feel like trying everything on and one thing would end up working, and then I'd feel sort of guilty. And I don't know. Maybe Trunk Club helped to fulfill a couple of staples, like it did get some great genes from there a few years ago. But now I kind of have of staples and the more special types of pieces. Maybe I feel like I'd rather pick them out myself. I don't know, so I might be done. Yeah, I've not been asking for many trunks or bentos from em and Lafleura gave up stitch Fixed several years ago. A partly it's just I think some of my closet will fit better now at the lower weight as well, so then I don't need to go And you tend to buy quality. I do like like stuff that is nice, and then if it fits again and looks good, like you don't need to Yeah, I don't need to revisit this issue. So yeah, I think I'm say saying where my clothes are now. But we both did need to buy new bathing suits of late, and I like dragged my blog readers into it. I love posted photos of you in a swimsuit online because you look amazing, and so it was it was awesome. I was like, this is I was just like, I'm so of Sarah right now. Okay, I don't think it was that amazing. Let's not get anyone, but anyway, Yes, I found some nice bathing suits and then I ended up returning most of them, and I stuck with I wanted to find a really cute one piece, like I've seen these people in ones with cool cutouts or like, I don't know, very fashiony looking, and yet all the ones I tried on had some fatal flaw, like a lot of times they seemed like they were too short, which is crazy because I'm very short, so for something to be that just doesn't make any sense, like who is this going to fit? And so I ended up in the end just sticking with like old athletic two pieces that in reality I'm mostly wearing with a rash guard over anyway, because when I really think about it, the times that I'm in a bathing suit is almost always when I'm surrounded by children, and like, I don't feel the need to be on any kind of display number one and number two, like things can get pulled out, Like I don't want indecent exposure happenings. So yeah, so it almost didn't matter. That's true. It is. It's so nice to just throw in a rash guard and then not have to worry about covering every inch of my bot. You know, I still have to cover my face with sunscreen, but not every body. Yeah, no, I I just needed to get one of those rash guards. What what do you what rash guard do you have? I have two from Athleta, one from A. I like the ones that have like a decent sized zipper in the front and oh so you don't have to like pull them off your head. One of them doesn't have a full zipper, but one of them is a full zip and I love it because exactly you don't you're all wet and whatever, and you can do a zip it off. And actually I used mine as a running jacket when I was in I forget, why did I have swim stuff? Oh no, you know what. I just packed it when I went to Baltimore because it was cold and my running jacket's kind of heavy, so I needed something midlayer and it worked great as a running jacket too, so double duty, double duty. I like, okay, I've written that down. I'll get that after we get off the offline here. But no, I wound up buying two one pieces the Kenneth cole I ordered them through Garnet Hill. I don't know if I think you get their catalog too, and probably everyone gets their catalog. It's on planted and you get it when you move to a new address. But yeah, they it's two Kenneth cole ones. They have sort of a cutout and at the top a high higher neck and then a cutout sort of shearing, so they're they're gathered around the waistress is nice shearing. And then the key is that they look like they weren't too high cut around the hips, because one thing I've noticed is what you're saying, like it seems like they're too short, even though they're they're not too short. But people, a lot of these swimsuits are somehow cut to have your bottom hands like Brazilian, slightly Brazilian, and you know down here, down here, a lot of people, a lot of people like that part of them hanging out. Okay, I'm not into it, mean neither a kind of. But I was like, this is not a sizing issue, Like, no matter what size I'm trying on, it's still there. It's like by design, and I like just not really into I've even seen that on some kids swimsuits and I'm like, hell, no, you've takeed that off right now. Yes, not not exactly my favorite and this this does not do that. So I'm all all good on that. How about how about makeup? Let's let's go to that. Yeah, so prior listeners of this podcast, oh, I wrote March twenty seventeen, but that's not correct, so it's from March of twenty eighteen. That's not like quite as embarrassed because I bought a bunch of makeup when I was headed back to work after having Genevieve, and I definitely kind of needed a little refresh in that area. So okay, I feel much less embarrassed because that's like fifteen month old makeup, which is more acceptable than more than two year old makeup. Oh, we won't go to old minus. I had gone to Nordstrom at that time, and I still really like a lot of the stuff that I got. Actually, I am the only thing that I've had to replace. So I got like I makeup, I got foundation. I got some this lovely dere nude luminizer that I use