All Things Summer

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah hart Unger. 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. 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 one hundred and ninety nine, little momentous, getting toward the two hundredth that'll be exciting. This episode is on all Things Summer. We are in late May. This is first airing May twenty fifth, coming into the wonderful summer season here in Pennsylvania, less so of the wonderful summer's season in the greater Miami area. But Sarah grew up around here. In fact, her parents live about five miles from my house. So do you have any particular summer memories, like really those those quintessential summer memories from growing up in a more temperate climate Sarah, I will share three. The first is that I spent many years going to I don't know if it still exists, but Episcopal Academy used to have a day camp and I went there for years, and then I was a counselor there and I loved it. I still have like dreams about that place. It was great. So that's number one. Number two is that we used to go to Vermont, alahcause my grandparents, who aren't have since passed, but they used to rent. They lived in Florida, and they would go up north every summer because they were smart and retired, and they would rent like a little house in Vermont or New Hampshire, and we would all come, like the families would usually come at different times, but we would drive up from Philly to Vermont or New Hampshire, which is like eight ten. It was far, but that was like our typical family trips because my parents were very frugal, not going to say cheap, but perhaps maybe so that was our trip every year. But actually, in retrospect it was kind of nice. I think I complained about it as like a teenager, that it was a boring thing to keep doing it, But now I'm like, really, it sounds good to me now, so maybe my parents actually knew better. And I guess the third, which is kind of overlaps with what you guys sometimes do, is that I did have a lot of Jersey Shore experiences, particularly as an older teen. I had a friend where they used to go to Cape May, and I would actually go with her family, and so lots of lovely memories of New Jersey nights and New Jersey boardwalk nights. Cape May is not so much. It has some of the boardwalk, but then you can go north to Wildwood, which is the real boardwalk Jersey scene. So you might want to check that out if people are in the area and looking for a little bit of a ski ball and snow cone and loud music and other such Jersey fun. But do you ever meet people who are like the Jersey shorecast? Do you have any memory of that sort of scene? I mean, well, I was once on an MTV episode that was in some Jersey beach like and I had like a line I don't even know my friends and I like we and it was like it was an the late nineties, and it was like supposed to be like the Jersey scene, and this was like right before that, So I guess I participated in it to some extent. It was a Carson Daily Show. Oh god, the Carson Daily Show. Oh my goodness. I would love to find my like line somewhere MTV archives. It's there somewhere. Do you want to hear my line at all? Right, let's hear it. So it was a Dawson's Creek show and they were like interviewing the creator and they planted questions and my line was, so, who does Pacey get some from? Next? Well, there you go. I mean you can like die happy after that. I mean really pretty much pretty much? Yeah. We uh, I don't know. I can't really tap that. I have no summer memories that are, you know, beyond being on the Carson Daily Show. I guess on the Jersey Shore. On the Jersey Shore, I went to a camp. When I lived in North Carolina. I went to a summer camp. It was called Presbyterian Point, was associated with the Dinner Domination, and it was outdoor oriented. We went to camping. I learned to sail there one year, so we'd sail to this island in the middle of the lake and then camp there overnight and sail back. I remember getting very sunburned. I probably did not take my sun's screen as seriously as I might have, which I now see with my own kids. Sam went with a friend to the Jersey Shore recently and I sent him I thought was sunscreen or told him to pack it and somehow didn't wind up on him. But he had this nice little mask he was wearing his mask, so good for him, but it had sunburn above the mask, like a row of freckles right on the top of the mask, right under the eyes. It's quite a look mask tan, I guess we'd call it anyway. And then, you know, moving to Indiana, I'm trying to even think what we had there. I don't know. Maybe I've put it out on my mind, so I feel like there must have been a country county fair is there kind of well, no, I don't think we really did that sort of things so much. We go to Lake Michigan sometimes, although now my Lake Michigan memories are kind of tempered from having more recent ones because we'll go visit some of Michael's relatives who have a house on Lake Michigan. Those are more current memories. I know I did go to Lake, Michigan as a kid, and to this in fact, same beach, but without access to the beach else, which is much nicer. So there you go. If only i'd known, I could have gone and like knocked on their door, like, by the way, I'm going to