actually in lieu of foundation most days, which is kind of a bronzer, and I do have to I'm still using it, but it's all broken, so I really do need to replace it. And my mascara, which I use the lang Comb. I know people love cheap mascara, but I unfortunately don't, or maybe I do, but I really am addicted to this lang Comb Definie seals and that's what I keep buying, even though it's twenty seven dollars, which is terrible anyway. That's the other makeup that I replace, although I will say that I get that to last a pretty long time too. I'm not like a monthly replacement kind of a person. No, no, and you just got an Orde Strummer, Sephora or somewhere like Yeah, I like Sephora. I you know, I was saying my fantasy would be like like a boutique style cosmetic place, I mean Sephoras. I guess if I go to the same Sephora, I could get to know the same person. But or if you meet a good person at a makeup counter. But I would rather it be like somebody who owns the whole store of stuff, so that you don't get someone who's like, well, my line has all of the best things, Like I think that's what takes me really turns me off of multi level marketing because you are going to work for one company, so of course you think that they have the best everything. But obviously one company isn't going to have the best everything of everything. So yeah. Oh and I listened to the Forever thirty five podcasts to get a lot of cosmetics recommendations as well. That can be if you listen it, can you forever be thirty five? Now the hosts they're not they're over forty. Yeah, it's a great podcast. But yeah, there's nothing wrong with aging too. I was sort of a funny, uh, like, I think it's fairly tongue in cheek because actually neither of them are into like a bunch of super anti aging procedures, but they do like their makeup, and I find that they're very good about disclosing, like this came to us free. This did not I bought this at Sephora. I'm using this up. I'm buying this with my own money, So I kind of understand, you know, I feel like they have a wide breath of experience of different things, and I understand where their biases are. Okay, well that's always good to hear, Yeah, especially in something like that. Yeah, No, I mostly just buy my cosmetics at the drug store. Do you have brands at the drug store that you're very loyal to? You like us really so you're like, eh, that looks good. Yeah, and then sometimes it just doesn't. But if it's you bought it at the drug store, it's like less than ten bucks, so so what a right, that's a kind of a good thing about that. You can play around with it a little bit. Target. I feel like they do have a nice well it's not really a drug store, but they have a very nice makeup. So yeah, no, they have good stuff going on. The one place I've I started, you know, and now I'm on Instagram and they get lots of ads, and I guess they're perfectly targeted as they would be. But I've the wander beauty duellist concealer. I wound up buying it looked good as people were putting it on on the ads. Of course it would, but I said, well, let me let me order this and see how it is, and I actually like it quite a bit. It's thick enough that I feel like it covers most of the spots that I wanted to cover, so any sort of discoloration from previous you know, skin blemishes or under eye circles, like, I think it really does a good job on that. So I've already been through one stick and ordered a second, so I recommend that for sure. I've started. You know, I'm definitely a minimalist done this. I was joking on my blog about reading some article about an eight minute face, like you could only spend eight minutes on your face, and think about all the time women would say it, like, I have never spent eight minutes. Spend like one minute yet one minute. The only time I've spent eight minutes on my face is when I have a professional makeup artist because I'm about to go on TV or video shooting or something like that, which case it tends to look good, but it also tends to look like way overdone, and I would never do it. Maybe it's too many. The difference between zero minutes and two minutes is huge, And then there's probably another leap between two and like thirty. But yeah, that's the point. Yeah, now you wouldn't. I would hope you would not do thirty for like a normal day. I mean, yeah, if you're if you work in television, jur but that's again part of your job, so it's not like that normal person would would need to do anything along those lines. So yeah, I'm wearing a little bit more as I get older, because I do think it looks nicer if my eyes are sort of perked up. So I put a little liner on them, a little mascara, put the duellist concealer on, tiny bit of powder, tiny bit of blush lipstick. It looks good. Lit's stick tends to ill, thank you. Lipstick tends to matter, I find as well. But I can't get a lipstick that stays on that I like. I just don't know what well people are very now this is another multi level marketing. People are very into that lip sense situation. So but I'm sure there are also brands that make long left well. I mean, it's just an inherent physical problem, like you use your lips during the day. No, but some of them have these pigments that really deposit see that would scare me because I wouldn't like to not be able to get it off, like somehow that would bother me. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I just try to remember to put it on if I'm going into a situation where it would be helpful to put it on, like checking the restroom mirror before going into a meeting or something. But I will say that the lipstick that I tend to like is like a non lipstick, like I like, I like this der lip glow, and I like this is this is a forever thirty five ism and also something that did you wear clinic black honey when you were like in high school because everyone kind of didn't. Yeah, I have, I've bought a clinique sort of this brownish clichee that I wear from time to times, like brownish. I don't know. Black honey is like super sheer and it's been around since the nineties. It was super popular then and apparently it's having a resurgence, so I might have to buy it again because I absolutely remember owning it. But that also was a very I don't think I'm coisticated. I'm not going to say about clinic in high school, So I think that was the one eye of my own. Yeah, maybe I had like a happy perfume sample that sounds exciting. No, No, I've yeah, I sometimes resent the time any of this takes. Like I mean, I love the lady who cuts my hair. She's she's amazing and wonderful, but I'm still like, oh god, I gotta get that schedule. Like you know what, I resent my hair straightening every time. I hate it. But then I'm like, Okay, I do this once and this like I only go in completely three months or so. I'm sure there's people do it way more. And I color my own hair again. Takes time, but although less time than if I went to a salon. So it's just these things you do. But maybe somebody will come up with some way to make it permanent. That would be amazing. Just take a pill or something your hair. Why haven't we solved that medical mystery, Like there's gonna be some way to make your hair not grow. It's like kind of gonna be scary. It was not not make it grow, to make the pig just oh yeah, well maybe or JUVENI yeah, but I see, if I'm sad about having to take the time to get my haircut. I guess I'm pretty like hopeless. So so the next topic, Yeah, so that that fraught top cosmetic thing procedures and procedures. I went to the dermatologists and I did not ask for anything cosmetic, although I will say like, if you have any like little annoying thing on your face, then it usually takes thirty seconds to get rid of it, and that's kind of nice. And then while I was there, I noticed that they have quite the booming business of injectibles and botox and all that kind of stuff. And Laura has discussed it a little bit before, but we were hoping maybe she would give us some more insight or insight experiences into this. Yeah, so our last Superficial Things episode, we talked about it as a possibility and this like early fall. Again, it's the pictures thing, and I, you know, would take these selfies without a filter, so I'd be like, wow, my forehead looks a little rinkly, and you know, people sell you all sorts of wrinkle creams, but it's not gonna work, Like, come on, there's there's nothing in it that's gonna change anything. So I decided to try botox, and I was really happy with it. I went to the dermatologists that we've gone to for anything, for you know, skin checks and for one of my kids for something, and so you know, we were familiar with the practice, and of course they do the medical dermatology, but then they also do a booming cosmetic business as well as all of those practices do. And I was a little worried about it because you know, I've heard stories of people looking like stroke victims if it goes wrong, like you know, the muscles are completely wrong and then or do they make you sign a waiver that's like you might look like a stroke figure. Now, well they I mean they tell you that, like you know, in some small number of cases, your body reacts badly too. I mean, it's botulism toxin, so why wouldn't it right, But in most cases that doesn't happen, and I think you want to be careful, of course, to go to somebody who does this a lot. And so that was one of my reasons to go to an actual dermatology practice, even though basically anyone who can legally give injections can do this. So I mean, you could like go to your dentist, you could go to your you know, a doc in the box somewhere, but why right, Like, I mean maybe it would be or people who are just like treating completely different body parts, but like they've done this as a sideline, like it's you know, an ear doctor. I am not going to be adding this to my pro no, Sarah, although she could. I mean, so that's the thing. I mean, you can right, like there's no limit on the scope of your practice to do this, but there are good reasons to go to somebody who does this as a major part of their business. And in fact, I see the PA at this practice and this is like what she does all the time, and in fact, I think has sort of developed a bit of a reputation, sort of like caring a lot about the artists. As an artist, I said, she's the Michaelangelo of botox, but that's her professional Like maybe when I'm in Philadelphia the next time, you could go see her, and I think she'd do a great job. But yeah, So I got it done late September. Within a