marry your nephew in ten years, could I come in? It's too bad life doesn't work that way, because to be sure, yeah, you could use our bathroom, go for it. So anyway, we're going to be talking about all things summer, So what would what did you wind up de signing on the camp front? Like you've got your kids in camp most of the summer, right, yes? I also we both had to create camp spreadsheets this year, and I initially was going to try to have them all in the same place all summer, but somehow I didn't because I sort of decided that plans, Yeah, the place that's best for Genevieve, I think might be a little boring for the others to stay the whole summer. So I kind of compromised by making two weeks stints of like specialty camps for the big kids. But I think that's going to result in like four weeks of two different drop offs and pickups. So oh well, but yeah, they're going to do day camp. Nobody's going to overnight camp. I don't you know. Thus far, I think they'll probably you know, be masked and kind of keep things the way things are in school except when they're doing outside things. But I think it'll be great. I mean a million times better than last summer when they were home. I mean honestly, if we had restrictions here that prevented camp from happening and they just went to school, that would be better than last summer. So anything to get them continued out of the house with some physical activity will be an enormous step up. So I'm excited. And Annabelle is going to get to do some horse camp, Cameron's going to get to do some soccer camp, and then Annabelle has some art camp as well, so I think that's great. Oh and Genevieve is going to be doing swim lessons awesome also, key very important to have that. Yeah, but you have a short summer, right, I mean it's only eight Yeah, it's like eight weeks. It's crazy because the school started late and they're ending late. But then next year I think they're going back to their more normal timeframe. So it only left eight weeks and we're going to take a family trip for a week of that, so camp is really just a six week spread. I'd say you're saving money, but you're sending the kids to private school, so it's all just you're paying for it one way or the other, not saving money. Saving money. Now the short summer would it does start to add up And I'm not even looking at I mean, obviously I have the numbers because I paid for it, but like I just am trying not to internalize it because that will just make me feel. Yeah, but yes, we have four children going to various different camps this summer. I made a camp spreadsheet as well for our listeners who maybe were not with us in previous summers. This involves having if you have multiple kids, you put the names. Here's how I do it. You put the names of the kids along the top, and then down the left hand side you have the weeks of summer and so this way you can see what each kid is doing each week. And this allows you to ask various pertinent questions like do I have three children in different camps that are on the opposite sides of town starting at the exact same time, and if so, how on earth do we plan to get them there? You need three drivers, I guess, or sign one of them up for early drop off or whatever, but you would at least be aware of that situation, or try to sign multiple kids up for the same camps or camps nearby or whatever you want to do. But that way you can also see the vacation weeks as well. So yeah, we have the full on camp spreadsheet. It's going to be fun. Though. We have theater camp for two of the children. Some of the time. We have rock climbing camp for one of the kids. Probably the others would have liked it too, but we've been doing rock climbing lessons all year and so I think they're not needing to do too much more of it. Computer camp, nature camp, pottery camp, ceramics for teens and pre teens. There's this art studio around here that runs teen and preteen classes. Those are good for them. One overnight camp a boy Scout camp for one one child and not boy Scouts, sorry Scouts now they call it it's open to boys and girls. But there may be another one associated with the church. But I'm not sure if that's going to go or not. We're still in a reopening phase around here, and yeah, it sounds fun to me. I'm like, geez, I want to go to camp, like I want to spend a week to being ceramics, but to spend a week like probably inside. I'm not so big on a outdoor camp. I kind of like my air conditioning and maybe not being in a tent or a cabin with sixteen other people. That sounds like a spa retreat. Yes, I mean, like if I have my own my own cabin, that would be great. But yeah, probably not drinking bug juice as they call it in the camp cafeteria. But yeah, I mean ceramic ceramic camp sounds pretty fun. I'd love to do that. Which which one would you do? Of your kids? Oh? I guess the art camp. I mean, I definitely don't want to do horseback running camp. No would you have wanted to do? Well? You did? I gots no? Did you do? No? Horses? No? No, no horses No? That was never something that appealed. No. Interesting, I had friends that did. Actually, some of my fellow daycamp friends left because they wanted to go to horse camp. But I wasn't into it. Yeah, I've never been that into it either. I don't