week, I would say, my skin looked like five years younger. It looked great, and photos like I looked like me. I just looked turn back the clock, turn back the clock a couple of years, looked more rested, didn't look like, you know, kind of angry and some you know, photos or tired. I just looked, you know, more fresh, and so I really like that. Of course, it is not a permanent solution. The upside and downside, So if something goes wrong, it will wear off in three months. So that's good to know, right, So that's an upside, and that's an upside and a downside. Of course, then you know you have to go back three to four months to get it done again if you wish to continue with it, if you like the results and whish to continue, because within about four months you'll look exactly like you did before. So that's yeah, something to consider. And so it takes some time. I mean I make an appointment, I go in, I get it done, and usually it doesn't take too much time, but you have to do it three times a year to sort of maintain the same look. Is there data on like, I don't know. Does it stop being effective at some point? Well, I mean it's anything. The half life is what it'll come out over time, and so they won't give it again sooner, or a reputable place wouldn't get you No, I just mean, like over years and years like zero, I mean, I guess it would still work. You can't completely obviously stop every bit of aging. Yeah, forever, Well just that, and so at some point people start needing something more elaborate. I mean, there's fillers. So if you have sort of larger you know, along your jaw line, for instance, if you have those wrinkles that develop there. But but you know, any if it's if your wrinkles are confined mostly to frown lines, crows lines, and the forehead wrinkles, that is what it works on. And they it works pretty well. I guess that's what i'd say, So you know, people can keep that in mind. By the way, family members that listened to this podcast are all judging me very harshly right now for even considering this. I think we do need to remember that this is it's just people's choice. Yeah, it doesn't have to be such a loaded thing one way or the other. Yeah. And I think if it makes you sort of happier to look in the mirror than great, And I you know, I think it's I mean, it's subtle. I told Michael that I was planning to do this, and you know, he went and checked into some of the medical stuff and you know, to see what the side effects were and all that, and you know then I I did it the first time, and you know whatever, he didn't care one way or the other. But the second time I had it done at somebody he's like, well, are you going to go in and do that at some point? And I was like, but he didn't even notice that it. So it's probably not for the other people in your life. It's going to be more about yourself. Yourself. But you know, most people are not looking at you very closely. Again, unless you're in the sort of profession where you are doing a lot of video. If you are, Yeah, most people don't look at your face that closely, nor do they care. So I have had some of my colleagues tell me that they were happy when their hair turned gray because patients seemed to trust them more. So that's the reason not to do it. Yeah, yeah, although I've heard other things too. I remember somebody was telling me her about a person who was a minister and this guy, this was a man, and he wound up getting his frown lines treated because he thought they made him look very stern. And people were already coming into a conversation with their minister, worried that he was stern and might be judging them or something like that, and he definitely did not want to give that impression that he was. And when he recognized that that was just his face, it wasn't him, it was what his face was conveying with his meaning to convey it, then he realized that there was a cosmetic way to get around it and to appear less judgmental of his parishoners, that's like that, you know, wise man, very wise man. But that's you know, something to think about, I guess. So there you go, readers, listeners, you can weigh in on this one. The only other cosmetic procedure that I have considered is laser hair removal. I've heard it's super convenient. I haven't done it, but those who have done it have you know, shavings of pain and cool. Yeah, I mean, I guess I just don't see. I mean, I guess I have never found it to be that much of a pain. But I could see if somebody had maybe like facial hair, like if there are sort of you know, somebody who had a darker hair and and you know, it pops up all sorts of places and it was there then they you know, that was something they wouldn't want to necessarily shave. They could do, ye know, I'm not like obscenely hairy or anything. Yeah, that I just thought. I mean, I think there's somebody who reads my blog who said, like they did, like they're underarms and it's just nice, like oh, they're going out to swim or something and they don't have to think about it at all, like that that would be kind of cool, yeah, or you could just not think about it all in general. It's true, that's true. The hair is coming back anyway. I've seen like a lot of very high up there fashion bloggers actually posting on a lot of unshaven