really get it, but yes, I know there is a big appeal for many people. Not a horse person personally, but many people. Bananaval's very excited. So yeah, all right, So we've got the camp spreadsheets. Definitely recommend making one if people haven't yet. Summer Adventures was where are you guys gone? So we're mostly staying well, we are entirely staying in Florida, but we're gonna make some make the rounds. So Josh and I are doing a little West coast trip. I think I mentioned it on a prior episode. That's just us a little short jaunt. Then we are doing a trip with friends, which is Oh, I'm so excited. Our friends are have requested we all get tested prior, even though all the adults a vaccinated, but it's fine. We're going to do whatever. It's good. And so just to be super safe, I think is more for the kids because obviously our kids are not old enough and so we want to make sure we don't mix. If we're going to let the kids like really really play together, this will make us feel better about that. And we are going to go to the Keys, and we're staying at a place where you can actually like touch a dolphins. We're doing that, so all kinds of fun stuff. And then just our family is going to do a week in Amelia Island, which I think is going to be an interesting contract. We're going to redeem a Damelia Island, yes, but we are not staying at a hotel. We rented a vrbo. We'll have plenty of space in our own kitchen, and I think this one will go better. Plus we do have the benefit of everyone being two years older than they were than they were last time. If any of our listeners want to go back and listen to the recap on that experience of Sarah with a toddler in the Ritz and Amelia Island, it was sort of you know, it's a memory. It was bittersweet, bitter sweet, let's just put it that way. People may have wondered why there was a gentleman holding a toddler walking on the beach at three am in Amelia Island during that experience, but you know, these things, I don't think anyone wondered because nobody else was out there, nobody else was dumb enough to bring their own toddler, so yeah, exactly. Yeah, Well, we have a summer fun list, as we always do. I have not made it right now, but it will be. We're recording, but it will be up on the blog by the time this episode airs. There'd be a lot of the usual stuff, strawberry picking and you know, peach and blueberry picking. I now have all the farm seasons, like where we can go my kids, like it's like something all the kids can do and be entertained for an hour, and so why not if you can do it. I'm hoping to do some early morning runs. My running has been in a horrible place of late. Not really sure why, just it's life. I don't know, it's not happening sitting on the porch after dinner, enjoying our back porch, you know, for our last summer in this house, which is really quite pleasant at night, like was the sun's going down around here. It's almost never too hot to be outside and pleasant under in the shade. So that's a benefit of this area of the world. Family bike rides, some pool time. We are definitely you know, we're opening the pool here this week when we're recording that we may at our new house as well, although that may be not. I don't know. It's hard to know, because if we do, we know we're going to find everything that needs to be fixed. It's like maybe we just don't want to know about that until next year, but then we'd be sad if like we couldn't actually be in our pool next summer. So who knows, we'll figure that out. Sam and I are going to hit that cousin's main lobster food truck as frequently as again, I have the app that finds it, so now I can. He and I actually went to the mall parking lot last week on Tuesday night because we knew it was parked there from eleven thirty to six thirty, so we went and got our lobster roles as an after school snack. It's fun to have a kid who likes to do foody stuff with me. And I'm planning to do mommy days this summer because now Henry is old enough to be you know not, I don't need to be around him every three hours as I did last summer, and we can go places like the amusement parks will open and stuff like that. So excited about that. Do you have any sort of local kind of things like that planned. Are you doing mommy days or well we did them? We did them. Yeah, we did them in spring break. I wasn't playing going to Maybe Josh might want to do his days because I think he expressed interest in having z own daddy days. So we'll see if that happens. I mean, we're just yeah, the weather's just like, you can't count on it being green. We'll just there'd be lots of pool time. We'll ride our bikes. We all have bikes now, so that'll be good. Usually it's about getting outdoors early so that you can then like spend the sweltering, storming afternoons comfortably resting in your home. Yeah, that's a summer weekend. Thanks, summer weekend. Yeah, now that would makes sense. It's always good to be inside in the middle of the afternoon. We have two trips planned. One is two an all inclusive resort. We have not really done this sort of thing before, but what I guess we sort of had. We went to Saint Lucia in twenty nineteen for spring break and had a good time. And part of the appeal the kids love it. They love the kids club and so this