photos, which is kind of cool. So you do you, you do you. That's our always our thing with superficial things. But we'd love to hear from everybody about what you've tried, what you like, any recommendations you have, so feel free to post them on my blog on our Instagram account when we do the post about this episode, and we look forward to hearing your experiences them. If you've done injectables, if you've done laser hair, removal anything along those lines. All right, So our q and A I like, can I read the first sentence? Cute? Finding the best of both worlds, podcasts, your blogs and Laura's books make me feel like I wandered into a magical forest and found my true family. Okay, I mean, of course we're going to read this quo. So this person is a paper geek with to do lists, a posted weekly menu plan, paper wall calendar for the family, and a personal paper of day planner and now a two month better and of time tracking. Woo. Yes, she says. Among her friends and family, she is an oddity. She writes, it is encouraging to find others who value the treasure and tool of time and see the potential for life, relationships and talents in similar ways. My question for you is if you ever feel planning pressure. I love to plan, coordinate, and make life orderly, but I occasionally feel resentful of being the only one who seems to keep all the balls up in the air for our two kids and all of the family commitments. At best, it's frustration when I miss a detail, and at other times someone is inconvenienced or disappointed. My husband is very supportive, and actively contributes to the family calendar, and we schedule weekly calendar date nights super geek alert, she writes, to ensure where you're nited in the weekly priorities. But in the end, planning does fall to me. How do you keep your love of planning with so much that needs to be considered and so many people were laughing on you. Yeah, we wanted to look at this question. We've talked about planner fittis in the past, and Sarah at one point claimed she suffered no such affliction ever, and then this came in it. Yes, well, this came in a perfect time because I had just had a weekend on call, and like normally Friday night, I kind of planned the weekend. I it was like a lightning moment. I was, Oh, this is planning fatigue. I was like, I have no desire to be part of this thought process at all. I just tires me to think about it. I guess because I was sort of overwhelmed with thinking about the workpieces of my life and I wanted someone else to do it. You might imagine who that someone else. So and it all worked out fine. I'm not sure that he put together like a written plan the way I do, and things kind of just more. There were no on their end, There were no spreadsheets, There was no arranged childcare, which is again fine. We don't usually do day nights when I'm on call. Anyway. It was not the perfect weekend, but it wasn't a disaster either, So I guess I I just wanted to admit that I do have planning fatigue, and I guess I don't have an answer to how you deal with it when others don't, but I do have an answer for trying to keep the Like I can't force my partner. I can't force Josh to want to plan everything. I can't force people at work to want to plan everything. What I do have control over is making the planning that I do fairly enjoyable so that I don't have planning fatigue. I actually find it more in this case to be on the offensive rather than the defensive, like that seems to work out better. So I guess for me, instead of dealing with planning fatigue, I would my personal preference is to avoid it by number one, making sure I have enough time and energy to plan, because planning actually takes a lot of intentional kind of frontal lobe thinking, and it's not necessarily something you want to do when you're stressed out or tired. I really do it best in the morning, when I'm clear, and also to make it fun and try to remind myself that when I'm planning a vacation, that is such an incredible privilege that I have the ability to take time off with my family and the resource is to do that, and to see that is annoying, like and you know, take the three thousand foot view and realize, like, oh my god, I'm able to book a nice hotel, Like this is so cool. What would ten year old of me have thought of? You know, what I'm doing right now. It's actually like such a pleasure. So I guess that's my response, but I will admit that I I succome. Yeah, yeah, I mean it happens to all of us, I think, And that's just the reality of anything you do can get tiring from time to time, and it helps to either take a break from it and recognize that if you know, one or two weekends don't get planned, like so what right, Like you just won't do anything and you may feel a little bit sort of well, that was kind of a waste of a weekend at the end, or you may not, like you may just be like whatever, which is it's totally fine. Maybe a school holiday, you don't plan anything other than what the child care will be and that's it. So you know, I definitely had this feeling the week before we were recording this. We're recording this in early May, and I had last week. I had the whole fun of attempting to book a reservation at French Laundry because I wanted to eat there for our fifteenth wedding anniversary during our time in California for a vacation. And so you know, I was on there right at one o'clock and the system was I had my suspicions about it because of you know, froze up from one to one oh one. I'm like, hmm, people get special access. I dot it, but you know, it just didn't work. And then at one oh one, like everything was gone. And you know, but I so they don't. It's not by phone any no, no, I will they changed it. Oh my god, I had this thing. It actually became a game, and I will say it became a pleasure. It was like every day I offered knew no, because they opened this window. I would call every single day. My phone alarm would go off, and then I had it set on my auto doll. I would just dial it and dial it. I had other people dialing with me. We'd try for like five minutes, and I think like they only answered it a certain window, so if I didn't get through, I didn't get through. Oh my god. So it was actually kind of fun. Yeah, anyway, So well, I mean, so this is more straightfor like you're just using an online system. I mean, but it was all gone right. I'd click on a thing that seemed open. No, I think that's real though, because even with the phone thing like you have to struggle. Struggle, there's a struggle is real normally. And I kept clicking on it. It It would disappear somebody else got this, and I like, really, you know, then why was it there? But you know, eventually I did get one. I kept clicking and I didn't get one, but then it was in the middle of a time We're supposed to be somewhere else in California, and so then everything had to get redone around that. So I'm like rebooking our Yosemite stuff, which they were. They were so great. I mean, partly it's it's more that I was just adding time, So I think that's generally a good thing for a business, when you're adding time there. But you know, they were so they were so nice, the customer service agents there. But you know, I was feeling a little bit like this took my entire Wednesday afternoon, like literally the entire Wednesday afternoon, which I you feel like, spend more time into, you know, like how amazing that my life is such that I can spend my Wednesday afternoon doing this as opposed to like, you know, working in the salt mines or something. But it was it was annoying, and especially because I was also really working through the logistical details of the upcoming weekend at the same time, which was just a doozy like I was camping with the cub Scouts. I was also singing in Mahller's second symphony out in New Jersey. I was going to New York for a conference. We had two play dates, we had a birthday party. My husband was running the broad Street ten mile, or at least he was supposed to, Like, so there's just so many moving parts, and I started working on this weekend like a month ahead of time, because I feel like you lived most people's ten weekends in one. It was like ten weekends in one weekend, and everything happened that was supposed to happen. But like packing for a camping trip is not a small ordeal, Like you don't just throw stuff in a suitcase, Like you need a tent, like you need flashlights and you know, things that you don't normally have with you for for a normal trip. So yeah, it was a lot of logistical stuff. I'm happy to report that everything happened just fine, except for my husband running the broad Street ten miler. But that was in no way, shape or phone for my fault. Like that's totally not your planning, not your planning, It not my planning error. He he sounds like he was a good sport of his good sport about it. He's very good sport. He our our sitter was there on time, and if he'd left when she got there and had taken an uber like he was easy to want to run in torrential sheep. It's also possibly he did not want to run in terms I mean, I wouldn't know, so all right, Well with that, that's planning fatigue, that is planning what she wanted solutions. Sorry, I was just ranting there. So you know, spread the love, like just okay, a say, it's okay not to plan something right, you know, take some stuff that's low stakes and don't plan it like a couple of weekends. You know, that's fine. Spread it around to give a specific task that you have been doing to someone else. So, for instance, if you normally plan on your date night, say like, listen, we've decided, you know, whatever June X is when we're going out, when we had our weekly date, you know, planning meeting, you are in charge of that one, and that could be great. You know, you may not do something that you would have chosen as your first option, but that's what happens when you don't plan, right. The privilege of planning is that you do what you want to do, and so that's always something to consider as well. And you know what else, I think she wanted to have kids take over some logistics too, which is an interesting Oh that's such a cool idea. Well, I mean I've spoken before about my dream of having like, well, my kids are ten, they get to plan a vacation. Yeah, something like that. I think you could absolutely start having your kids do some planning. I do sort of pull my kids what they want to do for the weekend, and at some point that could just be like, hey, Annabell, you're going to decide what we're gonna do on