one that we're going to as one of the more big commercial ones, like the one we went there was more independent, so that sort of in my mind made it probably nicer. But this is going to be full on, Like you know, kids love these sorts of things because they have the Big Kids Club, they have all the activities for them, and this place, at least in theory, even has toddler care. So in my mind, I'm thinking, well, a couple of mornings, Henry will go from like I don't know, nine thirty to twelve thirty, and then he can come back and nap, and it's like I'll have a couple hours of vacation, which sounds nice. Sam and Michael can go scuba diving. They're both licensed. I guess theoretically I am, but I haven't sixteen years, so you wouldn't want to put a tank on me and send me down. I don't think i'd do well with it. Yeah, so I don't know. I mean the all inclusive part, like it's not so. We went on a Disney cruise in twenty nineteen as well, and when everything's including my sense is that the incentive is never to make like the food really good, right, it's more about the quantity, like wooh, look, you could order three entrees if you want. It's like, well, I don't want three entrees. I want one that's really good. Or you know, five water down drinks. It's like, no, no, I don't want five water down drinks. I want one drink. And I'd be like willing to pay you extra for like the one good drink. But anyway, that's either here nor there. I think the kids are going to love it. So if it's good, then we know that's a concept that could work, you know, for the next few years for vacations anyway. And then we're going to Ocean Grove in New Jersey, Jersey Shore as we often do for a week. You know, life is just bittersweet with the changes. Like this house that we're renting is when we have several times in the past. But it's on the market, so we'll see if it's gonna disappear by next summer that you know, they won't, but maybe they'll rent it out and they'll just give them the list of regular tenants. That would be great, but they might not, you know, so who knows. It's tradition. Well, we do have to take a quick break, and we will be right back with more summer excitement. We are back talking all things summer. Yeah, it's just you know, I love summer. I mean partly, that's again it's living in Pennsylvania versus you know, Miami, where it's the not nice season. But then you know, you probably love January, whereas I do love January here, like you don't want to be here in January. So the snowbirds really have the right idea. You were talking about your grandparents that they would go to Vermont and spending half the year in Vermont and half well, maybe four months in Vermont and the rest in Florida is probably the way to go. I think that's got a lot going for it. Even though I'm terrified of real estate, I do have a fantasy of owning a little Vermont enclave, like thinking that like climate change will make that a good investment. So maybe I will live my grandparents' dream someday. Yeah. Well, living here at is, we don't need to like get away from it. But you know, we occasionally go through like, oh, should we have tried to, like, you know, get a beach house, And I'm like, no, I don't want another like, renovating this house while I have this one is enough of a trouble. I can't even imagine having a situation where have two houses that are in my purview forever, not my thing. But like I said, then we won't be able to rent the place we like because it'll sell to somebody else. But anyway, probably one of the next door neighbors will have a house. Yeah, basically we'll go for that. You know, we've been enjoying. We're gonna head we head over to our new yard. That's a fun weekend activity too that we just do as a family. I mean, the house itself is under construction, so I keep the kids out of there because there's like heavy machinery open walls. But the yard has been flowering. It's been really cool to see what comes up. So you know, we go over and hang out there and sit in the yard and play. And I'm writing the manuscript of Tranquility by Tuesday, and I'm trying to I'm a little bit like, you know, starting a big project like this. I have my data, but writing everything is a book project is huge, you know, and I need to write it like it needs to exist. But I'm trying to remind myself, like, I really love doing that. That's the part of my job that I fundamentally come back to it that I love doing. I love writing long things and getting deeply involved in a project. And so once I get over the initial hurdle of getting stuff down, it'll be turning this into something better and spending my summer on a project that I will be really excited to be doing. So I'm trying to remember that that is just a total gift to have a professional project that I am so excited to be doing. Well. I am so excited to read it and delve into it, and we will, of course, you know, farther down the road once it is ready to come out, have some episodes dedicated to its findings and all the juicy details of it. That summer twenty twenty two, so you guys have a while to wait. That's okay. We can have some We can have some you know, midyear updates. And now I just kidding. I have like a number of big projects, but all for work that none of which there's not one big one. There's like one research one that I'm trying to do related to diabetes. One research I'm trying to do related to coaching and residents, and then like we have orientation and graduation and like there's just a lot of moving parts but no one dominating things. So I'm just hoping to make incremental progress on all my things. That sounds good. That sounds good. Yeah, our kids actually don't start school until like September eight, So there's two weeks or roughly week and a half at the end of the summer that I have not thought through at all, and I'm just going to kind of leave it open and see what we decide to do. I mean, maybe there'll be some smaller road trips or something, or you know, figure out of a fun place to do when many other people are back in the school by that point. So but it turns out that Rashashana is right on top of Labor Day this year, so because our district takes both those off and don't start till after Labor Day, we start even or after Labor Day. So ah, that's so interesting. Yeah, we start in like mid August. That's just like a month. It's Floridian South, I guess I think like Arizona is similar, and yeah, you know, you may as well have the kids in the ac if you have it, I guess so, but like it doesn't make sense because it's not like it's I mean, it's hot in May and it's hot in August, so like, I don't, I don't know, it's just a just a thing. Who even knows? So Summer reading? What have you read recently that you think our listeners would like to experience over the summer? What I read recently that everybody should rule? Not everybody? But I loved Greenwood by Michael Christie. This book, I have no idea these related to, like I get the Christie by the way, probably not. I mean, they're very different genres, but it makes me think of it every time I say his name. Greenwood is a multi generational epic with kind of a little bit of a dystopian edge to it in the future chapters particularly, and I just thought it was so well done. And I don't even like dystopian things very often, but I do have to admit that I have a soft spot for like books that span the generations, and I've been reading a lot of those recently for whatever reason. But this one's really well done. It was well written. The characters are just like burned into my brain, like I almost want to read it again, which I never do with novels. So I recommend anybody think about putting that on their summer list. I think it came out in twenty twenty or twenty nineteen, and I don't feel like it got a lot of buzz. But I heard about it on a podcast with somebody raving about it, and they were right. Did you ever read Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose? No? I read the other one, Crossing to Safety, Yes, and I love it so so. Angle of Repose, if you like that multi generational saga kind of thing, is slightly more of that. And I was just thinking, you know, that was also Western kind of as you've been reading a few books lately. I didn't like it. I will put that out there. I did not like it, but I know a lot of other people did. Did you like Crossing to Safety? I like Crossing to Safety a lot more. But there were certain aspects of Angle of Repose. There's this trope of like, I mean, just in case, you know, if a female commits adulter rait, somebody has to die, Like this is a common trope in literature, like somebody has to die as a result. Okay, and you're just like, well, why like why, like why does that have to happen? I'm it doesn't happen in real life right like this. There are many people out there, I am sure, probably not our listeners, but I'm just saying that, you know, this is not the inevitable result. But in literature, it's like it has to be so that all is right with the world. Something has to be sacrificed to a tone for this, you know, so outrageous sin and he falls right into that trope with it. Maybe I won't read it, maybe I won't read it. Yeah, the themes in all the books I've read recently are the dust bowl and the depression and environmental catastrophes and opioids. Opioids, Well, that sounds like such a light and fluffy summer reading book, and also like major inequities like contrasting very rich people with like the very poor people, like the upstairs downstairs thing. There's definitely like some themes in like popular coming into a dark summer. Apparently for literature, I'm sure there's bea treads and there'll be plenty of those, which just Sarah hasn't read any lately. I kind of like the opioid theme. I always find that fascinating if it's done well because it's a world that I never cared to explore in real life. But it's also just so interesting. All right, So anything else you want to do a shout out for before No, but you had some fun summer. I just wanted to tell our listeners you should definitely check out our friend and Vogels. She's the modern Missus Darcy. Her book guide, her summer reading guide will be out at the time that this list comes out, so you should definitely go check that out. I think if you subscribe to her list or whatever, then she will send it to you, and it's just really well done. I mean she reads through hundreds of books that are coming out over the summer or that have come out in the last year and that she thinks would make a good summer