Saturday, can you write it down? She loves writing down great from in my little calendar days. So maybe your kids are ready for that too. That's a wonderful idea. Yeah, And some kids are more into it than others. I mean, you know, there are kids who like to choose their outfits before the day, and they are kids who don't, and those kids who like to think about their weekends and summers ahead of time, and kids who don't at all. But yeah, we had a funny conversation with this morning with Jasper. We were talking about I was thinking about a weekend or something that was you know, three weeks ahead that there was you know, a couple of logistics we had to work out and he's like, mom, that's like twenty days from now. Like oh, sweetie, oh hn, yeah, that's that's you know, the planning horizon here is. But when you're a teen, twenty days does it's long? And it could be like a lifetime. Yeah. You know, you had patients where they want to start a certain like you know, something medical, and there such a hurry and it's like, well we can do it in like two months, and they're like it's like okay, you recognize, like two months is gonna go by, like you won't even know that anything happened. Like it's it's very interesting. Yeah, yeah, but I think it's a great idea. I mean, again, you can start giving some lower stakes things to them where it really just doesn't matter what you do, and then, like anything, when you assign something to somebody the first time, you maynage to check in a few times, but over time you sort of just let them roll with it and won't all be what you like, but probably doesn't really matter for the vast majority of things, and you'll find that when it does, you're going to get that energy to just do it. Yeah, to do it again. I'm feeling much better about planning now that the weekend of ridiculousness is over and the summer is mostly planned too. It's amazing, all right. So we did a lot of love of the weeks already with our various products and services mentioned in this part. Is there anything else you want to mention? I'll pick one of these. I really love my Son's Green. Actually, my Dermatologis office was displaying it, but I was already using it, although I think I was using it because of a friend who goes the same dermatoloist who told me to use it. So there you go. But it's the Alta MD Pure sunscreen, and it's really good ingredients, it's good for kids. It rubs in really well. I may have used this as a planet as a love before, but I don't care. I love it that much. I now order it from Amazon on Subscribe and save, so it's like less expensive that way. And it is my favorite sunscreen. And what makes it different from others, it's just less well when it comes to actual So it's not a chemical sunscreen. It's a barrier sunscreen. And most barrier sunscreens are a total pain in the ass to rub in and leave you with like a ghost Facebook. Yeah, and this does not. It actually rubs in very nicely, very quickly, which is very helpful when you're dealing with toddlers. And I do you know this isn't the crunchy in me? This is the endocrinologist in me. There are some ingredients in sort of more chemical sunscreens that can in young babies. They may be potential hormone disruptors, so I'd rather not use those. Yeah. And does this this sunscreen work for people of various skin tones? I mean, because I know that's yeah, I mean, it's it's very sunscreen. I would think no. I would think that it would work for every skin tone, because again, it very much disappears. It doesn't have that kind of whitish smoke. So I think even if you had darker skin, it would it wouldn't give you the ghosting issue of that. Yeah, which I know is a is always a barrier for sunscreen used for obvious reasons. So all right, well we'll put that one out there as a. As a I mean, I love spray. I mean I love spray sunscreen in general because it makes it so easy, Like you know, the kids just line up and we just spray spray. There are some spray barrier sunscreens too, but some of them are chemical, and if your kids are older, it probably doesn't matter as much if you have babies, a little little kids. Yeah, So I'm going to say purple nail polish who which I don't wear on my fingers because we've discussed in the past my complete aversion to like manicure, the fact that I immediately cause you know, chips and things, ditches and yeah, like, well, you know, I don't do manicures often while leaving the salon. I mean, I can't get out of the salon without doing it. So but I do paint my toenail myself, and I like to look down and see that they're purple. It's just kind of fun. So love it. Yeah, nobody else sees it for most of the year. Comes in Philadelphia. You never you're maybe wearing sandals, like for a couple of weeks in the summer. But it's for my own particular pleasure. It makes me happy. Excellent, excellent, Well this has been best of both worlds are superficial things episode. We have been talking about all sorts of manners of clothes and hair and makeup and other such things. We'll be back next week for more, maybe talking a little bit more about work in life. This was not so much of that, but it's a topic we enjoy, so there we go, all right, Tune in next week for more. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.