reading pick, and so it's always just a great source. You will definitely find something on there that you want to read. And what I think is even better about Ann is that you will be able to tell if you don't want to read it. It's like, so I'm not saying you'll want to read all the books she chooses, but from her descriptions and write up, you will know, no, that's not for me, which is incredibly helpful from a perspective of getting the right book to the right reader. Is yeah, she does. I've selected like six to ten books from her list every summer for the past like three summers, I think, and it's been it's just been a fun way to mark a new reading season. And yeah, give some her a little bit more weight, as we talked about, because it's not always pleasant physically here, but it still should be special in some way. Yeah, so that's great, so please check that out. I recently read a book called The Glitter in the Green, which is about hummingbirds, which is something of a random topic. I do like nature writing in general, and some of this was, you know, there were a few annoying political asides or whatever. But the description of hummingbirds is just you can see it. And there are no pictures in this book that I'm reading it on my kendle, so maybe maybe there are in the print, but it's all written. But he just describes all these species of hummingbirds so vividly that you can kind of see them and hear them. The flutter, flutter, flutter of the wings that go so fast. And it's also just about traveling through Americas from Alaska down to the bottom, because hummingbirds are in that whole range, but only in the Americas. They're not native to europ or Asia or anything like that, so or only in the America. So it's a travel journey all across the Americas as well. So I enjoyed that A Glitter in the Green I read, well, we'll see what you think about this. Jesse singles the quick Fix why fad psychology can't cure our social ills. So it takes on every hot psychology topic of the last ten years or so, you know, all the people who've had the ted talks on the different things, and basically very little of the research can be replicated or can be it didn't show what they showed like, the results are not nearly as broadly applicable as then you would yet from the popular use of the research in broader media and such, which you know, I'm just I am a natural debunker. I love when you know everything, something everybody believes turns out to be wrong and it's wrong for this, you know. I just love stories like that. Don't. So I probably like this book way more than I should have. We just had the episode about Pet Peeves. This is like the opposite of a Pet Peeves, like the thing that I find uniquely exciting that other people be like this is like, why on earth did you like this book? That's just a book about, you know, random psychology experiments that didn't show what they said they showed. Well in a way, it sounds like that book probably skewers a lot of those narratives that you and I both don't love, which is like it's sensationalizing one thing and kind of generalizing it and then making it your whole life's purpose to continue to seek out data that maybe support like what you are trying to say. Anyway, So that's fascinating. Although I hope that Angela doesn't mind well love it, Angela Duckworth doesn't it's skewered because I'll be upset. Well, there is a chapter on her. You can read it. You can read it see what she thinks she is, I would say, you know, as you probably get from her personality, she is far more engaged with critics than many other people are. There are some folks in the research community that if you question what they have come up with, it's like you are a heretic who must be not talked to. Like she will talk to her critics, and we'll go back through the data and look at it and say, well maybe we should you know, and actually, you know, look at this stuff. And so I think that that says a lot more about her than he says that, you know, the versus some of the other people that are also written about in the book. By the way, I've mentioned her enough times that I will admit that I would like to get her on this show. So if anyone has any connections, let us know. Yeah. Yeah. And then it's just a kid summer book, which there's a lot of really cool kid literature as well that sort of speaks to summer. But we've really liked where. I like Night of the Moon Jellies, which is about a little boy who works at a seaside food stand apparently sells the best lobster roles in New England cousins of Maine, but it's not. But it's a little boy working there with his family. And then there's a special boat ride at night that just has this sort of ecstatic final experience that's really cool, and so it says summer to me in a way that a lot of other books do not. So I just throw that out there as one that people might want to check out for reading with their kids. Night of the Moon Jellies. So I guess do we do Love of the Week? Before the question? I keep forgetting what order do we do this in? I have to resurrect one because I was going to say Sarah Sarah used one that I was from another episode. We've been moving around loves of the week. I was going to put the one with us both loving working from home with no one else there. But I guess that can always be my love of the week. How about you? What's yours? This? Uh oh, I'm unprepared. That's okay, we could move on. We can move on. I'm gonna give you two. I'll give you two next time. Okay, that sounds good. So the question is, you know version of one? We're getting a lot and I think a lot of people are thinking about maybe everyone will have sorted this out three weeks from now when this episode comes out. But it says, you know, I'm thrilled life as returning to normal. The kids are back in school, activity is mostly running. However, this means we are shockingly busy again. Quarantine life was stressful, but the slow pace had some upsides. Is there any way to achieve the best of both worlds here? So, Sarah, what do you think? I mean, I don't have a strong opinion, but I guess I'll say what we are doing, which is that I do feel like we have been slower to sign up for things. Not from a COVID caution perspective really, but from a I don't think I want to rush around as much as we did before, and probably like one activity for kid is great and also embracing convenience of activities like if they're is something offered like through the school which involves just staying at school, then it's like a yes. And if it's like a travel soccer team, it's like a no. I mean, I had like a brief moment when I got an email about like travel soccer tryouts and my husband was like, do you want to spend every weekend going to like Saint Augustine and Florida's and you are in the state, And I'm like no, And the truth is, like I have a seven year old who's like, probably not going to be a professional soccer player, and even if he was, like probably, if that was that strong of an impulse of him, it would happen anyway. And there's actually research on sports that says like early According to my husband, I haven't read it myself, so he says early specialization isn't necessarily good anyway. So there you go. I think we are thinking twice about that. So I guess a measured approach of like thinking about what you really missed and bringing it back and appreciating that you can have some days that are slow and that puzzles are still a fun way to spend an afternoon. Yeah, totally agreed. I mean, I think time is all about how you perceive it, and I think partly having a lot of options makes people feel busier than they actually are, because it's like you could always be doing something else, and so that fact that you could be doing something else makes the time appear fuller than it may actually literally be. And during the pandemic, people didn't have all those options, and so people were willing to do sort of leisure time activities like legos or puzzles or baking or reading longer books with their kids because it's like, well, there's nothing else we could do, so we do these things. But honestly, you could do those things like in normal life too. I mean, you know, a puzzles fills the same amount of time that like watching a TV show does a you know, if you're reading stories to your kids at night, like short stories, like you could read chapters in longer books. Like there's no reason not to do these longer, bigger things. It's just that you have to be a little bit more mindful about putting it into normal life. So I think two things. One is, you know, track your time for a week, see where the time actually goes, get a good sense of the landscape, because then that helps you to see what time is still available even with your busyness. And then also create a realistic ideal week. We talk about this a lot on this podcast, but a good week when you are on top of your game and making space for what you like to do, like what would that week look like? And when you do this, you might make some strategic choices, like you might find a way to mostly compress kid activities until like Saturday, right instead leaving Sunday open for sort of like, oh, well, you see what we feel like doing or doing family activities on that day. Or even if you could only get like half a weekend day, if all your kid activities are done by let's say Sunday at two pm, well that's actually a lot of time. Like two thirty pm to bedtime is not a short amount of time. But if you've got this story that we're so busy, like, you won't see that you have this time and could treat it as downtime or you know, family time or whatever you want to do, leaving it open, doing the family walks, things like that. So you have to notice it, and I think that is the key part, so you're not telling yourself that I'm so busy story, And you might see this for your own leisure time at night too. You know, if you have ninety minutes, for instance, after the kids go to bed, but before you need to get ready for bed, well it's not an infinite amount of time, but it's some I mean you can bake those muffins in that amount of time. I mean you could, you know, do ninety minutes in a puzzle, read several chapters in a book, whatever it is that you would have done during pandemic slow times, you can make sure that you are making space for that now well, this has been best of both worlds. We've been talking all things summer. We will be back next week with more on making work and life fit together. 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. Four